The Walker Of Voids-Chapter 81 Never Truly You [2] - The Proposition

"What are you?" Lloyd asked, his trembling body finally gaining the power and courage to speak.

"You tell me." The creature spoke as it continued to morph, causing its feature to slowly move from being slender and tall to have a more defined body.

Its voice was becoming more human, yet it still sounded dark, gloomy, and deep.

Its voice was monotone and emotionless, yet Lloyd didn't know if that was because of its disorienting voice or because it chose to speak that way.

"Are you my shadow?" Lloyd asked with narrow eyes and a voice that would have seemed calm if not for the tremble in it.

"Hahahahahahahaha!" The creature began laughing, its laugh becoming increasingly human as time passed, yet at the same time, it became less and less human in its own way. While its skin slowly became moved from being a clump of shadows to actual skin, its voice gained tone, yet the only tone the creature used was that of a dead and emotionless laugh.

It was almost robotic.

It was slowly covered in black clothing, and within a few seconds, Lloyd finally realized what was happening.

It was like looking at a clone of himself.

The creature before him was the exact same as him, wearing the exact same clothes as him and having the exact same facial structure and skin tone as him.

Lloyd didn't need to ask who the creature before him was, because Lloyd knew deep inside that-

"..."

"..."

The creature tapped on his wristwatch and took out a mask, yet Lloyd knew there was no point despite its insistence on wearing it.

The creature before him never smiled... No. It never showed any emotion, whether excitement or rage; it always seemed bored, with its deadpan expression never fading.

"I shattered my arm when I tried moving my energy to it... Do you know how I can fix it?" Lloyd asked.

"You speak like an imbecile, so it is no surprise to me that you cannot control something that is essentially a third arm."

"There was no need for that..."

"I can easily fix our arm if I so wished to do so." The creature spoke, yet to Lloyd, it seemed more like a brag and a slight insult toward him.

"So... Do it!" Lloyd stretched out his arms without looking at them. He didn't want to see the things beyond his skin... It was simply something he was not ready for.

"Let me clarify. I was not offering to repair our arm; I was simply stating a fact." The creature clarified.

"What do you want then?" Lloyd asked, yet it was then that something came to his mind, instantly making him scowl.

"I do not wish to fight these weaklings. You, your teammates, and these monsters have all been disappointments. That black-haired girl interests me, and I'm interested in the boss of this dungeon, so I have a proposition for you..." The creature spoke.

"What is it?" Lloyd asked, his voice no longer shivering.

"I'll heal you, and I'll teach you how to strengthen your body before entering the first commandment, and I will insert information on how to control the void energy inside you." The creature said, its voice sounding a little mischievous despite its dead tone.

"And? What do you get out of this?"

"Do not break through until you reach the boss of this dungeon."

"Is that it?" Lloyd almost sighed in relief, yet he quickly found that sigh stuck in his throat when it continued-

"..."

***

"Shit. The bastard just disappeared." Felix grunted as he dodged all the owls that came towards him.

According to Roderick, Felix was a part of a race of speedsters capable of shifting around their veins to create rune-like patterns that enhance their skin and muscles, allowing them to exert their racial ability to move extremely fast.

Apparently, Felix's race was the fastest in the universe and came from ancestors that could literally rip through space and time with their speed alone.

The Tachymos race [Pronounced Ta-hee-mos from the greek words tachytis and chlomos] were also naturally faster than every other race from birth. This makes them very easy to irritate and a lot less patient than any of the other races, mainly because they everything the other races do seems slow to them.

Felix's body flickered continually, allowing it to appear behind one of the owls and hit them, before disappearing again and continuing the cycle.

However, Hime seemed to enjoy manhandling the owls instead, by immediately lunging at them whenever she felt one of them enter the battle aura's radius, making it nearly impossible for them to catch her off guard.

Rex did practically the same thing, yet instead of manhandling his enemies, he would coat his body with an extremely dense form of Hime's battle aura before coating his hands with mana and attacking the owls with a mixture of most of the martial arts he knew.

The mana around his hands would act like weapons of their own, controlled by his battle aura to shoot into an owl's body and decimate it from within whenever Rex chose to do so. At the same time, it also looked like the battle aura was somehow strengthening Rex's body and making every one of his strikes stronger than the last.

It was almost as if he was sapping energy away from his victims to temporarily boost his strength, yet despite many of the people on his team, including Hime, asking how he does it, he had always refused to answer.

On the other hand, Tina and Roderick were simply supporting the rest of the team, yet Roderick found himself doing most of the support work when he saw that Tina was slightly off her game.

'It makes sense... She's never truly gotten close enough with someone to be worried about their disappearance, and now that Lloyd had fucked off to wherever he is now, she's worried.' Roderick sighed while shooting several arrows at 3 of the incoming owls, hitting every single one of them in vital or crucial areas before they were subsequently lit afire by one of Tina's spells.

Veronica, on the other hand, was single-handedly destroying the strongest owl, to the point where the owl was forced to mainly defend rather than their usual all-out aggression tactic. 𝗳𝗿𝐞ℯ𝙬𝗲𝗯n𝗼νel.𝒄𝑜𝘮

The way she twirled, ducked, stabbed, and swung with her sword had the aggression of a bull yet the grace of a ballerina.

She always found a way to corner the owl with her unpredictable yet graceful movements, while the flow behind her attacks made every attack stronger than the last, to the point where she didn't even have to use any of her abilities.

*Swoosh*

Suddenly, the sky slightly darkened as clouds blocked off the sun, and in the same instant, the winds began to pick up to a noticeable extent.

*Sching*

*BOOM*

Before they could adjust to the sudden change in lighting, wind strength, and temperature, a low screech entered their ears a large figure shot to the ground like a meteor, creating a loud explosion while kicking up a dust cloud in its wake.

"Is that-?""

But before Tina could finish her sentence, they all saw something magnificent. Something that would have made most freeze, not out of fear, but at the sheer beauty of it.

[Flame Control (Lvl 2--->3)]

[Blazing shower]

Pale blue flames formed in the air before spinning into a vortex and turning into a small spherical ball of flames.

As if the clouds had begun raining laser beams, blue lights shot down from the sky and almost created an aurora-like spectrum of lights that danced in the sky.

But all it took was a second for the amazing display to turn into a scene of bloodied rain and scorched bodies.