CHAPTER 873: 870: THE THIRD NIGHT (8)- BONUS

Rhea dashed forward, cutting through the thick, fog-chokes air like a spear of darkness.

Her enormous wings beat against the wind with explosive force, and every flap sent shockwaves that could tear the flesh off the bones of a mortal if one stood too close.

Corey lay flat on her back with his body perfectly aligned with the curves of her spine.

He had used his mana to attach himself to her body in a way that even a tornado could not separate him from her.

His hands were by his sides, and his fingers were latched into small gaps between her feathers like he had done this a thousand times before when he had only done so in one of the simulations his mind created in his Perceptual Nexus Repository.

His pure white eyes were open, sharp, and focused.

Through his Eyes of Omniscience, he was able to see everything that was happening in a 360° radius around him.

But majority of his attention was mainly on the Lake of Shadows.

The bubbling on the surface of the Lake of Shadows intensified like it had been insulted.

Then...

Boom!

The first attack came.

The lake shot upward like a living geyser, and out of its pitch-black surface came a sharp, jagged projectile that looked like a spear made from the bones of darkness.

It moved with a terrifying speed, and it broke the sound barrier as it raced toward them.

Corey’s eyes widened slightly.

"Rhea. Right!"

His voice echoed in her mind, but it wasn’t loud. It was like a silent whisper that she could hear with perfect clarity and also understood the urgency of the situation.

She flapped her right wing harder and tilted her body, rotating ninety degrees in midair.

The black spear brushed past her left wing, missing it by a hair’s breadth, and shot into the sky before exploding into a thunderous burst of black lightning that distorted the clouds above.

The another came.

And another.

And then dozens.

The lake was no longer a calm mass of shadows. It was now a sentient artillery base that was releasing volley after volley of projectiles that looked like the twisted aftermath of a god’s nightmare.

The sky turned into a warzone.

The fog was swept away in waves. Buildings hundreds of meters away collapsed under the pressure of the attacks. Cracked rooftops exploded into dust. Evil spirits hidden in nearby structures were caught in the storm and shredded into spirit fragments.

But Rhea flew.

And Corey remained unmoved.

Each time she dodged, his body involuntarily moved with her.

Her left wing would flick. Her neck would twist. Her tail would dip. Each movement dodged an attack, and it was so rapid and smooth that if a Tier 4 were to blink, they’d miss everything.

Yet Corey’s body did not shake. He didn’t bounce. He didn’t even flinch as Rhea moved almost like she was not carrying him.

His mana was tightly woven into the feathers of her back and his clothes, forming a type of layered anchor that absorbed every ripple of movement and force.

’The lake is no longer getting bigger at a subtle pace. It’s now fast, and it’s also moving... All the shadows in a kilometer wide radius are moving toward it.’

’It’s absorbing every single shadow to get bigger.’

Because of the attacks of the Lake of Shadows, the thick fog was being dissipated, and this allowed him to see far more than he would have usually seen.

"Fly West," Corey said.

Rhea didn’t question him. She turned.

Her body curves into a sharp angle, and she dashed westward through the thick clouds, leaving behind countless black spears that pierced the sky like a storm of obsidian arrows.

Crack!

A horrifying cracking sound echoed from behind them, and Corey shifted his gaze through his Eyes of Omniscience to behind them.

What he saw sent a chill across his spine.

The lake was rising.

The entire lake was slowly rising into the air like it had forgotten the concept of gravity.

Then it rippled... once... twice... and then...

It exploded.

Darkness burst out in every direction. Waves of shadow were blasted into the air, and from the broken lake, a form began to rise.

An arm.

A colossal arm made of countless tangled shadows, black mist, writhing limbs, and twisted screaming faces.

Then a torso followed.

Then a head.

Then two legs.

And lastly, two wings.

A massive, winged entity rose from the now-empty crater where the lake has once been.

Its size was absurd. Just the length of its arm alone was bigger than several streets combined. Its body was like a humanoid bat mixed with a dying deity.

Shadows dripped off its skin. Eyes blinked randomly across its chest and wings. Its back was arched, and its face was a chaotic mess of eyes, fangs, horns, and unknown tendrils that extended down its chin like beards made out of sorrow.

It roared.

And the entire Dying City trembled.

Buildings hundreds of meters below cracked and shattered. Windows exploded. The spirits that had not died as a result of the previous attacks fell to their knees and covered their heads. Even the air seemed to run away.

And then it moved.

The colossal shadow entity flapped its wings and launched into the sky after them.

"Don’t get hit," Corey communicated calmly. "Avoid its attacks as much as possible."

"Got it!" Rhea’s childish voice cracked through the air like thunder.

The sky twisted.

Dozens of black chains shot from the creature’s back, whipping through the air at lightning-fast speeds.

Rhea dodged with a sharp spin, tucking her wings and twirling in a tight spiral. The chains missed by inches, but they didn’t stop.

They bent, twisted, and curves like snakes that could follow their prey endlessly.

"Burn them."

Rhea twisted her head slightly, and black flames with screaming faces of thousands of spirits burst from her mouth.

Her spirit-devouring black fire surged into the sky and clashed with the approaching chains.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Several of the chains exploded in a wave of dark mist, but more were coming.

Corey’s mana moved in his body, and in less than a second, he summoned a Hexagon Barrier behind them, layering it with void runes to absorb the impact of any stray attacks.

The colossal shadow screeched again and raised its hands. From the depths of the city below, shadows were pulled.

Shadows of buildings. Shadows of broken piles. Shadows of leafless trees. Shadows of bones and corpses.

Every single shadow in the Dying City rose upward like an offering to a god.

They flew into the monster’s mouth, merging with it, and making it stronger.

Its eyes glowed brighter.

Its speed increased.

Its presence became heavier.

And it caught up to Corey and Rhea.

It appeared hundreds of meters behind them, a distance that was barely an arms reach for it.

It raised its right hand and sent out a wave of energy that formed a wall of shadows, one that could swallow the sky.

’Go down!’ Corey shouted.

Rhea dove instantly.

The wall of shadows passed above them, erasing the clouds it touched and even causing cracks to appear in the space of the world.

But the cracks were repaired as quickly as they appeared.

Rhea turned, banking hard to the left.

The entity twisted its body mid-air and shot a beam of pure shadow energy from its mouth. The beam was wide enough to swallow a dozen Archives all arranged in the same place.

Rhea raised her altitude, and Corey raised his right hand.

Runes appeared on the ground below, and a wall that was so massive to the point that even the Thirteenth Dawn who were dozens of kilometers from where they stood noticed the presence of the wall, rose from the ground below.

BOOM!