after completing the attack, adam practiced with it all day and night, until he could skewer several fish with a single strike.
when he was satisfied, he and his horse travelled further into the forest, guards in toe. the only smells adam was aware of this time were the natural smells of dirt and grass, he searched the trees around him, going so far as to climb up one to scout the area, he still found nothing, his horse galloped further into the forest, until the warm sun, turned cold, even then he found nothing, not a single sign of life.
it was disturbing to say the least, the eerie silence was haunting, haunting. adam then realised the reason behind the lack of life and unnatural darkness, it was because this area was not inhabited by the alive, it was a home of death.
upon noticing this, every shadow seemed as if it might attack, who knew what shadow monster lurked in that darkness, after all shadow was one of the death god's authorities.
which meant his enemy was very likely a shadow, as if noticing his awareness a shadow lunged out, into the 3rd dimension, adam used his dragon lunge, but the blade passed through it, he dodged to the side, narrowly dodging the horrifying shadow.
"light a fire, quick". adam commanded his guards to light the fire because, in his opinion it was easiest to kill a shadow with light, as his guards scrambled to collect fire wood, he drew the attention of the shadow towards himself, constantly slashing at the vile demon, his every attack passed right through, he knew it would, that was why he was slashing with a rapier. he did succeed in drawing the shadows attention, it jumped at him over and over again, every time he barely dodge, mostly, he had been cut by the shadows claws which seemed to appear from anywhere on it's body many times, blood slowly seeped from his face and stained his clothes.
eventually the incompetent guards managed to light a fire, he commanded the guards to distract the shadow and ran over to the fire, wrapping a layer of his own torn of clothes on his blade, he tied it with a knot and lit the blade on fire, he ran at the shadow with the flaming blade, he stabbed it's head with his dragon lunge, this time the blade sank into the demon, he dragged the blade down through its body cutting it in half.
[you have slain a dormant demon, lurking shadow]
[your soul grows stronger]
'so killing shadow monsters directly gives me soul shards, wait, if it was a dormant demon it wouldn't be able to control this much of a forest, their would need to be many more'
adam then felt countless presences around him their were nearly two dozen shadow creatures, an awakened demon an awakened beast with the rest being dormant beasts or monsters, adam readied his blade.
as if he himself was a shadow, he lunged out with his blade, the dormant monster didn't know he was their until right before the blade hit it, it died almost instantly.
[you have slain a dormant monster, lurking shadow]
[your soul grows stronger]
he swung out and killed three more dormant shadow
[you have slain a dormant monster...]
[you have slain a dor...]
[you have slain.]
they all lunged at him, he spun around swinging in every direction, the dormant beasts were the only ones stupid enough not to notice such an attack many of them dying, only 15 left, he chased after the awakened demon, he lunged at it, it change to resemble the form of a monkey and grabbed a tree branch, swinging out of danger, adam used this lunge as a feint and instead stabbed out at the awakened beast, he grazed it's head but it narrowly dodged, it was injured, but it would survive, adam spun his blade sideways slashing down a dormant monster.
all the shadow creatures jumped back and hid within the shadows, they were afraid, adam scooped up a burning chunk of wood with his foot and kicked it at a group of dormant monsters that had been lurking close together, not smart enough to know to spread out when hiding.
they tried to escape but instead ran into each other toppling over, the hot embers hit them like a meteor shower, wiping a great deal of them out
[you have slain a dormant monster]
[you have slain]
[you have...]
[you...]
' only five left now, the awakened demon, awakened beast, and three smarter awakened monsters,'
this would undoubtedly be as difficult if not more so than when the dormant beasts were included, they had also served as shields, preventing the enemy shadows from hurting him while he wiped them out, these shadows also knew that fact, they were confident in their victory.
both of his knights had ripped parts of their clothing off to light their swords ablaze as well.
"you two take a dormant monster each, when that's done go for either the last dormant monster or the awakened beast, the demon is mine." the reason for wanting to kill that one was because of the memory he could get, but the guards didn't know that, to them he seemed like a demon himself, wanting to fight an awakened demon himself, it was mad in all honesty.
he ran towards the awakened demon, when the demons minions saw this they jumped at him, unwilling to let him get to their leader, that was when his knights stepped in, they both whirled their spears racing towards the enemy shadows, the shadows leapt back, unwilling to die meaningless deaths.
in that brief moment adam had ran behind all of them, the awakened demon started to run, adam gave chase, while it swung from branch to branch of the low hanging trees, adam followed underneath, when adam caught up, making it underneath the shadow, he stabbed upwards, the demon pivoted, he was still able to cut off one of it's hands, the creature changed again throwing itself at him and becoming a spear, adam deflected the spear and swung at the handle, it changed again, this time into a fox.
it scurried away, running on three legs, injuries carried over, it transformed into a horse and began to gallop away kicking up dirt as it ran, but adam wouldn't let his prey escape him, he threw his sword like a javelin, impractical as it was, it was his only hope, the sword fell shorter than he hoped, stabbing into one of its hind legs.
the creature changed again, this time into a human, but not just a human, it turned into adam, he saw himself with a missing arm and mangled leg, running away, he couldn't help but pity the creature.
'no, your only pitying it because your currently seeing it as yourself, this is most likely one of it's tactics to survive.'
adam resummoned his rapier while running after the fake adam. he caught up and readied his sword, he went to stab but couldn't, he watched the creature fall over and fall onto the floor. he couldn't kill it.
'it doesn't matter whether I can or can't because I must, if I don't kill it it will kill me'
that was all adam needed to bring his blade forwards, he once again envisioned that he was simply a dragon devouring it's meal.
[you have slain an awakened demon, doppelganger]
[you have received an echo]