Chapter 176
176 Meeting The Master
(Jane’s PoV)
As soon as he used his true form, the rotten and disgusting smell as a result of his evil deeds all these years permeated through the air. It was so disgusting that I really wanted to throw up right away. However, I held my ground and willed myself hard. I had been training hard under Siji’s hellish training to overcome this kind of distraction during a fight. Smell, pain, and vision illusion were something I needed to guard against.
It was a good thing that those men were not affected with the smell, but Tom and Sanji were the exceptions. Sanji, who was resting a bit far away from us, had started to empty his stomach. The sight of him retching made me feel sorry for him. Tom was no better than him. He distanced himself from the monster and puked.
I gave Siji a look and he nodded. Both Tom and Sanji would have a hell of training to ignore this kind of things later. Heh, just the thought of the two of them being tortured like me lifted up my mood. Hah, finally I wouldn’t be the one who experienced that hell!
Since my mood was getting better, I spent no time to finish the monster in front of me. Waving my right hand, my spiritual power rushed forward like clamps and attached themselves around the monster.
“Bind.” I softly said as my opened palm closed tightly. The invisible rope connecting the clamps to me tightened up around his body.
He roared to the sky as he struggled to get free from the clamps and ropes. My eyebrows twitched in a frown when I felt the rope around my hands trembled as an effect of his powerful struggle.
“Tighter.” Siji said as he watched me struggling with the monstrous evil thing.
I exerted more force and pulled the rope tighter around his body and another roar was heard. Was it because it was my first time dealing with this kind of shadow or this shadow was just too hard to tame?
.....
He didn’t cease his struggle. As expected of a super old shadow, his power was not to be triffled with.
Instead of feeling suppressed by his imminent power, I gradually felt excited. This kind of powerful enemy appeared in front of me, did he deliver himself to be my sandbag? This kind of enemy, I was free to let out my whole power, right? Then, let’s see how much he could stand it.
With this kind of mind, I poured out my power into the invisible rope. At the same time, my left hand moved and countless invisible clamps rushed towards him from all direction. My White Army Men had stepped back for a second before they rushed forward again and worked together with me. It looked like they were dancing around the big enemy, but the swords in their hands slashed towards the struggling monster.
Roar and grunts were heard continously. “Just give up.” I said calmly.
“NO!” He stubbornly refused.
I sighed. Well, I had not finished testing my new set of martial arts, after all. Since he refused to give in, I should have just gone and tested some moves that I learned from Siji. Too bad his body was too big to fight one on one with me.
I was smirking, but based on what Siji told me after that, the lights in my eyes showed the evil design I had on the shadow.
I rushed forward, just in time when the men flew backwards and created a barrier around the monster. Five men carrying fire approached and stood in the inner side of the circle. The others stood back and guarded the perimeter as I planted all the handles of the ropes in the ground.
Fully concentrating on my task at hand, my hands moved again and all the fire flew up to the air. Those tiny little fire balls, with just one blow of breath and a simple command, lit up all the ropes in a big blue fire.
Of course, the fire was under my control. I could easily make it reached the shadow quickly, but I also could slow it down.
“Do you give in now?” I asked calmly.
“Never!”
I sighed. My fingers twitched and five lines of fire shot towards him and burned his wrists, ankles, and right middle finger. Painful groan and roar reverberated in the forest.
It didn’t last long. Those five lines of fire left five burns on his body even though I only burned him for five seconds. It looked painful, but he gritted his teeth and refused to give in. This time, rows of swords came and stabbed his big body. Another howl of pain was heard.
“You should change him back into his human form before you can take a peek inside his head.” Siji reminded me.
“Got it!”
Just force him to return back to his human form, right? That was easy. I just needed to suppress his power to the point it reverted back to his human form.
With that in mind, I swiftly moved and tortured that poor monstrous thing. “Give up!” I shouted as pulled the ropes tighter.
He howled again, but this time I watched as his body shrunk in size. I didn’t know since when the smell disappeared, but when he had reverted back to his human form, Tom approached us in staggering steps. His pale face looked especially scary combined with the menacing glare he shot towards the shadow and the faint white glow emitted from his body.
He probably felt humiliated for throwing up so much like that. He didn’t say much as he pulled out his twin chains, glowing bright red, and threw it towards the poor man. The chain circled his body from his feet to his red, leaving only his head out with eyes bulging out.
“Damn you, stinky creatures! Let’s see if I didn’t throw you in hell after this!” Tom threatened him through his gritted teeth. “I’ll wash you with the lava of Death Volcano, I bet it can clean all of your disgusting smell.”
Death Volcano? Instinctively I looked at Siji, the know-it-all Adviser of mine.
He looked surprised, but he didn’t say anything. But, from the way his gaze towards Tom changed, I knew it was not something so simple. Well, I would find out about it later. For now, I should just focus on interrogating this shadow.
This Shadow was powerful, I knew about this fact. Because it had been living for a long time, it had some additional suply of energy inside his body. He could have defend himself and not to fall into this sorry state if his opponent had not been me. Even though I was still a kid in the shadow’s eyes, but my teacher was an old man who had existed for more than a millenium as well. Not to mention he was a genius.
However, since it had happened, I could only watched as once again it was tortured, by Tom, this time.
“We still need him.” I reminded Tom who nearly lost his mind. “You should go back and rest for a bit.” I rubbed his arm softly.
Tom closed his eyes as he relaxed his body under my hand. After he could control his anger, he opened up his eyes again and looked at me softly. “Be careful.” He rubbed my cheek lightly before he moved to the back and joined Sanji who was sprawling in exhaustion.
I returned my gaze towards the Shadow. With this fight, I could finally measure my own power. I gained benefits while he almost lost his life. I stepped towards him and put my right hand on his forehead. Concentrating my power, I entered his mind and followed the light thread that connecting him to his master. In no time, I was brought to a foreign place.
I looked around. It was slightly different with Amanda’s father’s working room. This room had wooden walls and floor. The only resemblance was how the room was nearly dark with a table full of many things, and one of them was a bowl full of blood.
Behind the table was a row of statues, I suspected as the place to host the shadows. By the look of it, this man had around twenty main shadows. He had sent some of them to me and they were all still being kept in my place. I smirked as an idea crossed my mind.
“Heh, let’s see what would happen to you if I do this.” I collected all the statues after locking whatever inside it with my power and threw them toward the big bowl of fire in my men’s hand.
As expected, all of them howled in pain, but I could sense the one in front of me didn’t show any discomfort. It meant he wasn’t included in those statues.
Interesting!
I was about to mess up with the table again when the door was pushed open hastily. A pair of old widened eyes met mine.
“Bastard! What are you doing?!” He pounced forward, trying to catch my neck in his tight grip.
“Cleaning.” I said nonchalantly as I dodged his advances.
He must be feeling aggrieved hearing my answer, but there’s nothing he could do since his statues were burning in the flame.
As for me, I was more than happy that I could provoke this man. Who asked him to provoke me first?