My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

Chapter 1006: Chapter 1008: The Battle For The Coil

Ittorath watched without interest. His gaze dropped to the phoenix sigil burned into his wrist.

That mark was the only reason this fragile body had not torn itself apart. The more power he drew, the more the flesh split and failed, and the phoenix symbol healed it just as quickly.

He looked up at Damon and scoffed.

"I did not kill you before because my god wants you alive. Do not test me, insect."

Damon sneered at the little girl’s face.

"From someone your size, is that supposed to be threatening?"

His eyes shifted past Ittorath and settled on the object behind him. A dragon devouring its own tail. He did not need time to think. He could feel the pressure rolling off it.

The Ouroboros Coil.

Ashcroft’s voice slid into his mind.

"Get ready. I think I know what he is trying to do." A brief pause. His tone turned somber. "You have a chance if you cut away your sanity and use the form you used when you fought me."

Damon said nothing.

He had no intention of holding back, but he was not foolish enough to remove his crown with Ashcroft inside his mind. If he did, Ashcroft could overwhelm him and take his body. He would not fall for that.

As long as the crown stayed on, Ashcroft stayed contained.

Ravenous was an option.

But not the one he chose.

Damon raised his hand and whispered.

[Shadow Dominion]

His fifth class aura detonated outward. Shadows flooded the chamber like ink spilling through water. They crawled along the walls, the ceiling, the floor, swallowing the room in a suffocating domain.

Ittorath frowned as the shadows touched his feet. The skin of his tiny legs began to rot as the darkness tried to seep into his soul.

He flicked his hand.

A small circular barrier formed around him. The shadows recoiled at its edge.

"Hmm. A powerful domain. Too bad it is still young."

He waved again.

Blackness poured from his palm. The girl’s body dissolved into a figure made entirely of living darkness.

Damon lifted his arm. Shadows rose around him, hardening into weapons, chains, and armor. Plates of condensed darkness wrapped his body as he lunged forward.

They collided.

Power flooded Damon’s limbs, amplified by the domain itself.

Boom.

The explosion shook the entire chamber. Wendy was thrown backward into a wall with a sharp gasp.

Damon and Ittorath clashed again and again. Each impact cracked the air like thunder. Blood spilled from Damon’s mouth. Fine fractures began to form across Ittorath’s dark body.

Wendy pushed herself up, her vision swimming. She looked toward the coil.

She did not need to think.

She needed to get it.

Her feet moved through the shadows as she sprinted toward the Ouroboros Coil. As she approached, black tentacles erupted from the ground.

Ittorath’s voice echoed through the chamber.

"Where do you think you are going."

Wendy did not slow down. She raised her sword and cut through a tentacle mid-stride. She flipped over another, landed on a third, and used its resistance to launch herself forward.

She shot toward the coil.

Her eyes widened as it came within reach. Her hair whipped behind her in the air.

Then something yanked her violently backward.

Her head snapped as her hair was seized. Her entire body jerked in midair. Ittorath dragged her back and slammed her into the wall.

Blood sprayed from her mouth.

Damon moved instantly and caught her before she hit the ground.

Ittorath turned, reached behind him, and grabbed the Ouroboros Coil.

Damon held Wendy tightly in his arms as Ittorath began to float upward, the coil clenched in his hand.

Horror hollowed Damon’s face as Ittorath lifted the little girl’s body and crushed it in one hand.

Flesh burst.

Bone shattered.

Organs and blood rained down in a wet spray as a formless black mass tore free from the ruin and surged upward like smoke given life.

Ittorath began to chant.

The sound reached Damon, yet it did not.

He understood every language. He had always understood every language.

But this was not a failure of translation.

This was a failure of existence.

The words were not meant to be heard by human ears or formed by human throats. They scraped across reality in tones Damon’s mind could not process. His ears bled as his thoughts tried and failed to follow the shapes of the sounds.

Ittorath spoke in something older than speech. Something alien to nature itself.

As the chant continued, he rose into the air.

The world trembled.

The Ouroboros Coil began to glow. Inside its circular center, threads of light appeared. One after another. Dozens. Hundreds. They stretched across the hollow ring until it resembled a radiant harp.

Ittorath raised the seal toward the sky.

And the sky answered.

A reflection appeared. A second world layered over the first, hidden in plain sight. Within it, Damon saw figures chained and bound, staring down with starving eyes.

There were many.

Some looked human. Some were other races. Some were alien and impossible to comprehend. Their auras clashed with one another. Divine. Demonic. Something in between. Some were nothing but abominations that hurt the mind to perceive.

Seras and the demon lord Paimon stopped fighting.

Everyone did.

All eyes turned to Ittorath and the coil in his hand.

Paimon stood soaked in blood that was not her own. Across from her, Seras swayed, covered in wounds from head to toe, her sword blazing with golden light.

Her aura was unstable.

She had reached the seventh class advancement.

And the moment she did, this began.

"The Outsiders," Paimon whispered as she stared at Ittorath’s nightmare form.

Her gaze swept across the ruined temple. The destroyed nexus. She wanted to move. To stop this. But Seras had forced her into a corner. Paimon had tried again and again to kill her and break free to protect her people.

Seras would not fall.

If anything, she had used Paimon as a whetstone to sharpen herself.

Paimon ignored her and shot into the air toward Ittorath. She raised her hand and began to chant.

A sealing spell formed around her and launched toward the Ouroboros Coil.

Ittorath waved his hand.

The spell shattered before it could reach him.

Paimon clenched her teeth and turned to Seras.

"We need to stop that thing from succeeding."