Corrupt Creations

Second Shadow wasn't a loyal follower of the Demon Lord, but he wasn't a fool either. So, fighting against Elyra or killing Serene, were the two options that he considered as safe, when comparing to the possibility of having Velgor's anger directed at him. The other members of the Twelve Shadows may not have realized, but his instincts as a top-notch assassin, told him that there was something really wrong with his master at that time. 

Now that Serene and Yuyin had escaped though, he was left with the only other option. To fight against that elf. 

But since he just wanted to waste time, he didn't move even after a lot of time had passed. His plans were to use this fight as a fake cover, until the other members were able to finish the job. 

Elyra was not in a hurry as well, she waited until Yuyin had left the range of her perception, to finally start moving. Differently from Second Shadow, Elyra considered every single individual that was fighting against Seth, as a threat. And for those kinds of people, the less of them living, the better. 

Elyra's sword was ready to discharge winds slashes against her enemy, when suddenly, Second Shadow's figure blurred and vanished. He had noticed she wasn't there just for fun and decided to make things harder for her. 

The worst part of fighting against members of the Demonic Shadow Royal Clan, was the fact that their Shadow Walk was a really annoying ability to deal with. Most practitioners would have a tough time when battling against an assassin like him, but Elyra was different. She had a way to. 

Second Shadow could merge with the shadows and turn invisible, he could mask his aura with darkness and could even shift his position with the help of tunnels made of darkness energy, but what he couldn't do, was to escape Elyra's perception. 

Why? 

Well... Elyra as master of the wind element, could pretty much feel the discrepancies in the air flow around the area Second Shadow was and with that information, she could roughly create an image of where his body was currently moving through. Her mastery over wind elemental laws was very close to Arwen's mastery, with the only difference that she didn't have the Evergreen Essence. 

But there was no way for Second Shadow to know about those facts, since people who had mastered the wind element to that point, were so rare, that it could be counted in the fingers of a single hand, how many of them really existed. That's why with a single thought, Elyra realized she could try using that fact to her advantage. 

At the moment Second Shadow disappeared, Elyra quickly used her energy scan, but it served for nothing else than a cover. A silent atmosphere suddenly reigned in that whole area, since none of them wanted to make a move yet. But as time passed, Elyra was able to pick some minor changes in the air flow, from where she roughly guessed Second Shadow's body was passing through. 

Instead of exposing that advantage, she maintained her stance, observing everything around her and keeping her guard up at all times. 

Second Shadow wasn't a fool and he wouldn't commit a simple error as not probing his opponent first, before attacking for real. That's why, when he was moving with high speeds through the whole area, he created many dark elemental hidden daggers, that he would remotely toss towards that elf lady sometimes. 

Elyra felt that a tiny dark elemental dagger was hurtling through the air, coming towards her and deflected it while using the wind as a shield. Many more of those attacks kept coming towards her, from many different parts of that huge valley, meaning that Second Shadow has been always moving around. 

While blocking those infinite number of small daggers, Elyra noticed they were never being shot from the same direction from where she was feeling movements on the wind. Somehow, Second Shadow was able to remotely throw them at her, creating a second layer of protection for himself. His abilities as an assassin were very impressive. 

It turned out that in this battle, patience would be a prerequisite, because a single mistake could cost her a lot. If he were to escape, she would have to use everything she had in order to pursue him. 

After testing out the waters, Second Shadow finally decided to do something bigger. While analyzing her and her abilities, he realized that no amount of probing attacks would be able to make her waste her precious energy so easily. 

Swoosh! 

Rumble! 

In a single second, the area trembled and throughout the whole place, many dark energy marks appeared. Actually, on every single place that Second Shadow had gone to, he had left behind a mark made of darkness, where he had quickly infused a bit of dark elemental energy inside. 

Right now, he was activating and commanding those marks to execute the job they were designed for. 

From up in the air, Elyra saw many black dots appearing on the ground, from where many dark spikes started to form. Those spikes abruptly accelerated upwards, moving towards her, while filling the whole sky. 

Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! 

Tens of thousands of dark spikes were shooting themselves towards Elyra, but she didn't even flinch while feeling their oppressive aura. 

Second Shadow took that opportunity, to merge his aura with the dark aura coming from his skill, to launch himself towards Elyra as an attempt to take her by surprise. 

The wind element around Elyra, suddenly intensified to new heights. It was like she was the eye of the storm, that was punishing the environment around her with raging wind currents. 

Those spikes were not able to penetrate that windy area, shattering into thousand pieces as they came closer. However, that couldn't be considered the same for Second Shadow. 

When he was approaching her, his body suddenly lit with a piercing dark light as he chanted inside his own mind: "Piercing the Night!" 

As if he was the cold and dark blade of a dagger, his body turned into a sharp line of darkness and was abruptly launched forwards, with a speed that no unprepared practitioner would be able to counter. Fortunately, Elyra was observing his movements throughout the whole time. Not even once she made the mistake of losing track of him. 

Her sword was already ready for a situation like that, and her Mana was easily allocated towards it. 

"Wind Shear!" 

A variation suddenly occurred in the wind velocity blowing around her, directing everything that came her way, to different angles, while exerting a turning force that completely disrupted Second Shadow's ability. 

He felt like he had lost his sense of direction and could only move along with the wind. But as his body was being dragged by those uncontrollable winds, he saw Elyra's sword coming towards him while covered in a green light. 

Without waiting to see the outcome of what might have happened, if he were to stay there, Second Shadow's body suddenly vanished. This time it was not a normal concealment from the Shadow Walk ability, but the second step of that technique; an ability that could open a dark sub-space tunnel and teleport him away. 

As his body appeared a kilometer away, he realized things wouldn't be as simple as he thought they would. Usually, cautious enemies wouldn't spend their sacred Mana, unless it was totally necessary and that's why most of them would perish after falling in a trap like the one that he had just tried to execute. Those kinds of people wouldn't use their Mana to defend against probing attacks, tending to be caught off guard by his sudden aggressive approach. But Elyra was different. 

She was different somehow, but he couldn't tell why. It was like she knew when he would be attacking, what should have been an impossible-to-be-attained information, unless she knew where he was. Since he had no clues about Elyra's ways of roughly knowing his position, he was forced to believe it was an error of judgement from his part. Elyra wasn't an overly cautious opponent, but a versatile one. 

After nullifying Second Shadow's attack, Elyra discovered another one of her enemies' abilities. Knowing that he could teleport away, was a crucial information. Now, she could devise a plan to use it against him. However, after a bit of consideration, she realized that things were going to be complicated. 

There were no easy ways, for her to deal with a cultivator that could instantly shift his position, but even though they were hard to execute, she was able to find two different ways. The first one, was using a skill that covered an area greater than the distance that he could teleport. But this would require the prior knowledge of Second Shadow's limits and Elyra wouldn't be able to acquire that. 

The second method that came to her mind, was sealing his possibilities of escape. She could do it by cutting off his connection with space, or moving even faster than him. But doing this wasn't going to be easy at all.. However, she was up to the challenge.