My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

In the end, Damon got what he wanted. The vote was heavily in his favor. Only a handful stood against him, and one of them was his grandfather.

The old man held Damon’s gaze for a long moment. Then his shoulders sagged and he stepped down from his seat to walk toward him.

Damon was not the hero of the goddess races to him. He was his grandson. If Damon died, the world would lose a hero, but he would lose blood.

Damon did not need to be a hero. The old man could have arranged a quiet military position far from the front lines. Damon would only need to attend a few meetings now and then. He could even have Jarvis attend in his place while he rested safely at home.

But Damon was the sort of person who insisted on handling things himself.

In the end, the old man was forced to accept that his grandson was walking willingly toward a living disaster.

The emperor cleared his throat.

“Ashergon is a great dragon. While I admire your bravery in choosing to face an Old One, we understand the gravity of the situation. If there is any form of military support you require from the empire, speak now. Your command of three divisions of the army still stands.”

Damon inclined his head.

“No worries. I only need Evangeline and the Brightwater Knights for this. Although I want command priority when Ashergon appears.”

“Very well then,” the emperor said.

Damon never revealed the finer details of his plans, but the demon representatives watched him with quiet interest while the rest of the goddess race nobility muttered among themselves.

After half a day, the council came to an end, and Damon found himself subjected to a long lecture from his grandfather about risk and the value of one’s life.

Damon sighed, nodded at the appropriate moments, and eventually escaped.

Three days later, Damon was ready to deploy.

Evangeline sat mounted on an armored unicorn, her golden armor shimmering beneath the sun. The creature pawed at the ground, impatient.

“I get that you’re suicidal, but why did you drag me along?” she asked, irritation threading through her voice.

Damon sat astride a dark destrier, a bicorn captured and tamed from the demon continent. Its black hide matched the tone of his armor as it breathed slow streams of mist through its nostrils.

“Isn’t that obvious? I want to die next to someone pretty.”

Evangeline’s eyebrows twitched. Her fingers rose unconsciously to adjust her hair before she caught herself.

“I see. So you’re still crazy. If you want to suffer, suffer alone. Don’t drag me there with you.”

Damon noticed the faint flush creeping up the tips of her ears and smiled. She was still painfully easy to tease. This time, he did not press further. His expression softened and turned serious.

“I actually have a very important reason for bringing you.”

Evangeline turned her head toward him.

“Why?”

Damon glanced at the sun and the long shadows stretching across the field.

“It might get dark soon. I wanted a handy torch close by to light my path.”

Evangeline raised her hand and punched him in the arm. Hard.

“Who the hell are you, and what have you done to Damon?”

The battlefield lay deep toward the territory of Brightwater Domain, and to Damon it felt less like a deployment and more like a homecoming.

The last frontier before the wilds was the city of Gladstone, a forward fortress raised in haste during the attempt to seize the lands around Lysithara. Beyond it stretched the edge of the Whispering Forest.

Human activity had scarred the outer rim of the woods. Forts stood where trees had once grown. The earth there no longer smelled of sap and rain but of ash, iron, and trampled soil. Nature had been forced back by stone and fire.

Yet the deeper they pushed, the more the forest began to whisper.

The sound did not come through the ears alone. It pressed against the skin, slid along the spine, and coiled behind the eyes. Every soldier felt it. That was how they knew they had reached the true entrance.

Their activity near Lysithara had already drawn the attention of Ashergon, whose nest lay far beyond the city in the opposite direction. The dragon, still half maddened from old wounds, saw only one truth. They were trespassers in his domain.

When they reached the forest’s edge, another problem revealed itself.

The forest did not obey distance.

Anyone who stepped inside risked being displaced without warning. A man could take three steps forward and emerge miles away. An army entering together could be scattered into isolated fragments within moments.

For that reason, the final forward base was established outside the tree line.

But displacement was not the worst of it.

The forest learned.

The longer a person remained inside, the more aware it became of them. If someone spoke their name, or if another called that name aloud, the forest remembered. And once it knew you, it could find you.

This was only one danger among many.

That was where the demons proved useful.

They were veterans of cursed zones across the Doom Continent. Places that swallowed men whole. Places that breathed. Places that hated. Compared to those, the Whispering Forest was simply another problem to be solved.

Their proposal was simple. Carve a path through it.

The act would enrage the forest. It would resist. It would retaliate. But in doing so, it would be forced to confront an organized and prepared force rather than isolated wanderers lost beneath its canopy.

There were fears.

Many remembered the disaster when Emperor Rasnet had tried to burn down the Evil Forest. Instead, he had summoned the dark spirit Rashi Ignath. The forest had regenerated within days. Thousands had died screaming.

This time, the demons relied on rune magic.

They suppressed the sections of forest trying to regrow, holding the land in a state of forced stillness. A wide road was carved through the trees. Along that path, small fortresses were raised every few kilometers. Each one housed teleportation arrays that allowed instant movement between the front lines and the secured rear positions.

It was an impressive system.

And completely visible.

Every structure could be seen from the sky.

Every structure could be burned by Ashergon.

That alone would have been manageable. But another complication had emerged.

Ythar had been partially resurrected by Ittorath. Ythar’s corpse was what formed the foundation of the Whispering Forest. With that fragment of life restored, the forest no longer behaved like a hostile environment.

It behaved with intent.

Its resistance felt deliberate. Targeted. Personal.

And as if that were not enough, there were the occasional attacks from outsiders who saw opportunity in the chaos.

Ashergon was not allies with the outsiders but he ignored them because they were few and powerful more than that they were in the heart of Lysithara as arrogant as the dragon was he did not consider Lysithara as part of his domain instead he ruled the area around this once great city left in ruins.

Perhaps even the dragon lamented its fall from splendor.

In its glory Ashergon did not even live close to it.

Damon drew a slow breath at the helm of the airship. The chamber was sealed tight against pressure and wind, a miracle of magic and metal, yet the scent of blood and ash still found him.

Despair clung to the air. Fear had weight here.

Perhaps it was because he was two thirds demon. He could taste the dread as clearly as smoke on his tongue.

The airship settled at the fort with a low shudder. When Damon stepped out, the first thing he noticed was the hundreds of shimmering runes carved into the walls and ground, each one pulsing with restrained power.

Evangeline stepped down beside him, her expression tightening. The smell was so thick it scraped the throat, like a rotting abattoir where the butchers had stopped caring to wash the floors.

Far in the distance, miles away, smoke coiled into the sky. The forest seemed to writhe as it fought back. Strange, eldritch things shifted within its embrace, refusing to abandon their home even as they launched relentless assaults from the shadows.

This place was hell. And this hell would endure. By the time a path was carved through that forest, thousands of lives would be left behind, never to return.

Then it came.

A roar tore across the distance. Trees shuddered. The world fell silent. Even those locked in battle paused and lifted their heads toward the sky.

Damon felt the hair along his arms rise.

A soft smile touched his lips.

It seemed that even now, Ashergon still terrified him.

A quiet chuckle escaped him, his laughter the only sound within the fort.

In his mind Ashcroft’s voice boomed out.

“How arrogant for the little lizard that ran from me.”

Damon laughed louder. That was right. How could he fear Ashergon when Ashcroft had beaten it, and he, Damon, had beaten Ashcroft?