Novel Full Chapter 1577: Arad Vs Linda II
Chapter 1577: Arad Vs Linda II
Seeing that stopping time itself wasn’t going to be enough to take Arad down in one swoop, Linda decided to switch it a bit more and test the water first.
She took a step forward, and her shadow disappeared. At first, she cast a shadow like all things in the world, but now, she pulled hers out.
But weren’t shadows supposed to be the absence of light? If she has a physical body, she is bound to block the radiant light coming down from Eris’s sun and cast a shadow.
That was the catch, that was how she pulled her shadow. The moment Linda’s shadow disappeared, so did she. Light now passed right through her body.
Arad frowned as he knew the real fight was starting. He could feel Linda’s shadow engulf his stomach whole. She had become one with the darkness of his insides.
Arad had fought Grace and Ombre before; he had a few bits of experience dealing with shadows. But none of it had any hope of being helpful when his opponent could manipulate time.
Arad also knew that Linda’s power won’t end at just time and shadows; a drakaina of her calibre should’ve learned countless types of magic.
He was right, as a second after that thought, the ground beneath his feet moved, and he started sinking.
Arad easily tore through the stones and leapt out. He, too, knew how to use earth magic and was physically strong enough to brute force it. But that still didn’t help him deal with what came next.
The shadows themselves moved, turning into long tendrils that grappled and pulled him to the ground.
Arad tried to tear the shadow tendrils with his arms, but he couldn’t; his hand would pass right through them. He tried to use magic, but that also failed. Even if Linda turned the shadows into a tangible object, she alone decided what could interact with them and how they could interact.
The sole fact that those tendrils were strong enough to bind Arad with all of his harrowing physical might meant that they were powerful enough to tear almost anything. If they caught Gamond, they would crush her like a rat caught by a massive viper.
The only thing that can interact with shadows is another shadow. Arad’s shadow wasn’t that fond of the situation as well. Ever since Ombre touched and woken him up, he has always proved to be the exact opposite of Arad.
Rude, temperamental, and aggressive for no reason. He always followed Arad’s moves perfectly like any other shadow, but when he needed to, he could move on his own, and so he did.
Something knocked on the shadow tendrils, and when they turned, they found it was Arad’s shadow, glaring at them with his arms crossed. Some of the tendrils shifted and took Linda’s shape to glare back at the shadow.
She knew that to keep Arad fully trapped, she must also trap his shadow somewhat. The fact that the shadow could move on its own meant that Arad had some knowledge of shadow magic, or at least something similar.
But before she could do anything, the shadow slapped her across the face. He didn’t like her standing in front of him or laying a tendril on Arad.
Linda took the slap with a smile and without even budging. This arrogant and rude shadow was quite bold. If Arad himself acted more human than draconic, this shadow acted more like a dragon than a human.
Arad’s shadow then lifted his hand and pulled something strange. With a chain across her neck, a woman of darkness emerged by his side. She looked like a pure black silhouette, but darker.
What Linda thrived in was shadows, the lack of light. So Arad’s shadow had an idea: what would happen if he engulfed the whole area in elemental darkness?
Darkness clapped her hands together, swallowing the whole meteor they were fighting on into her elemental expansion of pure darkness, overriding all shadows back to nothing, except Arad’s shadow.
Linda is a living shadow; she has traveled to the shadow realm and become one with her shadow, which is the main reason why half of her hair is white and the other is black.
Since she was a more powerful shadow, she could control and use all other shadows as she saw fit. But now, Arad’s shadow had robbed her of all of those shadows she could use.
Now, in the middle of the elemental darkness, only two shadows remained: Arad’s shadow and Linda’s shadow. All of the tendrils binding Arad had faded away, erased by the pure darkness that engulfed the meteor.
Arad’s shadow patted Darkness on her head, proud of her work. He liked her quite a bit because she did everything he told her to do.
Linda looked at Arad’s shadow with a smile. She had never seen such an egotistical shadow before. She extended her claws out and swung at him, trying to put him back in his place.
But the shadow moved, and he was fast, dodging her claws at the last moment and swinging right at her, hitting her in the face. He was as powerful as Arad was, and what made him stronger was that Arad was right above Linda, coming down at her as well.
Arad and his shadow ganged up on Linda, both trying to pin her down and keep her away from Darkness. They needed Darkness to remain unharmed so she could keep the shadows suppressed.
Suddenly, a flash of light burst in the middle of the darkness, a powerful red blaze. Linda knew that one day she would face someone who could rob her of shadows, which is why she learned all kinds of magic and spells that allow her to create more shadows.
Besides earth magic, she was also a master of fire and light magic. In the heart of Darkness’s darkness, she forced a blazing fire to be born, reinforced it with light magic, and tried to override the darkness.
But that was easier said than done. Darkness was once a goddess before falling into hell; the extent of her power was far above mundane magic, especially now that she is one of Arad’s void creatures and is serving him directly.
Her darkness persisted, keeping the shadows at bay. But that alone wasn’t enough, because even without the shadows, Linda was beating Arad and his shadow to a pulp. Neither of them could match her power and speed, let alone when she started using time magic to mess with everything.
If Darkness wanted to be of real help, she needed to start swallowing Linda herself, which was easier said than done. Linda wasn’t just an old shadow; she was far older than anyone could ever imagine.
Like all of time dragons, she had lived through multiple timelines, spent eons in stopped time, and the distant past. As a shadow, she was old, ancient, and immemorial.
Inside Darkness’s darkness, Linda felt like a solid boulder that refused to get washed away. She would eventually swallow her, if given a few centuries, but there was the problem.
Time didn’t flow for Linda; she wasn’t aging anymore. Or at least wasn’t aging in the normal sense.
At this moment, Darkness was no divine. If she were a goddess, she might’ve been a bigger thorn in Linda’s side, but with her current power, she wasn’t able to swallow her.