Chapter 251: Death.... Again

“I know,” Adrian said as he floated in the air, directly in front of the beast, “but it’s also our only way out of here.”

For a moment, neither the butler nor the beast made a move as they silently ‘looked’ at each other.

But the next second, the creature suddenly disappeared from Adrian’s sight, causing his eyes to immediately widen.

A massive wave was formed where it previously was, but Adrian paid that no mind.

Instead, he focused on the sudden movement of the massive amounts of corrupted mana, and he quickly wrapped himself in a ball of shadows.

The next second, the beast reappeared in front of him and with a flick of its finger, the barrier protecting Adrian suddenly gave way, and he was launched through the air like a slingshot.

“Adrian!!” Renelle let out as she watched him crash into the water, but that successfully pulled the attention of the beast.

It slowly lifted its hand, and the entire arm suddenly transformed into a mass of tentacles.

The next second, it launched all the tentacles directly at the Sea Guardian, forcing her to raise multiple ice walls.

BOOM!

The first tentacle slammed into the ice wall, going through it almost instantly.

The ice walls shattered one after another as Renelle continued creating more, desperately trying to slow down the incoming attack.

If it reached the Sea Guardian, then it’d no doubt destroy it, which would take away the only advantage they held.

As the tentacles went through the ice walls, frost patches started forming on them, and a second before they could reach the ship, Renelle clenched her hand into a fist, and the tentacles immediately turned to ice.

The next second, they all crumbled into smaller shards, forcing the creature to pull its arm back.

It suddenly looked in a different direction and lifted its other arm, only to be surprised when a black object suddenly passed cleanly through.

“I was aiming for your head, but I guess catching you off guard will be almost impossible.”

Renelle let out a sigh of relief as she spotted Adrian standing on the surface of the ocean, his wings still behind him.

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, his clothes were torn, and one of his arms hung slightly lower than the other, very obviously broken.

Yet he was smiling.

“That barely hurt,” he said as he wiped off the blood on the side of his lips.

Adrian ignored the cat and looked directly at the beast before him.

The shadow spear he had launched at it seemed to have been effective, but unlike with the Void flames, the beast simply healed its entire arm.

He couldn’t use the Void flames anymore because it was quickly burning through his mana, and he barely had enough to spare right now.

“Persistent bastard,” the butler let out as he saw the way the creature seemed to be showing off its healed arm.

The next second, it disappeared again, but this time, Adrian was ready.

Creating a [Shadow clone] in a completely different direction, and just before the beast could reach him, he swapped places with the clone.

The moment Adrian swapped places with the clone, the creature’s claw passed cleanly through the clone, immediately ripping it apart and sending a massive shockwave across the ocean.

The clone’s form tried wrapping itself around the creature’s claws, but it was simply absorbed.

Adrian reappeared several meters away, but before he could launch another attack, the creature twisted its body unnaturally.

The next second, its arm turned into tentacles, which it launched at Adrian, forcing him to dodge instead of attacking.

The tentacles ripped through the spot where he had been a moment ago, but Adrian didn’t give them the chance to surround him.

He immediately switched places with another [Shadow Clone].

The instant he appeared, however,

BOOM!

A massive tentacle slammed into him from the side, and Adrian barely managed to raise a shadow barrier before the impact sent him flying again.

His body spun through the air.

He quickly stabilized himself with his wings, but a sharp pain immediately shot through his chest.

“Urgh…”

He coughed out a mouthful of blood.

“I noticed.”

The corrupted mana was making it harder to think.

His body was already injured, his mana was running dangerously low, and the creature hadn’t even shown the full extent of its strength.

Adrian looked at the beast with a single thought in his mind, ‘If this continues, I’ll lose.’

He couldn’t allow that, not with his lady’s safety depending on him.

Pulling him out of his thoughts, the tentacles were suddenly launched at him again.

Adrian immediately changed direction, but the creature anticipated it.

A massive tentacle emerged from the ocean directly in front of him.

“Shit!”

Adrian switched places with another clone, but the moment he appeared,

The creature was already there with its claw swinging toward him.

Adrian barely managed to raise his shadow barrier.

BOOM!

The barrier shattered, and the claw slammed into his abdomen.

“AGH!”

His body was launched backward again, and he flew several dozen meters before crashing into the ocean.

Adrian quickly realized that with the amount of corrupted mana he had absorbed, the creature could sense everything he tried doing.

Hence the reason it could anticipate where he was going to appear from.

Now, he could just assimilate all that corrupted mana into himself, but that needed him to be completely still, and he was certain that the creature wouldn’t simply let him do that.

The butler slowly sank deeper into the ocean as he tried thinking of a way to deal with the beast.

A couple of tentacles tried wrapping around him, but he simply wrapped shadows around them, hijacking control over them.

“…” Adrian watched as the surface got farther by the second before mentally responding, ‘I still can’t swim.’

‘Marion will help.’ The next second, the clone possessing Marion’s body appeared next to him.

It simply glanced at his sinking self before wrapping strings around him and dragging him towards the surface.

Unlike him, the clone had Marion’s muscle memory, and fortunately, he could swim.

***

“Adrian?” Again, Renelle let out as she watched him disappear into the ocean, but the next second, the water gave way as her butler resurfaced.

He was being dragged upward by several mana strings wrapped around his body, with Marion’s clone following closely behind him.

Adrian coughed violently the moment his head broke through the surface, expelling some of the water he had swallowed.

“That was unpleasant.”

Renelle stared at him for a moment before letting out a sigh of relief. [You scared me.]

[Apologies, my lady,] Adrian wiped the water from his face and looked toward the creature.

The appendages on its face were still completely focused on him, once again reminding him that it could sense him very clearly.

His [Shadow Swap] relied heavily on catching opponents off guard.

But against something that could sense the corrupted mana within his body, there was no such thing as a blind spot.

And his mana was running dangerously low, so he couldn’t carelessly attack.

‘Alright then,’ Adrian thought as he pulled himself out of the water again, ‘let’s make sure you sense me everywhere at once.’

[Shadow Domain.]

The moment the words left Adrian’s mind, the shadows beneath the ocean suddenly expanded.

Darkness spread across the surface in every direction, swallowing the surrounding water and stretching far beyond Adrian’s position.

The creature’s appendages twitched as they sensed him all around, meaning that Adrian’s plan was working.

Before it could properly understand what was going on, multiple spikes suddenly grew from the water it was standing on and pierced cleanly through it.

Or at least, they tried to, but the moment the spikes came into contact with it, they simply dissolved as it absorbed the corrupted mana within.

But Adrian only needed the distraction his domain provided because the next second, one of his clones was behind the creature.

[Shadow Swap]

He suddenly took its place with a spear made completely of shadows in his hands.

Thanks to his incredibly foggy glasses, he could see where the greatest amount of mana within the creature was, and that was exactly where Adrian had intended to attack.

It was an opening he was unwilling to let go of.

His spear descended, quickly reaching the creature and then,

SHNK!

Blood slowly trickled from the corner of Adrian’s mouth, and his fingers loosened around the shadow spear as he looked down,

“…Huh?”

The spear stopped mere inches from the creature.

Behind him, several thin appendages had emerged from the creature’s back, wiggling in the air.

One of them had impaled Adrian, going straight through his heart.

The next second, he slowly let go of the spear as the shadow domain started crumbling.

The wings behind him also disappeared before gravity took him, pulling him towards the ocean.

Renelle’s eyes widened as she saw this, and the last thing Adrian heard was her voice,

“Adrian!!!”

***

A/N: I’m working to fix the placeholder chapters, so please bear with me for a while

Here’s another book for y’all to check out, whilst this author fixes his chapters.