Chapter 309: Shadow and Four Shades

The golden rays met the burning black, and they exploded simultaneously.

The impact sent quakes throughout the cracked, dark world, and the walls that the shadow had made fell apart.

Rion's golden eyes scanned the devastation, and he waved his hand.

The explosion vanished into nothing, and the people who had been turned into black statues disappeared from their spots.

The shadow stared at the nexus floating at the center and said, "He really gave you everything."

Rion appeared beside him and asked in a strangely calm voice, "Who is this person you speak of?"

The shadow looked at Rion and continued in its monotonous voice, "I cannot defeat you."

"I am aware of that fact," Rion nodded.

The shadow pulled a scythe out of its robe and swung it toward him.

Shadows rose from the ground and filled the scythe with more power. The very space around it began to turn dark as if consumed by the scythe's nature.

Rion watched it come towards his head, and just as its tip was about to touch him, he said, "Freeze."

The word instantly transformed into a conceptual firmament of freezing, and the shadows themselves froze in place.

The air around him turned cold, and ice filled the space before him.

The shadow stared at this marvelous act in disbelief and muttered, "How?"

Rion didn't answer the question; instead, he looked at the Nexus suspended at the center like a star that couldn't be reached.

He didn't know what it was, but under its influence, he was learning the ways to use his Absolute Will or Spark better than ever before.

The first thing that he learned was to doubt the concept he wanted to create, like in the case of freezing, he questioned:

What is freezing?

Why is it related to ice?

Is freezing really cold or just a way to perceive it?

Based on his own revelations, he felt what being frozen was like, and then he used that feeling to create the conceptual firmament.

It was the same method he had unknowingly used to free the damned souls from the dark world inside the Abysmal Flame.

All his past life, he lacked true freedom, which made him aware of the answers before he could even question them. Then, upon learning of the barrier, he sought freedom, which gave him what he needed to create a physical conceptual firmament.

However, as all of it happened without his knowledge, he was never able to recreate it, but with the Nexus, he learned it within moments.

Rion lifted his head and asked, "Absolute Spark allows the wielder to transform the world into their vision... Did it belong to The Monarch?"

The shadow stood inches away from him, both of its hands were like swords, and six wings made up of countless hands erupted from its back, but it could do nothing as it was trapped inside a pillar of golden light that was falling onto it from the Nexus.

The shadow that couldn't feel pain had a pained expression on its face, and Rion walked over to it.

As Rion walked closer, it asked, "How are you able to use it so well?! Not even The Monarch was able to learn it so quickly!"

The corners of Rion's lips twisted upwards. Dark golden glow seeped out of his body as he floated above the ground and answered, "Because I am Rion Del Haden."

The shadow was left speechless. Even though it was a piece of the shadow god, it couldn't use much of its power while standing inside the domain that turned the very battlefield into a playground for a single entity. That was the feared domain of The Monarch of The Crimson Throne — The Nexus Ring.

"Are the gods aware of what is happening here?" Rion asked flatly as if the answer didn't matter to him.

The shadow's false lips curled into an eerie smile, and it responded, "They would come indeed, and you won't be ready, your power would mean nothing, and just like back then, you would lose everything."

"Back then?" Rion's lips fell into a frown, and they parted to ask further, but before he could, light flooded the dark world as the barrier fell apart and the duke's remaining four nebulae jumped inside.

"Master! Your students are here!" they roared at the top of their lungs.

Rion and the shadow looked at them with dumbfounded expressions, and Rion asked, "You lot saw a place engulfed in darkness and your first thought was to jump in it?"

The four nebulae looked at Rion and answered as if they could neither see the dark world nor the nexus.

"Of course! Just because you are a bit stronger doesn't mean you can defeat all of us!"

"Hey... isn't that guy flying?"

"There are three of them!"

"I... I don't want to die!"

Rion furrowed his brows and mumbled, "Something's wrong with them."

He couldn't sense it before, but now he could see these four weren't alive either. It was as if their past selves were inhabiting their body and thus were unable to react to new experiences.

Suddenly, the shadow let out an explosive laugh that caused the four of them to fall to their knees.

Rion freed it from the golden ray as he, too, wanted to know what was going on, and the shadow didn't disappoint.

It instantly appeared behind them and said, "To think he had learned enough that he was able to turn four kings into shades while being a king himself..."

"What do you mean by that?" Rion asked.

It looked at him and answered as if it didn't matter anymore, "Shadow sorcery uses shadows as a medium to replace soul, but to create a shade, one has to create a shadow of the soul, and that duke was able to do it perfectly and on his own."

The four froze, their eyes turned entirely black, and shadows began to engulf them. "And a shadow can consume shades to make itself stronger!"