Watching Ethan charge resolutely toward the eastern swamp, Zoe quickly gave chase.
How could he just stand by and watch such a decent old man die?
Since the blacksmith was putting his life on the line for the countless innocent people of this magical world, what did it matter if Zoe gambled his current life alongside him?
If Zoe had to place his own existence on a scale against the lives of countless innocents in this world, he might hesitate.
But if it was just a single lifetime, there was no need to hesitate. He was no heartless monster. A single lifetime and a bit of pain were nothing compared to so many innocent lives.
“You...”
Ethan looked at Zoe in disbelief, clearly not expecting him to catch up.
“I will assist you. I'll help you escape back to the human world and seal or destroy the Dragon Heart Spike.”
Hearing Zoe's words, Ethan wanted to solemnly urge the wolf to value his own life, but Zoe spoke first.
“Don't bother trying to persuade me. My mind is made up.
“All you need to do is focus on how we're going to escape the Death Swamp and get the Dragon Heart Spike out of here.”
An expression of deep admiration appeared on Ethan's face.
He had never imagined that he would one day be so deeply moved and filled with respect by a monster's sense of justice.
To him, the greatest surprise of being abducted by the Black Dragon King was meeting the monster before him.
“I understand.
“But I absolutely will not let you die before me.”
The two did not run very far through the swamp before stopping.
“There is an ambush five hundred meters ahead. Five on the left, five on the right. All of them are Low-tier Monsters.”
Ethan's golden right eye pierced through the heavy fog, locking onto the figures lurking ahead.
Yet, Zoe had failed to spot any trace of them.
‘Is this the visual enhancement of the Golden Eye?’
“I'll handle the ones on the right.”
Zoe darted to the right, his body dissolving into shadow as he melted into the darkness.
Ethan did not question him. He charged toward the ambush on the left, reaching out to fling several sharp steel needles through the fog.
Realizing their ambush had failed, the lizardmen quickly raised their shields. While taking a defensive stance, one of them blew a horn.
A golden light flashed in Ethan's right eye. The thrown steel needles were manipulated from afar, tracing bizarre arcs in the air to bypass the shields and slip through the defensive gaps.
The needles instantly pierced straight through the horn and the head of the lizardman blowing it.
Meanwhile, Zoe closed the distance, staring down the lizardmen pointing their spears at him.
“Acid Rain Bullet!”
A dense shower of acidic bullets erupted from Zoe's mouth, forming a curtain of liquid death that swept over the lizardmen.
The lizardmen hurriedly raised their shields to block the oncoming barrage.
Yet, even though their shields absorbed the brunt of the attack, the splashing acid still relentlessly corroded their bodies.
The searing pain made their defense falter. Seizing the opening, Zoe transformed into a shadow and glided across the ground to close the gap.
A massive warhammer forged from pure shadow, fully charged within the Shadow Pool, slammed forward with immense force.
“Argh!”
With an agonized shriek, the lizardman who took the direct hit had its chest caved in, and their defensive formation was completely shattered by Zoe's charge.
“Die!”
Staring at Zoe who was now right in front of them, the lizardmen thrust their bone spears at him.
Zoe manipulated his shadow to form several bucklers designed to deflect attacks, parrying the oncoming spears.
At the same time, he exhaled a breath of accumulated corrosive gas.
“Corrosive Gas Slash!”
Whoosh!
At such close range, there was absolutely no way to block the razor-sharp Corrosive Gas Slash.
The spears raised in defense, along with the lizardmen holding them, were cleanly sliced in two by Zoe.
[Killed Lizardman Lv15. Experience +140. Talent correction: extra Experience +140.]
Controlling the Shadow Pool, he devoured the halved lizardman corpses in a single gulp.
At the same time, Zoe partitioned a portion of his consciousness to digest the corpses inside the Shadow Pool, replenishing his mana.
Since Zoe's current body was a clone, splitting off a mind to handle digestion meant that one of his main body's Parallel Minds had to be deactivated.
“Cursed shadow! Hiss!”
The remaining lizardmen were furious. A sharp spear instantly pierced through Zoe.
The sharp wind magic wrapping the spear began to tear and shred Zoe's shadow body from the inside.
“Acid: Shadow Blade Heart-Piercing Needle Rain!”
Ignoring the attack, Zoe spat out a dense shower of shadow needles at the surrounding lizardmen.
Amidst the sound of needles puncturing flesh, the lizardmen wailed in agony.
However, most of the needles were blocked by their shields.
Zoe quickly charged the nearest lizardman and detonated all the shadow needles embedded in its body.
The acid contained within the shadow needles bloomed like liquid flowers, corroding the creature's flesh from the inside out.
This devastating blow instantly stripped the attacking lizardmen of their combat capability.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Zoe condensed a shadow warhammer and began wildly smashing his surroundings.
Though his swings lacked technique, the stat bonuses from his talents made every blow heavy and perfectly executed.
Once the ground was littered with incapacitated lizardmen, Zoe used his Shadow Pool to swallow all the corpses, focusing on digesting them to restore his mana.
‘My mana consumption is a bit high.’
Using his shadow body to attack consumed a significant amount of mana. This brief sequence of combat had already drained more than half of the clone's reserves.
The harder and stronger the condensed shadow objects, the more mana they required.
Furthermore, just maintaining the clone and moving around required a continuous upkeep of mana.
[Experience pool is full. Level increased to Lv17.]
[Strength +1, Agility +1, Max Mana +5, Free Stat Point +1.]
The experience gained by the clone was naturally transferred to the main body.
However, the attribute bonuses from leveling up could not be enjoyed by the clone in this state, as its stats did not synchronize with the main body.
“Hurry, don't stop!”
Ethan called out from the other side. Zoe nodded and followed him as they resumed their sprint through the swamp.
Yet once again, before they could cover much ground, they walked into another lizardman ambush.
There were far more of them this time—at least fifteen lizardmen, including crossbowmen waiting in ambush.
Even with the Golden Eye detecting the trap, the enemy's placement and timing were too precise.
“We've been tracked and locked down.”
“Since when?”
Having fought alongside Zoe to break through the ambush, Ethan's condition was deteriorating. Heavily wounded to begin with, the strain of consecutive battles was rapidly taking a toll on his body.
His right Golden Eye, repeatedly pushed to its limits, bled continuously.
He forced himself to activate the Golden Eye once more, scanning his own body for any tracing marks, but found nothing.
Even the Golden Eye could not detect the source of the tracking.
Could the Dragon Heart Spike itself have been marked? That was impossible. He had forged the spear himself; he would know better than anyone if it could be tracked.
“Let me try.”
Zoe turned his gaze onto Ethan and began casting Appraisal repeatedly. Eventually, he discovered an anomaly on Ethan's waist.
[White Mushroom Lingering Scent] A tracking magic that implants highly stealthy spores into flesh to provide a tracking trail within a certain range.
“Right there. There's a trace of tracking magic.”
Ethan looked down toward his waist.
Without a second thought, he drew a dagger and carved out the spore-infested flesh from his side.
The moment the flesh was severed, as if stimulated, tiny white tendrils sprouted from the chunk of meat and began thrashing wildly.
Ethan clutched his waist, compressing the wound with his muscles to quickly staunch the bleeding.
Rate on N.U.
