Summoning the Holy Sword

Translator: AtlasStudios Editor: AtlasStudios

The sharp, ice-cold blade was only inches away from Marlene and the maiden could feel the bone-chilling sensation hitting her face. She innately held her breath and embraced stiffly for the upcoming attack.

And at this moment, a bright, red sword light appeared in front of Marlene. The Crimson Blade rapidly intertwined in the air and instantly weaved a blade net, rejecting the cold blade.

"Clang clang clang!!"

After a series of non-stop blading sounds, the ice-cold sword that darted towards Marlene was instantly shattered into bits. And at this moment, Marlene opened her eyes in shock and stared at the figure in front of her — This figure was so familiar to her.

"I knew something would come and cause trouble."

Rhode gripped the sword with his backhand and fixed his gaze on the odd black figure tenaciously.

"Marlene, continue to dismantle the passageway ritual! I'll take charge here!"

Rhode swung his left arm horizontally and a pitch-black, fully armored Centaur Knight immediately emerged out of nowhere. It raised its pike and charged towards the Black Robes to make up for the vacancy left behind by Rhode after his departure. Although in terms of offense, the Centaur Knight wasn't as powerful as Rhode, as a fully armored knight, its defense was still pretty good.

"Okay, Mr Rhode."

After surviving a near-death scenario, Marlene held her chest and heaved sighs of relief before hurriedly pulling herself up and restarted her dismantling process. Witnessing this, the human-shaped figure howled and stretched its arm towards Marlene once again. This time around, flashes of red appeared in its eyes as Rhode leisurely arrived in its face.

"Pardon me, Mr Gloom Shadow. This road is blocked, so please turn around."

"You know me?"

Astonished by Rhode's question, the black human-shaped figure asked in a deep intonation. In response, Rhode nodded without any change of expression. He remotely pointed his sword towards it before squinting his eyes and scanning this half-bodied monster blended into the shadows from head to toe.

The Gloom Shadow was a mid-rank demon that lived on the first floor of hell. They survived within the shadows and used the power of ice to ambush and harm their targets. They were also considered the assassination troops of hell. The strength of these demons wasn't weak and their capability to blend into shadows made them harder to handle. But, luckily, they're on the surface. Under the suppression of order, the strength of the Gloom Shadow would at least be weakened by one third. If not, Rhode wouldn't have chosen to fight it head-on. Upon witnessing this Gloom Shadow, Rhode's increased his alertness because only demons with high levels could order Gloom Shadows. Demon Generals were also divided between ordinary and elites. In this case, it could be difficult to defeat that demon who's trying to open up this passageway.

Rhode could only hope for Gillian to diminish at least some of the demon's energy.

Rhode dwindled his train of thoughts. Unless things got out of hand and necessary, Rhode wouldn't wish to waste the last chance of 'Seal Release' for Gillian to recover her strength of an Elemental Lord. After all, Rhode planned for this to be unveiled for much more critical situations.

"Hmph!"

The Gloom Shadow scorned towards the human standing in front of it. It could sense that this young man wasn't that powerful and it shouldn't have any problems defeating him. Although the Gloom Shadow initially decided to torture this young man and make him die in disparity, after noticing the busy maiden behind him, it quickly had a new idea — No matter what, its priority was to protect the passageway. Although it wasn't an expert and didn't take pleasure in exerting frontal offense, it's still more than enough for these fragile humans.

After considerations, the Gloom Shadow no longer hesitated. Its upper body suddenly began to slitter frontwards like a snake and projected itself towards Rhode like an arrow. Not only that, the Gloom Shadow even stretched its right arm and in a blink of an eye, three of its fingers extended in length and aimed for Rhode's eyes and forehead.

This was one of the most common attacking sequences of the Gloom Shadow. Borrowing the flexibility of a snake, it was used to mislead its enemies with its multiple directions of attack. Furthermore, the right hand was there to also divert the enemies' attention. As a matter of fact, being a semi-incorporeal creature, the Gloom Shadow was basically considered to be without a physical body. The reason why it maintained its physical shape was solely for the purpose of paralyzing and giving their enemies an illusion.

This was the Gloom Shadow's well-tried method and this time, it would not fail.

"Eh?"

Just as the Gloom Shadow arrived in Rhode's face. This sly creature suddenly detected that something was amiss.

This young man didn't reveal the same horrified expression as he expected. Instead, this human only placed his sword half-horizontally in front of himself and listlessly looking back with his oscillating eyes.

An arrogant and foolish human.

The Gloom Shadow had no hesitations as it extended its right arm and aimed for Rhode's face.

At this moment, Rhode finally moved.

Without any fanciful movements or outrageous reactions, Rhode took a swing with his sword to the left. The Crimson Blade heavily knocked onto the Gloom Shadow's arm, leading to an immediate explosion of energy which blasted the Gloom Shadow away.

What a powerful strength!

The Gloom Shadow was startled by this powerful blow. From Rhode's rather fragile looking stature, it initially harbored contempt towards him. However, it seemed that the truth was otherwise. Dang it, this young man's strength could even be compared to an angered Barbarian. Where did this human get so much strength from?

It might be startled but if he continued to be startled and stopped his attack, then this Gloom Shadow would even lose all the reputation its race had. Therefore, although his first blow was rejected by Rhode, it had no intentions of stopping its aggression. Suddenly, it leaned forward and a pitch-black arm equipped with sharp claws projected out from its chest and towards Rhode's heart!

This was the real attack style of the Gloom Shadow!

The Gloom Shadow revealed a sinister smile and it even began to anticipate the thrill and satisfaction it would get after digging out Rhode's heart — And at this moment, the Gloom Shadow's expression suddenly stiffened.

Because Rhode moved once again.

As before, without any extravagant or complex moves, Rhode knocked off the attack from the Gloom Shadow's right arm. Then, Rhode turned his wrist around with his sword and abruptly thrust downwards!

This motion seemed uncomplicated at all and very ordinary, almost to no purpose — It's supposed to be this way.

However, accompanied with the ambush of the Gloom Shadow, Rhode's meaningless motion immediately became a huge threat. It seemed that Rhode had predicted that the Gloom Shadow would aim for his heart and the Gloom Shadow's attack seemed more like it was ridiculously allowing Rhode to pierce through, rather than what an ambush would look like…

Damn it!

As a demon experienced in battles, the Gloom Shadow realized the situation was far from good. It immediately tried to retract its hand, but at this moment, the Crimson Blade in Rhode's hand had pierced through its palm like butter.

"Ahhh…!'

The immense pain forced the Gloom Shadow to scream. Indeed, it didn't have a 'fixed physique', however, it after all still had a 'body'. Furthermore, the Crimson Blade was a magical weapon. Although a semi-incorporeal creature was always immune to inorganic matter, it couldn't resist against weapons that were magically embedded.

The Gloom Shadow finally realized that Rhode wasn't as easy as it expected. Being a treacherous and ultimate back-stabbing demon, of course, it wouldn't stay too close with a foe who seemed to understand his attacking style. The Gloom Shadow screamed and quickly changed its form while retreating. Its punctured arm transformed into a shadow while flickering backwards like a ripped rag.

How would Rhode allow it to escape so easily? Fixing his eyes on the Gloom Shadow, Rhode snorted and slashed his sword from the bottom up!

In this motion, a half-arc blade light that erupted from Rhode's sword projected towards the Gloom Shadow. The Gloom Shadow's expression instantly flipped ashenly. The pros of these semi-incorporeal creatures were their tangible physical attacks and immune characteristics. However, as they weren't totally tangible, they wouldn't have any immunity against equally intangible attacks! No matter if it's magic attacks or the sword light that's spiritually coalesced, the incorporeal creatures would be severely harmed by them.

Although the Gloom Shadow retreated quickly, Rhode's blade lights followed tightly. Sensing the dangers, the Gloom Shadow finally couldn't tolerate it anymore. It suddenly pulled up from the ground and flew out of the shadows to dodge Rhode's attack.

And at this moment, the Gloom Shadow caught a glimpse of the black-haired young man stretching his left hand and a pitch-black card-like thing flickered on his palm.

What's that?

A trace of doubt flashed in the Gloom Shadow's mind as he innately detected some danger — But it was too late.

Suddenly from all directions, countless of tentacles emerged out of nowhere and bound the Gloom Shadow tightly.

This… Nether Tentacles? What are they doing here?

The Gloom Shadow was startled by the tentacles that sprung out in the shadows. As a creature from hell, how could it not know the Nether Tentacles? The Nether Tentacles were one of the hardest to deal with within all of hell. Some Demon Lords even used them to safeguard their own homes and they would perform much better than demon guards. And to the Gloom Shadow who was an expert in assassinations, it naturally didn't wish to meet such an opponent because alike itself, the Nether Tentacles were also semi-incorporeal beings. Not only that, they held a special ability which other semi-incorporeal beings were envious of and that was, once these tentacles wrapped onto their prey, struggling would even be difficult, not to mention counter-attacking!

And this was the truth. Although the Gloom Shadow tried to escape, the tentacles from all directions wrapped onto him tightly which it couldn't even budge… Damn it, what exactly is this young human? How could he summon a demon?

Before the Gloom Shadow figured out an answer, Rhode darted swiftly in front of it and lifted his long sword.

Witnessing the chilly sword blade in Rhode's hands, the Gloom Shadow's eyes suddenly shook.

The next moment, Rhode's sword pierced deeply into its body.

"—!"

The Gloom Shadow let out a shrill scream, but Rhode didn't let loose. Instead, he abruptly let go of his grip from the sword hilt and retreated backwards.

"Swish swish swish!"

The instant Rhode leaped backwards, a few arms suddenly fell from above and grabbed onto his afterimage. Right now, there were a few more similar human-shaped figures beside the Gloom Shadow. However, as compared to the Gloom Shadow, these creatures formed from the shadows had much slower movements and their build was much smaller. At this moment, they transformed into a wall of shadow and surrounded Rhode. Not only that, they're even forming the top layer in order to devour Rhode entirely.

Rhode wasn't unfamiliar to these creatures at all. When he faced the Demon Worshippers on High Cliff Village, he had met these creatures — Shadow Devil. The lowly Shadow Devil could be considered to be the creation of the Gloom Shadow. However, these Shadow Devils that appeared before him were only just created and hadn't reached their fully grown state which he had met on High Cliff Village, so there were huge differences in their strengths.

But, it was too late.

Scanning the Shadow Devils surrounding himself, Rhode clenched his teeth as he initially planned to finish off the Gloom Shadow as fast as he can, however, he didn't expect that its reaction was equally fast. The Gloom Shadow knew it was one step into death's door, so he burst out in powerful strength and began to create Shadow Devils desperately. Rhode who released his sword previously to avoid attacks was currently empty-handed and totally unable to fend against these creatures.

He's dead!

A trace of excitement glittered in the eyes of the Gloom Shadow as its critters had completely surrounded Rhode. In fact, it only took five to six seconds for the transition from Rhode's attack to the Gloom Shadow's counterattack. As the speed was too fast, even the Nether Tentacles couldn't react on time. This was the best opportunity to entirely finish off this human! Once he's dead, there won't be any more threats!

The Shadow Devils encircled Rhode without any hindrance. Only a moment was needed for this human to be dead!

Of course, it wasn't that the Gloom Shadow didn't suspect Rhode's identity — However, in this crucial life and death situation, who even has the time to care! I'm not an idiot like the Parasites. My safety is the main priority now!

"Eh?"

At this moment, suddenly the Gloom Shadow detected a dazzling white light emerged in front of it.

From the start, it seemed like a feeble spot of starlight within the pitch-black skies. However, almost abruptly, it burst into a radiant glory as bright as a sun.

"—!"

The flawless, white radiance ripped the Shadow Devil's encirclement. At the next moment, it punctured the body of the Gloom Shadow.

What's this

The Gloom Shadow stared in shock at the pure, white sword that was pierced into its body as it sensed the force of incredible holiness. At this moment, this force felt like a surging volcano erupting in its body and its illusionary body had stopped moving like an empty, frozen shell. Along with this bright explosion, a ray of bright, glaring radiance fissures glutted its body.

"No…!!"

The Gloom Shadow lifted its head and screamed grudgingly before his body was utterly cracked into bits and disappeared within the holy flames.

"Hu…"

As the Gloom Shadow disappeared entirely, Rhode withdrew his striking posture and wiped off the sweat on his forehead. He retrieved his Crimson Blade from the ground and at the same time gesturing in mid-air. Soon, the silver sword and the surrounding Nether Tentacles swiftly disappeared without a trace. What replaced them were two cards hovering in the air before returning to Rhode's hand.

It's such a hassle battling these demons.

Rhode applied pressure onto his temple. In the game, the most troublesome battles were always with the demons. These bastards were sly and scheming, however, were also much easier to be dealt with than devils — At least the attacks of the demons were trackable, unlike the devils which Rhode would need to rely solely on instincts and experience.

Suddenly, at this moment, Marlene's scream sounded from behind Rhode.

"Mr Rhode, there's something wrong with the ritual!"

"What's the situation?"

Rhode turned around hurriedly and witnessed the complex ritual circle releasing an odd magical radiance. Not only that, he sensed a force of energy precipitating in the air. As he scanned the surroundings, the frantic Black Robes had retreated.

"Has the defense barrier been deactivated?"

"Yes, it is!"

Marlene seemed to understand Rhode's intentions as she hurriedly retreated and swiftly answered. She extended her arms and quickly gestured while chanting softly. The magical light ball between her arms slowly began to enlarge and at the same time, Rhode extended his left hand and summoned the Black Hound. Upon hearing Rhode's whistle, the Black Hound immediately darted towards the ritual circle. Meanwhile, Rhode turned around and gave an order quickly.

"Everyone, prepare to defend. Lize, cast your barrier!"

"—!"

At this moment, Marlene sang her final incantations and pushed her arms forward with force.

Accompanied with an ear-deafening rumble, a beam of glorious magical light exploded from between Marlene's arms as it projected towards the ritual circle in spectacular significance.

"Bam!"

Explosions sounded.

The magical radiance blended with the exploding flame sparks into one and this powerful force of energy flushed into the air.