Chapter 4 (1/2)
CH – 4 Reality
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The moment his small hands touched the seventh image, it suddenly turned into a shadow. To elaborate, it drilled it’s way into the body of Li Cha. The very next moment, Li Cha felt that his hair is in contact with fire, it was just like boiling. It was a suffering aimed directly at his soul,driving him crazy. Moreover he couldn’t even pa.s.s out. Strands of ice flowing in his whole body were colliding with the formless heat which was binding his body, it gave off a feeling like every bone and muscle in his body was cracking.
Li Cha was patiently enduring, the effort he put into training from childhood to become strong and tough was clearly visible at this moment. Unexpectedly, he was able to preserve for the entire time as shadow entered his body. After absorbing the entire shadow, his consciousness finally relaxed and his vision started to grew fuzzy along with the slowly dissipating shrine of G.o.ddess.
In his fuzzy vision, mother’s beautiful and deeply concerned face appeared, before he eventually pa.s.sed out.
“I was able to obtain two skills in the end, mother would be so proud.” He was thinking this as he plunged into darkness.
On the attic, a clear crack appeared on moon G.o.ddess’s altar. This special altar was unexpectedly damaged during the ceremony. Yi Lian’s complexion was also pale, a drop of blood was flowing from the her side of lip. However she was completely unaware of it as she was only frantically examining each and every part of Li Cha’s body. She was able to relax only after conforming that Li Cha’s body is totally intact with no sign of injury. However, when she saw that there is a small shadow circling around the middle of his forehead, her complexion changed greatly again. The attic was being illuminated by the light from both moon and magic lamp, moreover Li Cha was also lying on his back, but still it didn’t matter whichever light it was, it was unable to remove the shadow from his forehead. That small shadow was moving like a fog or smoke, but it was not scattering, instead it was actually concentrating. This shadow is not something that can be pointed out by an ordinary person, however it was easily seen by Yi Lian, since she had some remaining power acquired from the fith moon . She s.h.i.+vered as she reached out to touch and as she touched, she felt a painful and ice-cold sensation on her fingertips . This was the result of clash between dark energies and Illusia’s spirit power.
“Shadow creature ?” Yi Lian involuntary cried out. she once again tried to probe inside the shadow region while reading a long forgotten prayer inside her mind. It is exactly the moon G.o.ddess’s “intuition” which she failed to learn that year. At this moment her heart was in a mess. In her knowledge, this was the only way to discover the origins of this shadow. Even though chances of succeeding is not high, she still must try.
After losing her ident.i.ty as great priestess, she also lost all of her spiritual techniques. Yi Lian didn’t expected that her reckless action would actually succeed.
A scroll appeared in front of Yi Lian’s eyes. Inside the scroll was just void and endless darkness. No stars, no moons, just the basic energies. But within those basic energies there was a huge shadow. It was slowly lingering in a completely messed up and random orbit, but the orbit was converging at a clear destination and that destination was precisely Li Cha.
Scroll withered and died. This momentary intution drained all of her strength. For the moment, she couldn’t even lift a finger. However, right now she isn’t concerned about it, just looking at everything gave her despair.
Shadow is entirely different from darkness. They don’t have essence, they are just a kind of energy, naturally possessing s.p.a.ce attributes. Shadow creatures are of countless types. Majority of them roam between planes randomly. Confused energies between planes are natural food for them. They are very cunning, strong and very dangerous. Therefore, it is a species which is both loved and feared by cultivators. Shadow summoning is a very advanced technique, it can allow to advance from sixth level to directly up to ninth level.
Even though probability of failure in shadow summoning technique is quite low, but shadow creatures going out of control is pretty common and magicians are one of their favorite foods. Therefore every year stories of cultivators being swallowed up by summoned shadow creatures is pretty common.
Shadow on Xiao Li Cha’s face has a sign of a creature, but it really isn’t a living form. Dark energies it contains, actually isn’t much. Just an ordinary purification can remove it. It’s functioning is same as that of a light tower, between boundless planes in universe, it marks a position calling huge groups of shadow creatures to enter this plane, same scene seen by Yi Lian in that scroll. Removing this shadow is already too late now because those frightening shadow creatures are already on the move after getting the signal.
Xiao Li Cha is exactly the anchor point of their destination at this plane.
When those shadow creatures will attack this plane, there could be only two possible outcomes for Xiao Li Cha. Either he will be destroyed by collision of severe energies or the most formidable shadow creature will enter his body. After that, he will lose his control over his body, becoming a vessel for shadow creature species.
Everyone knows the rules between planes, to cross over planes shadow creature might even require several hundred years and just for reaching the end of destination might require several months.
“Why is this happening……” Yi Lian while hugging Li Cha, said to herself. Unable to hold back, tears slowly fell down.
Suddenly she raised her head. Through the hatchway, she looked up to the fifth moon suspended high in the sky still as before . By coincidence, the numerous scars on the surface of the moon all together looks like dried up blood. It might be possible that a variation occurred in moon’s energy leading to variation in ceremony. But then again, even if that’s the case, she herself is the high priestess of Illusia, so any variation in enlightenment is very unlikely.