Within the dimly lit underground catacombs, in the confined space, Misha, who had infiltrated her family's tomb, clashed with the black-clothed figure, also an infiltrator. In the aftermath of this confrontation, the mysterious black-clothed figure's use of wind abilities surprised both Misha and even Dorothy in the distance. The black-clothed figure clearly left Misha no room for surprise, immediately launching his next attack.
Leaving the opponent no room to breathe, the black-clothed figure pointed his hand, gathering a large amount of compressed airflow, towards Misha in front of him, directly firing several wind blades. Although these cutting wind blades were invisible, Misha, with her superhuman sensitivity to airflow, immediately sensed the approaching danger. She likewise extended her hand forward, releasing an air cannon towards the black-clothed figure. The invisible air cannon moved at high speed through the air of the underground catacombs, colliding with the equally invisible group of wind blades. The air cannon was dispersed, and the wind blades' trajectories were disrupted, causing them to shoot along deviated paths, striking the stone pillars and rock walls of the tomb chamber.
Seeing that the attack was ineffective, the black-clothed figure immediately launched the next one without stopping. With a wave of his hand, after spinning once, a gust of fierce wind was stirred up on the spot, forming a surging airflow that swept towards Misha, seemingly intending to directly suppress Misha entirely with the strong wind before attacking.
Facing the oncoming attack, Misha did not show any weakness, immediately blowing a strong gust of wind to counter it. For a moment, two opposing currents of airflow collided in the center of the underground catacombs, and after swirling violently against each other, they swept rapidly outwards. Suddenly, the turbulent airflow formed by these two clashing winds, uncontrollable by either side, engulfed the entire underground catacombs, blowing up the dust that had accumulated inside the tomb chamber for years. Amidst the scattered dust, the visibility in the already dim underground catacombs became even lower, making it difficult for Misha, who possessed night vision, to see normally. Both became vigilant, guarding their surroundings.
Facing this situation, both sides took different countermeasures. Misha immediately blew a circle of wind around herself to disperse the surrounding dust, ensuring visibility to prevent sneak attacks. The black-clothed figure, on the other hand, pulled out a talisman from his clothes, wrapped it around a gold coin, and threw it forward. As the luster on the gold coin disappeared, the talisman burned to ashes in the air. Then, at the spot where the talisman finished burning, a strong Light suddenly burst forth. A small sphere of Light emitting white Light thus suspended itself in the middle of the tomb chamber, becoming a floating spotlight that illuminated the surroundings. Instantly, the visibility inside the underground catacombs sharply increased, and the black-clothed figure could see Misha's dark silhouette through the dust.
'What... This is a Light talisman! What is he doing?'
Seeing the Light source appear in the dark space, Misha couldn't help but think vigilantly. While on guard, she immediately shot several wind blades towards the black silhouette in front, also illuminated by the Light, taking advantage of the opportunity to pinpoint the opponent's position for an attack.
However, to Misha's surprise, instead of performing a conventional dodge against the wind blades cutting through the dust and mist towards him, he suddenly lowered his body, seemingly melting into the ground like an ice sculpture, rapidly dissolving into a puddle of dark Shadow that spread outwards. Misha, unable to see the black-clothed figure's specific transformation through the dust, perceived him as having suddenly burrowed underground.
'Can he also burrow underground?'
Seeing the sudden disappearance of the black-clothed figure in front, Misha immediately focused her gaze on the ground to prevent the opponent from suddenly emerging from anywhere. However, she did not wait for the black-clothed figure to break through the earth, but rather another strange sight.
A Shadow, a pitch-black Shadow illuminated by the floating Light in the tomb chamber, emerged from the mist in front of Misha, clinging to the ground, coiling and twisting like a snake, rapidly approaching Misha.
The black Shadow, existing independently without any physical form, quickly slithered to a spot not far in front of Misha. Seeing this, Misha's eyes widened, and she immediately unleashed several wind blades towards the snake-like black Shadow. However, the black Shadow rapidly twisted and deformed like clay, dodging the wind blade attacks one by one, leaving only sharp cuts on the ground. Finally, when the snake-like black Shadow slithered in front of Misha, it quickly spread out into a mass of Shadow like spilled ink. Then, from within that mass of Shadow, the black-clothed figure rapidly emerged, holding a dagger and quickly attacking Misha. At this moment, he was less than a meter away from Misha.
Facing this sudden situation, Misha's expression became serious. She then lifted one foot and stomped down fiercely. The moment her foot hit the ground, a ball of air pressure condensed at her sole suddenly exploded, forming a spreading turbulence that swept outwards. The black-clothed figure, who had already lunged close to Misha, was immediately blown off balance by this Storm Stomp. Misha seized this opportunity and immediately launched a counterattack. She quickly swung her sword, directly cutting the unstable black-clothed figure in front of her in half at the waist, severing him into two sections.
However, just as Misha thought the outcome was decided, something shocking happened. The black Shadow that Misha had cut in two actually transformed into two streaks of pitch-black phantoms in mid-air, twisting and disappearing, leaving no blood or corpse. This caused Misha to tremble, her eyes filled with astonishment.
'What?'
"Watch out behind you!"
At this moment, the voice of the so-called Detective echoed in Misha's mind again. After hearing this voice, Misha immediately turned around and saw within the dust behind her, another snake-like black Shadow rapidly slithering towards Misha. From within that Shadow, another black-clothed figure quickly emerged, holding a dagger and attacking Misha.
This distance was no longer sufficient for Misha to use her wind abilities to counter. In her hurried turn, she directly reached out and tightly gripped the black-clothed figure's dagger with her left hand. The dagger, enchanted with """Shadow""", quickly cut through Misha's glove, but Misha, with her sturdy """Stone""" skin, temporarily held the entire dagger and its blade firmly. Although her fingers were not immediately severed, they were bleeding.
Gripping the weapon stabbing towards her, while resolving the crisis, Misha raised the sword in her right hand high and swung it fiercely at the black-clothed figure from close range. At this distance, there was no possibility of the black-clothed figure escaping. Just as Misha's sword edge was almost against the black-clothed figure's forehead, an unexpected event occurred.
Suddenly, Misha's originally fatal final attack abruptly stopped in an instant. Her sword, clearly having reached within a few centimeters of the black-clothed figure's indifferent mask, came to a sudden halt. No matter how much force Misha exerted, she could not advance an inch.
At this moment, Misha felt as if her entire body was restrained by a powerful force, unable to make any movement. However, there was no other external object around her to bind her body. It was as if she was possessed by a powerful Ghost, unable to take any action, yet just now, no spirits had appeared on this battlefield.
'This... is...'
With wide eyes, Misha moved the only part of her body she could, her eyeballs, to look around. Then she saw an even more astonishing scene. On the floor of the underground catacombs, on Misha's Shadow illuminated by the floating Light not far away, something abnormal was happening.
Streaks of pitch-black Shadow ropes extended from the Shadow of the black-clothed figure in front of her and connected to Misha's Shadow, seemingly binding various parts of Misha's Shadow tightly. The black-clothed figure's Shadow was currently performing actions completely different from his physical body. The Shadow ropes it cast had no corresponding physical form. Misha, whose Shadow was bound, became unable to move even her physical body. The restraint from her own Shadow seemed to have transferred to her real body.
"This is... Echo Soul Path?!"
Seeing this scene, Misha muttered in disbelief, while the black-clothed man who had successfully restrained Misha had no intention of wasting words with her. He let go of the dagger Misha had grabbed, and then drew another dagger from his cloak. After imbuing the dagger with a powerful "Shadow" enchantment, he held it and thrust it straight towards Misha's throat. Under the enhancement of a Tier 3 "Shadow" enchantment, the defense of Tier 2 "Stone" wouldn't last long.
Reflected in Misha's widened eyes, the sharp dagger, imbued with the Spirituality of "Shadow", struck at high speed, seemingly about to pierce her throat. She was about to lose her life here, but at this critical moment, a turning point arrived once more.
Suddenly, a layer of fine, fragrant smoke and dust spread over Misha's body. Wherever this smoke covered, Misha's body turned into a strange translucent state, like a Ghost, but the texture was even more illusory than that of a Ghost, flowing with various dreamlike, colorful hues.
This is Dream Body Manifestation! Dorothy in the distance saw Misha's situation and immediately acted again, using "Shadow" and "enlightenment" Spirituality to activate the phantom scale incense cage, manifesting Misha's entire body into a dream body. After Misha was completely manifested into a dream body, it was equivalent to losing her physical form in reality, temporarily transforming into a creature of the Dream World, becoming an illusory entity in the current world.
An illusory entity has no shadow; light cannot pass through a non-physical illusory entity to create a shadow. Therefore, at the moment Misha was fully manifested into a dream body, her own shadow disappeared, and the black-clothed man's shadow rope restraint immediately lost its target and became ineffective.
Freed from the black-clothed man's shadow rope restraint, Misha, able to move again, immediately dodged. After paying the price of a small part of her dream body being sliced off by the black-clothed man's enchanted blade, Misha finally successfully avoided this fatal blow. Then, Misha's dream body rapidly floated around to the black-clothed man's side and rear. Here, Dorothy lifted Misha's dream body manifestation, allowing her to return to her physical appearance. Immediately after, Misha began to counterattack.
Swinging the sword in her hand, Misha raised a gust of wind that caused the black-clothed man to cover his eyes. Then, Misha took advantage of this opening, stepped forward, and slashed at the black-clothed man with her sword. The black-clothed man quickly recovered and swung back, controlling his shadow to throw several more black shadow ropes at Misha. Having learned her lesson, Misha reacted immediately, slashing a wind blade towards the ground, cutting off all the incoming strange shadows with a Spiritual wind blade to prevent the opponent from controlling her again, but this action also slowed down her attack rhythm.
It seemed that after seeing Misha's dream body manifestation operation, the black-clothed man judged that he couldn't kill her and decided that continuing to entangle with Misha here was not a good choice. Therefore, at the moment Misha's offensive was delayed, he did not choose to continue attacking or consolidate his defense, but instead turned and ran towards the exit of the underground tomb. Misha, seeing the black-clothed man's action after dealing with the shadow ropes, immediately raised her sword and pursued.
"Don't think about escaping!"
Facing the fleeing black-clothed man ahead, Misha gathered Spirituality on her sword, intending to slash a wind blade towards him. However, just as her blade was raised and ready to strike, the black-clothed man ahead suddenly turned back again and threw something at Misha. Looking closely, it was surprisingly a string of pendants, the ancient pendants the black-clothed man had taken from Ample's stone coffin!
The pendants were thrown exactly between Misha and the black-clothed man, right on the path of Misha's wind blade attack. If Misha unleashed her attack with full force, it would inevitably destroy the pendants. Faced with this situation, Misha had no choice but to forcefully deflect her attack direction at the last moment, sending the wind blade towards another direction, cutting into the wall of the underground tomb. After stopping her attack, Misha quickly stepped forward two steps and reached out, grasping the pendants in her hand.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, the black-clothed man once again disappeared into the black shadow, his entire body melting into the ground, transforming into a winding serpent-shaped shadow snake that rapidly crawled towards the exit corridor of the underground tomb, disappearing completely into the darkness there.
Seeing this situation, Misha immediately followed after putting away the pendants. However, when she chased to the entrance of the corridor, a flash of fire suddenly appeared at the far end of the corridor leading upwards, followed by a roar and tremor.
"Boom!"
Accompanied by the loud roar of an explosion, a strong shockwave rapidly traveled downwards from the front of the corridor, blowing into the underground tomb and causing Misha, who was standing at the entrance of the corridor, to momentarily lose her balance. When she regained her footing and looked towards the corridor ahead, she could actually feel the fresh air blowing in from outside the tomb. Seeing this, she couldn't help but mutter in astonishment.
"That guy... blew open the tomb sealing door?!"
"To be precise, he blew open the wall next to the tomb sealing stone. The door is made of cold dark stone and isn't that easy to blow up, but the wall should only have a small amount of cold dark bricks mixed in. He probably set up the explosives at the entrance in advance when he sneaked in during the funeral procession." Dorothy in the distance responded to Misha's words, then spoke seriously with a warning.
"The explosion has already started to attract your family's Extraordinary and the An Yin Bureau people. Run now! Otherwise, it will be too late!"
Listening to Dorothy's words, Misha couldn't help but be startled. After quickly reacting, she controlled the airflow to lift herself up and rapidly flew towards the corridor. At the end of the corridor was the wall next to the door, damaged by the explosion. Misha quickly flew out of the underground tomb through the exit opened by the black-clothed man, seeing several tomb keepers lying unconscious on the ground along the way. They must have been knocked down by the black-clothed man who came out first.
Immediately after, Misha rushed out of the Loyal Guardian Church and into the woods before her family and colleagues could arrive. Then, she flew rapidly forward through the dense forest, moving away from the Devonshire family cemetery. During this process, she was also thinking about the black-clothed man she had just encountered.
"What exactly was that guy...? Why could he use so many abilities from the'Shadow' Path? Blood Darkness Path, Storm Path... even the Echo Soul Path, which should be inherited by the Orthothlis Royal Family... Eight Point Nest, shouldn't it only have the Blood Darkness Path?"
While flying, Misha asked Dorothy in her heart with confusion. At this moment, Dorothy was lost in thought. She was also seriously analyzing the origin of the mysterious black-clothed man, and now, she had a preliminary idea in her mind. She had her own guess about the black-clothed man's identity.
"Perhaps... we've run into an old friend this time..."
Dorothy muttered like this. At this moment, her thoughts had drifted back to the New Year's party more than half a year ago, when Duke Barret was assassinated. It was there that she first witnessed the methods of Eight-Pointed Nest's strongest chess piece in Prit.
That was also... the killer "Nightmare".