Chapter 48- The Black Sphere

~ P.O.V. Of Eliana ~

I had my suspicions for the origins of the four, and when they had claimed that they came from the Lands of Sorcery I eased up a little. I knew Roen was heading there to find what he wanted to know. If I was captured I would just have to endure. I had resolved myself then the shadow that I contacted Roen through appeared.

He was an unreasonable existence just like him. I knew Roen was getting stronger and stronger so much that I found it hard pressed to catch up to him. I wanted to follow him, but looking at the writhing mass of purple darkness confronting three aura materialization users I could only give a sigh.

"Princess if you don't mind, could you step away for awhile. This might get a little rough." The deep voice of the shadow echoed into my ears and I followed his advice. I backed up several feet and started to run off to the direction where I had sent the six from earlier.

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"Hey our target is getting away!" The female spoke out loud again. She was already enraged at the entire situation and even losing one of their own, and then if their target gets away they would lose all respect.

"Don't worry we just need to deal with that." The man holding the sphere said trying to calm her down while motioning towards their other stoic member. The wordless man suddenly shot towards the writhing shadow after receiving the signal.

His red aura that surrounded him formed into two spirals that rotated around his fists. Then his right hand shot forward sending a ball of red aura at the shadow. It seemed to cause friction in the air and a trail of fire was created in it's wake.

BOOM!

A fiery explosion engulfed the writing shadow and it's silhouette was lost in the sea of flames. The black figure who had caused this was just standing motionless gazing at the rising flames.

"That!? Wasn't that partial aura condensation!?" The female voiced out her surprise and instantly forgot about the shadow. She still had a covering on her face which had concealed her face full of shock.

"Don't be surprised, this zombie is just a simple creation of master. He said he had used a small part of his soul to create such a monstrosity!" The man holding the black sphere said with hints of disdain towards his female companion. He had loathed her overly confident attitude as it was only a crutch in critical situations.

"Come back we need to fin..."

"Hey, don't forget about me now." A human figure walked out of the sea of flames. He held no features on his body. The only thing they could recognize him by was the two purple lights that shined where his eyes should be. His body was completely black as if the night had consumed him. It was only if they looked closely could they even see his shape.

His steps weren't even the least bit faltered from the flame. He held out his right arm parallel to the ground and pointed it at the female. She grew increasingly nervous about what this monster was going to do and she encased her body in a think red aura.

"Useless tactics." The black shadow spat out and his arm turned into a black spear that shot towards the female. She moved her aura in front of her in an attempt to black the attack.

Then as if the spear was composed of millions of different organisms it's sides all flowed and curved around her red aura. A grey aura pervaded the air and came in front of the path of the two different streams of black substance. However their efforts proved to futile as the streams split again and curved around the grey aura.

Stab!

The black streams all cut into the woman and killed her before she had a chance to scream in pain.

"And then there was one." The black shadow scoffed at the man holding the black sphere.

"What do you mean isn't there still two?"

"I don't count puppets. Besides as long as as I kill the puppeteer it'll all end."

"Yes, yes, true." The man holding the black sphere was already standing over the body of the dead female. The black sphere was shining a sinister light and vibrating vigorously.

"Come back." The human puppet shot to the side of the man with the black sphere. Then before the black shadow had a chance to intervene the man shoved the vibrating black sphere into the chest of the human puppet.

"What, what did you just do?!" The black shadow had some idea to what that was since his master was Roen. However he had not expected the sphere to suddenly jump from barely active to about to release a Nightmare race after it had absorbed the soul of the female aura materialization user. He quickly pounced at the two in an attempt to stop the worst from happening.

His body formed several spears of darkness that flew at the two as he charged. However he had underestimated his opponents and the gray aura simply shrugged off the black spears. The black shadow instantly understood that the man had allowed him to kill the woman so her could harvest her soul.

He picked up his pace and his purple eyes glowed even fiercer that ever. He knew his soul was connected to the other fourteen and he could draw power and strength from them if he wished. He had drawn enough to almost shatter his own human host, but that didn't matter at the moment. He had to destroy the black sphere before the Nightmare race inside was released.

Crack! Crack crack crack! Crack!

A series of cracks broke the black shadow's resolve. The black sphere in the chest of the human puppet shattered and the pieces entered the flesh of the it in an entirely gruesome fashion. However it kept it's stoic face like usual.

That was until it's skin started to boil and bubble. It's features twisted, it's bones cracked and pierced through it's skin forming a series of thick hallow cylinders that jutted out from it's back and elbows. It's eyes turned a sickening green color and the black cloth wrapping it was torn asunder revealing a body with writhing muscles and hallowed bones sticking out here and there. The hair on it's head was slowly replaced by smaller hallow bones that formed into a sort of apparatus and covered it's face once again.

"Hoo~ to think I'd be lucky enough to get a body when I came through!" A incredibly raspy voice came through the apparatus and the surroundings immediately quieted down.

"Hey help me kill this guy quickly!" The man with the grey aura suddenly commanded the monstrosity.

"Hahahaha, why should I help a weakling like yourself. Sorry but I have other plans to attend to, so help yourself." The raspy voice coldly spoke and turned to leave. However it soon realized it couldn't move it's body. It quickly reassessed it's new body and a deep anger burned in it's green eyes.

"Despicable! You use such an evil method to use corpses as a puppet!" The raspy voice was now filled with an unbridled anger, but it was helpless in the situation.

"That's right, and I also can terminate your body and soul with a simple thought, so you should show me some more respect! Oh and just so you know if I die you die as well." The man had an increase in confidence when he knew the monster was on his side.

"Damn! To think that I, a great Toxsius, would fall to a simply puppet! Hey no hard feelings I don't have anything against you, but I can't really move my own body the way I want right now." The Toxsius spoke towards the black shadow and held out his left palm and a hallow bone cylinder was jutting out from the middle of his hand. A light green gas started to leak out from every single hallow bone that pierced through his skin and wherever that gas touched it would start to bubble over and liquify.

"Toxsius Script!" Following the Toxsius' chant the light green gas started to condense into liquid and gather around his left arm. Then it formed the rough shape of a lance and the light green color slowly turned into a sinister dark green.

"I guess this is as far as I can make it for now..." The Toxsius seemed to be evaluating himself and he casually threw the dark green lance. Despite the casual toss the lance instantly turned into a blur and inserted itself right next to the black shadow.

The black shadow didn't even have a chance to see the lance. He looked nervously at the area where the spear was inserted. The ground was smoking and disgustingly bubbling while the lance still retained it's shape perfectly despite it's liquid nature. Is he had been hit by that he would've been killed instantly.

"Hey! What the hell, I asked you to kill him not miss him!" The man started to yell hysterically at the Toxsius after he had seen that the lance had missed.

"Stop yelling, geez he couldn't be any more dead. He is standing so close to me and my lance, so he is already contaminated with so much of my poison that even his soul will erode at this point. You're only alive because my body won't let me." The Toxsius spoke with pride at his poison and the dark green lance shot back to his hand and entered his body through the hallow bones.

After the Toxsius spoke the black shadow felt that he had lost control of his body and fell to the ground. The darkness that had covered him started to bubble up and erode away slowly. He knew death was coming, so he gave up on resisting and hoped that Eliana had made it a safe distance away.

"Alright now that that annoyance is gone, let us go after our real target." The man eagerly spoke and wanted to return back to his hunt for Eliana. The Toxsius took one last look at the dying shadow and he felt a familiar feeling from him.

"This soul signature..." He couldn't quite remember what he forgot and before he could think any further on the matter he was forced to follow after the man.