Chapter 281: Shadow Fade

As a representative dark-type spell among vision control abilities, it can be said that in the hands of many skilled spellcasters, it can be used to create dazzling effects. Of course, those who prefer to use this spell are often guys like Rogues who stab others in the back.

Most obviously, when a person’s eyes suddenly fall into darkness, they often become flustered and clumsy. Of course, even if a person with a firm mind is not mentally affected, this instant change in vision can still cause serious interference to their actions.

Among them, the most basic Darkness spell plunges a 20-foot radius around an object into shadow. Creatures in the area gain concealment, and attacks between them have a certain chance of missing. Because it is supernatural darkness, even if a creature can normally see in these conditions, such as having Darkvision or low-light vision, they will still have this miss chance within the area of the Darkness spell.

Moreover, ordinary light sources like torches, candles, lanterns, etc., cannot illuminate this area, and the same goes for lower-level light magic. Higher-level light magic is unaffected within the Darkness spell. Generally speaking, the Darkness spell can counter or dispel any light spell of the same level or lower.

Of course, there is a small but significant limitation: as a targeted spell, if the Darkness spell is cast on a small object, when this object is placed inside or under a light-blocking cover, the spell’s effect will be blocked until the cover is removed.

Closing your eyes and uttering a stern whisper, you summon a sphere of absolute darkness in front of you. As you step forward, only your vision can pierce through this darkness and reveal the victim who has lost their direction within it.

However, as a Shadow Sun Monk, a group that claims even the brightest light creates shadows, their special shadow techniques are not as simple as just the Darkness spell. If one really had to compare, it would be more like a combination of the quite rare third-circle spell, the Assassin’s Dark Moon, and the ninth-circle spell, Absolute Darkness.

The former summons a spherical domain of absolute darkness that only the user can see through. All other creatures within the spell’s range, or entering the spell’s range, will enter a blinded state until they leave this range.

During this time, even if the creature has Darkvision, it cannot see through this magic mist. Even creatures like Devils that have the ability to see through magical darkness find it ineffective in this black mist.

Creatures outside this area, including the user, cannot see anything inside the area either, and all creatures inside are considered to have total concealment. When entering the area of this spell, for the user, there is no visual interference. It is as if the area is illuminated by bright light, and they can see the people inside as normal, although those people cannot see you.

It can be said to be an excellent match for Assassin assassination techniques! Of course, during adventures, few people use this spell. After all, adventures are often not a one-person action. The limitation of this spell not distinguishing between friend and foe is too great, making it impossible to coordinate with companions.

The ultimate darkness created by Absolute Darkness spreads out centered on the user, creating a bone-chilling, nauseating magical darkness. This darkness is similar to the darkness created by the Deep Darkness spell, but it cannot be dispelled by magical light. Although a light spell of equal or higher level, or a similar effect, can temporarily suppress the ultimate darkness in the overlapping area, normal lighting can be restored in the area as long as the light spell or effect lasts. But once the time limit passes, it will fall back into darkness.

The ability of this Child of Light and Shadow, precisely because it possesses these two outstanding abilities of one-way vision and being hard to dispel or suppress, coupled with an impact radius of 60 feet which is not small, became the important killer move of this assassin whose whole body was “shining red”. In past missions, as long as he used this move, he rarely failed.

George, whose eyes fell into darkness at the same time in the first moment, moved his arms in a special trajectory, like a wall of impenetrable round shields, firmly protecting the vital points all over his body. Even if the other party was swifter than a goshawk, it would be difficult to deal a fatal blow to him in this extremely short time.

At the same time, George shouted in a low voice, “Light”. Something seemed to flash on his belt buckle, but it was immediately covered by this gloomy, bone-piercing dark energy.

Finding that this did not work, George had to use his abilities, the effects of which he was not exactly sure how much they would work.

As mentioned before, there were 5 schools to choose from in the cultivation of the Sword of Military Path. George first chose the White Crow Style martial techniques that were good at group combat. Later, he found that the Steel Soul Style was more suitable for dealing with various emergencies and countering other people’s supernatural abilities, so he changed his path midway.

What was unexpected was that the cultivation and combat style of the Steel Soul Style were so compatible with the path George had chosen for himself. The speed of cultivation could be said to be a thousand miles a day. However, everything requires gradual progress. Even the fastest talent needs the accumulation of time.

It had been more than a year since George obtained the knowledge of the Sword of Military Path and its supporting styles. Relying on his original accumulation and his extremely compatible aptitude, George had cultivated the Steel Soul Style to roughly the level of the fifth stage.

It was precisely because the division of these style moves referenced the spell levels of Mages. So George’s current cultivation of the Steel Soul Style moves was equivalent to reaching the peak of the Red Iron Rank—equivalent to a Mage’s 5th-circle spell. To go further, he had to break through the barrier of the Black Lead Rank and enter the Path of Paragons.

However, compared to ordinary moves, there was another ability that was even harder to learn—that was the stance. It often required years of training to turn it into one’s own instinct to be able to exert its true effect.

Of course, although one of the stances was of the 5th circle, George not only mastered it easily but also developed some variations.

Listening to Identify Weapons could not be said to be a stance that could directly enhance combat power. But it could make the user’s senses become extremely sharp, even able to hear the slightest flow of air around them. Invisible creatures and other potential dangers lost all meaning in front of this highly concentrated sense.

Moreover, by using combat training, keen senses, and the ability to predict actions, the user thus became the strongest sentinel on the battlefield. Even the slightest detail or the most concealed target could not escape his attention.

Usually, when using this stance, the user could gain 30 feet of blindsight, and at the same time, their hearing became sharper.

But when it came to George, he found that as long as he used this stance, it was as if he had another unique sense. Even if he closed his eyes, the people and objects around him appeared in his mind as colorless line outlines.

It was like an unfinished 3D scene modeling. This weird feeling really gave the original George a big scare. Whether it was the flow of air, the reflection of sound waves, or the vibration of the ground, everything was telling him about everything around him.

What George did not know was that the ability he had obtained was no longer just the most elementary blindsense but could be considered a blindsight. However, George, who had no relevant experience, did not know how much benefit he had gained.

The so-called blindsense allows a creature to detect objects it cannot see, but without the precision of blindsight. Creatures with blindsense usually do not need to observe carefully to discover and locate other creatures within the range of their blindsense, provided that there is no obstruction of other special abilities between the two.

However, for creatures with blindsense, creatures that cannot be seen are still in a state of total concealment, and attacks may still have a miss chance. Moreover, when creatures with blindsense attack hostile creatures in a concealed state, there is still a normal miss probability.

Visibility still affects the movement of creatures with blindsense. When attacked by creatures they cannot see, creatures with blindsense are also unable to agilely dodge and evade with their own actions.

Some creatures possess the blindsight ability. This extraordinary ability uses non-visual organs or a mixture of multiple sensory organs to effectively perceive the surrounding situation without relying on vision.

Such senses include tiny vibrations, keen smell, sharp hearing, and skin perception or sonar reflection, etc. In this way, any invisibility and concealment, even magical darkness effects, will be ineffective against creatures with this ability. Although these creatures still cannot see ethereal creatures.

Of course, all creatures can never use blindsight to distinguish colors and parallax, nor can they use blindsight to read. However, another benefit is that blindsight does not make creatures suffer from gaze attacks. Attacks that blind the target do not cause penalties to creatures using blindsight. At the same time, many vision-based effects can be ignored, such as Displacement and Blur spells.

However, if blindsight is based on hearing, then attacks that deafen the target will hinder the blindsight ability. Moreover, blindsight can operate normally underwater, but not in a vacuum.

However, George understood and knew this newly acquired ability, but he could not learn its specific effects from any Surface. He was not sure whether his ability could work normally under the other party’s spell speed.

In addition, George had never used this ability when confronting others. George, who always prioritized safety, certainly would not trust this never-verified ability. But the current situation forced him to gamble.

George, who closed his eyes, immediately found that this ability was not affected by the other party’s spell. In his mind, the assassin pouncing on him was like a wild beast fighting for its life.

His hideous eyes emitted a fierce light. After a low roar like a leopard hunting, his body spun like a top in the air—his arms dancing like a whirlwind made him extremely blurry, and even in George’s blindsight, they overlapped many times.

That pair of arms whipped up a storm of attacks, and the blade in his hand formed a dense net that could not be penetrated by a pouring rain. Moreover, his attacks appeared on both sides of George at the same time, as if he wanted to tear his flesh immediately.

However, what the assassin never expected was that the darkness he regarded as his trump card had no effect on George at all.

George was seen with his eyes tightly closed. His arms, strengthened by thunder to be like steel, spread out, and a burst of “crackling” electric arcs flashed out. Although the sound and light effects were suppressed in this dark shadow, the assassin could still clearly feel its power with his ears—the left chest rib that was hit before was still aching faintly.

George’s right hand bypassed the opponent’s hair-breaking Scimitar, used his hand as a hook to control the opponent’s wrist, and then immediately used the outer door top elbow from Bajiquan. This fierce strength gathered the weight and strength of his whole body and struck out with one elbow, hitting the opponent’s body like hitting leather.

Seeing that this blow was ineffective, George put his fingers together as a spear, extended his fingers as a stab, and followed the elbow strike with a tricky hand stab. But just then, the wrist originally grabbed by George suddenly seemed to use bone shrinking skill and suddenly became smaller. In an instant, it broke free from George’s control. But in the blink of an eye, a small ball of shadow energy cloud obscured him, becoming smaller and finally disappearing. Soon another ball of shadow cloud gathered at the other end of the battlefield and let him appear from it.

The previous attack was more or less careless psychologically because the other party did not know that George could ignore the darkness. But George was concentrating fully on dealing with the enemy’s movements. With such intentional calculation against the unintentional, how could George not win?

Under the effect of this ability similar to Gaseous Form, the assassin dodged a follow-up heavy blow from George. But the damage from just that elbow alone was enough for him to suffer.

his obviously much more stooped figure seemed to be telling George that he could hardly withstand George’s offensive. But just when George was preparing to pursue the victory and destroy the enemy in one fell swoop. The assassin suddenly disappeared, and then appeared at the entrance of the basement accompanied by shadow energy.

This Shadow Fade ability was like the effect of “Shadow Jump”, able to move between shadows, with the effect like the Dimension Door spell. But the limitation of this magical teleportation was that both the starting point and destination must have at least some shadows.

Although it looked very similar, this was not a real space spell. It often could only change within the same field and could not achieve effects like passing through walls. It was precisely because it did not use space positioning to establish a space channel that this ability could be used in this basement where teleportation ability was restricted.

Immediately after, the other party made a subtle gesture, and you cut a part of the shadow in the air beside you, making it attack George. That shadow circled around George’s neck, trying to strangle him. But the current scurrying all over George’s body quickly dispelled this shadow. The other party took advantage of this time to turn into a wisp of black smoke and flee the basement.

After the complete darkness disappeared, all George could find was the Scimitar on the ground beside him. There was no Flash Dust that disappeared because the duration expired. Only this thing proved the danger and criticality of the previous battle.

The blade of this weapon curved inward, and the front end lifted up or became flat. This kind of Scimitar had strong lethality. The thing most similar to this one under George’s feet was the Kukri Scimitar from before his time travel.

The Gurkha troops wore standard combat uniforms designated by the Niu Niu family for rapid mobilization, equipped like any other battalion. However, they had a famous extra weapon: the Kukri Scimitar.

This was the Gurkhas’ unique combat machete. There were more exaggerated stories about it than any other weapon. Hans Cat and Foot Basin Chicken both told horror stories about Gurkha troops and Kukri knives—the Gurkha troops never denied those stories because they could increase their fierce reputation.

Of course, such a reputation was entirely produced in modern times because the characteristic of the Scimitar was its strong chopping ability. In Europe, especially in ancient Greece, Scimitars were prevalent, and later Scimitars gradually withdrew from the European historical stage.

Of course, this was related to the progress of metal production technology and changes in combat methods. Simply put, when chopping was inefficient against armor and affected the formation, it was time for it to die out.

The reason why the Gurkhas still retain such a weapon to this day is probably not only related to the technical level. It was more related to the environment there! In the high-altitude mountains, few people could wear armor to fight, which gave this weapon a place to be used.

After modern times, due to the widespread use of thermal weapons, metal armor gradually withdrew from the historical stage. This gave the Gurkhas’ unique combat machete a chance to show its power.

Similarly, the Foot Basin Chicken’s Samurai Sword was also one of the representatives of Scimitars. Its back was thick, and the edge was sharp. Because the reverse curve conformed to mechanical principles, the chopping power was enormous. When smelting technology was introduced to Japan from the Tang Dynasty, due to the lack of qualified smelting production personnel, they could not make the weapon straight during the quenching process, so this curved shape was left.

But in the Foot Basin Chicken where resources were seriously lacking, even Daimyos did not have many people equipped with enough metal armor. This made the armor-piercing ability of straight-bladed swords useless. Instead, weapons like Samurai Swords were suitable for the battlefield at that time.

So it was very appropriate for this assassin to choose such a weapon as his assassination tool. Approaching, a qualified assassin knew how to choose the right timing to facilitate his attack. And at those times, their targets were often not wearing armor.

George tore a piece of cloth from his body, picked up the weapon in front of him, wrapped it well, and then left the basement. The reason for not directly touching the Scimitar was that he was afraid there was some powerful curse or toxin on it. Having dodged the most dangerous assassination, it would be too embarrassing to capsize in the gutter in this regard.

“Sigh! Today’s inventory count can only be postponed.” George thought with lingering fear: ‘But it was really dangerous just now! It seems that there are really quite a few security loopholes in the Territory. However, for an enemy like the one just now, I’m afraid ordinary soldiers wouldn’t be able to detect him! It seems I’d better get a close-fitting soft armor in the future, and even at home, it’s best to carry weapons with me!’