Shades of the New World

Chapter 275: The dangers of stalking

Evin, naturally, was oblivious to what just happened in the store after he left. Instead, he diligently followed behind the bulky man, keeping his presence inside the Darkness. Thankfully, the bulky man seemed to prefer the darker streets of the town as well, making Evin's job a lot much easier.

Eventually, the man reached a small empty alley located in the less fortunate parts of the town of Saar and stopped. He then took out a cigar from a Storage ring and casually lighted it near his face.

'Did he notice me? No, it doesn't seem like it' Evin wondered and started looking around the alley, trying to learn what was so special about this place.

A minute later his eyes started to gradually distinguish the silhouette of a woman standing next to the man.

'Oh, she was hiding behind an illusion,' Evin thought.

He curiously looked at the woman's features, trying his best to remember her details. She wore clothing that was similar to the man's but she wasn't covering her face with anything. Though she was holding a shield on her hands for some reason. But, just as he looked at her head, the woman sharply turned towards his position.

"There!" the woman urgently said in Imperial, pointing at Evin's direction. The bulky man turned around and shouted: "Ilekle!"

Immediately, a beacon of light shaped in the form of a rune appeared atop Evin's position, shining over Evin's location in the shadows. It didn't really hurt Evin, or try to destroy his spell like Evin expected it to, but he definitely knew that there was something bad about it. The woman on the side also started to busy herself with a spell, as a thin white mist appeared around the woman. Evin didn't really know the spell's effects aside from a guess that it was probably a defensive method. From the white mist, thin needles of ice appeared around the alley, all of them producing a terribly lethal aura.

Without hesitation, Evin scurried away from the alleyway, all while hiding inside the safety of his spell. But, before he could get much further, his body inside the Dark Room was suddenly yanked towards the light shining above him. The further he went, the stronger the pull was. Even with him wearing the Ufror's Cloak around his body, the effects of the spell could not be ignored.

'Or maybe it's because the Cloak's only good at protecting me from the more directly harmful effects of a Luminous spell?' Evin managed to think, but his problems remained the same.

The rune's effect was apparent - it was something that was designed to keep him in place and pull him back if he went too far. But that wasn't all, the pull was also getting stronger over time, threatening to yank out Evin from inside the Dark Room.

'Fuck!' Evin cursed in his mind, and started spreading his spell wider, before it eventually engulfed the whole alley inside it. Evin wanted to completely box in the two inside his spell, by covering over the sky above with the Dark Room, but the woman's white mist prevented him from having his way. The man also cast another rune-empowered Luminous spell which prevented Evin's spell from spreading further. At the end of it, Evin was left with a fairly scuffed Dark Room, but at least he got some control over the area.

Using the territory he found for himself, Evin was trying his best to move away from the ray of light that was trying to expose him. But the thing seemed to have locked onto his position like it had some kind of homing effect, following him around everywhere. Him moving around frantically did help slow down its effects, but Evin knew that he couldn't last much longer.

[Runa, come out!] Evin shouted into his dimension and a few moments later, Runa's voice appeared in his head, alongside Enri.

[What's happening?] the two of them asked almost simultaneously, and Evin pointed at the two mages.

[Enemies! The Luminous spell is trying to pull me out of my shadow!]

Runa immediately latched onto Evin's body, turning into a full body armor and a spear, while Enri also started swimming inside the Darkness alongside Evin. The Luminous spell's pull didn't seem to be working on her so that was an unexpected plus. 

Evin also pulled out his soul-tethered spear from inside his Storage ring, and extracted a hefty amount of Soul energy from the orb on it. Evin didn't plan to hold back anything for this fight so he applied the energy to his Dark Room, which made the Dark spell much more taxing on the enemies' psychology. Evin could feel the effects of soul-burning his spell almost immediately, as the Dark Room felt much more threatening and unfathomable compared to a few seconds ago.

'Although I can't cast any other spell, or physically attack someone from inside the shadows without making myself targetable first, at least I can affect the Dark Room itself.'

[Runa, we'll attack at the woman first! The woman will most definitely try to impale me with a bunch of needles at that point, I'll leave my protection to you,] Evin said, and looked towards Enri, [Enri will attack the male two seconds after we appear. After that, be ready to come back into my shadow so we can run away!]

Although the two enemies were sitting inside Evin's Dark Room, they really didn't seem too perturbed by 

The next moment, Evin made a beeline towards the woman and jumped out of the Dark Room, thrusting the spear part of Runa at the woman with all his strength. Unfortunately, the Luminous spell was following him around all this time, so the woman was obviously prepared for his sudden offensive. She blocked the spear strike with her shield and immediately, she let loose the countless needles of ice in the air towards Evin. Before of course, she was sent flying towards one of the walls in a straight line, due to Evin have made her completely weightless.

It was a small victory for Evin, but he couldn't forget about the needles that the woman sent towards him with the speed of sound. Evin usually wouldn't feel any threat from needles, but these ones just seemed extremely dangerous to him. Just like he expected, the impact didn't produce the pleasant clinking sounds of normal needles failing to penetrate metal. Instead, lots of thudding sounds came simultaneously from around his body, which was then followed by a weird, unsettling noise of something small drilling through metal.

Evin also heard a rather loud and painful scream from the man's direction, but Evin couldn't quite focus on Enri's situation now, as he had bigger things to worry about.

Evin really wanted to check if he was impaled by the needles, but since he wasn't feeling any pain, he guessed that Runa managed to stop them. And besides, there was something else he desperately needed to do.