Shadowy outlines.
They kept closing in.
The flame of the oil lamp atop the stone pillar had been suppressed until only a needlepoint of green light remained, and the entire cavern
looked like a Mourning Hall lit by a single candle.
It was unimaginably dim.
Yet the figures of the shadows grew increasingly distinct in that faint light.
Jiang Qiao stood where he was, his Dual Pupils sweeping over the surroundings.
These shadows came in all kinds of forms.
Some had limbs bent backward at the joints, with palms and soles grotesquely oversized.
When they spread their fingers, they looked like five long, thin branches.
Some were exceptionally tall, three or four meters high, yet terribly thin, like rubber people stretched out until their bodies had thinned along with them.
There were others
that were simply writhing masses of black matter.
They had no fixed shape.
At times, they spread into thin black stains like puddles; at others, they swelled into irregular spheres.
Human faces kept bulging from the surfaces of those spheres.
They would emerge, then immediately shrink back in.
It was as if countless faces inside were trying to squeeze their way out.
The shadows silently approached from all directions without making a sound.
Only that wet, clammy chill surged in like a tide from every side, layering upon itself again and again, growing heavier and more oppressive.
"Looks like I've stumbled into a nest of shadows."
Jiang Qiao spoke softly, with no tension in his voice.
Instead, a cold smile appeared on his face.
"Since you're here,"
"none of you are leaving. Stay!"
As his words fell, he attacked in an instant!
Whoosh—!
Surging stove fire erupted almost simultaneously across an area dozens of meters wide, with him at its center!
It was nearly incandescent white.
The