Shadow Bugs, as low-level Discarded Drafts Monsters, had racked up quite an impressive record on Linden's side, even once trading one-for-one with a Diamond Rank powerhouse.
And that was almost entirely thanks to their one and only skill—Shadow Dissolve.
With this skill, Shadow Bugs could create a mass of mobile shadow, hide inside it, and control that shadow as it moved along the ground or walls.
The method was somewhat like opening a Spatial Rift on their own, except what lay behind it was a dead, silent shadow space. Aside from elemental creatures, no other living thing could survive inside.
Shadow Bugs had no means of attack themselves. They hunted purely by using that shadowy environment to drown their prey.
Being captured by the shadows did not mean there was no way to escape. Although the interior of the shadow could not be attacked from the outside, the shadow space opened by a Shadow Bug was not very large. When someone was only halfway trapped, as long as they could find a way to kill the hiding Shadow Bug from the inside, the space would close and spit out anyone who had not been completely swallowed.
However, if the prey had already fallen all the way in, then even if they killed the Shadow Bug before the shadow space took their life, the only result would be that both Shadow Bug and prey vanished from this world together.
Puji actually countered Shadow Bugs quite well. If they were captured, they could just Self-Destruct; that tiny bit of shadow space gave the Shadow Bug no room to avoid the blast.
However, the premise for all of this was that the one possessing the Shadow Dissolve skill was a fragile, feeble Shadow Bug.
And now, the "bug" Norris and the others were