Chapter Forty-Eight: A Battle to the Death

“Now!”
As the monster darted in an arc, swiftly closing in on Black Feather, he unleashed his power.
“Demonic Light Waltz Slash!”
This strike, the “Waltz Slash,” was stronger and wider than ever before. The black arc spread horizontally, enveloping the entire empty room, reaching the surrounding walls. Black Feather thought the monster would have no way to escape this time, yet unexpectedly, it suddenly changed direction at lightning speed, leaping upward. Using the suction of its tentacles, it climbed onto the ceiling above, perfectly evading the attack.
“What? It dodged even that!”
Once again, Black Feather felt the gap in strength between himself and the monster. He retreated angrily, knowing that if the monster counterattacked at such close range, he would be in dire straits.
Sure enough, after the monster landed on the ceiling, several tentacles on its back shot toward Black Feather like arrows.
Black Feather retreated with all his might, leaping back again and again. The ground before his feet was punctured with dense holes, and the relentless storm of attacks drew ever closer, threatening to swallow him whole. Suddenly, another row of tentacles flew out from the monster’s back, weaving into a net behind him, leaving him nowhere to escape.
Now, Black Feather had no choice but to unleash his full power of darkness and fight with all he had. The pair of wings behind him unfurled, suddenly shielding him from the front. Blood droplets swirling around the wings instantly gathered, forming a hard shell-like shield.
“Darkness Burst!”
A surge of darkness erupted from his entire body, exploding outward from himself as the center. This move ignited all his power at once, carrying the intent of mutual destruction. Black Feather would never use it unless absolutely necessary.
“Mutual destruction!”
The monster remained unmoved. It was like a soulless, emotionless killing machine, its tentacles attacking without pause. Even though Black Feather’s wings were the strongest defense he could muster, the monster’s tentacles pierced them as easily as nails puncturing paper.
Once his defense was broken, sharp spikes pierced through Black Feather’s arms, thighs, and torso, blood gushing down his body like a fountain.
He barely managed to block a fatal strike aimed at his chest with his staff, causing it to veer off course, missing his heart by barely half an inch. One attack to his abdomen should have skewered him, but a hard object in his backpack blocked it, preventing penetration. The monster, struck by the darkness burst, remained completely unharmed.
“So strong…” Black Feather coughed up blood. “Is my only option… to risk losing control and open the second seal? Or…”

The thought of “running away” flashed through Black Feather’s mind, but was instantly erased. This monster wouldn’t even give him a chance to escape.
In the next instant, the monster simultaneously withdrew the spikes embedded in Black Feather’s body, then flickered to stand before him, pressing one sharp spike against his throat.
Black Feather fell to his knees; after the spikes were pulled out, the agony in his legs made it impossible to stand. The spike pressed to his throat brought death so close he could feel its breath.
“Is this where it ends for me…”
Black Feather closed his eyes, despairing yet calm. Suddenly, he felt there was nothing in this world worth holding onto. Thinking of Xiaoyu, he realized everything he had lost could never be recovered.
He was too careless, and in his first life-or-death battle, he suffered utter defeat.
The air grew colder around him, excessive blood loss leaving his body numb. He waited for the merciless blow that would pierce his throat, but it never came.
The monster suddenly paused, withdrew, and moved the spike away from Black Feather’s throat.
Black Feather opened his eyes and saw the face of a boy gradually retreating from him. The boy’s face was half deathly pale, half possessed by the demon, presenting a bizarre pitch-black color. He looked only five or six years old.
Screaming, clutching his head, the boy recoiled in terror, as if recalling something, howling in pain before smashing through a nearby wall and fleeing.
Black Feather was stunned by this sudden turn of events.
“How did the monster… just run away like that?”
He stared at his feet, where items from his backpack lay scattered across the floor. Among them, a pierced iron box had rolled over, and several softly glowing purple signal flares tumbled out.
What Black Feather didn’t know was that the moment the flares were scattered, they released a subsonic wave audible only to dark elves. It was this wave that had frightened the monster into retreat.
“Could it have been this thing that scared it away…?”
Still confused, Black Feather muttered to himself, surveying the items on the ground. He recalled that Ling Xiaolei had given him these signal flares from the dark elf tribe, never expecting they would save his life here.
Gathering his belongings, he picked up one flare, staring at it in bewilderment.

“Is the monster afraid of this?”
In any case, he had survived. Now he had to leave immediately; who knew when the monster might return.
Using his staff to support his blood-soaked body, blood flowed from the puncture wounds, but they were rapidly healing. His clothes were caked in dust.
He hurriedly left the research institute, climbing back over the iron mesh fence, pausing to look back. Under the moonlight, the collapsed ruins looked like a vast grave, burying countless memories, lifeless and eerie.
Yet the gates to his memory had not been fully opened.
“When I came to the institute, I must have been about six… Then before that, where was I? Who were my parents…?”
With a human body yet possessing powers of darkness, Black Feather had far too many mysteries to unravel; the answers remained shrouded in mist.
Back in his dorm, exhaustion overcame him and he slept until noon the next day.
His wounds were severe this time, so when he slowly rose from bed, Black Feather still felt intense pain. Checking his own state, he suddenly realized that after last night’s perilous battle, his own level had advanced to the middle stage of an intermediate mage. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, he focused and meditated, breaking through the barrier—a pleasant surprise that offset the disappointment of last night’s defeat.
Teacher Shi Fangcheng seemed no longer surprised by Black Feather’s tardiness.
During the afternoon’s special training class, when Black Feather arrived from afar, covered in bandages on his arms and legs, Shi continued to lecture energetically, paying him no mind.
Instead, Ling Xiaolei seized the opportunity to mock him with enthusiasm:
“Haha, you can’t manage a single day without my help! Look at you, mauled by demons!”
She even slapped him hard on his wounded arm, making Black Feather grimace and curse inwardly, “What a rotten friend!”