Chapter 1098: 1097: The Hatred of Shadows

Ilvara’s corpse lay on the surface of the sea beneath Simon’s palm.

The moment Devour touched it, Simon felt the difference.

The other two corpses had given way easily, like doors already left open. Ilvara’s corpse did not. It was colder and heavier, as though the body itself didn’t want to be touched.

Simon narrowed his eyes and pressed deeper.

As always, he began with the physical attributes.

Ilvara had been a Superior Demon King, but her body was nothing like the coral-jawed Daemon’s or the ram-horned Daemon’s. It wasn’t dense, and it wasn’t built for raw power. It was slender, light and precise, made for slipping in and out of shadows and striking before an enemy could react.

When her attributes entered his body, his agility rose the most.

His dexterity followed closely behind. His fingers felt lighter and more precise. His already quick reflexes sharpened until even the falling raindrops seemed slower than before.

His strength and constitution rose too, but only slightly.

Simon rolled his wrist and watched his fingers move.

’They’re faster now.’

He went deeper.

Beneath the physical attributes were her skills. There were many of them, far more than the other two Daemons had possessed. Most of them were shadow techniques. Shadow travel. Shadow armor. Shadow binding.

Simon ignored them, one after another.

They were powerful, but none of them were worth one of his remaining star slots.

Then he stopped.

One skill had caught his attention.

It was small and quiet, hiding deeper than the others, and it didn’t try to flee when Devour touched it. It simply watched him.

Simon examined it carefully, and as he did, the Seven Stars Blessing let him understand what it was.

Whenever Ilvara’s shadow touched another shadow, it took an imprint of it.

It recorded the shape of the one who cast that shadow. Their movements. Their stances. The way they fought.

Simon’s brows rose slightly.

’So that’s how her shadow clone fought like a person. And that’s why her shadow army still fought like they did in life.’

It wasn’t a skill for attacking or defending.

It was a skill for taking. For looking at what belonged to someone else, wanting it, and making a copy of it.

And it made Simon think of Shadow Eyes.

Shadow Eyes let him see through shadows and sense what hid within them. It let him watch his enemies without being seen.

But it only let him see.

This skill let him take.

If the two were fused, he would be able to look into another person’s shadow and see far more than where they were. He would see what they could do. And whatever he saw, he believed that his shadow would be able to imprint and imitate, at least partially.

Simon’s eyes gleamed.

He had worried for some time that Shadow Eyes would become less useful as he grew stronger. He wouldn’t always be hiding and spying on others. A day would come when he would rarely need it at all.

But this would change that.

He seized the skill with Devour.

It didn’t resist.

The rune slid into his body and flew straight to the star that held Shadow Eyes, as though it already knew where it belonged.

Simon split a portion of his attention into his sea of consciousness.

Inside the star, the two runes circled each other.

He didn’t hesitate.

Mental energy poured from his sea of consciousness into the star. He saturated both runes with it, then pressed his Will against them and pushed them together.

There was barely any resistance.

The two runes were compatible, and they both came from the shadow element. They drew toward each other on their own once he started.

Thirty percent.

Sixty percent.

One hundred percent.

The two runes merged into a single rune shaped like an eye half sunk into shadow, its pupil narrowed like a thin crescent.

A name rose in Simon’s mind, carried by a faint stream of information from the star.

Eyes of Envy.

Simon looked at the rune for a moment.

’Envy, huh.’

Then he felt the star begin to tremble, and a dark light gathered inside it.

The baptism.

But a moment later, the light held still. It didn’t descend. The star simply hung there, glowing quietly, as though it was waiting.

’It knows I’m still using Devour.’

Simon withdrew his attention from his sea of consciousness and focused back on the corpse.

Because the most important thing was still left.

Her shadow affinity.

He went deeper into her body than he ever had with any other corpse. Deeper than with Elder Mulon. Deeper than with Thorgan.

And then he found it.

It wasn’t a stream or a current like the water affinity had been.

It was an abyss.

Endless, silent and impossibly deep, it filled the deepest layer of her body like a sea that had no bottom. The moment Simon touched it, he understood that Ilvara’s shadow affinity was at least Peak S grade.

If he was right, it went beyond the S grade, like Sonya’s earth affinity.

Simon’s breathing slowed.

His own shadow affinity was only High C.

If he could take even a portion of this, the gain would be enormous.

He reached for it.

The abyss rejected him.

It wasn’t like the other affinities, which had tried to slip away or hide. This one pushed back. A wave of cold surged up through Devour, through his palm and into his arm, and it was so cold that frost crept over his skin despite his ice affinity.

And with the cold came something else.

Hatred.

Simon felt it clearly. It wasn’t Ilvara’s hatred. She was dead, and her Will had already faded. This came from the shadow element itself.

It hated him.

Simon frowned.

’Why?’

Was it because he had killed Thorgan, who had the potential to become the next Shadow Monarch?

Or because he had killed Ilvara, a Shadow Walker whose affinity went beyond the S grade?

Or was it something else entirely?

He didn’t know.

And right now, it didn’t matter.

Simon pressed forward.

His Seed of Gluttony flared, strengthening Devour’s pull. His Seed of Pride steadied his mind as the cold and hatred pressed against it.

The abyss lashed back. The shadow beneath Simon’s body writhed on the surface of the sea as though it were trying to tear itself away from him.

He failed once.

Twice.

Ten times.

Each time, the corpse beneath his palm crumbled a little more. Each time, the Seven Stars Blessing guided him, and he learned a little more about how the abyss moved and where it was weak.

On the seventeenth attempt, Devour closed around a portion of it.

And he pulled.

The abyss screamed.

It wasn’t a sound. It was a feeling, a silent howl that shook through his chaos pathways. Then the stolen portion of it tore free and poured into Simon’s body.

Darkness flooded his veins.

It sank into his demonic pathways and crashed into his existing shadow affinity, swallowing it whole, then expanding outward in every direction.

Simon gritted his teeth as his body shook.

His shadow affinity rose.

Past the C grade.

Past the B grade.

It finally stopped at High A grade.

It had climbed two whole grades.

Simon exhaled slowly, steam rising from his breath into the rain.

’Interesting… And this is only from a portion of her affinity.’

Simon clenched and unclenched his fists. Then, while he still had her body, he turned to her sins.

Most of what he could perceive were faint. But one wasn’t.

Wrath.

It was crimson and heavy, burning with the hatred of an older sister who had come all this way to avenge her younger brother.

’It seems her main sin is… sloth? Unfortunately, I don’t have the seed of sloth yet.’

Simon devoured it. The Seven Stars Blessing purified it, and he fed it to his Seed of Wrath. The red light within its black shell flared brighter.

Then Ilvara’s demonic energy flooded his body.

There was a lot of it. Far more than the other two combined.

Simon didn’t refine it yet just like he did for the other two daemons. He held it inside his body. His newly strengthened shadow affinity would make her demonic energy easier to refine and make his own, but he would do that later.

Beneath his palm, Ilvara’s corpse finally collapsed.

It turned to grey ash.

The rain fell on the ashes and carried them into the sea.

Simon looked at the empty water for a moment.

Then he closed his eyes and entered his sea of consciousness.

The moment he appeared there, the star containing Eyes of Envy shone.

It had been waiting for him.

A thick ray of black light descended from the star and swallowed him whole.

And everything went dark.

It wasn’t the darkness of closed eyes or a moonless night.

It was absolute.

There was no light. No sound. No ground beneath his feet and no sky above his head. Simon could not see his own hands.

But he could feel it.

He was not alone.

Something was in the darkness with him.

No.

Many things.

’What?’

This reminded him of Ilvara’s Chaos Manifestation, but at the same time, it did not.

At first, there was nothing to see. Then Simon noticed that the darkness around him was not perfectly still. In several places, it was a little thicker and a little heavier.

Then he saw shapes.

They stood all around him… silent, motionless, and close enough to touch.

One of them leaned toward him.

Simon didn’t move.

Then the eyes opened and he realized that there were thousands of them.

They opened all around him at once, pale and empty, without pupils, filling the darkness in every direction like stars in a black sky.

Every single one was looking at him.

Simon’s breathing stopped.

Then he felt something cold close around his ankle.

A hand.

Another wrapped around his wrist. Another touched the back of his neck. Fingers of shadow slid across his shoulders, his back, his face. They didn’t grip him tightly. They just held him, cold and patient, as though they had all the time in the world.

’What in the world is going on? This has never happened before. Isn’t this a vision?’

Just as Simon heard this thought, he heard it.

A voice.

It was old. Older than anything Simon had ever heard. It didn’t come from any direction. It came from everywhere, from the darkness itself, from the shapes and the eyes and the hands holding him.

"Thief."

The word sank into his bones.

"You killed the one who would have worn my crown."

The hands tightened slightly.

"You killed the one who walked within me."

Simon’s jaw clenched.

"And now you wear what you stole from them."

The pale eyes drew closer. The shapes leaned in. The darkness became heavier, pressing down on him until he could feel it against his skin like the weight of deep water.

"Enjoy it, little thief."

The voice became softer, almost gentle. And for some reason, Simon had a feeling that this was worse.

"Shadows do not forget. Shadows are patient."

A cold breath brushed against his ear.

"And one day, you will stand in the dark with nowhere left to run. I will be there waiting."

Simon finally spoke.

"Who are you?"

The darkness went silent.

For a long moment, nothing moved.

Then, from somewhere deep within the dark, the voice spoke.

"Shadow."

The voice was much lower and sounded more ancient than before, but before Simon could respond, every one of the pale eyes closed at once.

The hands let go.

The black light shattered.

Simon’s eyes snapped open.

He was sitting on the surface of the sea again, rain falling around him, his breath ragged and his body soaked in cold sweat.

Beneath him, his shadow was trembling.

And the baptism was over.