Chapter 5183: Leaping Into Shadows
Chapter 5183: Leaping Into Shadows
Illumina weaved between countless corpses and rivers of blood. Wherever there was a shadow, she hopped and pounced with lightning speed. Evelynn felt like she was simply flying despite the bumpy ride, jumping in and out of shadows.
The icy nexus that encompassed the world also missed them as they had long sped past that point.
But after making their way to the rear of the Hydra army, they had slowed their pace or risk getting caught.
The enemies here grew more powerful the farther they advanced.
Countless war formations, constructs, and mazes also threatened to hamper their path.
Even so, there were traces of battalions in these places, indicating that the human army did enter deep into the enemy lines before they were decimated.
Evelynn felt like she could only see such reckless bravery on the battlefields.
Some battalions wanted to make a suicide charge at the wormhole, intending to poison it just like her. The Six-Headed Hydra Upper Realm was also a realm filled with poison. Poison cultivators and poison beasts were as common as rice in a paddy. Even in the opposing army, they seemed to be quite common, each of their bloodline giving her a strange sensation of provocation.
Her third eye continuously twitched as the scent of blood increasingly got to her head, making her feel strange voices in her head.
"How far?" Davis’s voice echoed in her head.
Evelynn turned to look back. She couldn’t see him anymore due to the ice mountain range created by the Frostcloud Sword Empress blocking her sight, but she held a part of his avatar’s soul within her grasp. She was unable to communicate through the hex because it wasn’t the main body, after all. Hence, with his soul, she was still able to engage with the avatar as a relay to engage with the main body, but the main body was still out of range.
In any case, with the communication to the avatar established, she said, "At our current speed, it won’t take five minutes to get to the most optimal center of the wormhole, but that is under the notion we don’t get delayed by this army or even crushed by this overpowering Nine-Headed Hydra. The pressure... is glaring... but manageable since most of it is focused on the Frostcloud Sword Empress."
"I’ll keep grabbing everyone’s attention, including that Realm Master. Don’t you worry. Just make it there safely and unleash the poison."
"Okay."
Evelynn nodded softly while Illumina practically jumped on a tortoise’s head and then pounced into the ground, disappearing.
"Ehh? Eh? What!? Was I imagining things?" That tortoise looked around, unable to see or sense what jumped on its head.
Illumina paused for a moment. Her rabbit form surfaced above a shadow of a cart, looking around but seeing no way to move ahead since she seemed to have entered a camp where eyes were everywhere.
Just as she waited for a few seconds, her pupils dilated.
As expected, she couldn’t escape the gaze of a Realm Beast whose soul sense was actively prying into the battlefield.
She didn’t hesitate anymore.
She unleashed one of her clones and hopped into another shadow again, continuing to move forward.
"What?"
"Enemy attac-poh!~"
A humanoid wolf with a staunch back bent like a bow as a leg punched a hole through him and escaped through the other side, heading towards the Frostcloud Sword Empress to help her.
*Ripp!~*
Illumina’s clone in her human formed ripped through the crowd, leaving rivers of blood in her wake.
She moved like a phantom of slaughter, twisting her waist and kicking off the head of a poison-armored soldier before descending amidst a formation of poison cultivators. Her nails elongated into black crescent claws as she spun.
*Shrrkkk!*
A circular wave of darkness exploded outward.
Dozens of cultivators were bisected at the waist as blood fountained into the air. They didn’t have any time to respond as they were facing a threat at the near-layer limit.
A giant serpent beast opened its maw and released a torrent of poisonous water toward her.
Illumina’s lips curled like a nightmare from the abyss.
That uncanny smile’s shadow didn’t stop extending past her lips as it engulfed her head before she rushed up with a kick to the ground. The torrent passed harmlessly through empty space before her silhouette emerged beneath the serpent.
She drove her palm upward.
*Boom!*
Darkness erupted, causing the serpent’s head to explode into countless fragments as its corpse collapsed amidst the crowd.
Before anyone could surround her, another Illumina clone appeared, ripping them apart and taking a different route.
A third Illumina appeared and then a fourth.
The real Illumina, with Evelynn on her back, did not linger after exposing herself. Instead, she continuously produced clones while moving through the shadows.
Each clone only possessed a fraction of her strength, yet even that fraction was terrifying enough to massacre ordinary beasts cultivators at the Low and Mid Exalt Stage easily.
Some darted toward the Frostcloud Sword Empress directly, but most took other routes as they headed towards various barbaric battalions.
One clone leaped onto a colossal siege beast resembling a hundred-kilometer-wide turtle.
Her foot descended, and her claws sank.
*Bang!*
Darkness spread across its shell as the claws nearly shattered it.
The formation engraved upon its back shattered. Thousands of enemy soldiers lost their footing as cracks spread through the armored beast construct. It came close to exploding from the crystals on the verge of an explosion from overload.
Another clone appeared amidst a group of tiger warriors.
She grasped one by the throat and used him as a weapon, swinging his body through the air.
Bones shattered, flesh burst apart.
She kicked off his corpse and plunged into the crowd.
*Ripp!~*
Blood blossomed continuously as every clone fought with reckless abandon.
Every clone advanced toward the Frostcloud Sword Empress in their own way, but their purpose was simple - to distract and draw attention while allowing the real Illumina to advance unnoticed lest the other pesky Peak Exalt Beast come to bar her path.
On the command platform, Realm Master Felza Nyssadra’s gaze was mostly on the Frostcloud Sword Empress and the other four Realm Masters. They had reached a stalemate so quickly, but it seemed like the ice Divergent wouldn’t be able to hold out for long due to the pure difficulty of fighting four Realm Master Hydras.
Fighting four Realm Master Hydras might just as well be fighting thirty-two of them. After all, they had nine souls, each one taking the fall for every death. They wouldn’t die until nine souls were cut down, but for them who possessed an endless amount of energy because of their water attribute, fighting this battle for long wasn’t a problem, unlike humans.
Nonetheless, two of her nine heads couldn’t help but turn to look at the black-white rabbit moving through the shadows.
For a moment, she wondered what a denizen of the Nether Dimension was doing here, but seeing it making its way towards the Galaxy Wormhole, she narrowed her eyes.
Only then did she find a fey stuck on the rabbit’s back like a spider.
’Strange...’
Realm Master Felza Nyssadra’s first thought was to investigate, but she couldn’t be bothered. It was important that they get back the Realm Master, or their face would be lost in this war. Instead, she directly waved her hand, sending random attacks at the rabbit with a wave of her claws.
"...!"
Illumina’s scalp turned numb.
She was already very close to the Galaxy Wormhole, and therefore, far closer to Realm Master Felza Nyssadra than she had ever wished to be.
The moment those enormous claws moved, the surrounding darkness warped.
They were not ordinary attacks since each slash carried the concentrated might of a Realm Beast infused with Darkness Laws and the power of a Nine-Headed Hydra’s poison refined over countless years.
Space tore at the advent of these claws that came at her haphazardly.
Four crescent arcs of darkness expanded across the battlefield like the descent of a calamity. Everywhere they passed, armies vanished as the battalion of beasts was shredded. Warships and constructs split in two and fours. The attacks did not distinguish between friend and foe and came right for her.
"Illumina!"
Evelynn sank into the shadows as she watched Illumina throw her away before getting mauled by those deadly dark crescent arcs.
The former cried out as she reached out her hand, but there was nothing else but darkness.
Within the darkness, a shadow crept up underneath her and hopped out of a shadow, returning to the real world.
"Illumina!~" Evelynn held worriedly as she held Illumina again fondly.
"Don’t worry. What got killed was my clone as I substituted. Should buy us a few seconds~"
Illumina said as she kept hopping, still continuing to head for the Galaxy Wormhole.
Evelynn’s brows twitched in response, but her third eye twitched even crazier. The hex pupil in it seemed disarrayed, reverberating constantly and giving her an immense headache. She barely managed to keep her focus by clenching her teeth.
"Annoying rabbit~"
The third and fourth, even the fifth heads of Realm Master Felza Nyssadra, turned to look at the rabbit, her enormous pressure abruptly arcing from suppressing the Frostcloud Sword Empress to converging on the rabbit.
"...!"
Illumina came to a stop as though she had entered a swamp.
But unbeknownst to both of them, Evelynn let out a shriek as she gazed up.
Her third eye explosively glowed with yellow-crimson light, causing the innumerable blood essences in the air to be offered up as a sacrifice.
When the blood essences exploded, the manifestation of a terrifying Evilbane Hexweaver Arachnid descended as it screeched furiously at her.
*Ripp!~*
Space tore open, and a crimson line appeared in space as it extended right before the wormhole.
Instantly, countless crimson beings that could only be described as demons and devils with a sick face and wicked laughter rushed out.
Realm Master Felza Nyssadra’s scalp turned numb!
A crack to the Asura Dimension had opened here!?
Instantly, she waved her claw again, trying to end that wretched spider that seemingly brought about this mess from nowhere.
However, the crimson line expanded as a huge spider’s head tore through, slashing with its own scythe.
"...!"
Realm Master Felza Nyssadra was shocked.
This huge spider blocked her attack!?
No, it wasn’t a Realm Beast Stage spider. Instead, her connection to her own Realm Core had been cut off by the sudden intrusion of the Asura Dimension in this space, causing her to lose power!