My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger Chapter 923 - 924: Breaking The Equilibrium.

Damon had no idea what Iris and Luna were up to.

He remained unaware that a specter from his history was stirring awake.

Truth rode like an iron steed, and regardless of how desperately one upheld a barrier of deceptions, truth would charge ahead on its iron hooves, shattering those falsehoods to pieces.

However, today wasn't the moment for that, and the hidden truths he had interred would stay concealed.

For the time being.

No soul would discover it.

Since everyone who might reveal it lay dead.

Damon's hand began to rot away.

His left eye had vanished.

He possessed just one hand now. The other he shrouded in shadows, concealing the spot where a mangled stump ought to be.

The night loomed dark and teeming with terrors.

This particular one served as a bearer of illumination.

In the presence of light, it became visible.

And everyone who glimpsed it fell under its sway.

Damon took the most logical course of action.

He enveloped the shining treetops in gloom and shadows.

Gloom resembled shadow, so he drew upon its strength. He activated Darkness Dominate alongside his shadow manipulation to engulf the treetops and the indistinct shape of the terror lurking inside.

And as he performed that—

They unleashed their strikes.

The woods stood utterly black, yet nobody risked lighting it up.

No one wished to behold what lurked within that gloom.

The being in the treetops answered back.

It responded without delay.

It lifted its various limbs and tore through the gloom and shadows.

The shadows fought back.

They resisted fiercely.

They endured.

But in every spot the light grazed—

Death followed.

"Don’t look into the canopy when it’s bright." Kael yelled while his hands summoned a blob of darkness to devour the approaching glow.

Seras swung her hand, carving the air with her tachi, severing unseen dangers as sparks flew from her sword.

Damon got hurled through the air.

A slender hand, resembling that of a withered elderly woman, extended toward him via the shredded curtain of shadows.

He spun in mid-flight, narrowly evading its clutch.

Nevertheless, his arm dissolved into a mist of blood.

The cloud of his own blood surged into his nostrils and mouth, causing him to gag as the metallic haze filled his lungs instead of breath.

The trees swayed and trembled with fury.

This proved the toughest challenge for him.

For Damon could perceive in the gloom.

He could peer through the shadows.

The hazy outline of an entity draped in splintered light and shadow leaped from branch to branch, darting with eerie speed, aiming straight for him.

Seras positioned herself as a barrier between it and him.

Damon’s knights linked their shields to create a protective ring around him, while the mages hurled spells at random, unleashing wild bursts of mana toward the treetops.

The beast in the canopy struck once more.

The shadows shredded like cloth beneath talons.

Light beamed downward.

Gleaming.

Sacred.

A knight bellowed to his mage ally.

"Hition, move away... look away..."

But it came too late.

Hition spun around.

His eyes gradually bleached to white.

Then he uttered—

"Sorry..."

His skin peeled away from his body and hurled toward his companion, smacking soddenly against his torso.

His muscles stripped from the bones.

What lingered upright was a slender, fleshy frame with organs still pulsing vividly, as though the form hadn't comprehended its demise yet.

Damon clenched his teeth while recollections surged through his mind.

He disregarded the torment from his absent eye.

As the raid clash dragged further into the darkness of night, he stumbled aside when a corpse flew in his direction.

Damon extended his arm and seized the fellow on reflex.

A foul reek of blood permeated the atmosphere.

The man’s gaze locked in terror as the shine dimmed from his eyes.

Damon glanced downward.

His innards were sliding out from the remains.

Or at least half of what ought to have been his remains.

Blood drenched Damon’s boots, climbing up to his knees.

It was dreadful.

This scene was utterly dreadful.

These represented human lives.

The shadows overhead ripped open anew as his mana and shadow energy got yanked away by the entity.

Damon sensed the dual forces in his core tensing up.

They pressed against the barrier of shadow energy dividing them.

They had intensified.

Should they collide—

He would burst apart and perish in a colossal blast of infernal and holy power.

He ground his teeth as he tumbled next to the wounded and twisted form of a knight who had collapsed while shielding him.

His shield lay in fragments nearby.

The knight murmured faintly.

When Damon crouched low, his hearing picked up the fractured phrases.

The knight kept murmuring over and over—

Run, my lord, we will hold the line.

Damon halted.

His jaw tightened.

He had been the one pushing to battle this creature rather than simply withstand it.

His arrogance had led here.

This was the Evil Forest.

Monsters of this caliber abounded.

If they clashed with each one they met—

All of them would perish long before sighting the sea.

Their goal wasn't domination.

It was to persist.

To endure.

To arrive at the Demon Continent undetected by the Demon Kings.

"I... I..." Damon pressed his surviving hand to his chest. "...I will end this..."

The fight had already ignited.

Fleeing no longer served as a choice.

Just one route lay ahead.

Damon needed to offer a sacrifice.

At that instant, memories of the system’s explanation for the Sacrifice skill surfaced in his thoughts, enabling him to swap his attributes forever for shadow energy.

"The Children of Aetherus offered everything they owned and even what they lacked to mysterious Strangers from outside their realm. They craved wisdom, strength, and secrets beyond mortal reach. But no amount of yielding sufficed. Their once-vibrant world turned desolate and ruined, their offerings consumed, abandoning them to nothing but sorrow and endless yearning.

This tainted inheritance persists, preying on the desires of those willing to forfeit all for a brief glimpse of the impossible."

The impossible.

That was the force Damon intended to wield against this abomination.

He had grasped the impossible within his soul.

He held both infernal energy and holy energy.

Damon commanded these forces.

He simply feared employing them.

Disrupting the balance in his core would spell dire peril.

If his holy energy faltered, his shift into a demon would advance.

If it surged too powerfully, his own holy essence would obliterate his heart.

One could embody a deity or a fiend.

Not the pair.

Unless—

You embodied the Unknown God.

Damon delved inside and contacted his holy essence.

‘I can’t beseech those genuine deities... but I summon you, Lazarak; if you’re present, aid me...’

He merged his holy energy with his mana and shadow energy.

The shadows blanketing the canopy abruptly transformed.

They erupted with ferocity.

A crushing holy presence swept over the Evil Forest.

The realm of night yielded.

To the essence of divinity.