NOVEL NEXT Chapter 108 It Begins
After the grotesque dragon, Yaldabaoth finished roaring the cracks in the sky faded and the earth stopped shaking, but the sky remained red. It was then that Zero received a message from his system.
ALERT SPATIAL BARRIER DETECTED
ALL SPATIAL SHIFTS WILL BE BLOCKED AND ALL EXITS OUT OF THIS SPACE WILL BE SEALED
‘Okay, I expected this so I got everyone out early. They can’t enter or interfere. I need to buy 30 minutes. Let’s start the secret boss battle.’ thought Zero as he stretched and released all the 400 shadows he had collected until now.
Zero stood in front of his shadow army and ordered them, “Your orders are to attack that thing and keep it distracted for as long as possible. Try your best to not get hit and waste my mana if you can. This is a time battle the longer you can last the better it will be for me. Death you’re in charge.”
The shadows all then kneeled and disappeared into the ground and hid themselves. Zero then felt a shiver go down his spine as he looked up and saw Yaldabaoth looking down upon him. The creature opened its mouth and words came out, “Who are you mortal? Where is Dracula?”
Zero was nervous and he carefully observed Yaldabaoth's movement looking for a way to escape. He presented the usual cocky façade that he liked to show to his enemies and answered, “Firstly how can you talk without moving your lips.”
Yaldabaoth was beside himself at the cocky attitude and his voice boomed causing the sky and ground to shake when he said, “Insolent mortal you would dare to insult your maker! You have wasted your chance at salvation and shall now perish! Servants kill this despicable creature.”
As if brought into existence by Yaldabaoth’s mere words 5 archons appeared out of thin air. Four of the five archons all looked humanoid with pale translucent skin that glowed blue and green but unlike the 2 previous ones they had misshapen wings and a square halo above their heads mimicking angels. There was one archon in the middle of the group who seemed different having a triangle halo and was slimmer than the others.
The slim archon came forward and said in a clear voice that sent a chill down Zero’s spin, “Sinner you have offended the glorious creator and as repentance you and all who know you shall be purged from this planet.”
Zero smirked and waved for them to attack him and he responded, “What you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. If that creature is my creator then may God have mercy on himself.”
The archon raged as the blue-green lights in his body changed to a reddish-orange. He bellowed, “Blasphemous fool you dare insult our lord you shall die where you stand.”
"How could that happen?" asked Zero in a mocking tone. Zero noticed that Yaldabaoth was growling in rage.
The archons rushed at Zero who stood still as they grew closer. Unknown to all there except Zero his shadow soldiers were slowly positioning themselves to attack Yaldabaoth. AN archon reached Zero turning its hand into a spike and attempted to impale Zero who turned into a flurry of bats to avoid the attack. Now that the archons were far away from Yaldabaoth the shadows rushed through the air to attack while a 10 stayed behind to deal with the archons.
The faces of the archons twisted with rage as they attempted to rush to Yaldabaoth’s side only to be stopped by Zero and the 10 shadows in the shape of shadow knights. Feeling no need to hold back the archon turned their arms into blades and attacked. While the shadows kept the 4 regular archons preoccupied Zero focused on the slim one.
Zero extended his clawed nails and took his counter stance as prepared for battle. The slim archon lunged at Zero at a speed that Zero couldn't follow with his eye so he turned into mist and avoided the attack barely as the blade slashed the mist. Zero shifted into his turned form and noticed a slash mark on his side as he bled. The bleeding stopped a few seconds later and Zero took his stance again but this time he focused his line of sight on the archon’s legs.
Zero noticed the archon’s legs tense up and it vanished yet again. Zero dodged to the right and felt the arm being slashed as he turned and slashed with his claws at the archon’s side. As soon as Zero finished clawing the archon, Zero opened his palm. and fired a fireball point-blank harming both of them, but allowing Zero to avoid the archon’s next attack.
The archon’s shade of color switched from orange to black causing Zero to jump back further and keep up his guard. Zero noticed that the archon was not moving so he kept retreating while observing the archon in front of him only to notice that the others had also turned to the same color and they remained motionless as well.
A shockwave was felt into the sky causing Zero to quickly turn and see all his shadows being forced back down to the ground. Zero saw that the misshapen dragon was beginning to glow a golden color and felt a great sense of danger so he ordered all the shadows to converge on him.
Zero created a mana shield around him and ordered the shadows to form a barrier around him. The shadows formed countless barriers around Zero. Zero waited for what Yaldabaoth planned to do and hoped this would be enough to block it.
Yaldabaoth charged for a few more seconds and when the energy seemed to be overflowing it released a breath attack made of a beam of light aimed at Zero. The beam seemed to be harmless to the archons mysteriously but very effective against Zero’s shadow shields. The beam kept breaking through Zero’s countless layers of shadow barrier growing weaker and weaker until it finally reached his mana layer.