“Ocean Sky Fortress?” Silvia tilted her head a little.
“Isn’t that one of the hardest level 50 dungeons?! You need a party to even kill one of the monsters in there!” She widened her eyes when she realised that they were talking about THAT Ocean Sky Fortress.
“I know. But that’s better for us.” Lyrica smiled knowingly.
They had chosen the Ocean Sky Fortress due to this fact.
“Yup. Since Shiro has the power to solo monsters with ease, we should have the same kind of power or else we would just be holding her back.” Madison followed up.
“But isn’t that too dangerous?!” Silvia exclaimed at their recklessness.
“Hehe~ Which is why we have life saving items and you to help us.” Lyrica grinned.
“Plus, if we get stronger, we’ll be able to synergise with Shiro better. Without us holding her back, our entire party’s efficiency will go up.” Madison agreed.
“…” Silvia was speechless.
‘What is this party?’ She asked herself. The normal procedure would be everyone making sure that they could actually handle a dungeon before attempting it. Not to mention, challenging a level 50 dungeon with two level 40 odds was just borderline insane and not to mention suicidal.
“Aiya, just look at your expression. Don’t worry, everything is going to be okay.” Lyrica smiled.
“Plus, we had to solo bosses when we were level 20 right Madi? This is just the usual.”
“I’m still annoyed at that you know? You two just watched as I, a tanker, fought the boss alone. My damage was complete trash back then.” Madison clicked her tongue a little. Back then, she didn’t have her current class so her damage output was lower. Not only that, but all her stat points were allocated to focus around defence.
Watching the two go over their adventures, Silvia couldn’t help but feel a twitch creeping up on her eye.
‘What the hell is this abnormal party???’ She thought to herself. However, she could really use a change of pace right now.
“Fine, when are we leaving?” She asked.
“Right now.” Lyrica smiled and stood up.
Leading the pseudo party to the dungeon, they arrived at the dungeon entrance.
“Well are you all prepped?” Lyrica asked Silvia. Since they hadn’t entered a dungeon with just Silvia, she wanted to double check just in case anything went wrong later on.
“I’m stocked on MP potions.” Silvia nodded.
“Oh, try not to use potions unless you absolutely need to. There may be problems later down the line.” Lyrica warned.
“Alright.”
Seeing that Silvia was prepared, the party entered the dungeon with just the three of them. Much to the confusion of the surrounding people.
“Did…. Did three beauties just enter the dungeon by themselves?” Someone asked out loud.
“Suicidal!!!”
“Why didn’t anyone stop them?!”
“Well we didn’t think they would be stupid enough to enter with just three people!?”
“Well apparently they are!”
“Che, what a pity.”
Naturally, the party was unaware of the commotion they had caused.
When they arrived inside the dungeon, they saw that they were currently in a room with windows showing them the ‘outside’ world.
Silvia glanced outside the windows before looking back at Lyrica and Madison. However, she was surprised to see their aura change drastically. Neither of them were joking around nor relaxed.
Their face was serious as their eyes were constantly looking around to make sure that they were safe.
“The dungeon is pretty linear. Let’s go.” Lyrica said seriously before pulling out her weapon. Madison nodded as black mist coated her body.
Since it was just the three of them, they had the choice of either killing the monsters quickly with the combined attack power of her and Lyrica or, they could wear it down slowly.
Naturally, she chose the upfront and aggressive tactic of killing them quickly.
Holding a giant axe like nothing, Madison loosened up her joints so that she could be more flexible in battle.
“Eh? Are you not tanking?” Silvia asked.
“Mn? Well no since we would be at a disadvantage. Since there are only three of us, we can’t fight prolonged battles or else we’ll be too vulnerable. Therefore, we’ll fight short battles that end the monster quickly.” Madison explained.
“Right…”
While she wasn’t wrong, it only applied to a single powerful adventurer in a lower level dungeon. That way they could exhibit their full power without wasting their stamina on low levelled enemies.
However, they were lower level than the dungeon so the tactic shouldn’t be applied here.
“I really feel like that wouldn’t work though.” Silvia said with worry.
“Hm… Well we can see how the first fight turns out. We’ll make some changes depending on what happens.” Lyrica said as she finished stretching her body.
Nodding at the two, she took the lead and charged down the corridor.
Not too long after charging out, they found the first monster.
She only briefly glanced at the stats before ignoring them.
“HAA!!” She shouted out as she twisted her body and sent out a wave of fire towards the monster.
Madison wasn’t too far behind. She was currently leaping through the air whilst twisting her body to increase her momentum.
“HYA!”
*BOOM!!!
With Lyrica slashing the monster horizontally and Madison cleaving it in half, they killed it with relative ease.
“That should have warned the rest of them. Keep your guard up.” Lyrica said with a frown. The battle was a little louder than she had hoped but it wasn’t too bad. At worse, it would have attracted the attention of more than two monsters.
Even then, they had their ways to deal with both of them.
As for Silvia, she was speechless. She couldn’t believe what she had seen.
‘Did the two of them almost instant kill a level 50 monster?!’ She thought in shock.
If these two had improved so much in the short time they hadn’t met, she couldn’t even begin to imagine how much Shiro had improved.
“Ah?! Wait for me!” She shouted out when she realised that both Lyrica and Madison had left her behind during her musing and quickly ran after them.
Meanwhile…
“WILL YOU STOP TARGETING MY ASS!!!” Shiro shouted out, dodging another strike from her shadow.
The entire time she had been fighting, the shadow had demonstrated ways of using her abilities that she hadn’t thought of. HOWEVER, its main attack was still targeting her ass.
Twisting her body to avoid an attack, she flexed her fingers and created a handful of daggers before throwing them towards her shadow.
*BANG BANG BANG BANG!
The shadow shot the daggers out of the air with ease.
“Bingo.” Shiro grinned before snapping her fingers.
With the snapping of her fingers, the shards of the daggers exploded and sent out a wave of sound which harmonised to activate alongside her cold illusion.
Unlike last time, Shiro was prepared and created a misty forest filled with ice trees and a severe drop in visibility.
Suppressing her presence, Shiro created a hand cannon and aimed at her shadow.
However, before she could even fire, she had to grit her teeth and quickly bend backwards to avoid the ice spike that had suddenly pierced towards her face.
‘How?!’ She quickly asked herself. Her presence was as little as it could be, not to mention, she had even used an illusion to confuse her shadow.
Flipping her body backwards, Shiro widened her eyes when she realised that the ground beneath her was completely coated with a layer of ice.
‘She sensed me through the ice. Cleaver shadow.’ Shiro thought as she didn’t think she could use her ice as an extra sensory option during moments when her senses were hindered.
“Time to finish this.” Shiro said seriously. She was going to throw everything she got at her shadow since she didn’t have much mana left.
Stomping down hard on the ground, Shiro caused a slab of ice to lift up in front of her as she roundhouse kicked the slab to break it into several pieces which then morphed into spears.
She flicked her wrist and sent the ice spears towards her shadow while she created a dagger and a hand cannon.
*BANG BANG!
Shooting twice, which her shadow dodged with ease, Shiro watched as her shadow create a magic circle that expanded across the sky.
Flinching slightly, she noticed that all the ice in the area had fallen under her shadow’s control.
“Oh sh*t…” Shiro muttered as everything switched targets and aimed for her.
Knowing that the situation was dire, Shiro erased all emotion on her face and morphed her gun into a dagger.
Twirling both daggers nimbly along her fingers, Shiro slashed apart all the ice spears that shot towards her.
Yin Style Phantom Arts: 2nd Phantom + 3rd Phantom.
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Gliding across the battlefield, Shiro arrived in front of her shadow who had a slightly creepy grin that unnerved even Shiro.
*BOOM!!!
A dense wave of killing intent blasted her backwards, forcing her to flip her body in mid air.
Quickly looking forwards, Shiro tried to track her shadow but widened her eyes when she saw her shadow in front of her with a nano tech sword piercing towards her eyes.
Faded Snow Movement!
However, the shadow wasn’t fazed by the fact that her attack missed and instead glided the sword downwards to attack the non-affected areas.
But Shiro was given enough to time clasp her hands and set off and explosion of ice in front of her which forced the two of them apart.
Gracelessly rolling across the ground, she slammed her palm into the ground and shifted onto her feet.
“Ok I have so many questions right now!” Shiro said as she gritted her teeth.
This trial had literally constructed a shadow that knew how to use all of her abilities to their maximum potential.
Not only that, but there were spells that she had no idea she could use. Example being the ability her shadow used to take control of all the ice in the area.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t given the time to contemplate about her questions since her shadow decided to activate the 5th form of their martial arts.
Yin Style Phantom Arts: 5th Phantom – Soul Stealing Phantom.
A dark aura enveloped her shadow. Her eyes, cold without emotion.
Shiro frowned since 5th Phantom was a risky move of the Yin Style Phantom Arts hence why she hadn’t used the skill yet.
The skill requires the user to give themselves up to their darkest emotions and allow that to control their bodies. Whilst this was happening, the user needed to make sure that their mind is clear and adaptive to make sure that they aren’t consumed by their own ‘phantom’.
When they are consumed, there is little to no chance of escape. Rather than stealing someone else’s soul, your own soul is stolen from you.
Not to mention, the stronger the user, the harder it is to resist the phantom. During the Shadow Temple quest, she had only managed to pull this skill off successfully once and that was under the tutelage of Fei Ling. Her teacher, friend and subordinate in the quest.
However, the power granted from the form could only be described as incredible. Not only are her senses enhanced to their limits, but 50% of her stats will also temporarily be converted to assist in pure attack and no defence.
But that only happened when the system grants her the title of Yin Style Phantom Arts Practitioner.
Furrowing her brows, Shiro took a deep breath and decided to push herself to her very limits. Creating two hand cannons along with some nanotech armour, Shiro charged at her shadow that was trying to use 5th phantom.
*BANG BANG BANG!
Shooting at the head and other weak points, Shiro made no change in expression when she saw her shadow deflect the bullets out the air with just bare hands.
Bringing her two guns together, she morphed them into a spear and stabbed towards the shadow.
With the added pressure of trying to survive Shiro’s relentless pursuit and trying to activate 5th phantom, her shadow started to lose her advantage.
However, Shiro didn’t loosen up her attack even when victory was close at hand because she knew how easy it was to turn the tables the moment the 5th phantom was activated.
‘The final blow!’ She thought when she saw her Shadow forcefully stop the activation of 5th phantom.
Unfortunately for her, the shadow only smiled with glee.
A horrendous aura exploded around her as Shiro could see a giant magic circle activating all around her. The power of the magic circle far outstripped her strongest skill in her arsenal, which was Frozen Slumber.
The power rivalled that of Tier 3 spells which should have been impossible with her broken links.
“You’ve constructed this from the start of the battle…” Shiro muttered in shock. With small tier 1 and tier 2 magic circles piling on top of each other since the start of the battle, it was no wonder it could exceed the power of tier 3. Not to mention, she had plenty of time to take breaks in between to sooth her links.
Gritting her teeth, Shiro stabbed towards her shadow one last time before the spell could activate.
Seeing the shadow dodge, she converted a part of the spear into a hand cannon and fired it.
*BANG!
Unfortunately for her, the bullet missed the head and instead blasted the ear off.
*BOOM!!!
Just as she missed her shot, a giant blizzard smashed downwards into her as if it was the wrath of an ice god. Each snowflake that touched her would freeze her body before shattering into shards of ice.
*BANG!
“GAH!”
She was forced out of her trial and smashed against the tree which caused her to spit out a mouthful of blood.
Panting heavily, Shiro could feel that she was on the verge of fainting.
“Outsmarted and outperformed by my shadow…” She frowned before blacking out.
