My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger Chapter 907 - 908: Something Bump In The Night

Having three stunning women sharing his tent deep into the night made for an impressive scene, yet Damon couldn't muster any real delight from it.

Actually, a sense of discomfort gnawed at him. Yes, discomfort—that captured it perfectly.

Seras had entered his tent, catching him yet again in an awkward spot with a young lady, though he refused to let it faze him.

What truly troubled him was Seras showing up at his tent.

"What... what brings you here," he inquired, keeping his face casually indifferent.

She shook her head.

"I considered ending your life, but your performance in the war games won me over somewhat, and now we're here. You understand the reason for my visit, right."

Damon paused to ponder the motive behind this woman's presence in his tent.

He scanned her from head to toe, then shut his eyes.

"You're roughly the same age as my mother."

Seras's eyes narrowed at his words.

Then he grinned.

"That's perfectly okay, since I prefer them seasoned enough to have raised someone like me."

Her features twisted even more in revulsion and contempt as she caught his look.

"That's not my purpose for coming. I'm here because yours is the only working bath in this wretched spot."

Damon hesitated. A smile crept onto his face as he grasped his error, but retreating wasn't an option anymore.

"Ohh... ohh, apologies. You were sending confusing vibes. I assumed you favored the youthful type. I guessed you'd been alone for ages, so you'd crave trying out a younger fellow. I... my mistake, my mistake."

He cut himself off upon sensing her icy murderous aura.

Seras folded her arms.

"I should've taken the opportunity to eliminate you. And I'm not so ancient. In truth, I'm rather youthful."

"If you insist, aunty."

She seized his throat, closing the gap in a flash.

"Repeat that. I challenge you," she murmured with chilling menace.

"Cough, cough. I didn't mean any offense. I only meant you knew my parents as friends. If my mom were alive, she'd likely insist I address you as aunty, and I'd recall you warmly as the ample-chested aunty," he yelped while she tightened her grip.

Her expression contorted more, a frosty smirk playing on her lips.

"Well done, Damon Grey. It seems every moment I endure with you only fuels my rage. Alright, alright. You've invited this torment."

"Ahhhhhhhhh!"

A shrill cry pierced the night, but it didn't originate from Damon. It echoed from beyond the tent.

Damon looked toward Seras, who released him as he melted into the shadows. Moments later, he slipped out of the tent following her.

They discovered the expedition team's members fully geared with arms, wielding radiant artifacts that lit up the shadowy woods like they anticipated an emergence, though Damon detected no threats.

A handful of squad members knelt beside an individual. These were clearly healers, their spells working desperately to preserve the person's life.

Knights and mages deploying barrier spells created a ring of defense around the group. Damon and Seras drew near.

As Damon arrived, he saw it was one of the nine hundred Seras had led. This fellow was evidently a priest. Damon hadn't spotted it earlier because of his armor and lack of temple insignia, but it turned out the temple had sent participants to this venture too.

Dark, thick veins marred his face. His breaths came in faint gasps, and odd black patterns crawled across his form.

Damon eyed Seras, her look icy.

"He's under a curse." He knelt, examining the spot where his armor was breached. Some force had inflicted this, but it wasn't any beast Damon knew.

"Did you dispatch the creature that struck him," he questioned, though it was plain they hadn't. What Damon truly sought was if they'd glimpsed it.

And as expected, the situation was as dire as he'd feared.

"We couldn't spot whatever caused this," a knight replied, staring into the gloomy woods.

Damon looked at Seras.

"This guy wasn't on night duty, so he was deep in the camp's core. Still, something slipped through all our detections and struck one of ours."

Seras crossed her arms, her demeanor frigid.

"It has to be highly cunning. It spared him when it could've finished the job, meaning it's still around. Its aim is probably to delay us, aware we wouldn't abandon one of our own to perish."

Damon squinted, his instincts for peril buzzing.

That marked the most dangerous kind of foe to face. No, a nightmare. That's the term for such clever beings in death zones. This surpassed a mere monster.

Damon was on the verge of speaking when Seras lifted her hand to silence him. She dropped to a crouch beside him and bent in, her features tense, her gaze intense.

"Do you catch that," she murmured deliberately, volume just sufficient for his ears.

Damon heard nothing. The woods lay hushed. Utterly still. Not a peep from nocturnal creatures.

His eyes flared wide with understanding.

The woods were hushed.

She spoke in a measured whisper.

"The forest. It senses our presence. It's observing us. And this is merely the start."

Her words sent every hair on his body bristling. Right then, Damon experienced that same chilling dread as awakening in the Duhu Mountains amid all those loathsome terrors eyeing you.

In that instant, Damon sensed a stare. An entity regarded him from the side, within the gloom, as though coaxing him to turn, assuring him of its nearness.

No one pierced the gloom. Except Damon.

His vision was forged in shadows. His core steeped in shadows and lit by Lazarak’s divine spark's obscurity. No gloom escaped his sight.

And as he peered into the gloom, it met his gaze.

There, along the treeline, beneath a massive tree's base, it fixed on him.

It stood tall.

No, it crouched.

It loomed near.

It lingered distant.

It fixed on Damon.

He fixed on it.

In that instant, it felt like just the pair of them remained.

Then Damon blinked.

It vanished.

Yet lingered.

Seras caught his stare, but when the glows swept over, nothing appeared but an aged tree, one among countless in the woods.