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.

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

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

For the time being.

No one would find out.

Since everyone who could reveal it was gone.

Damon's hand rotted away.

His left eye had vanished.

He possessed just one hand, while the other he concealed beneath shadows in place of a mangled stump.

The night loomed dark and teeming with terrors.

This particular one bore illumination.

In the presence of light, it became visible.

And everyone who glimpsed it fell under its sway.

Damon took the most logical action.

He enveloped the shining treetops in gloom and shadows.

Gloom resembled shadow, allowing him to harness its force. He activated Darkness Dominate alongside his shadow manipulation to engulf the treeline and the indistinct shape of the terror lurking inside.

And as he performed this—

Their assaults came flying.

The woods lay utterly black, yet nobody risked lighting them up.

Nobody wished to behold what lurked in that gloom.

The being in the treetops replied.

It responded without delay.

It lifted its limbs or whatever they were and tore through the gloom and shadows.

The shadows pushed back.

They fought fiercely.

They endured.

But anywhere the light struck—

Death followed.

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

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

Damon got hurled through the air.

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

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

Even so, his arm dissolved into a mist of blood.

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

The trees swayed and trembled fiercely.

This proved the toughest challenge for him.

For Damon could perceive in the dark.

He could peer through the shadows.

The hazy outline of an entity wrapped in splintered light and shadow leaped between trees, darting at unnatural speed in an attempt to get to him.

Seras positioned herself as a barrier between it and him.

Damon’s knights linked their shields and created a protective circle around him, as the mages hurled spells haphazardly, unleashing furious bursts of mana at the treeline.

The beast in the canopy struck once more.

The shadows tore like cloth beneath talons.

Light beamed downward.

Glorious.

Sacred.

A knight shouted at his mage ally.

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

But it was already too late.

Hition spun around.

His eyes gradually whitened.

Then he formed the words—

"Sorry..."

His skin peeled off his body and hurled toward his companion, splattering damply on his torso.

His muscles stripped from the bones.

What stayed upright was a slender, fleshy framework with organs still pulsing and vital, as though the form hadn't grasped its own demise.

Damon clenched his teeth while recollections surged through him.

He disregarded the pain from his absent eye.

As the raid fight pressed further into the night, he stumbled aside when a corpse hurtled his way.

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 from the remains.

Or from half of what ought to have been his remains.

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

It was dreadful.

This was utterly dreadful.

These were human lives at stake.

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

Damon sensed the dual powers in his core straining hard.

They pressed against the barrier of shadow energy dividing them.

They had intensified.

Should they collide—

He would burst apart and perish in a huge blast of demonic and divine 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.

He murmured faintly.

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

He 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.

He had acted with hubris.

This was the Evil Forest.

Creatures like this abounded.

If they clashed with each one they met—

All of them would perish before arriving at the sea.

Their goal wasn't domination.

It was to persist.

To endure.

To arrive at the Demon Continent without rousing the Demon Kings.

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

The fight had already commenced.

Fleeing was no longer possible.

Just one route lay ahead.

Damon needed to offer a sacrifice.

At that instant, he couldn't avoid recalling the system's explanation of the skill Sacrifice, which let him swap his stats permanently for shadow energy.

"The Children of Aetherus gave all they possessed and even what they could not to enigmatic Visitors from beyond their world. They sought knowledge, power, and truths hidden from their mortal grasp. Yet, no matter how much they surrendered, it was never enough. Their once-thriving world was left barren and broken, their sacrifices devoured, leaving them with nothing but despair and unfulfilled longing.

This cursed legacy lingers still, feeding on the ambitions of those desperate enough to give everything for a fleeting taste of the unattainable."

The unattainable.

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

He had attained the impossible within his soul.

He held both demonic energy and divine energy.

Damon commanded these forces.

He simply lacked the courage to employ them.

Disrupting the balance in his core would put him at severe risk.

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

If it surged too powerfully, his core would shatter from his own divine essence.

One could embody a god or a demon.

Not the two combined.

Unless—

One was the Unknown God.

Damon delved inside and contacted his divine spark.

‘I can’t beseech those true deities... but I call upon you, Lazarak, if you’re present, aid me...’

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

The shadows blanketing the canopy abruptly transformed.

They erupted in fury.

A crushing divine presence swept over the Evil Forest.

The realm of darkness yielded.

To the essence of a god.