Chapter 276 - Cap 275: Conclusion Of An Uphill Battle

When I saw that the Berserk Variant Zombie had died to dust I was happy, but then I saw Vanessa falling unconscious and I ran to catch her before hitting the ground. 

"Hi Vanessa? Are you okay? Wake up."  (I) 

"Zzzzzz..." (Vanessa) 

"..." (I) 

"Master, what happened to Vanessa? Is she okay?" (Ivan) 

"Looks like she's fine, she's just sleeping."  (I) 

"She must have used up all her energy with her last blow, there's no use trying to wake her up."  (Elsaris) 

"Why?"  (I) 

"When someone passes out from totally consuming their energy, the person only wakes up when the energy is completely recovered."  (Sapphire) 

"Besides some side effect, in Mana's case, the headache would be the side effect."  (Elsaris) 

"In her case, I don't think it will have any side effects since it was Sacred energy that was heard."  (Elsaris) 

While I was holding Vanessa the others came to talk to me. 

"This is not the time to be talking, now that the four generals are dead, we have to deal with what's left of Farus' troops."  (I) 

"The fight is over master, everyone is dead."  (Nix) 

While talking to the others about getting this battle over with, Nix appears walking towards me in his human form as he talks to me. 

"Good thing, to be honest, I'm tired of fighting and running around on the battlefield."  (I) 

"You did your best to help in the places that were having the most problems in combat, the village leader was doing the same thing."  (Ivan) 

"I had to protect my people."  (Sapphire) 

I look around and see injured people and bodies everywhere. 

"Nix, can you take care of all these bodies?"  (I) 

"If I have your help then I think I can fix it, I haven't seen you use your spirit energy during combat so the master must have enough for that."  (Nix) 

"Fine, but we have to do this soon, I imagine that Farus must also have his means of gathering information in the mountain range."  (I) 

"He uses Undead birds as Familiars, I thought you knew that."  (Elsaris) 

"I didn't know, how did you find out?"  (I) 

"My daughter Beatriz saw a bird-type Undead monster flying near the place where we made our first ambush."  (Elsaris) 

"When I heard this information I thought that as Farus is a Necromancer he must be controlling that Undead flying in the sky."  (Elsaris) 

"As you can see, this is just my guess, but I believe it's right."  (Elsaris) 

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"  (I) 

"From your plan, I thought I already knew, ambush Farus' troops in the mist preventing anyone from seeing what's going on, taking everyone to the dungeon where no information escapes, and now this plan you made a mist dome to stop the vision of the undead birds."  (Elsaris) 

"I didn't know about birds, I just knew that someone with the level of skill and intelligence that Farus showed would have a way to get information, but I didn't know what it was."  (I) 

"You guys should talk about this later, I also want to know more about these Undead birds, but we have to help the injured and get rid of the bodies."  (Sapphire) 

"The village leader is right."  (I) 

"Nix, you can close the Dungeon gate where Farus' generals came out, I'll open one here to make it easier to get everyone into the Dungeon."  (I) 

"Yes, Master."  (Nix) 

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With all the enemies defeated, I opened a gate from my shadow and joined those who were helping the wounded to enter the Dungeon, those who were almost dead were treated in advance on the spot by Irina and a few Mages with healing powers, the Lyra's potions were also very helpful, but they were almost all used during combat this is one of the biggest reasons why the number of dead and wounded is not higher. 

After twenty minutes of getting everyone inside the dungeon, only me and Nix were left outside, even the Mages who created the fog dome and the shield that covers the dome had just entered the dungeon, they said that in less than five minutes the fog dome will disappear along with the shield. 

"There, what do you want me to do now Nix?"  (I) 

"First let me close this Dungeon gate."  (Nix) 

The Dragon head-shaped gate starts to sink into Nix's shadow which is connected to the shadow I used to open the gate before, the gate sinks into the shadow until it disappears completely. 

"The master just needs to put his hand on me and transfer his spirit energy to me, but first I'll have to revert to my Dragon form."  (Nix) 

"Is that all I need to do?"  (I) 

"Yes, I can take care of the rest if I have enough energy, now I'm down to less than half of my spiritual energy."  (Nix) 

"OK."  (I) 

"So let's start."  (Nix) 

Nix reverts to her Dragon form, she waves at me and I jump on her head, then place my hand on her head, and through our connection, I try to transfer my spiritual energy to her. 

"That's right master, now don't stop what you're doing and leave the rest to me."  (Nix) 

"< Shadow World >" (Nix) 

From above Nix's head, I have a complete view of the surroundings, I see Nix's shadow spreading in all directions and at the same time I feel my spiritual energy being rapidly sucked until all the ground inside the mist dome is covered by Shadows. 

"< Swamp of Shadows >" (Nix) 

At that moment Nix makes a Rune I don't know with spiritual energy filled with the element of Darkness, then the Rune clings to her Dragon Claw which she tucks into the Shadows beneath her. 

Soon I notice a change in the shadows around, the shadows were moving like the waves of a lake, then thousands of black tentacles will come out of the shadows and attach themselves to the bodies on the ground pulling them slowly down, they were not entering the ground, they were being sucked into the shadows, I could feel it through Nix. 

"My energy is almost gone, is it already running out?"  (I) 

"That's not a technique... easy for me to do with my... current strength, master..." (Nix) 

"But I'm done... I just need a few more seconds... Argh!"  (Nix) 

Nix seemed to be doing her best just to keep this technique active, I could feel her body trembling slightly beneath me. 

"< Eater of Shadows >" (Nix) 

After all the bodies have been consumed by the shadows, Nix opens its big jaw and activates an ability, then I see a black vortex forming in front of its big mouth and sucking all the shadows around it into its mouth, it looked like a stream of thick black liquid pooling in his mouth until he had consumed it all, to be honest, I almost consumed all my spiritual energy now, a few more seconds and it would be zero. 

In the end, I looked around and there were no corpses around, there were no trees or blood either, it was barren ground. 

While I was distracted by the change in the landscape, I suddenly fall over as Nix loses strength and lies on the ground motionless, I get up and go to the side of her head. 

"Ahhh... ahhh... ahhhh..." (Nix) 

"Are you okay Nyx?"  (I) 

"Haaa... I'm fine... ahhh... ahhhh..." (Nix) 

"I'm just... ahhh... a little tired..." (Nix) 

"We still have a few minutes until the dome breaks down, get some rest and then we can enter the Dungeon."  (I) 

"Dora told me before... of a cave an hour's journey away... from here, we'd better go there..." (Nix) 

"Can you go back to your human form?"  (I) 

"Yes..." (Nix) 

Nix's body becomes covered in darkness and starts to shrink little by little until it forms a smaller human silhouette, when the darkness disappears she is back to her usual appearance, her face is pale and I can see her body trembling weakly. 

"I will carry you to this cave."  (I) 

I lift Nix's body with my arms and follow the direction she is pointing, after some time I reach a deep cave, I enter and kill the Wolf pack that was there, they were dire wolves over two meters in length. height but they couldn't move much in such a narrow space so it was easy to tie and cut them with my lines, after that, I gather all the blood with my powers and drink it before dragging the bodies with my lines to the bottom from the cave. 

Ding! 

At the bottom of the cave, I open a gate where I take Nix inside, leave the bodies of the Wolf monsters in the safe room on the first floor and teleport to the fourth floor going straight to the mansion. 

I take Nix to my room and leave her on my bed to rest, I also ask Caryna to prepare some food for Nix, then I tell Alice and Nolan to go with some people to get the bodies of the Wolves in the safe room on the first floor to make food for all. 

After that, I ask an Earth Mage to go out of the Dungeon and close half of the cave to hide the Dungeon's gate in case one of Farus' servants comes in to investigate the area around the battle. 

With all these little things done I let everyone know about a meeting to see how we're doing after the battle and discuss what we're going to do from here. 

I have to know what the village leader and her village council will want to do now, our plans went reasonably well, but it's time to decide on the final battle.