Chapter 174 New Skill

'The human's shadow control!'

Evan didn't even give the monster the time to formulate its next thoughts, letting go of his sword as he let his feet land on the ground, stabilizing his footing before grabbing the monster's head and forcing it to gaze into his eyes.

The crest in Evan's grey eyes flashed golden as his mystic eyes came active and the mimicking process began.

However, in its struggle to break free, the monster blinked and shook its head multiple times, cutting the eye contact between it and Evan and forcing the mimicking process to reset.

"Stay still you damned creature!"

Evan flipped out on the monster, pulling one of his arms backwards and giving it a punch to its gut, before pulling off its helmet and revealing its face.

This was surprisingly the first time that Evan had seen the face of a blade wraith since he entered the dungeon and he could not deny that it looked very similar to that of a human except for the fact that its eyes had no eyebrows, no pupils or irises.

It only had sclerae that were glowing with a bright blue light.

[Master, be quick.]

Kuro's voice rang out in his head, making him realise that the blade wraith was gradually breaking free of Kuro's hold so he ignored how weird its eyes were, alongside the bloodstain on the creature's mouth, using his fingers to hold up the blade wraith's eyelids before activating his unique skill once more.

'1, 2, 3, 4...9, 10!'

|Blade Cannon Acquired|

|Rare Skills require one skill slot. |

|Five Skill slots remaining. |

The moment Evan saw that message, he headbutted the monster, disorienting it temporarily as one of his hands left its head and moved towards his sword still embedded in its shoulder.

'Hmm? Why don't I toy with it for a little more? I can kill it whenever I feel like, after all.'

As he had that thought, the hand reaching for his sword stopped and blinked away before giving Kuro the order to release it.

"HUMANNNN!!!!!!!"

As soon as it regained freedom, the blade wraith roared at the top of its voice, picking up its sword with its other arm and swinging it wildly, activating its blade cannon skill with each swing.

Evan on the other hand, had no choice but to run for his life as the consecutive blinks had left him 'drained', and he didn't want to 'exhaust' all his magic power here in case of an emergency.

**BOOM!! BOOOOMM!! BOOOMM!!

Mini explosions rang out as each aura bullet collided with either the ground wall or the ceiling, creating small craters everywhere.

Evan jumped behind the column of earth that rose up when the monster activated its magic earlier, using them as a shield against its blade cannon.

'Let's see what else it can do before I kill it, maybe I might end up taking its other skill too...'

Meanwhile, the blade wraith was feeling like it had been slapped in the face as it saw Evan use its previous attack a as shield from its blade cannon.

It gritted its teeth as it stopped its attack and moved its hand towards its wounded shoulder, pulling out Evan's sword and tossing it away in an attempt to give the young hero a hard time recalling its weapon.

Its eyes briefly glanced at Eliza and Pride who had been standing at the door and watching the whole spectacle.

'Women...? His female companions? I can use them as hostages! Especially that one with the staff, the human women with staves are usually weaker than the others.'

The boss monster instantly remembered the tactic it had used on a previous adventurer party, holding their support mage hostage and using her to threaten the other party members into lowering their weapons, seconds before it killed them with its blade cannon.

It had been a while ago since it did that so it had forgotten, but seeing Eliza who was conjuring barriers to block his aura bullets, jogged its memory.

'He ran instead of teleporting; can he perhaps not use it anymore?

Either way, it's good for me. Since he's hiding there, I can use this time to get to them before he can use that teleportation!'

The boss monster moved its good arm and its sword levitated before speeding through the air and slashing the side of Evan's face in the short moment he had peeked to see what the monster was doing now it had stopped its blade cannons.

"Whoa!"

Evan rolled out of the way to avoid the sword that was slashing at him, using the same sword techniques he wished to mimic from the blade wraith, even imbuing aura into its slashes.

This showed how much higher the blade wraith's weapon control skill proficiency was as Evan could only use his to call his sword into his hands.

'I have to reach this stage...huh?'

It was then that Evan noticed the blade wraith dashing towards Eliza's direction, its good arm stretched out as it clenched its fist in the air.

He saw Pride stretch out her arm and pull the unsuspecting Eliza out of the way, seconds before a small vacuum field manifested a mere metre away from where Eliza's head was previously.

'This bastard!!'

Evan was no fool, and he instantly understood that the monster had sent the sword to keep him busy while it went for Eliza.

As for the reason why, Evan honestly did not care.

There were only two thoughts that went through his head at that moment.

'How dare you turn you lowly monster turn your back on me?!'

'How dare you go after her??!!!'

The young hero did not care for magic consumption, stretching out his arm and instantly activating his blink, moving through the space between them.

He appeared right in front of the blade wraith, his eyes capturing every expression on the monster's face, seeing as it transitioned quickly into shock.

Before the boss could even compute its next set of thoughts, Evan's weapon control had already pulled his sword back into his hand as Evan instantly imbued the blade with his aura faster than he ever had and thrust it forward.