Chapter 44: Shadow Walker

In the dead of night a shadow moved through the edge of the forest as it rapidly approached the demon king’s castle at a staggering speed. The shadow warped several times and a figure appear out of it, the figure slowly revealed himself to the glistening moonlight.

It was an handsome man with short white hair, he wore dark speed based armor and had two golden daggers strapped to his waist. He had bright golden eyes with a vertical slit. The same figure that had appeared in the destroyed red ogre settlement. “This is strange… Am i headed in the right direction?”

He looked around again and his eyes glowed slightly. ‘Its faint but this should be correct… why then… why are they headed in this direction.’

“Desperation?”

‘No… Unless… I see… so that was it huh. To think they would take such a risk just to avoid serving a demo Lord. Such scums. If it wasn’t for those two I might’ve taught them a lesson today.’

Getting out of his own head he shook the tempting thoughts away as he knew the two unknown strangers were too dangerous to mess with. Especially the guy that was able to sense him. His face flashed through his mind and he couldn’t help but grit his teeth. He didn’t know why but looking at him made him uncomfortable.

He frowned slightly as he picked up the trail ones more and faded into the shadows. Moving at a fast pace he should be able to catch up with the group in a few minutes. He had purposefully slowed down his pace to avoid the perception range of that individual.

As he predicted he soon could see the group slowing down ahead. ‘Wait… what? why are they slowing down there?’ This was beyond his calculations and expectations. Normally they should have taken a detour after getting to this point and headed their original direction. It wasn’t logical to slow down now.

After tracking them for almost a full day now he was sure they had experienced hunters in the.group, not only were they harder to track than expected, they had also taken routes that gave them the highest chances of evading detections from the scouts in the forest while keeping their travel time as short as possible.

It took him a lot of effort to pick up their trail before it went cold, which wasn’t easy. Any other tracking rouge would’ve already lost the trail unless they wanted their cover blow by that man. An eerie breeze blew as he melded back into the shadows.

He approached the group ahead from the shadows as he planned to get a better view of the situation up ahead. Soon the group came to an halt as the riders in front got off to inspect what appears to be an invisible wall. ‘Are they dumb… Don’t tell me they came all the way here for the castle.’

How could that be possible, everyone in every corner of the demon continent knows about the issues surrounding the demon continent. If didn’t take a genius to figure out how dangerous of a place this was to intrude in. Even the seven behemoths, who had the powers to match a demon Lord wouldn’t carelessly approach this place. After all this was equivalent to making an enemy of the Great Five families.

Thinking of the Great Five sent a chill running down his spine even though he was from one of them. Well, maybe it was because he was from them that he knew how fearsome they truly were. Most lesser demons would believe the Great Five were strong in numbers and name only but would not realize that they were sorely mistaken.

“Hmm… I might be rushing to conclusions too early.” It was better to observe their actions carefully, they might have actually sensed him and were putting up a front to lure him out no matter how unlikely that may seem.

Watching the group carefully he saw them reach out to touch the barrier with an hint of confusion and curiosity in their eyes. ‘An act?’ he wondered but wasn’t convinced, but why would. they be confused. ‘Did they come here in ignorance. how can that be?’ That was not supposed to be possible, right now there should be no one living on the demon continent that would be this ignorant.

Someone soon alighted from one of the large carriages and walked up front. It was the same guy that had made his journey so troublesome. With is ability to place a soul curse on his targets he would be able to track the person to the ends of the world no matter how skilled and powerful they were. It was impossible to erase the curse completely and it was very hard to detect.

Placing a soul curse would also allow him to use a spell of remote viewing on the target, bypassing any anti-detect and counter spells placed on them. Although he wasn’t a spell caster he had prepared the necessary tools and scrolls before setting off. This was an habit of every skill member of a noble family including the Great Five.

He frowned upon seeing the ogres treating the man with respect. If it wasn’t for him, he wouldn’t be hiding in the shadows behind the buses like a common pervert. “Tsk…”, ‘I promise, I’ll kill you soon.’ he thought as the other stranger in the group alighted her carriage.

This was the first time he had actually gotten a good look at her and his heart almost left his body. Although he was captivated by her beauty this was not why his heart skipped a beat. She was beautiful, yes, he could even confidently say she was even more beautiful than his beloved lady Izabel that he wouldn’t mind her stepping on him also.

When he thought to this point, a striking pain assaulted this heart. He felt like he was thinking about something sacrilegious. Shaking his head he decided to cleanse all irrelevant thoughts from his mind. What was important about this seemly superficial fact was that demons physiology was different from humans. The purer a demon bloodline was the better their physicals appearance.

What this meant was that the lady that had just alighted was of a hight statue than the lady Izabel. Wasn’t this dangerous, in other for her to be of a higher statue she had to either be the direct daughter of a demon Lord or maybe the great granddaughter of one of the Leaders of the Great Five.

‘Should I retreat? this might be more dangerous than I thought, but if one of the great Five is making a move shouldn’t I observe so i can report this back. Lady Izabel would get high praise if she brings in information of this level and she might even get an edge over her.’

Thinking of the cloaked lady in the cave a sudden cold washed over him. Forcing his attention back on his target he opted on observing them. Everything was finally unraveling for him after the realization that one of the Five might be making a move. The strength of a pair he had never seen before could only be possible if they were from the Five.

Even if they were the trump card of a regular noble family trying to undercut the five ot be recognized as one of them. This was still valuable piece of information. As his thoughts wondered he noticed thee guy with the above average looks who he now believe to be one of the outer ranking members of one of the great Five like himself. He was most likely serving under the girl as her servant just like him and a specialist in detection which was why he was noticed.

The hatred he harbored for him all this while were slowly melting away as he felt a strange sense of kinship building within him. He watched as he approached the barrier nonchalantly. The other stared at him strangely and Griff had a bad premonition.

The guy stretched out his hand to touch the barrier and it slowly went through. The tall brawny ogre that had placed both hands on the barrier that Griff had completely ignore fell through the barrier like a log with his face slamming down on the ground.

Even from this distance he could swear he heard a collective gasp follows by a deafening and heavy silence with everyone’s jaws dropping to the floor, and he wasn’t an exception.

He could see all his analysis and conclusions collapsing before his eyes as he stared at him dumbly. He hadn’t even realized he was no longer hidden in the shadows as his mind was a flurry of confusion. The group soon recovered from their stupor before boarding their carriage and proceeded to enter the barrier.

Griff had been lucky enough to witness his family’s last attempt at breaking the barrier surrounding the castle and it didn’t look anything like this. It took over 8 hours just to break the first layer and grant them limited access to some areas in the castle, while the layer automatically repairs itself. Yet….

All he did was touch it. ‘He touched it… Who… who is he?’ All his previous thoughts and emotions were immediately shattered by a simple move. What was left could only be described as an inmate sense of fear. He hadn’t seen the fight between the lesser basilisks and the settlement as the spell of remote viewing would only show the view to the caster unless another spell is used to supplement it.

Lady Izabel was the only one with enough skills to watch the town without being notice. If any of them had tried to use a spell like Mirror Connection to view her Remote observation spell they would have most likely been found out and that would compromise their mission. When someone wanted to observe a person from afar, a lot of preparations were necessary, although not many people paid attention to anti divination spells.

Any decent mage or warriors would be able to tell when someone was spying on them. If he had watch the fight he Might have thought differently, being the servant if lady Izabel his main job had been the gathering of information and he always pride himself in that aspect. Almost all her servants that had mastered the shadow skill, his version was the most suited for being a spy and the fact that someone like him had misjudged someone so blatantly was a dagger in his heart.

Grabbing his heart with his right hand he watched the group enter the barrier completely. He slowly approach the barrier as he could barely make out the appearance of the group ones they entered the barrier. From what he knew when the first layer of the barrier was.broken, it took more that 12 hour for it to repair itself and even longer if the second layer was also destroyed.

He had a.sliver of hope as he got closer and closer to the barrier. The castle was not that close to the forest so it was harder to move in the sparring buses. He left the cover of the leaves and walked to the barrier. While his.shadow abilities would help.him hide in the shadow of objects, he could not hide in his own shadow and in an open field like this, there wasn’t anything he could hide in.

He was now only an inch away from the barrier and he could almost touch it with his face. As long as he enters the barrier as well it meant the guy from earlier really is a behemoth at the same level as the Elders of the Great Five, and stronger that even the leaders of the other noble families. He reach out an arm, his aim was to penetrate the barrier the same way the guy did.

A wall… It was like a thick and solid wall. “This… I have to report this… This is dangerous.”