Shadow Weaver: Sole Heir Of The Night-Chapter 173: Untitled

"Okay then, I’ll just have to kill you!!"

The moon bear’s growl rolled low and deep, vibrating through the earth like distant thunder. Its claws stretched outward, scraping against the air as its massive frame darkened to an inky black. The crescent moon etched into its chest widened slowly, glowing faintly as if drinking in the surrounding night.

Power spilled from the beast in suffocating waves, pressing down on Enzo’s chest and skin alike. The forest groaned under the weight of it.

Then Enzo’s vision twisted.

The trees blurred, their shapes smearing like wet ink dragged across parchment. Reality peeled away layer by layer until the forest vanished entirely. In its place stood a pale riverside stretching endlessly in every direction. The water flowed without sound, smooth as glass, reflecting trees frozen mid sway.

No wind.No ripples.

The horizon never drew closer, no matter how long one stared.

Quasi Wonderland.

The moon bear’s illusion ability, paired with its terrifying closeness to the demi god stage, granted it an overwhelming advantage over most beasts of similar rank. Combined with its demon status, the creation of such a domain became possible, even if flawed.

A half formed world.Still lethal.

"Fuck!!" Enzo muttered under his breath.

Yet his heart remained steady. Fear never found purchase. Instead, his focus sharpened, every sense pulling inward as his mind began to work.

Without hesitation, he moved.

Celiedars fired in rapid succession, bolts screaming through the distorted space as shadows flared around his arms. At the same time, he activated the divine poison medallion, a cold venomous aura flooding his veins and sharpening his instincts.

Next, the Void Coffin became corporeal.

It slammed into the ground before him with a heavy thud. Dark runes rippled across its surface as the illusionary river recoiled slightly, as if the world itself rejected its presence.

After reaching the exalted stage, the coffin had offered him another set of skills.

One of them was this.

Dark Void Anchor.

A silent pulse spread outward from the coffin. A region formed around it, detached from the surrounding world. Within it, laws held no authority. Attacks dissolved before forming. Wonderland or not, this space stood absolute.

A skill forged to counter domains.

But nothing came without a price.

Ten minutes.

That was all he had.

Enzo steadied his breathing, eyes locking onto the distant silhouette of the moon bear beyond the boundary.

"Draw it in," he muttered, nodding to himself.

Without a second thought, Enzo sent out the divine cutters. Their edges hummed as they tore through the wonderland, slicing toward the beast with ruthless precision.

The air split apart.

Like a sudden surge of water answering an unseen call, the moon bear flowed aside. Its body dissolved into a rushing silhouette, leaving behind a wavering outline of liquid light where it once stood.

In a wonderland, a god stood at its strongest.

Such places, however, were never meant for freedom of movement. They had to be sustained, guarded, constantly fed with will and power. Bringing Enzo here had drained the moon bear far more than it was willing to admit.

Still, it was enough.

Within this domain, the bear believed itself untouchable. No matter what Enzo tried, death would never follow. Wounds would fade. Attacks would lose meaning. Reality itself would bend to deny him victory.

That was how it was meant to be.

What the moon bear failed to understand was how deep Enzo truly was, nor the weight of what rested in his grasp.

Divine energy churned violently through the cutters. A strange flame ignited at their core, pale and unnatural, burning without heat or smoke. The moment it appeared, the wonderland screamed.

Space warped.The river cracked.The illusion began to rot.

The divine flame gnawed at the foundation of the domain, eroding its existence as if it were fragile glass. Sections of the river collapsed inward, reflections shattering into nothingness.

In that instant, the moon bear frowned deeply.

A divine treasure was one thing. Such items could be wielded or borrowed, but only divine beings could draw out their true potential.

Divine energy was something else entirely.

It was the source.The authority.The essence of what made gods special.

And Enzo was wielding it freely.

"How do you even have that?"

The moon bear stared at him, disbelief tightening its features as unease crept into its voice, the wonderland continuing to crumble around them.

The quasi wonderland was not as strong as a real one...if not Enzo would really struggle.

However it wasn’t weak either.

Without warning, the wonderland convulsed as if struck by a living pulse. The fractured land shuddered, seams of reality knitting themselves together at a frantic pace. Cracked soil sealed. Warped trees straightened. Even the scorched air regained its depth, stubbornly rejecting annihilation.

The divine flame gnawed at it relentlessly, yet the wonderland resisted in a pitiful, almost desperate manner. It repaired faster than it should have been able to, burning through its reserves just to stay intact for a few more breaths.

It would eventually exhaust itself.

The question was whether Enzo would last that long.

That was the gamble the moon bear had placed everything on.

A thin, fragile sliver of hope.

Enzo felt it too.

He tightened his grip and kept swinging the void cutter by its chain, the weapon screaming as it tore through the air. Each strike ripped into glowing nodes embedded within the wonderland, anchors that kept the space stable.

Some shattered.

Others regenerated almost instantly.

Fragments of broken reality rained down like ash as Enzo moved without pause, his arms screaming, his breathing ragged. He could not slow down. Slowing down meant losing ground, and losing ground meant being swallowed whole.

It had become a battle of attrition.

The absurdity of it gnawed at him even as he fought.

An exalted weaver.

Facing a tyrant.

Locked inside its personal domain.

Yet here he was, forcing the impossible through sheer refusal to break.

Outside.

The forest began to tremble violently.

Shockwaves rippled through the trees, snapping branches and sending beasts fleeing in blind panic. The ground cracked open in places as pressure leaked outward from the sealed wonderland.

Zeke and Leon arrived at the epicenter, skidding to a halt as they took in the devastation. Liana and her brothers were already there, pale and tense, eyes locked on the distorted space ahead.

"He’s stuck in a wonderland. We need to get him out before father gets here," Liana said, her voice tight despite her effort to stay composed.

This had never been the plan.

She only wanted to teach Enzo a lesson, to bruise his pride and repay Zeke in her own way. She never imagined they would stumble upon a demon capable of manifesting a wonderland this deep in the forest.

Leon clicked his tongue, eyes narrowing as he assessed the warped air. "We can bombard it from the outside. Some of us have god tier treasures or the like, yes?"

His gaze shifted to Zeke and his sister.

They nodded without hesitation, already reaching into their storage rings.

They were god descendants. God representatives.

Of course they carried life saving treasures.

No family that valued its generational talents would ever allow them to walk into danger unarmed, not when their bloodlines were worth more than cities.

And so they focused, channeling their wills through ancient conduits as their treasures awakened. Light, pressure, and distorted force converged on a single section of the forest where the wonderland was anchored.

The air there warped violently, layers of illusion peeling away as reality screamed under the assault. Trees bent inward, their roots tearing free as the space itself struggled to remain coherent.

Inside.

"Aside from illusions, the wonderland has the ability to evade attacks by creating clones. So I can’t attack the bear physically."

Enzo narrowed his eyes, watching the moon bear from afar. It stood unnervingly still, its many reflections lingering in the warped air, each one staring back at him with equal malice.

The thing was cautious.

Unfortunately for it, the wonderland had not matured enough to form a proper offensive cycle. It could distort, mislead, and regenerate, but it could not initiate direct attacks on its own.

It could only obey commands within the zone it occupied.

That meant the wonderland could not strike Enzo.

The bear had to do it itself.

"Shit!!"

The curse tore from the moon bear as it rose to its full height. The ground trembled beneath its weight as it began advancing, claws digging deep into the regenerated soil.

Only now did it truly sense the danger.

The attacks from outside had begun to interfere with the core structure of the wonderland. Repairs slowed. Illusions flickered. Cracks lingered longer than before.

Disintegration had started.

If it did not kill Enzo now, it would be forced to face him alongside the others waiting beyond the domain.

That could not happen.

Step by step, it closed the distance.

Then pain exploded in its chest.

A sharp, unbearable agony pierced directly through where its heart lay, tearing away breath and strength in an instant. The moon bear staggered, its massive body seizing as realization dawned too late.

It faltered.

Then collapsed.

At the same moment, from beside the void coffin, Enzo snapped his wrist.

The void cutter shot outward, its chain whistling through the air as the blade carved a clean arc across the fallen tyrant. Darkness followed the strike, swallowing what little resistance remained.

The wonderland shattered.

[You have slain a Deamon Moon Bear]

[You have received an echo]