SSS Ranked Shadow Monarch: Summoning Infinite Shadows-Chapter 230: Inside the Forest

A full day and a full night went by, and finally, Aren stood before the massive forest that was the route into the town of the Blade family.

The journey here had been one way, and he refused to stop for whatever reason. He hated the fact that it actually took way too long for him to get here.

He looked at the massive forest before him. There was no route, no path, there was nothing that could possibly help him. Beyond that, he was a little bit underprepared. His rush didn’t allow him to carry all the stuff that he would need going into a place like this.

Regardless, he wasn’t backing down, nor was he going to turn around. He was facing what was before him head on.

With one deep breath, he stepped in, and instantly, he was hit with a very thick aura, one that told him someone was watching him right after he walked in. The aura was heavy, almost as bad as what he felt when facing Giehsa.

The only difference was that the aura lacked the killing intent that leaked out of Geisha constantly.

Aren spread out his shadow sense, hoping to keep watch over his environment, but something was immediately hampering that shadow sense, pressing hard against it, cutting down the effective range to a measly twenty percent, which was basically useless since he could see that far already.

"Sigh, I should have expected that it wouldn’t go well." He muttered. Without being able to see, it would surely turn out to be an issue, so he decided to use the next best option. He summoned his shadow ants and wolves, allowing all of them to rush into the forest and keep a certain distance in a certain formation, allowing him to stay connected and capable of connecting with them.

Then, he summoned Riker and Fang to his side. "Alright, let’s go." He said as he began walking in a straight line.

"Aoi said for me to be able to pass, I must first show my purity of heart to the druid. Well, where is the druid? How do I show her? Do I just wait until she comes and looks into my chest?" Aren wondered out loud.

There was no response, so he kept walking. He also didn’t see any monsters or anything of that sort, but then suddenly, the ground started shifting. Aren watched as trees were moving and rearranging themselves into different positions.

Aren looked around in complete confusion, his eyes darting around extremely fast to ensure nothing took him unaware. The craziest part of the change was that it was pushing away and displacing even his own shadows. What Aren didn’t know was that even he had been completely displaced, but he felt like he was still in the same place.

When the shift stopped, he turned around, but he couldn’t see the exit of the forest, and that was when he knew that he was moved as well. Many of his shadows were also moved, which meant that he wasn’t going to be able to track his movements properly.

Without choice, he summoned them back. There was no point in having all of them out if they barely helped him keep a sense of location.

He only left Riker and Fang with him, and that was a good idea, because at that moment, something lunged at Aren, coming out of the forest like a bullet. It was extremely fast and dark, so it was hard to follow with the eyes until it was too late.

Riker saw the attack coming and instantly moved to block. He intercepted the attack with his sword and got a good look at the creature. It was some sort of black panther, but it was over two meters long, with muscles and claws that looked like they could rip through human bone in an instant.

Riker pushed the monster back and immediately got into a stance to attack, but the monster ran away. Its speed was so fast that it seemed like it vanished.

"What monster is that? It’s extremely fast." Aren muttered.

He had barely finished what he had to say when it came again, rushing right at Aren. It seemed to have understood that Aren was the main target here somehow.

Fang immediately locked eyes on the monster and lunged at it, tackling it down at the last moment and throwing it down, allowing Aren to have a good view of the monster.

It was exactly like a panther, but a lot larger. It looked at Aren and let out a growl.

"You wanna fight? Come at me. You might be fast, but I’ll take you down easily." Aren said.

The monster began moving slowly as if sizing Aren up, and then out of nowhere, it pounced again, managing to attack Aren even faster than before. But Aren already had on his shadow sense. There was no way he would get hit, no matter how fast this monster was. He raised his hand at the very right moment and blocked the attack of the panther.

The panther quickly tried to retreat after the failed attack, only for Aren to channel lightning right at that moment, unleashing terrifying bolts of lightning into the monster.

It was blasted back, slamming into a tree extremely hard, but it wasn’t dead.

Aren stared at it with a bored expression. "Is this really what I’m supposed to be worried about inside the forest?" He muttered casually, but that statement alone was all he needed to jinx it, as suddenly the monster let out a cry, and in under a few seconds, several eyes appeared inside the forest, all locked on Aren.

"Oh shit, I jinxed it." Aren said, but there was no real panic in his voice. His shadow sense scanned for all the monsters, and he could tell there were quite a few of them, but they weren’t beyond what he could handle. The only issue here was that Aren forgot his shadow sense had greatly been reduced, and he wasn’t seeing what was behind those ones that were inside his shadow sense.