With Valyr moving onto the Shadow Lions to progress past the bottleneck he had obtained after slaying a lot of Shadow Bears, yet another couple of hours had passed since the young man had begun his killing spree.
Similar to the first Shadow Bear he had killed after obtaining the [Shadow Energy Mark], Valyr had earned a great level of improvement to his [Shadow Energy Mark] after absorbing the Shadow Energy of the Shadow Lion he had killed.
However, aside from that, the great increase in his capacity accompanied with it a feeling that was quite difficult to describe in great detail. Though, if Valyr were to sum it up into one word, then the feeling he felt from the absorption of Shadow Energy would be…
An explosion.
At the very moment the Shadow Energy from the Shadow Lion made contact with Valyr's body and made its way to the small black mass near his heart, the young man felt a small explosion occur within the small black mass, which caused the black mass to grow a small amount in size, while the amount of Shadow Energy it could now store at one time now seemed greater than ever before.
If Valyr were to describe the difference between the amount of Shadow Energy the small black mass could store previously to after the explosion had occurred, it was akin to comparing a small puddle to a considerably sized lake.
Nevertheless, after that, Valyr placed most of his focus into killing the Shadow Lions as quickly as possible, taking into consideration that they only had less than eight hours left to stay in the Shadow Plane after he had reached his first bottleneck.
With that, the young man went into a frenzy during the past couple of hours, not holding back in his consumption of mana as he wantonly sent out all of the strongest magic-based attacks he could muster, trying to keep the same combat efficiency he had while fighting the Shadow Bears as much as possible.
…
"[Intermediate Fire Magic Style: Cascading Blaze]."
"[Intermediate Wind Magic Style: Billowing Tempest]."
"Combine."
Whoosh!
Watching a group of Shadow Lions hastily make their way to where he currently stood, Valyr had a solemn expression on his face as he conjured one magic spell after another, only to combine them together before sending them out in the Shadow Lions' direction.
With how Valyr had used this combination of magic spells multiple times already, it did not take long for the effect he wanted to achieve to appear before him, causing a massive tornado of flames to appear in front of Valyr and the Shadow Lions, spanning a height over a few dozen feet within seconds.
Whenever Valyr unleashed this move against a group of Shadow Bears, this move was more than enough to cancel out the aggressiveness brought about by the Mark of the Alltide, with the feeling of fear instead debilitating their bodies as they tried to run away.
However…
"Oh?" Raising his eyebrow in surprise, Valyr watched as the Shadow Lions continued to run in his direction, even though the blazing tornado was on their path. Pondering over the reason why the group of lions showed no fear in front of the large tornado, the young man watched as the Shadow Lions ran through the tornado, allowing their bodies to be singed by the scalding flames as their eyes still contained a fierce crimson glint within them.
"Hmm… it probably has something to do with the disparity in levels and stats. Then again, the specifics of how far that disparity needs to be is something that could only be found out with a lot of experimentation." Scratching his head for a bit, Valyr slightly shrugged his shoulders as he watched the now somewhat burned Shadow Lions exit the flaming tornado, continuing on their paths to head to where he was without any change in their expression.
"Anyways… I shouldn't delay this any longer."
"[Intermediate Crimson Flame Manipulation]."
"[Crimson Blade Torrent]."
Whoosh!
Taking a quick peek through [Greater Analysis] to see how much damage the blazing tornado had dealt to the group of Shadow Lions, Valyr went ahead and conjured what he considered was one of the most destructive skills in his arsenal, sending out a barrage of blades made out of orange crimson flames towards the Shadow Lions.
Surprisingly, compared to the large flaming tornado that appeared before them, the Shadow Lions hesitated for a bit as they saw a swarm of orange crimson blades head their way, feeling a hint of fear rise up in their bodies for a brief moment. However, before this feeling of fear could take root, the crimson glint in their eyes grew brighter as the aggressiveness they had before appeared once more in full force.
With that, the Shadow Lions unhesitatingly made contact with the blades of orange crimson flames, causing more and more damage to pile up on their bodies as their skin became more and more charred. Eventually, the Shadow Lions realized that they were nearing their demise, finally allowing their instincts to flee in front of a stronger foe to take over.
Unfortunately, before they were able to do so, their final strands of vitality had left their bodies, allowing the young man they had planned to kill to reap his rewards.
Ding!
[Your Shadow Energy has improved by 0.05 points.]
[Your Shadow Energy has reached a bottleneck. From now onwards, killing Shadow Lions and lesser entities shall not net you any increase in Shadow Energy.]
Watching as the Shadow Energy from the Shadow Lions' corpses made their way to the small black mass near his heart, Valyr took a look at the description for [Shadow Energy Mark], taking note of the fact that he could now store six points of Shadow Energy instead of three, as well as the fact that his stats were now boosted by 3% instead of 1.5%.
'I guess it would be safe to assume at this point that reaching the bottleneck with the Shadow Tigers would allow me to reach the 10 point mark.' Letting out a short sigh of relief as he sat on the ground to take a bit of rest, Valyr watched as Noel made his way to where he was, a faint smile adorning the latter's face.
"After this, you only have to kill the Shadow Tigers and you'll have enough Shadow Energy to attempt improving its quality with a high chance of success," said Noel to him. "Considering that there's only six hours left before we have to leave the Shadow Plane, I think there's a chance you might finish all of the objectives needed to fight the Shadow Serpent."
"A chance, huh." Staring out at the topsy-turvy landscape of the Shadow Plane for a bit, Valyr breathed out yet another sigh before standing up, only to look at Noel with a confident smile.
"Well… with how everything's progressing so far…"
"It definitely feels like I can do it."
