I Stepped on Their Shadows and Skills Started Copying Like Crazy - Chapter 24

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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24
After that, everything moved at lightning speed.
As the cavern grew familiar, there was nothing left to fear.
For roughly ten minutes, I cut down the bats and goblins that appeared sporadically, following the path deeper.
“…When exactly is this sorcerer supposed to show up?”
After I’d sliced through about a dozen of them, just as a complaint was forming, the narrow passage suddenly opened wide.
“Hmm…?”
And there it was—a vast cavern.
“I have to say, a ceiling that high all of a sudden makes me nervous.”
In the center of the cavern, I spotted them: the goblin sorcerers, my mission targets.
They stood circled around some kind of altar that emanated a peculiar aura.
‘What are they doing?’
The goblins were chanting—spitting out incomprehensible sounds as part of some ritual witchcraft.
It sounded like an eerie dirge mixed with bizarre incantation.
Hardly what I’d call pleasant listening.
“Hey, whatever you’re doing, knock it off. Feels like something’s about to pop out.”
At this point, any sane person would’ve rushed in with eyes blazing, but these creatures didn’t even notice me—too busy with their chanting.
The creeping dread got to me, so I drew my blade and charged.
“Go ahead, do your thing. I’ll do mine.”
The moment I closed to arm’s length, they snapped out of it and began flailing—attacking with daggers and staffs.
“Kee-eek! Kyaaaagh—!”
“I asked them to stop singing, and now they’re just shrieking instead.”
But it was all meaningless struggle.
Slash!
A head traced a dark arc through the air, now ownerless.
“One down.”
The rest went the same way.
One stroke per goblin.
They weren’t just weak—they felt sluggish, even more cumbersome than the goblins from the first floor.
I’d been tense about facing the final stage of the fifth-floor basic quest, but the whole fight ended pathetically in four swings of my blade.
“…What? Why is this so easy? Was just getting here the real challenge?”
Now only the altar remained, radiating that eerie glow.
‘Should I just leave it?’
The original quest had nothing to do with the altar.
There’d been no mention of it whatsoever.
‘But something about it just bugs me.’
Given that the trials so far had been extensions of the basic quests, leaving this altar untouched felt off.
‘The trial must be hinting at something here… I should probably destroy it.’
I drew the Flame Sword and sliced through the stone altar.
Crack!
Unable to withstand the mana-infused cut, the altar crumbled to pieces.
Then came the familiar notification.
[Will you accept the Trial of the Fifth Floor?]
“Yeah, I’ve been waiting for this.”
Just after I gave my answer, the system flashed a new warning.
[Trial of Observation has begun.]
[Warning: A dormant entity is awakening.]
[Warning: The summoning ritual’s medium has been destroyed. Summoning will conclude prematurely.]
‘Prematurely?’
Before I could dwell on that, the ground beneath the shattered altar cracked open with a sickening groan, and a single massive arm thrust upward.
‘Why is just one arm this huge?’
So the high ceiling wasn’t without reason after all.
What emerged next was a colossal monstrosity, hauling itself from the chasm with that enormous limb.
“GUUUUOOOOOOAAAAGH—!”
Moss-green skin, a height that nearly scraped the ceiling.
Its entire body rippled with muscle, layered like armor.
I’d never seen one in person before, but I knew instantly.
What this creature was.
‘An ogre…?’
An ogre, on the fifth floor.
Apparently you normally need to get to floor 30 before you’d ever see something like this.
‘This is excessive. Really.’
Right—the Trial on floor 4 was comparatively easy, but Trials themselves had always been this unreasonable.
‘But why does it look like that? Don’t tell me they resurrected a corpse?’
Perhaps this was what “incomplete” meant.
Across the creature’s entire body, clean severed edges and the marks of crude stitching were plainly visible.
In places, flesh had rotted away or gone missing altogether.
From somewhere, the Goblin sorcerers I’d just killed must have scavenged an Ogre’s corpse and breathed it back to life through witchcraft.
[Quest Objective: Eliminate the awakened entity, the “Resurrected Ogre.”]
An Ogre in name alone.
Unlike its dead eyes—dull as rotten fish—the furious muscles rippling beneath its grotesque vitality were undeniably real.
‘It’s coming!’
The moment the Quest objective flashed across my vision, the creature tore toward me, shaking the very ground beneath my feet.
Boom-boom-boom!
The speed emanating from that massive frame was bewildering—faster than should be possible.
‘Quick!’
Whoosh!
A heavy fist bearing down, rending the air itself.
If I took a hit like that, there wouldn’t even be a corpse left—just a wet smear.
I had to evade. That was the right move.
The sensible play.
The old me would have chosen evasion without hesitation.
Meeting such a crude, savage assault head-on was something you only did when you had no choice—like swallowing something bitter because you had to.
But.
‘Not anymore.’
I pointed Nocturne directly at the creature and met that attack straight on.
Whoosh—!
A killing intent that swallowed everything.
A grayish-green tapestry consuming my entire field of vision.
And before it all, a single dark blade standing impassive and unmoved.
Crack—!
The moment all of it converged at one point, the world detonated with sound, and the shockwave sent my hair whipping about my face.
“Ugh…!”
The heavy impact transmitted through the blade rattled my palms, but by some miracle I kept my grip.
Rather than brute blocking, I’d angled the blade to deflect the straight-driving punch to the side.
The creature’s fist glanced off the steel and continued past, striking only empty ground.
“Gruk…?”
Confusion flickered across those half-dead eyes.
Clearly not the result it expected.
A maggot squirmed and burst free from between its pupils, and I grinned at it.
“Not bad. But is that all?”
A system message scrolled past in my peripheral vision.
[Growth Condition Achieved]
[Skill “Beginning of Training (D−)” has evolved into “Swordsmanship Basics (D)”.]
Lucky timing.
“I’m just getting warmed up.”
* * *
The moment I’d finished the basic Quest on floor 5, the Skill had already grown.
The Trial notification had simply delayed the growth message for a moment.
That was why I hadn’t dodged that last attack.
‘It’s different. No—I see differently now.’
My vision had opened up. Things I couldn’t perceive before were becoming visible.
The subtle contraction of the creature’s shoulder muscles before it struck.
The arc along which its fist traveled.
And exactly where and how to strike to deflect that arc.
Everything had sharpened into focus.
‘Ah, until now I really was just swinging the blade on pure instinct, wasn’t I.’
When I’d been D− Rank, I’d felt instinctively what to do; now I was beginning to understand why I should do it.
‘My speed is slightly slower than his, or about the same. As long as I don’t engage in a brute-force contest, there’s nothing difficult here.’
A single exchange of attacks was all it took to feel that truth.
If that’s the full extent of its power, then the thing is no match for me.
‘Now it’s my turn.’
The counterattack came swift.
Slash!
I drove deep into its guard and slashed at that massive forearm.
The creature threw a clumsy punch.
It meant to finish me with one blow, but—
“That’s why I’m telling you it won’t work.”
I twisted my body half around, evaded, and drove the Flame Sword straight in.
The blade sang with scorching heat, tracing a perfect arc.
Crunch!
My blade caught something, and the creature’s wrist hit the ground with a thud.
Normally it should have shrieked and thrashed, but it barely seemed to care.
‘It doesn’t feel pain at all.’
Just as I’d heard about Undead once before—they lacked sensation.
‘No pain, no fear of death… this is going to be annoying.’
Yet strangely, the creature picked up its severed hand and pressed it against the wound.
“Hey, that’s not going to just reattach… wait, it is?”
I’d doubted it, but the injury rippled and convulsed before the severed hand knitted itself back on.
I’d heard stories of an Ogre’s regenerative power before, but not to this degree.
“So do I need to shred it into pieces… or just burn it?”
No, at this rate that wouldn’t help either.
‘Simple slashing won’t cut it.’
Blade alone wasn’t enough to deal a killing blow.
I could have hurled the Flame Sword around recklessly until my Mana bottomed out, but I had no confidence it would actually kill the thing.
And once my Mana ran dry, I’d be genuinely in danger.
So there was only one option.
‘The Flame Sword—I’ll use that.’
Wielding the blade wreathed in flame, it was the strongest technique I could muster right now.
It wasn’t an official Skill guaranteed by the Tower’s system, but judging by its firepower alone, it deserved to be called a new Skill.
Just then, a small spark flickered at the blade’s tip and vanished.
‘Almost there.’
A signal that the Nocturne’s heat was approaching its limit.
‘Time to stall.’
From that moment, the nature of the battle changed.
I no longer needed to hunt for killing blows.
All I aimed for was the Flame Sword.
Instead, I carved away flesh slowly and methodically, like peeling a potato.
Crunch! Sizzle!
Over and over—cutting and cauterizing, like Heracles facing the Hydra in myth.
Even when I scorched the wounds, I couldn’t stop the regeneration, but my blade was just slightly faster than its healing.
The creature weakened under the slow accumulation of damage, like clothes soaked through by gentle rain.
And in the midst of it all, I uncovered something unexpected.
“Ah, there it is.”
It yielded other parts easily enough, but whenever my attacks aimed for its sternum, it blocked with desperate ferocity.
A spot even the fearless Undead felt compelled to protect by instinct?
‘There’s definitely something there.’
The ‘focus of witchcraft’ that breathed life into this corpse—it had to be right there.
And just then, the Nocturne finished its preparation.
Whoosh!
‘It’s time.’
The blade caught fire, and in an instant it became flame itself—the Nocturne transfigured.
‘I’ll end this with this.’
“GRRAAAAAHHHHH—!”
Seeing the Nocturne become a pillar of fire, the creature seemed to sense the danger and threw its massive body forward like a shield, both arms spread.
When I dodged every attempt to land a blow, it gave up striking and went for the crush instead.
Exactly what I’d hoped for.
“Perfect. I’ll cleave you in two.”
Slash!
I tightened my grip on the Nocturne, pushed off the ground with all my strength, and drove straight into the creature’s embrace.
“Haah!”
Beyond his vision wavering with heat, the enemy’s massive frame blurred, while the blazing blade etched itself sharp and clear.
‘Turn to ash.’
The blade drew an arc from left to right.
Sparks scattered in its wake, dancing and falling.
A world stained crimson, as if a crescent moon had risen burning in the cavern.
The Red Moon, forged by blade tip and flame tail.
Flash—!
That light swallowed the enemy.
* * *
His entire body’s mana depleted, a wave of helplessness crashed over him, accompanied by ringing in his ears.
His vision blurred at the edges; he waited for the dust to settle.
‘Is that enough…?’
The blade had driven in clean.
He’d worried it wouldn’t be enough to kill the thing, but his fears were unfounded.
A four-meter frame, collapsed.
Not quite cleaved in two.
But a killing blow, nonetheless.
Where the Flame Sword had swept, the chest was barely holding together—two halves separated but for the thinnest connection.
“…Still not dead? Really?”
How tenacious was this creature’s life force? Even unable to move a single finger, its thread of existence clung on.
“Grrrraaahhh….”
Still, its momentum had broken, and flames were now creeping slowly across its body.
Before, when he’d tried everything to burn it, nothing took. But when the attack landed true, it seemed the fire spread.
Through the gaping rent in its chest, a black stone was visible.
‘So that was the conduit of sorcery.’
No ordinary stone—a Magic Stone, surely.
From the force of his last attack, the Magic Stone itself was cracked.
Shatter it completely, and this creature’s second life would end.
He plunged the Nocturne, still bearing embers from its last inferno, straight into the Magic Stone.
Crack! Whoosh!
In an instant, flames enveloped the creature as if oil had been poured over it.
“…Urgh.”
The fire spread so violently that the beast became a towering pillar of flame.
Watching that massive form consumed by fire, burning bright and fierce, he couldn’t help but marvel.
“Wow… it really burns.”
Soon the creature became ash—not a handful, but a truckload—leaving behind a mound of cinders befitting its size.
[You have defeated the ‘Risen Ogre.’]
[You have completed the special quest, ‘Trial of Observation.’]
At last, the messages he’d been waiting for appeared.
“Phew… it’s over.”
He caught his breath and turned to check his rewards, when his own shadow seized his attention.
‘What? Why is it doing that?’
His shadow writhed without his will, thrashing wildly.
It coveted the fallen creature’s shadow like a starving predator.
The way it kept creeping toward it made him worry that his shadow might soon stop being his own.
Curious, he moved closer to the ash, but it was just as it appeared.
“Just ash, though…?”
The next instant, his shadow at his feet snapped up the creature’s shadow in a single gulp.
‘One Bite?’
No, this was different.
He hadn’t even activated a skill.
‘The shadow… vanished?’
For a moment he thought he’d misread it, but he hadn’t.
Looking again, the ash pile’s shadow was gone without a trace.
The ‘One Bite’ he knew was a skill that consumed shadow substance—not one that erased the shadow itself.
And wasn’t it strange, erasing a shadow like that?
Even watching it happen, he couldn’t quite believe it.
The ash heap before him, now bereft of its shadow.
“Hey, why aren’t you saying anything? Give me some kind of explanation. Jusi.”
Normally, when extraordinary things like this happened, a friend called ‘Jusi’ or ‘the Tower’ would show up and explain what had taken place.
But this time, there was no message at all.
“…Um, is no one there?”
Just then, a message window appeared before his eyes to explain the situation.
[Shadow Predation Complete.]
The problem was that this message window had a color he’d never seen before.
White text glowing coldly against a black background.
‘…Black?’
Something was different.
Just by stepping on a shadow, a skill copied itself—
Author |
Killing Part
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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