Shadow Slave novel Chapter 3234

Shadow was not particularly wary of the Mad Prince.

Of course, it was not impossible for a Corrupted Titan to destroy a Supreme one. In fact, those who put too much meaning into their Rank did not usually live long — gods knew, Shadow had slain countless foes more powerful than him throughout his endless lives.

However, Shadow was not just any Supreme Titan. Among all Supreme beings, there was hardly anyone more deadly and terrifying than him — so, no matter how outstanding and singular a monster the Mad Prince was, defeating him did not seem like a tall task. Even now that Shadow had discarded his Domain and grown weaker for it.

Still... he was curious what that abomination was capable of.

The Mad Prince did not disappoint him. When his attack came, it was as if the world itself descended upon Shadow in a carnage of murderous frenzy. The Mad Prince moved, and a vast ocean of shadow moved with him, surging forward in a deadly tide — he had subjugated the ancient darkness of the Realm of Death that surrounded them, commanding every shadow in an area that encompassed dozens of kilometers.

In an instant, it was as if Shadow became the sole target of a gargantuan storm front centered around him. If he were to calculate the weight of the seething ocean of shadows the Mad Prince had sent forward to destroy him, the result would be in the hundreds of billions of tons — if shadows had physical weight, that was.

The dark storm front was frozen in a strange state between shadow and matter, so Shadow was not sure if it had physical weight. It certainly had a metaphysical one, though, which was far more deadly.

This single attack could wipe a sprawling city off the face of the earth, crush a mountain chain, or forever reshape the landscape of a realm... but Shadow simply frowned, dissatisfied by its nature.

‘He is not hoping to compete with me in commanding shadows, is he?’

With a thought, Shadow ordered the churning expanse of darkness to dissipate. If the authority of the Mad Prince was like a storm, then his was like the endless black abyss of the vast heavens — still, boundless, insurmountable.

In an instant, the raging fury of the shadow ocean was extinguished, and the world was still and motionless once more.

"Quite a waste of..."

And in the same instant, the Mad Prince emerged from behind the dissipating elemental cataclysm, the tip of his jade sword only a hair's breadth away from plunging into the Shadow's neck.

'A distraction?’

Shadow smiled in amusement.

He barely managed to deflect the jade blade with his obsidian sword, pushing it aside just enough to avoid being cut.

Then, everything moved swiftly.

The crescent clouds of obsidian dust thrown into the air by the Mad Prince's steps froze there like abstract statues. In the distance, the roaming essence storm had become static, blooming in the darkness like a flower of pristine radiance. The lonesome shades making their way to the heart of the Realm of Death seemed to have been paralyzed midstep.

In this still world, only two beings moved — one of them was Shadow, while the other one was Mad Prince.

Shadow had to admit — his opponent was a master of the sword... a profane saint of slaughter, even. The Mad Prince was fast, the Mad Prince was strong. He was impossibly skilled and chillingly insidious, seamlessly weaving hundreds of movements into an unceasing torrent of treacherous attacks.

In the blink of an eye, they had exchanged more of them than Shadow cared to count. The first thrusting attack turned into a bind, then into a backward slash, followed by a thrust aimed at his eyes, which transitioned seamlessly into a downward strike that almost took his arm off.

And all of that happened in the blink of an eye — a fraction of that, really.

The Mad Prince showed no indication of slowing down, either. On the contrary, he seemed to move even faster, the pressure of his frenzied assault mounting. His movements were imbued with a deranged power, but there was nothing chaotic or hurried about them. Instead, they were chillingly precise and calculated, nearly flawless in their deliberate lethality.

It was as if the Mad Prince knew what Shadow would do in advance...

No, he did know it. Just as Shadow was predicting his intentions through the movements of his shadow, the Mad Prince was doing the same.

He was doing it better, really.

As soon as Shadow realized that fact, he almost lost his head to the jade blade — that was because the Mad Prince accounted for his realization and ordered his own shadow to move in discord with his actions, deceiving what his enemy sensed.

Shadow had no choice but to do the same, feeling a little awkward due to the novelty of such a tactic.

In fact, he felt a little awkward for many reasons.

This battle was indeed enjoyable — he had missed swordsmanship, it seemed. But his battle skill was covered in rust, and even if he had experienced far more battles than the Mad Prince, most of them had little to do with combat techniques.

He hated to admit it, but in terms of pure swordsmanship... the Mad Prince was superior to him.

Shadow was managing to hold out because he had more experience and a far keener combat intelligence — that, and he was simply stronger. His Supreme body was superior to the tattered wreck of the Mad Prince's body, and he could wield his Will with great finesse.

The abomination's Will was not weak in any way — far from it — but he could not control it. In his hands, the Will was like a heavy club, devastating enough to bludgeon the world. But in the hands of Shadow, the Will was like a razor-sharp blade.

He could have cut the Mad Prince with that blade, but held himself back, unwilling to be bested in everything except raw power. So... Shadow was being pushed back. He was being cautious, especially because he had a feeling that the smallest cut from that eerie jade blade had to be avoided at all costs. After that first heartbeat, however, he slowly regained composure.

Deflecting another strike, he smiled.

"To answer your many questions..."