My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

Damon’s sword flashed—blood flowed like ink from a torn page as he passed through a cluster of monsters, emerging by the jagged edge of a broken wall.

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the ravaged lands, ignoring the endless symphony of violence echoing all around him.

The sounds of death and despair were enough to make anyone mad and the corruption could reduce anyone into monstrous remnants of themselves.

He held his chin with mock seriousness and gave a slow nod.

“Yes, yes… I’m lost.”

Valarie sighed from inside his breastplate, her voice laced with dry exasperation.

That was quite obvious, especially since he lost himself in his own frenzy.

“It seems you ended up three days ago instead of yesterday. By that logic, you should try finding a way to tomorrow.”

Damon nodded thoughtfully. Even with a fractured mind, there was twisted reason beneath the madness.

His insanity had its own power. At level two, it granted him resistance to mind attacks—after all, you can’t shatter what’s already broken. At level three, he could passively induce fear. At level four, his mere presence could unravel the sanity of others.

Making the sane go mad, it was as if they were bedeviled.

Not that the corrupted were even sane to begin with.

Clicking his tongue, Damon strolled casually toward a battle between a monster and a nightmare. He didn’t even slow. One lazy swipe of his sword—and a bloom of dark fire erupted, engulfing the nightmare. It crumbled into rot, leaving nothing behind.

Then he turned to the monster.

Grabbing it by its horns.

The beast thrashed, but its will faltered the moment Damon’s eyes met its own. Fear sank its claws into the creature’s mind—an effect of his active skill, Omen of Dread. And the more fear it felt, the stronger Damon became—Terror Engine devoured dread like fuel.

The synergy was perfect.

He narrowed his eyes.

“Have we met before…? Ahh, whatever. I’ve killed a lot of your kind.”

The monster’s sinewy legs trembled as his dark gaze pierced it.

“Anyway, I was asking for directions. You know the way to three days from now? Bit embarrassing to admit but… I got lost.”

Valarie observed the bizarre exchange as if it were normal. At this point, it was. Damon possessed a skill called Soul Tongue, allowing him to speak and understand all languages—monstrous or otherwise.

The creature raised a long, needle-thin arm and pointed.

Damon nodded appreciatively, then casually flung it to the side.

“Alright, let’s go.”

The monster scrambled away—one of the few to survive an encounter with Damon. It didn’t hesitate. It wouldn’t just leave this area—it decided then and there to migrate fifty years into the past when things were still safer.

It was a monster, not insane. As long as it was far away from that madman it would live to see another day.

Valarie, hidden within his breastplate, had come to accept it: Damon was a monster. Even more so than his friends on the surface, who had clawed their way to second-class advancement on spite, sheer will… and a little help from Sylvia.

Time here was… unkind.

Damon had said he was traveling to yesterday. It wasn’t a mistake. Just as one could walk between places, one could move through moments. But time, despite its twists, was absolute in cruelty—die in one moment, and you’re dead in all of them. Go back all you like; death remains.

That was why Damon was so desperate to find Matia.

Even in madness, he’d experimented—tested monsters, reality, and time itself—for loopholes. Anything to save her… if she’d fallen.

Eventually, Damon reached the Bone Tree.

He clenched his fists beneath its twisted, towering branches.

His power had grown.

To gain resistance, he had tortured himself—diving into fire, submerging in ice water, burying himself beneath stone, enduring lightning strikes, time warps, and aging storms.

Each ordeal carved new strengths into him. Fire, water, ice, wind, lightning—he endured them all until they fused into Elemental Resistance.

He’d gathered many others—resistance to corruption, to poison, to curses. The scars from Fuska the Facestealer’s ambush had taught him well.

He retrieved the artifact—Whispercoin. A day had passed… he could use it again.

—

[Whispercoin]

Type: Charm

Description: A symbol of undying love—a whisper between two separated souls, carried even across silence.

Effect: Once per day, allows the holder to whisper a message into it. The message is heard in the ear of a specific person, no matter the distance. It cannot lie. The speaker’s true intent always comes through.

—

It wasn’t his most powerful artifact—but it was the one he cherished most.

He had earned it by seducing and slaying a siren. After devouring her remains, this was the artifact left behind.

Every day since, Damon had whispered to Matia—hoping, praying, that she might hear him. If he couldn’t find her… maybe she’d find him.

He stood beneath the Bone Tree—the closest thing he had to a landmark in this distorted world. He never wandered too far. Time was too unstable. Matia could have fallen here years ago—or years in the future.

He’d wait. To the end of time if needed.

He sat against the bone-white trunk.

“Valarie… how much time has passed for the others?”

A rare flicker of clarity in his voice. And, as always, Valarie answered softly.

“It’s only been a month. Your friends… they still wait for your return.”

And he smiled.

Still waiting for Matia.

Until the ground split with the roar of shattering frost.

A jagged wall of ice erupted, carving the land in two.

Damon gritted his teeth.

“You goddamn bastard… you came again.”

His old nemesis—the Ruin Knight. A rank-three monster wielding the power of frost and death.

Its minions—hollow knights sculpted from ice—charged forward.

Damon raised a hand, releasing a flurry of magic bullets. They tore through the soldiers.

[You have slain: Ruin Soldier]

His gaze met his foe—a figure shrouded in swirling frost, its true form cloaked in mist… only those deep, glowing blue eyes visible through the haze.