My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

Chapter 997: Chapter 999: Who Is Cursing Me

“Hachu!”

Xander sneezed violently, rubbing his nose with the back of a finger the size of a tree trunk.

“Is the mountain this cold… or is someone cursing me?”

A slow grin spread across his face.

“It’s definitely Damon.”

He could already picture Damon’s dark expression when he found out how well received Xander had become in the military.

Xander stood at the peak of the mountain as if it were a small boulder beneath his feet. His colossal form towered into the fog, shoulders cutting through the mist like moving cliffs.

Seated comfortably on his right shoulder was a young woman with beast-kin ears, legs swinging lazily as she tended a small fire.

Xander’s nose twitched.

He frowned as the smell of roasted meat reached him.

He let out a long sigh and tilted his head slightly to look at her.

“Leona… can you stop grilling meat on my body?”

Her beast ears shot upright.

“What? I’m hungry. We’ve been fighting all day. Damon ditched me, so I have to cook for myself,” she replied, as if that explained everything.

Xander shook his head slowly, fog rolling off his shoulders as he began marching forward again.

Ahead of them, barely visible through the thick fog, was the fort at the mountain’s peak.

Today, they would take it.

Today, the first true forward base would be established.

It had been a long campaign.

The demon races were fierce, and they hadn’t even begun their true assaults yet. So far, all they had done was defend.

’Brother… is this what you fought?’

The thought surfaced quietly in Xander’s mind.

His brother had been his hero.

But after the demon wars, he had returned a broken man. A shell. Locked in his room, drinking himself into oblivion.

Xander had thought it was simply the horrors of war.

But Xander had seen horrors too. He had crossed death zones. He had fought impossible battles. And now he was in a demon war.

He stood at the very front. The titan that always attacked first.

For that, they called him The Colossus.

Still…

He never understood his brother.

And now he never would.

Because Amon had slain him in his own room.

Xander had watched.

Unable to move. Unable to save him.

That memory lived inside him like a festering wound.

His shame.

His scar.

His heart demon.

It was that memory that filled him with hatred and fury.

And for that reason, he had made a deal with a certain friend to kill that immortal demon.

A costly price.

But so be it.

Covered by the fog, Xander finally reached the fort.

He placed both massive hands against the walls.

By the time the demons defending it noticed the silhouette in the mist, it was already too late.

“Fire! Fire!”

“Enemy attack!”

Their screams were swallowed by the fog.

The fog was a double-edged sword.

It hid them.

But it also blinded them.

And that was exactly what Abellona had based her strategy on.

Xander pulled himself up, fingers digging into stone as if it were soft clay. His giant form rose above the wall, demons and monsters staring up in stunned silence.

He raised his enormous spear and shield.

Then he jumped down into the fort.

The moment he landed, gravity itself seemed to buckle.

The entire mountain shook.

A crushing wave of force exploded outward, sending demons flying in every direction like leaves in a storm.

On his shoulder, Leona casually stood up.

She raised her sword.

And vanished in a flash of lightning.

She reappeared beside the fort gates, blade already in motion.

The demons there didn’t even get a chance to react before they were sliced apart and charred to death in the same instant.

There was a casual menace in the way she moved.

Then, with a burst of lightning, she punched the gate.

Lightning spread in all directions, crawling across the metal, racing up the walls, reaching toward the sky.

And then…

Nothing happened.

Leona blinked.

She tilted her head slightly.

“Oops…”

She glanced up at Xander.

“Erm… Xander… we have a tiny problem.”

Xander didn’t even glance in her direction.

A balrog burst through the smoke and dust, dragging a flaming sword that carved molten lines into the stone. The creature’s massive form was nearly half Xander’s height, heat rolling off it in suffocating waves.

“Kinda busy here,” Xander answered, shifting his grip on his spear as the balrog swung.

“Yeah, I figured. It’s just the gate… won’t budge,” Leona replied casually, as if they weren’t trapped inside a fort crawling with enemies.

“There should be a way to open it,” he said, blocking the flaming blade with his shield. Sparks and embers scattered like fireflies.

Leona’s eyes scanned the courtyard.

Then she saw it.

A glowing magical formation core pulsing at the center of a defensive ring.

“Oh. Never mind. I found it!” she shouted, even though she knew he could hear her perfectly well.

Her real problem was the tight formation of demons guarding it.

Most of them were focused entirely on Xander’s colossal figure.

They ignored her.

A mistake.

Leona dragged the tip of her sword across the ground as she walked toward them, carving a thin glowing line into the stone. A faint smile touched her lips.

“Sorry, but I need to use that. Our people are outside waiting and we really need this place. So if you don’t mind, leave. No need to thank me. Damon says it’s good to be nice to the weak.”

A ghoul peeked at her from behind a tower shield.

“Hah! Little beast girl. I see you are an Ascendant. However, you are arrogant. You will perish today, and I shall do with your beautiful corpse as I please.”

Leona’s gaze dropped slowly to where his eyes were fixed.

Her expression turned flat.

Then cold.

“Ah… that’s disgusting. You bad demon. Very bad.”

She gave him a thumbs down.

Lightning cracked.

She vanished.

She reappeared directly in front of him.

The ghoul reacted instantly, raising his massive shield to meet her sword, confident his size and strength would overpower her.

Their weapons met.

His shield didn’t just break.

It exploded.

Along with his entire arm.

The shockwave ripped through the demons beside him.

Still snarling, he tried to retaliate with the axe in his remaining hand.

Leona casually reached up with her left hand and caught the descending axe mid-swing.

His expression froze in horror.

The demons beside him didn’t even get a chance to move.

“I just wanted to create a gap in your shield formation. Bye-bye.”

Lightning erupted from her body, spreading through their ranks in branching arcs.

They detonated one after another.

A ghoul in that rank could not match her physical strength.

Leona stepped over the smoking remains and tapped the glowing formation core with the flat of her blade.

Far behind her, the gates groaned and began to open.

She turned back toward Xander—

But he was already standing on the crushed head of the dead balrog, pulling his spear free from its skull.

“Ah man. I wanted to kill that,” she said.

“Too slow,” Xander laughed.

Outside, the army began to pour through the gates.

The first demon fort had fallen.

Only two days after Damon’s kill order.

Just as they were about to celebrate, a communication device hanging from the balrog’s belt began to glow and vibrate.

A distorted voice echoed out across the courtyard.

“To all demons. A ten-thousand kill order has been placed on the wretched Xander Ravenscroft by orders of Lord Ash the Supreme. Whoever kills him will be rewarded. Great Goddess be with our holy race. Hail the Unknown God.”

The device went silent.

Xander blinked.

“What?”