My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

Time and money waits for nobody, and Damon would never make money wait.

After so many months they had finally planned a very strategic and risky endeavor. The original plan had been to wait a few more weeks, but with the return of Aetherus and the temple looking as though it was about to begin accumulating power once more, there was no longer any need for patience.

For the past few years they had operated in secrecy. No one would try to find them if no one knew they existed.

Until they became known.

It was only quite recently that different powers had begun to confirm their existence.

Then again their activities could never truly remain hidden. They were bound to leave traces eventually.

Since that was the case and discovery had become inevitable, Lilith, Damon and Renata had planned accordingly.

Lilith wanted to destroy the temple, but they did not possess the military power necessary to accomplish something on that scale.

Renata wanted to solidify their control over different information networks and continue operating at a deeper level while remaining mysterious.

Damon on the other hand had a far better idea.

Why not do both.

Then the question became simple.

How.

If they attacked the temple directly they would lose resources and personnel gathered over many years. They would come out worse for it and the temple would undoubtedly use the attack to make them enemies of the world.

They would become public enemy number one, hunted by every major power, every kingdom, every race that worshipped the Goddess.

Damon knew this.

So he touched the true crux of the matter.

How exactly did the temple manage to destroy powerful people and sustain its massive operations spread across the world.

The answer was painfully simple.

Money.

An absurd amount of it.

Take that away and the temple was little more than an empty shell.

So what if you possessed an army.

You could not feed soldiers on hope and prayers.

Even faith had limits.

A starving army did not care about God.

And so for that reason this operation had begun.

The temple had grown arrogant enough to keep the overwhelming majority of its wealth within one massive central storage. From there they allocated resources to different branches annually while demanding profits and returns in exchange.

So Damon had asked himself one simple question.

What would happen if someone suddenly stole all of that.

What happened next.

Damon smiled as he watched his shadow drones carrying everything and passing through the door leading into the Tomb of Lazarak, a passage he had opened using the Key of Lazarak.

There were hundreds of drones and they had been working for nearly an hour now without even clearing half of what was stored here.

”Dammit send more drones I want... more.”

The order was directed toward his shadow.

Maw issued a mental command after grumbling beneath its breath about the totalitarian master it had unfortunately been bound to.

More and more drones began appearing and Damon watched generations worth of accumulated wealth disappear into the tomb.

Only then did he relax slightly, turning his attention toward the sealed fragments of Ashcroft’s body resting nearby.

There were seven of them.

These were the final parts of Ashcroft left in existence that Damon had not devoured.

If he obtained them all then he would regain the full Domination attribute.

It would be like becoming master over every attribute of magic.

”I can sense your excitement. Don’t be full of yourself damn usurper. Having my attribute does not make you invincible. There are things even I could not dominate and some things I simply dominated better.”

Damon scoffed.

”So what. I will still become more powerful. Too bad I never got the Ouroboros Coil. I would have been far stronger.”

”Yes... that is quite unfortunate indeed. I wonder if those outsiders have already used it. If they did then its power may already be exhausted and you may never get another chance.”

Ashcroft spoke calmly within Damon’s mind.

”Graghhh.”

Inside Damon’s shadow Ashergon’s eyes suddenly appeared through the darkness, staring greedily at the overwhelming mountain of treasure spread before them.

”Verily I was certain many great treasures lay hidden here.”

The imprisoned dragon sounded almost reverent.

”Don’t tell me your motive for attacking the Holy City all those years ago was simple greed. Disgusting. I cannot understand why people lose themselves over material possessions.”

Damon looked down on Ashergon with clear contempt before glancing from the corner of his eye toward the drones.

He immediately gave another order.

”Take that Nasatine crystal. Be careful it’s priceless.”

Ashergon growled hearing this hypocrisy but strangely enough he could not help agreeing.

Perhaps this Damon imposter was not so bad after all.

Ashcroft suddenly took a deep breath then through some abstruse method managed to send his voice directly toward Ashergon through Damon’s shadow.

”Be silent.”

The command was simple.

Yet the moment Ashcroft spoke Damon could have sworn he saw Ashergon’s eyes physically tremble.

”Graahhh...”

A sharp gasp escaped the dragon as years of deeply rooted trauma violently resurfaced.

”No... no it cannot be...”

Honestly Damon felt bad for him.

As for Ashergon he could understand.

Honestly he truly could.

Ashcroft was simply too damn terrifying and that was saying something coming from someone who had actually defeated him.

If Damon himself had ever lost to Ashcroft he probably would have been traumatized too.

Even now Damon remained deeply cautious of Ashcroft.

If he somehow returned in a proper body then he would become extraordinarily dangerous.

And admittedly...

A little terrifying.

Damon turned his attention back toward the body parts laid out before him.

There was a kidney.

A liver.

A nose.

A tongue.

An ear.

A cluster of nerves.

And finally a horn still filled with darkened blood.

They were different from the fragments Damon had devoured before.

Different in a very unsettling way.

These pieces carried something deeper.

Something active.

These fragments carried Ashcroft’s will.

So much of it in fact that Damon feared if he actually devoured them now he might completely lose control of his own body.

”What are you waiting for. Devour them and you will reach the Seventh Class with or without the Ouroboros Coil.”

Ashcroft’s voice within his mind sounded strangely soft now.

Warm and beckoning.

And somehow that terrified Damon more than anything else.