Chapter 446: 421 Viscous

"Hmph—"

Suddenly attacked, the Sword Guest Shangguan was not flustered. He gathered his Qi into his dantian and let out a roar. The sword in his hand left its sheath and immediately changed color, transforming into a raging torch that stabbed toward that giant face.

However, before his sword could reach, the face had already arrived. Although the halo invading Yun Dao had been riddled with holes by the light within a few breaths, half a face, several zhang high, still remained. It leaned toward Sword Guest Shangguan, opened its mouth, and swallowed his entire figure.

This was done cleanly and swiftly, completed in the blink of an eye. Black Widow felt a slight chill; the hand lamp in her hand instinctively shielded her front, and her body froze in the center of the light, not daring to move.

The center of that giant face was pitch black. With Sword Guest Shangguan inside, nothing could be seen from the outside, only his angry roars could be heard, which for the moment still sounded full of vigor.

"So, not every kind of fire can dispel shadows?"

Although Black Widow was not a sword guest, she had seen Sword Guest Shangguan strike many times and guessed that his sword could likely transform into different material substances—wind, fire, it could switch freely. She did not know if this Sword Art was strong, but it was certainly flexible, capable of dealing with all sorts of sudden situations.

Just now, Sword Guest Shangguan had turned his sword into a raging flame, clearly inspired by the hand lamp's ability to dispel darkness, intending to remove the firewood from under the cauldron and use fire and light to directly crush the black shadow. He had not expected his fire to be useless; not only did it fail to dispel the darkness, but he himself was wrapped inside it, and the light of the flames could not even transmit out of the shadow.

No, it was not entirely without light. He also had a hand lamp on him. That beam of light pierced the darkness, tearing open the only such gap from inside that mass of a giant face, and was currently working with the lamp light from the outside to rapidly dissolve the darkness.

"It still has to be our Azhao."

Black Widow could not help but sigh. The Art Tool left behind by Tang Zhao was the true nemesis of this shadow. By comparison, Sword Guest Shangguan, this genuine sword guest, seemed a bit like a fake.

Before she could finish this sigh, the surrounding darkness began to boil, as if someone had sounded a horn for a charge. Countless black shadows rushed out from the vast shadow space outside, concentrating their assault on her and Yue Lai.

These shadows were like magma erupting from a volcano, one stream on the left, one on the right, rising and falling in succession. Some sprayed near, some sprayed far, their speed comparable to light and shadow, pervasive and overwhelming.

If every one of these shadows could materialize into a physical attack, even if it were just an attack with claws and teeth like an ordinary wild beast, Black Widow feared she would be unable to parry; a slight graze would leave her covered in wounds. But these were all tiny shadows that feared light; nearly ninety percent vanished into thin air the moment they rushed out, and most of the rest could not even reach Black Widow.

Only a few large shadows reached her close proximity. To deal with these afterimages, Black Widow initially used the blade in her sleeve to hack and slash, but immediately discovered it was useless. Even though her blade was an Art Tool, capable of killing Fierce Beasts and using blade Qi to injure Phantoms, it could not touch the black shadows in the slightest.

In fact, not touching them was a good thing.

A wolf afterimage rushed to Black Widow's side. Black Widow flicked with her blade, not knowing where she had struck, but felt her hand sink, and the thin, light single-blade instantly became as heavy as a thousand catties.

At this moment, the wolf shadow had already been expelled by the light flame. Black Widow looked down and saw a layer of pitch-black stuff stuck to the blade of the single-blade, appearing to be a fluid flowing, yet as viscous as mud.

Her heart skipped a beat; just looking at this appearance was bad. Then she felt the blade in her hand falling uncontrollably, and even the hand she used to grip the blade was being dragged downward.

Before she could react, Yue Lai beside her had already shouted loudly: "Throw it away! Don't throw it on the ground!"

Black Widow had a flash of inspiration. She could not spare the regret for this handy weapon that had been with her for over ten years, and used all her strength to throw it outward, vowing to throw it as far as possible.

With her physical strength, this throw should have gone several dozen zhang, yet the weapon fell rapidly almost as soon as it left her hand, tracing a strange, rapidly descending parabolic arc.

Fortunately, Black Widow's strength was great and the initial speed was fast enough. The weapon barely flew out of the range of the light cloud, nearly grazing the edge as it flew into the darkness. Black Widow watched helplessly as her blade merged into the dark world.

It really was a merger!

While the blade was in flight, a black mucous membrane had already covered the entire blade body, then eroded the blade body from the outside in. She saw the blade body liquefy and vaporize, until finally, the entire blade lost its shape and texture, turning into a black shadow no different from those attacking shadows, completely melting into the shadow world.

Black Widow felt a chill in her heart, terrified by this kind of erosion and assimilation. She was very clear that if she had been grazed by a black shadow just now, she would have also rapidly turned into a black shadow.

This reminded her of the Vermilion Bird fire Tang Zhao had released on that night of the Gu fight. That was also a peerless fierce object; if one touched even a tiny bit, one had to be decisive and cut off a limb to survive, otherwise, one would just wait to be burned to nothing.

Compared to the Vermilion Bird fire, this shadow was even more terrifying. It did not just destroy all objects it touched, but also eroded and assimilated them, turning them into a part of the vast black shadow, with no peace even in death.

Could it be... that the shadows outside all came from this?

Just how many things had to be devoured to become such a vast shadow world as it was now?

Would one Xiancheng be enough?

Black Widow thought more and more about how she had been ignorant before, relying only on her longing for Xiancheng to plunge headlong into this kind of place with just a few Torches; that was truly stupid.

Unfortunately, there was no one to hear these words of self-reflection.

Yue Lai looked at her calmly and said: "Don't do anything unnecessary. Weapons are unreliable; only this lamp can repel enemies and protect the body. Wherever the shadow touches, if clothes are touched, tear off the clothes; if a hand is touched, cut off the hand. If you can't bear to, I will discard you."

Black Widow said calmly: "I know. If you are contaminated, it will be the same for me."

The two exchanged these cold words and each gripped a lamp tightly.

At this moment, they heard heavy panting from above.

The two looked up and discovered that Sword Guest Shangguan had reappeared.

It turned out that although Sword Guest Shangguan had been swallowed by the shadow face, this was, after all, still Guangming Dao. Even if Sword Guest Shangguan was floating above, he was still protected by the light of the dozen or so hand lamps below. In a short while, that giant face collapsed completely, revealing him.

Although he was revealed, Sword Guest Shangguan was no longer his former self. His body was stuck with a layer of pitch-black, wet, adhesive coating, as if it were a layer of asphalt, seemingly flowing downward in a viscous manner, encountering the same fate as Black Widow's blade.

And he, a dignified Sword Guest, seemed unable to bear the weight of this layer of black traces, as if his whole person were about to fall from the sky.

Black Widow's heart sank: Isn't this that layer of shadow? And Sword Guest Shangguan looked much more severely contaminated than her blade. At this point, let alone cutting off a hand, it had reached the point where cutting off his whole body would be useless.

If Sword Guest Shangguan just turned into a mass of black shadow, that would be one thing, but if he turned into those monsters that had just attacked, and even retained his strength from when he was alive, how would the two of them deal with it?

Yue Lai also could not help but grit his teeth. He could talk tough to Black Widow, but he did not have the confidence to fight a fallen Sword Guest head-on.

Fortunately, Sword Guest Shangguan was very resolute, clearly maintaining his human reason and refusing to sink just like that. He sluggishly raised the hand lamp, whose light was much weaker than before, and pressed it toward his own face.

Sizzle—

The sound of skin and flesh burning rang out.

Black Widow felt a secret dread. The light of this hand lamp had no temperature when shining from afar, but the closer it was, the higher the energy intensity; at the lamp's opening, it was truly scorching, really as if one were close to the sun.

However, compared to burns, life was naturally more important.

She heard the sizzling sound, and in the air, besides the sound of skin and flesh burning, there was actually a faint smell of meat wafting about. Anyone with an imagination would feel their teeth ache and feel nauseated.

But this was effective. Sword Guest Shangguan's face was burned bright red and charred black. At the same time, that layer of black pus on his face that had almost smothered him gradually fell off, turning into black ink drops as it fell.

Black Widow and Yue Lai retreated at the same time, though they were also doing something unnecessary; those ink drops were dispelled by the light before they even hit the ground, disappearing completely.

They looked at each other, and a bit of joy rose in their hearts.

This shadow actually had a solution; using lamp light close up could dissolve it.

When it came to the last resort, skin burns were really nothing compared to life. Even Black Widow had the resolve to burn her own beautiful face to trade for survival if she had no other choice.

Sword Guest Shangguan dispelled the black liquid on his face and turned the hand lamp toward his body. At this time, the hand lamp's energy seemed to have been consumed quite a bit, and the light was even dimmer. He could only hold it closer, and the smell of charred flesh became even stronger.

Black Widow and Yue Lai, down below, watched a cruel scene of someone inflicting a torture of burning on themselves. Resolve was one thing, but seeing this scene and thinking that this might happen to themselves, they could not help but feel a sense of shared sorrow.

They had only just entered the land of darkness and hadn't even walked one percent of the territory, yet they had already suffered such a calamity. Who knew what they would have to face later?

Black Widow thought even more: This old man is now in extreme pain, and his heart must be filled with resentment and gloom. We watched his miserable state with our own eyes; what if he vents his anger on us?

At this moment, they heard Sword Guest Shangguan say: "Hey, give me another lamp!"

Black Widow looked up and saw that the black Qi on Shangguan Jianke had dissipated by more than half, but he was already in a wretched state; not only was his body covered in burns, but he was also panting heavily, appearing to have just damaged his vital energy.

This was to be expected, as that scorching just now had almost peeled a layer of skin off him.

Although he looked much weaker, Black Widow still had to be wary of his status as a Sword Guest, so she had no choice but to pull off another Hand Lamp cylinder and throw it up, feeling anxious in her heart:

With Hand Lamp cylinders being consumed so quickly now, each one used is one less, and there is nowhere to replenish them; in this Shadow world, how much longer can they hold out?

Fortunately, whether it was because they had just passed through a peak period or not, after this time, the incoming Shadows ahead decreased significantly, and there were no more of those terrifying big ones.

The world calmed down slightly, entering an interlude. Black Widow and the others were able to catch their breath.