Chapter 474: 449 The Giant

Inside the shadow-surrounded Hall, a shadow monster the size of a small hill was particularly dense in its blackness, standing in stark contrast to the shadows beside it.

If someone possessed a pair of eyes especially capable of distinguishing darkness, they could tell that the behemoth was a giant with a head and feet.

Calling it a giant, when looked at closely, it did not look much like a human; its head was square, just like a complete brick, with absolutely no eyes or ears, only a round hole opening at the bottom, which did not resemble a mouth so much as the mouthparts of an insect.

In the darkness, it lay on the ground, its chest and abdomen several zhang high, filling the spacious Hall so completely that one would wonder how it had entered upright. That large mouth remained open, looking as if it were snoring, yet it was silent, continuously inhaling a patch of shadow and exhaling an even denser shadow.

"Boom—"

Suddenly, a thunderous sound erupted from next to the Hall!

It was as if a loud thunderclap had struck from the sky, or as if ten thousand horses were galloping; the sound was so immense that it could be heard clearly even from tens of miles away.

Never mind someone sleeping; even if a Mortal had only one breath left, they would be jolted awake.

In the Hall, however, the giant remained motionless, still inhaling and exhaling shadows.

The sound rang out alone for a while, seemingly feeling lonely, and then slowly stopped.

The surroundings returned to a Silence like stagnant water.

After another while, a light shone outside the Hall.

The light was very dazzling, almost shining directly into the Hall; a Light Beam struck the window screen, shooting almost straight onto the giant's face.

The giant was still inhaling and exhaling shadows.

After a while, the light extinguished, and the surroundings turned dim once again.

After a blank period of sound and light, a shadow slipped through the crack of the Hall door.

Unlike those pitch-black shadows, this shadow was full of colors and lifelike; it was a young girl, only she was pressed against the ground, flat as a piece of fine-brushwork painting, which was why she could squeeze through the narrow door crack.

The young girl slid in through the door crack, smoothly enough, but the moment she entered the inner hall from the doorway—

The giant stopped inhaling and exhaling shadows.

It had not made any sound; it was silent when inhaling and exhaling, and silent when it stopped.

Yet, at this moment, there seemed to be the panting of a beast before a hunt within the Silence.

At this time, silence was more powerful than sound.

The young girl was so frightened she almost stood up from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, her hair nearly standing on end.

The giant's eerie head seemed to tremble, about to turn. Before it could turn, the young girl shadow slipped back out through the door crack.

After she slipped out, the giant paused for a moment, lowered its head again, and began to silently inhale and exhale shadows without change.

After another period of calm, the window of the Hall was opened.

This window was opened from the outside; in fact, it had been locked from the inside, but someone outside had forcefully smashed the window open, making a loud "bang" sound.

The giant, as usual, had no reaction.

Immediately following, a white shadow suddenly appeared outside the window.

It was a white fox, holding a Lamp in its mouth, lying on the window frame in an extremely arrogant posture, its two greenish eyes staring at the giant.

It steadied its figure, staring at the giant, confirming it had not been startled, and then leaped lightly, jumping over the window frame and landing in the Hall.

When it jumped, everything was as usual; the instant it landed, the giant moved.

It was not the small movement of stopping the inhalation and trembling its head as before; it suddenly sat up and reached out a hand like lightning to grab at the white fox.

This move was as swift as a rabbit escaping and a falcon striking, without any warning!

It was hard to imagine a mountain-like giant being so agile, more nimble than the beasts in the mountain forests; turning, sitting up, and striking were all completed in the blink of an eye. Just as one saw it strike, the huge palm had already grabbed onto the window frame.

The white fox, however, had been staring at it all along; the instant it struck, the white fox turned and ran. Although the giant was fast, the fox's movements were faster, and it had already jumped out of the window the moment the giant smashed onto the window frame.

That large hand seemed to immediately realize something was wrong and withdrew at once. After withdrawing, several clumps of shadow, so dense they could not be dissolved, remained stuck to the window frame, extremely conspicuous, as if clusters of black fire were burning.

With the target, the white fox, gone, the giant had no intention of lying back down and immediately squeezed out of the Hall.

Such a huge behemoth, which had barely been able to turn around while lying in the Hall, actually squeezed out of a window less than a person's height. When it squeezed through the window, it seemed to turn into a thinner shadow for an instant, or perhaps it simply deformed and elongated; in any case, that was only a momentary change. To a person, it had simply squeezed out of the window completely with such a massive body.

However, after it squeezed out, it paused.

There were only thick shadows all around, and the shadow of the white fox could not be seen. The huge body stood there blankly, seemingly at a loss, only leaning its back against the Hall, which was still half its height.

"Aunt—over here!"

At a corner in the distance, a thin young girl shadow was waving, the sound she made like the buzzing of a mosquito.

Fortunately, she was carrying a Lamp, and the lamp light was quite conspicuous in the shadows, visible from afar.

The white fox ran over like a flash, stopped in front of her by the lamp light, and spoke in a woman's voice at a normal volume: "You don't need to be so quiet; that stupid thing can't hear."

The shadow girl, naturally Aqin, said: "I know. We tried just now; there was no reaction to sound, and no reaction to the lamp light either. It can't hear or see. But it is so sensitive! As soon as I entered the Hall, it knew. It scared me just now. I lowered my voice without realizing it."

The white fox, which was Ling Baoyu, let out a breath and said: "It is, after all, a powerful creature of the Shadow Kingdom; naturally, it has special abilities. I suppose that Shadow Kingdom is surrounded by shadows on all sides, with no colors and no sounds—it is a world of darkness. What would it need to see or hear for? But they must have their own sensing methods, perhaps even better than eyes and ears. It's just that we don't know."

She analyzed calmly for Aqin: "However, its senses are not completely sharp. When you went in, it only had a feeling and did not react very quickly. It seems your existence is very faint. I don't know if it's because your reflection is also a type of shadow that it didn't find abnormal, or because you are particularly flat and pressed against the ground, so it couldn't sense you?"

Aqin thought for a moment and said: "If it can't sense me when I'm flat, does that mean it senses based on the shape of objects? Is it like a bat? It can sense obstacles, but can't see characters or paintings?"

Ling Baoyu said: "That should be it. If it only senses based on shape, that's still relatively good, because that can also be deceived. It's nothing more than changing the method of deception. What I fear is that it can distinguish aura, and not just the aura of a living person. I am not a living person either, but it could still discover me. If it really can distinguish the feeling of all things other than shadows, then it truly cannot be deceived."

Aqin Ask: "Aunt, can your Sword Art deceive it?"

Ling Baoyu said resentfully: "Didn't you just see it? It can't be deceived."

Aqin said: "No, no, I mean really using your Sword Art, the kind where you hide yourself in a person's curiosity..."

Ling Baoyu was silent for a moment and said: "I was using my Sword Art just now."

Aqin was also silent. Ling Baoyu followed with silence, and then, to ease the awkwardness, said hurriedly: "Of course, it wasn't my best Sword Art. My concealment has to be hidden in a person's curiosity, right? There is no one here now, so where am I supposed to hide it? I am not here myself, you don't count as a 'person', and Tang Zhao is not here at this moment either. My Sword Art has no target, so it naturally loses its effectiveness. Otherwise... otherwise..."

She said "otherwise" twice, then suddenly sighed and said: "My Sword Art is very difficult to use against it; this monster has no heart, which happens to counter me."

Every sword has a direction it excels in. Ling Baoyu's two Sword Intents both have miraculous effects on people, and they might not be bad against Heavenly Demons either, because Heavenly Demons actually have seven emotions and six desires, and are not essentially different from humans. And if there were teammates, acting as support to help fight those heartless monsters, or even contending with a Natural Disaster, it might not be impossible. To take a step back, even without teammates, she still had herself; she herself was also a person, with curiosity and Doubt, and could assist herself. Although not as flexible, she could still maneuver.

The most frustrating thing was the current situation: the monster was heartless and did not fall for her direct Spirit attacks or bewilderment, and there was not a single person around—including herself, who was not a person. Her Sword Law and Sword Art had nothing to rely on, which was practically like being disarmed.

Ling Baoyu couldn't help but say angrily: "That brat Tang Zhao is just not here. If he were here, although he is only a Sword Guest, his Sword Image counters shadows, and my Sword Art could also be used. If we were to assist each other, how could we be as passive as we are now? Where did he go?"

She turned her head and glanced in the direction of the Zhugong, feeling both puzzled and worried.

Could he really have fallen into the Zhugong? She had never been to that place; it was said to be a forbidden area that even her eldest sister and second sister could not step into. If Tang Zhao had truly fallen inside, how would he get out?

Aqin said, "How about I give it a try?"

Ling Baoyu started, saying, "Try what?"

Aqin said, "I am a Sword Guest too, and I can go onto the field to kill the enemy! It is my turn to go up now!"

Ling Baoyu instinctively said, "No! With me here, how could it be your turn..."

Just as Aqin was about to retort, she saw a large amount of thick smoke rising in the distance.

The giant did not sense Ling Baoyu, and instead of turning back to continue sleeping, it waited for a moment, then suddenly tilted its head back as if having made a decision, and opened its mouth wide.

A large amount of black smoke emerged from its mouth; the black smoke was so dense that it broke through the Shadow. It made no sound, but the Momentum of that black shadow was as if it were roaring.

That black smoke gathered above, instantly like dark clouds covering the sky, seemingly endless, making one wonder how even a giant of such massive stature could store so much black smoke within its body.

However, if one looked closely, after the black smoke was spewed out, the giant's body gradually became smaller, as if a portion of it was pouring out from within its body. It was just that the part released was far greater than the part that had shrunk.

After spewing for a long time, the black smoke finally gradually ceased, and then, that mass of black clouds began to squirm and gradually take shape.

Arms... legs... heads...

Every limb was more than one.

Finally, from the black clouds, four giants half the size of the original giant emerged, and together with the original giant that had shrunk by half, they charged in five directions simultaneously.

"Ahhh—it's coming over here!"