30. Death's shadow (1)

"What is it?" Silas asked as he got impatient.

"Part dragon, part angel, part demon, part Phoenix. He's not even supposed to exist, but he does." Juliet seemed frightened and even Karvon seemed surprised.

'Hmm... So he has blood of a large number of creatures, nice.' Silas took it as just that.

But having the blood of both angel and demon plus that of a dragon and demonic Phoenix, it made Sebastion a force to be reckoned with in the past. He was a creature that lost all sense of reasoning and emotions and only had to serve the previous Silas. And even now too...

"Let's just continue going," Silas said and then they continued forward in the caves.

Soon, they reached a diverting point that goes both ways left and right.

"The right leads to the shadow serpent. Let's head left. We wouldn't want to meet it now." Karvon said and Silas looked at him as he used his scythe to fly himself around and he sighed and just continued on foot.

...

After ten minutes of continuous walking, they finally arrived at a large black door which had a circle carving on it with multiple circles within. The circle had clear symbols in some areas and the door seemed to be made by a fine specialist.

"This is the place." Karvon said as he stepped aside for Silas and Silas ignored that the door was 3 metres tall and he pushed the door open.

The door creaked loudly, echoing in all the surroundings and torches within the circular room lit up green flames on the walls and the entire room became visible.

The entire room was circular and the walls were made of black material and then there was a being on a throne at the other end shrouded in darkness.

"I'm guessing the ire is in the dark?" Silas asked and Karvon nodded.

"Indeed, whatever is in the darkness is holding the ire." Karvon frowned and just as they were about to take action, a green circle appeared in the middle of the hall and then a creature arose out of it.

It was a humanoid creature. It's scelera was pitch black and it's pupils were green in colour, it had ash coloured skin which looked like it had been dried out.

The creature wore as long black cloak which covered it's hair and ears and then it opened it's eyes and looked at Silas.

"Be careful." Karvon said and then he stood normally and held his scythe in front of him.

"Grinth." Juliet said and that word made Silas raise a brow and look at the creature in front of them.

Grinth was the guardian of the ire of souls. Said to be a master of dark mystic arts and sorcery. This creature was born from the essence of darkness in hell and is said to be emotionless.

*BOOM!!*

Juliet charged towards the creature, causing the ground to crack where she took off and Silas almost fell from the vibrations afterward.

A black book suddenly appeared above Grinth's hand and he looked at the incoming hellhound.

*CLANK!!*

Juliet's claws collided with a formation which suddly appeared, looking like gears of machines. Her claws were just about to pierce through the creature's chest when the flat magic barrier stopped her.

A forceful wind blew out in all the surroundings due to the clash, blowing dust towards the spectators.

Silas covered his eyes and so did Karvon. A bright light emitted from within the dust and loud clanking and scraping noises came from there and soon, with a loud bang, the dust cleared.

Grinth had five formation circles behind him of different colours - Red, white, yellow, blue, and black.

"Cross section arrays." Karvon sounded surprised and Silas looked to see him having his eyes open.

"I'll find an opening." Silas said and then Juliet ran around Grinth and continued attacking.

Flames shot out of the red array, striking at the ground and surroundings and Juliet ran into the flames and came out unscathed, her claws struck at Grinth and a black barrier defended him.

Juliet appeared and disappeared at such short time intervals and Grinth had a hard time targeting her for the next attack.

Grinth opened the book in his hand. And then the white and red arrays floated over him and then they over lapped each other.

Both arrays merged into a grey coloured one and then the array released a forceful wave of energy which froze everything in it's path and then Juliet suddenly appeared before Karvon and Silas and then she carried them and ran forward.

She stopped a while later and they looked back to see that nothing in the room moved except from Grinth.

The green flames on torches too were not moving and everything was in shades of white and black.

"Frozen time. We were not around until Grinth learned how to use it? How long were we dead for?" Karvon said and then Juliet who was in front of them jumped towards the guardian who was frozen too and then the time resumed, colours coming back to the surroundings.

"Should be 400,000+ years." Silas said to Karvon as he heard from the keeper of nether realm and Karvon was indeed shocked.

Juliet suddenly transformed into a two metres tall wolf with a long tail behind it which was on fire and she quickly swiped Grinth into the walls of the room.

Flames shot out from her mouth going to the creature. Grinth was opening the book again as he stood up, seeing that the flames were very close, he launched all circles at Juliet.

The flames burned the creature and it wailed in pain. Flames wrapped Juliet as she shrinker back into her humanoid form and the formations suddenly vanished as they got close to her.

Juliet walked back to Silas and Karvon and then she held the book which Grinth used.

She handed the book to Silas and he looked at it with a raised brow.

[Shadow Grimoire]

Silas looked on the front page of the book were many formations weaving behind each other.

"Is that it?" Silas asked as he looked around at the room and then Karvon stepped forward.

"No, it's not." The white scythe which had blood red patterns appeared in front of Karvon and he glanced forward with a frown.

In front of them, the shadows on the throne weaved upwards, forming a person.

Silas was shocked as what they were looking at now was a shadow version of Karvon with the same scythe and height.