Tribal Sign-In: Immortal At The Start

Bael also rose from his bush and looked at the figures a few meters away from them.

The figures indeed wore armour and held swords, but unlike humans, they were entirely black, as if shadows had been moulded into human visages.

They had no eyes, no nose, no mouth; they only had a somewhat practical humanoid body.

"What are they?" a few of the soldiers murmured within themselves as they pulled out their weapons and stared at the shadows in vigilance.

Bael had the same question, and he thought, ’What’s going on? How is the duke capable of doing this?’

He knew these shadows belonged to the duke because their capes had the dukedom’s insignia.

"Calm down!" Jareb muttered darkly while his own legs shook under the cold, lifeless presence of the entities before them.

The soldiers closed their mouths, and Henry stated, "Take the formation!"

The shadows moved around without a motive, and sensing the nearby movement, they stopped and sloppily turned towards the platoon.

’I was looking forward to this,’ Bael shook his head in disappointment and widened his Zone.

Then he wrapped his Zone around the shadows to sense every single strand of their being, and he found nothing.

’What the?!’ His expression darkened, and he remarked inwardly, ’How are they here? They don’t even have any energy. What’s keeping their existence whole?’

"What should we do?" Jareb questioned, and before Bael could answer him, a recruit who had frozen in fear shouted in terror, "DARK GHOSTS!"

The soldiers’ faces went pale, and they yelled at him, "What the fuck are you doing?! You dumb bastard!"

Hearing the recruit, the shadows dashed towards them in uneven movement.

The recruit fell on his back and clawed at the ground as he tried to run away, tears and snot dripped down his face as he prayed for his life, and the soldiers scoffed at him before they got ready to fight the shadows.

The shadows were fewer than the platoon, and, seeing their movements, the soldiers assumed they weren’t a threat.

Their armor clanked as the shadows ran towards them, and just as they were about to reach them, they disappeared.

"W-What?!" The soldiers looked around in confusion, and Bael shouted, "Jump to the side!"

Jareb, Henry, and a couple of soldiers reacted instantly, and the next moment, the shadows beneath their feet wiggled, and the disappeared shadow knights came out of them while thrusting their swords forward.

The recruits who didn’t have any great armor couldn’t defend themselves, and their sword pierced their bodies, killing them on the spot.

Those who had armor survived because the swords couldn’t break through it.

However, even though they survived seeing the corpses lying on the ground, their expressions turned lost, and their bodies shivered under the fear of death.

"Focus all of you!" Bael shouted as he took out a dagger and threw it towards one of the shadows.

The mythiron dagger streaked and struck the shadow at its head, but the attack was useless as it passed right through it.

Bael’s eyes widened, and he muttered, "What the—"

The shadows beneath him wiggled, and a sword zipped towards his neck.

He jumped to the back and threw a kick at the shadow’s chestplate.

Unlike before, Bael’s kick didn’t pass through its body; instead, it slammed into its chest and sent it flying towards the other shadows.

"Attack their armor!" He shouted, but no one responded.

As he sensed they were alive, he couldn’t understand the silence, so he looked at them out of the corner of his eye and saw that all of them had an eerily similar, lost look.

"What’s going on?" he mumbled somberly, and another shadow jumped out of the shadows beside him.

He twisted his body and smashed his fist into its side.

The shadow struck the ground and once again slipped into the shadows.

"Why are you all standing there like fools?!" He spat with gritted teeth, and more and more shadows began to jump out of his shadows.

He answered their attacks with his own, but the shadows didn’t slow down.

’Why is no one answering?’ Bael thought and wrapped his Zone around the soldiers.

As his will covered them, he finally understood what was going on.

"Whatever these are, they can poison a being by entering their shadow," Bael concluded.

And as another shadow neared him, his lips parted, and he declared, "Be Gone."

The golden spark of Absolute Will within his second layer of spiritual existence glowed brightly, and his words turned into the conceptual firmament of non-existence.

The shadows instantly moved away from him, but the only thing that was attacking him couldn’t, and the conceptual firmament touched it.

A heavy metallic thud echoed throughout the forest as the shadow disappeared and its armor fell to the ground.

The other shadows stared at him as if he were some monster, even though they had no eyes or expressions.

Bael looked at the armor, and his gaze fell on the dark marks engraved on its inside.

’Are they runes? Also, why couldn’t I sense them?’ he thought as he stepped forward and stored the armor in his inventory.

[You have stored Shadow Soldier Armor!]

’Can it have a more generic name?’ He thought as he dashed towards the shadows, and, in contrast to his previous situation, the shadows now ran away from him, slithering into the shadows of the trees around them.

The chase continued for some time, and the sun finally reached its zenith, announcing noon.

As the sunlight consumed the shadows, they jumped out of the shadows, and once the sunlight touched them, their shadowy bodies began to harden into dark stone.

Seeing that, Bael blinked and stated, "So you all have an allergy to sunlight?"

He grinned. "You are some hardcore gamers, aren’t you?"

He chuckled at his own words and threw his daggers at them.

As the daggers hit them, they exploded into dark bits, and Bael used Ruler’s Hand to call them back before throwing them at the other shadows.