Shadow Forge

Blood and sweat dropped on the disturbed earth. Under the terrible heat of the sun, the air was stuffy and filled with dust particles. The place was desolate of any life form except for these two.

Vanta lost his balance but quickly shot his black lusterless against his opponent, but as it clashed with it, it broke and faded in a rain of smoke.

"SHADOW DARKNESS PAINTING: SHADOW FORGE"

He quickly creates a shield to block Ash's already advancing strikes, trying his best to not get hit. The force of her blow sent him spiraling on the floor. He dissolved his shield and quickly created a chain.

He threw it at Ashe's feet, but the short girl was quick enough to jump, evading the black chain.

'Got you.'

All this while, Vanta wasn't aiming for her physical body, but her shadow itself. It turned out he could attack people from their shadow, since it was like an extension of one's self created by light.

With the chains, Vanta was able to bind her with his chains, even though it was for a little while.

"Alright, the drill is over." Ash said as both of them crashed on the uneven, cracked ground.

Their chests rose and fell frantically.

"You're not bad; you've got skills." Ash complicated.

"Thank you, you too."

Although Ash was not more than two years older than Vanta, her fighting said otherwise. She was skilled and deadly when it came to battle. Her swordsmanship and style made him believe that she has been fighting deadly battles for far more than her age.

Made one wonder just what kind of story hid behind those cold, emotionless killer eyes she has.

Meanwhile, Vanta was making steady progress when it came to using his shadow darkness forge, the Xue Sense, and the flow of his color.

First, the shadow darkness forge. He learned that he could potentially create anything, from inanimate objects to animate objects. The problem was, he needed a good or deep understanding of what he wanted, meaning more complex constructs were harder to create. Not only that, but also consumed more color to materialize.

The strength, durability, and other components still depended on the color amount and density. This limited his creativity as well.

Another thing he learned about was color flow. He was steadily learning how to control the flow of his color now that it has increased in size and density.

The thing he got a little bit of a better understanding was the Xue Sense. It gave him a clear mental picture of all his abilities and how best to apply them.

They've spent almost a month here, and still no sign of the exam ending. It was annoying to think the school just tossed them aside and forgot about them. But who could complain?? It was what they had signed up for.

Vanta had grown tired of the constant battle between them and the abominations that lurked there parts.

"How much longer do we need to suffer?? This exam should have been over a long time ago," Vanta grumbled, picking himself up.

"Stop whining, child."

Vanta frowned.

"Child? You're not much older than me."

Ash want to resorted but stopped. I big scowl appeared on her face.

Just then, the sun was cover by thick clouds soo much so that not a single ray of sunlight passed through. Immediately, show started falling and a mild blizzard occurred.

[Xue: You've been caught under an ability.]

[ Xue: You're being attacked physically, your health is taking damage.]

'What the hell is going on?'

Looking at Ash's expression, it was evident that she had received a similar warning. True they felt strong energies coming from the forest, non of it was eerie or malevolent.

"What's happening? Could this be the work of a monster?" Vanta asked.

"There's only one way to find out" Ash responded and walked towards the center of the mayhem.

Monsters were different from abominations. While abominations were mutated animals and insects, monsters were different. Their own origin were unknown but speculations said that they came from beyond ingresses.

"Shouldn't we just avoid this?"

She ignored him and just kept walk. No matter the amount of time they spend together, he couldn't still under how she thought or her reasons for do.

*Sign*

Vanta soon follows her from a distance. Soon, a bad promination washed over Vanta. They saw blood spilled everywhere as they got closer and closer to the center of everything, but something was odd, not a single corpse could be seen.

Soon, they arrived closer enough to the center to understand what was going on.

Standing in the middle of everything were two people fighting, a boy and a girl. The boy was looking calm and relax with few bruises and him while the girl was bleeding bad, she looked more wild as she was was smiling. She seemed to ignore her injured. She was the owner of the blood spill they've been seeing.

After a few seconds, they both clashed again send debris flying in all directions. The air became thin and colder.

"We having to stop them" Ash commented.

" What?! Why?" Vanta questioned.

"If we don't stop them, there no telling what will happen. Besides, this their little clash might attract more abominations than we can handle" She responded in a calculating tone.

"This can't be good. So? What are we supposed to do exactly"

"I'll try and separate them. You'll deal with the boy while I deal with the girl."

With that, she took off without saying another word.