Chapter 30: Followers of the Shadow Demons Are Coming!
"I'm telling you, Coulson..."
"At this pace, we'll hit Royal League in two days."
Several matches in a row. No mistakes.
Aron and Coulson had already developed a stable rhythm.
Coulson's honesty paid off, Aron didn't mind a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.
In his eyes:
It doesn't matter if you're from S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA, or the FBI, as long as you bring points, you're a good person.
...
"Aron, are you sure you don't want to reconsider joining S.H.I.E.L.D.?"
"The snake's nest?"
"That's S.H.I.E.L.D., formerly known as the Strategic Homeland Defense and..."
"Stop. Play. Cut the sad speech."
...
Coulson stared helplessly at the message on the screen.
Every time he brought up recruitment, Aron would react the same way, ironically, yet never directly rejecting it.
He left room.
And reeled him in like a fish on a hook, playing along as long as it lasted.
Truth be told, Coulson wasn't complaining.
Gaming was a good escape. But he also knew it couldn't last forever.
The phone rang.
He didn't even check who it was, he knew.
Fury.
And he knew exactly what he'd hear: "We're paying you to recruit, not to chase points. Start the mission. Finish the task. Blah blah."
"Ahh..." Coulson sighed.
He looked at the vibrating phone, then at the game screen entering the selection phase.
In the end...
Evil comes from within.
Coulson declined the call.
"Points are points."
---
Meanwhile...
While Aron and Coulson spent the night on the servers, something unusual happened outside Aron's house in Queens.
The shadow beneath the streetlamp flickered.
"Rrrr... Woof! Woof!"
A neighborhood dog barked toward the darkness.
The next second...
A black spear, dark as oil, sliced through the air and silenced the dog instantly.
The shadows under the lamps began to thicken.
They became denser... darker... and finally, took form.
From them rose soldiers of shadow, humanoid figures with dual blades.
No words.
No breath.
No footsteps.
One of them silently slipped through the fence and soundlessly entered Aron's house.
---
"Skip the ad! Focus on positioning! Don't fall for Wonder Woman on the other side!"
Aron shouted into the mic as he furiously controlled his hero on screen.
It was a crucial team fight.
The shadow soldier, without making a sound, approached him from behind, holding a knife.
The moment he got behind him, Aron still fixated on the screen, the soldier swung.
The blade cut through the air like lightning.
Exactly then...
"Victory!"
The moment the word "Victory" appeared on screen, Aron's eyes flashed, cold and calculating.
A rumble.
A massive black hand appeared from nowhere and smashed down, grabbing the shadow soldier creeping up behind him.
No one knew when it had appeared, but the creature, made of shadow, a human body and a dog's head, was already there.
And the head... clearly belonged to the very dog the followers had killed earlier.
"Dinner."
Aron gave a short command.
The creature with the human-dog head grabbed the shadow soldier and devoured him mercilessly. The soldier dissolved into shadow. And the creature grew ever so slightly.
"Avenging its master?" Aron said softly and looked out the window.
The attacker had used Shadow Energy, the same kind of energy he possessed. But...
So impure. Murky. Unrefined.
Compared to his own, this was a cheap imitation. If his was pure 24-karat gold, then this was dirty gravel.
"Really pathetic... you send someone like this to kill me?" Aron laughed and took a step back, disappearing into the darkness.
---
Outside the complex...
Three followers of the Shadow Demon stood silently beside the body of their fallen comrade.
Each of them could summon only one Shadow Soldier. Their connection with them was deep, almost as if they shared one being.
The comrade's death also meant the death of his soldier.
"Impossible..."
"Warrior Sarco, why didn't you kill the heretic!?"
They were stunned. In their minds, shadow warriors were invincible.
And yet, now...
"No! We must fulfill the will of the God of Shadow! If we must die for it, so be it!"
"Glory to the darkness!"
"Glory to the darkness!"
"Glory to the darkness!"
In unison, they summoned their Shadow Soldiers.
But before they could strike...
Darkness.
Total.
The light vanished. In a single blink, the area was covered in thick black fog.
"!!!"
"This feeling...!"
A brief moment of shock.
Then, ecstasy.
"It is... the God of Darkness! The God of Darkness has descended!"
"Thank you, darkness! Thank you, darkness!"
The three followers knelt, bathed in darkness, and began chanting in a trance.
Aron, who at first intended to eliminate them mercilessly, stopped.
An idea struck him.
"Ahem."
He lightly cleared his throat and dispersed the darkness, appearing before them. "Praise the darkness."
"?"
Confusion. They looked at him. Then, recognition.
"Heretic!"
...
"You're the heretic!"
"No," Aron said in a serious voice. "I am the Herald of Sarco. God's messenger on Earth."
He paused, the corners of his lips barely rising.
"And you must not speak His name so freely."
...
"It is forbidden."
"I have a direct connection to Him. If you don't believe me, look..."
He raised his palm. In it, a perfectly pure shadow, dense like black glass, pulsating.
The three of them were stunned.
Such purity... impossible to fake.
"But... we received a vision from the God of Darkness. We were supposed to kill you."
...
"Lies! Deceit from other evil spirits who wish to remove me. You were merely used."
"Shadow energy doesn't lie, does it?"
Confusion in their eyes. Then...
Nods.
Slowly, collectively. As if someone had reset them.
They knelt.
"Great Herald... forgive us... we didn't know."
...
"It's okay."
"I forgive you."
Aron sighed theatrically. Then led them into the garage and locked them in.
He returned to the living room, grabbed his phone, and called.
"Coulson?"
"It's me. I caught a few cultists."