Dread.

That was all Nox felt when the wave of umbra energy hit him.

He only managed to get hold of himself when he started circulating his SE, which allowed him to think properly.

"What the hell is happening in the settlement?" He muttered, but quickly realized that answers won't come by just sitting here.

Besides, Ayla might currently be in danger.

So he got off the corpse, grabbed Morphos and teleported as closest to the source of the umbra energy as he could.

He spotted Ayla standing just a distance away from whatever that Eclipsed was, so he teleported to her side.

He finally had a good look at the Eclipsed and his sense of danger was going off like crazy.

The creature seemed to have some kind of black bone-like armor covering its entire body.

Its finger were over extended into claws, and it stood upright, like a human. On its face there were no features, save for the rows and rows of sharp teeth.

Behind it, was a massive tail.

And like all Eclipsed, light didn't reach this one.

"What's that?" Nox asked, turning to Ayla.

"The incubation," She simply replied.

Nox turned back to the Eclipsed and wondered, 'so that was what was being fed beneath the pile?'

He was so lost in thoughts that he didn't even notice that the creature had moved until it was right in front of him.

He didn't have enough time to teleport away, but fortunately, Ayla pulled him away just before the creature's claws could reach him.

"Don't get distracted," Ayla said before turning to the Eclipsed, that was a bit surprised at the fact the Nox avoided its attack, "its a tier 5."

Nox immediately froze at her words, looking back at the Eclipsed, "t-that's a tier 5?"

"Yes," Ayla nodded.

The most he had faced was a tier 4 Eclipsed, back in the rift, but just like with rankings for the solar knights, the difference in each Eclipsed rank was vast.

For comparison, a tier 2 Eclipsed can only be defeated by a lower ranked Eclipsed (tier 1) if they numbered up to fifty.

That in itself wasn't certain, and the number would be a lot higher if said Eclipsed was capable of using umbra energy.

As for the difference between tier 4 and 5?

It'd take at least 10 tier 4 Eclipsed to take down a tier 5....again, a lot more if the tier 5 was capable of using umbra energy.

Even if the tier 4 was also capable of using it, the number would still remain high.

So that was exactly the gap between the tier 4 he face in the rift and this one.

Fortunately, this was a new born one, so it'd take a while before it learnt to use its umbra energy.

But that didn't make it any less dangerous.

Ayla stepped forward, placing herself half a step ahead of Nox without even thinking about it.

"Stay close," she said calmly. "And don't try to hold anything back, else, you'll die."

Nox nodded and sent morphos back to his inventory before strings of SE started to wrap around his arms, quickly forming a sword.

Now wasn't the time to be holding back, after all, they were right in front of the creature they didn't want to hide.

And from the looks of it, it had no intention of hiding.

"Yeah," he muttered. "No pressure."

The tier 5 moved, again, without any warning.

The ground cratered beneath its feet as it crossed the distance between them in an instant, before whipping it's tail towards them at blinding speeds.

Nox barely had time to react but he managed to teleported just in time for the tail punched straight through the space he had occupied, shattering the remains of a building behind them.

Dust and debris exploded outward as Ayla raised her hand, umbra forming a curved barrier that deflected the fragments away from them.

The creature didn't slow down.

It twisted mid-motion with its claws swiping tearing through the air as it pursued Nox's reappearance point with terrifying accuracy.

"It's predicting where I'll go?!," Nox shouted.

"Yes," Ayla replied, as she caused the shadows beneath her feet to spread like ink in water, "just keep it distracted for a few seconds."

Nox didn't know what she planned, all he knew was that if he stopped teleporting for even a second, he'd lose his head.

Though, now that he thought about it, why was the Eclipsed chasing only him, Ayla was also standing right there, but it was completely ignoring her.

Speaking of Ayla, she slammed her feet into the ground and the shadows that had been gathering beneath it turned the earth into a web of darkness that shot upward, attempting to bind the creature's limbs.

The tier 5 screeched as several restraints wrapped around its legs and torso, stopping its movement completely, for a few seconds.

"That's our opening," Ayla said.

Nox didn't hesitate.

He gripped his sword tighter as it produced an even brighter glow when he poured even more SE into it.

He quickly teleported forward, SE reinforcing his body as he drove the sword straight into the creature's chest.

Bang!

The impact that rang out was pretty loud, and it sounded like metal hitting metal, but the sword didn't go through.

Instead, cracks spread across the black armor, golden light seeping through them as the tier 5 reeled back, shrieking violently.

Its struggles soon became and a dark purple aura start gathering around it.

"Get back," Ayla instructed, and Nox didn't need to be told twice, he immediately teleported back, reappearing beside Ayla, breathing hard.

"…That felt like hitting a wall," he muttered before turning back to the spectacle before them.

Ayla frowned as she watched the umbra energy build up around the creature as the seconds passed and she realized it'd be dangerous if she just let it complete whatever it was going.

The shadows that restrained it suddenly expanded and covered its entire body in the form of a cocoon before she clenched her fist.

But unlike with the previous Eclipsed, Ayla didn't feel the shadows imploding, instead, purple glowing cracks started appearing on its surface and a second later.

Boom!

An even more dreadful amount of umbra energy exploded outwards, causing to be become harder and harder for Nox to breathe.

The creature stepped out of the destroyed cocoon, calmly looking at the two.

It was still mostly the same, save for the fact that it had dark purple glowing lines of umbra energy flowing through its body, which meant one thing,

It could now properly use umbra energy.

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