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Chapter 17: The Ravenous Shadows awakens.
🕑 Added 2025-04-21 13:00:08 +0000 UTCEchidna didn't look worried in the least, she wasn't even hurt. Elizabeth punched her with all her strength, and the Woman barely seemed to feel it.
"Really? A Claymore?" Echidna said as the shadows covered the older Woman…no, they covered Elizabeth.
Elizabeth barely noticed and the next second she was standing once again at the base of the stairs.
"A Claymore is suited for heavy fighters, taller people, and brutish people." Echidna said as she stood from her throne, her dress billowing and generating a shadowy mist that traveled down the stairs.
"Rena, Rossie… I'm sorry, but please stand back a little," Elizabeth said without looking at both of her Girlfriends, "I want to at least try this alone a little."
"Okay, Eli-Eli," Rossie said first. Elizabeth had thought she would fight her more about this. Instead, the pink-haired girl jumped backward and sat atop a pink barrier made of Mana.
"We will jump as needed when we deem it necessary, Eli," Rena said, jumping back and landing on the same pink barrier.
"Loyal retainers?" Echidna said nodding at that, "Good, at least you aren't totally waste, Max never seemed to understand the importance of a loyal retainer…And from what the letter said, neither did Chloe."
….Elizabeth put more strength into the hand that was holding the claymore.
"They aren't servants, they are Rossie and Rena. The two girls I love more than anything in the world." Elizabeth said glaring at Echidna, "They aren't retainers."
"....Well, we can work that out…Or you can spawn a child or two using one of those spells the magical girls use." Echidna said, waving her hand away, "Right…have you checked on those?"
"On those?" Elizabeth asked confused, "You seem to not understand the situation you are in right now [Mother of Monsters]."
Elizabeth was seething, Echidna acted like they were still playing the twenty questions games, so to make her stance in this obvious even to someone as entitled as that Woman, Elizabeth shot a spear made out of her own shadows at the Woman.
The spear was purely made from her mana and shadow mana, no physical shadow was used from the real world. As this prevented any possible influence from Echidna.
"I am [The Mother of Shadows]," Echidna said as shadows rose from the floor and caught the shadow spear with ease, "Pure shadow manipulation…smart, this indeed is a way to prevent me from controlling your attack…So you have fought someone who had higher [Authority] over shadows before?"
"I had some troubles when fighting [The Shadow Tide] for that reason, yes," Elizabeth admitted grudgingly.
"And….you thought you could defeat me?" Echidna asked surprised, "Me? When you couldn't defeat that failure?"
"Stop calling them failures!" Elizabeth screamed back, "[Shadow Pact] was in the wrong, but that doesn't mean he was a failure. He was a good Shadow User; even if his way of achieving it was wrong, he was not a failure!"
"...But he lost," Echidna said shaking her head, "We are Windsors. We are not meant to loss, we are to be faithfull guardians, knights, spouses, husbands….we are to be perfect, we can't loss."
What the heck was this Woman on?
"And since you didn't answer, I assume you do not know." Echidna said sighing, "A Magical Girl doesn't concieve in the right way, they make a spell to create an artificial zygote out of two ovules, it is closer to…"
"To cloning than to actual birth," Elizabeth finished for Echidna, "Yes, I know."
"...No, you obviously don't." Echidna said with exasperation, "It is true that it's closer to cloning, but to be precise it isn't cloning but the correct term would be [Parthenogenesis] it has a broader genetic output, but that is not needed."
So what?
"Meaning, as it seems you are quite slow…We will need to work in that," Echidna said pulling out her shadows and making an orb of shadows, the Woman made a two staged creation, an outer layer almost translucid and an inner layer that housed a small figure, a baby. "Meaning that you can make a new life alone. Even if you aren't aware of it."
….
"You mean to say something?" Elizabeth asked, trying to get control over her Shadow Spear back, attempting to make it split into a burst of daggers, or extend new spikes from it, all to no avail.
"Yes, I have no memories of any daughter called Choe, before I knew you were the daughter of our [Gods] I had thought you to be the one that was birthed from my [Shadows]," Echidna said, "I know someone was birthed from me, or that someone stole some of my power."
……Hah?
"You…forgot you birthed Chloe?" Elizabeth asked aghast, "How can you forget something like that?"
"It can happen, if you birthed someone by [Shadow Parthogenesis]," Echidna said dismissing the construct she had been making, "Someone, or something made me birth this girl Chloe, by the age she claimed to be and the one you have, it happened when you were birthed, perhaps someone attempted to use me and her as a way to get closer to you?"
….Yeah, about that….Elizabeth….was innocent.
"You know?" Echidna asked.
".....I….was supposed to be your daughter…" Elizabeth conceded, "But I am most definitely not your Daughter."
"So you say." Echidna said pulling out the Shadow Spear closer to her, "This…does not look like my mana signature, so your claim isn't that out of the way. But what does that have to do with this girl?"
"....My Soul was nurtured by Papa's mana….while my Body was nurtured by your shadows." Elizabeth said as she stopped trying to control the Shadow Spear and instead attempted to return her back….to no avail, "But since I was not born from you, the body that was meant to be mine needed somewhere to go, as I ended up with this body made up by Mother and Papa's love."
"....So….I ended up with a case of [Shadow Parthogenesis]," Echidna said nodding, "What about the Soul then?"
"The what?" Elizabeth asked, thinking about what to do, one option would be Shadow Step, but that would let her within whatever was containing the Shadow Spear; she couldn't quite use her Divinity that well, and to be honest, she had burned more than she had before.
"The soul, you claim that your Soul was nurtured by [Framework], but the girl Chloe, surely she had a Soul too?" Echidna said pointing at that fact, Elizabeth…had not thought about that before, "Where that came from?"
"I… don't know?" Elizabeth answered, "My body couldn't withstand the Mana given by my Soul, and Chloe seemed to have some issues with her body not living to the talent it had…But…I don't think she had any issues beyond that, so I assume she had a normal Soul?"
Well, Chloe had said that she had an insatiable desire to become one with Elizabeth, but that was between Elizabeth and Chloe; Echidna had nothing to do with that.
"I assume a fragmented Soul was used, probably one of the souls from one of the experiments we did with compatible partners through the years." Echidna said offhandedly.
"....Experiments?" Elizabeth asked as she attempted something she hadn't done quite often enough, or not like this. "What experiments?"
"I have memories, clouded memories, of me attempting to get pregnant. I don't remember the reason, I remember spite and thinking about [Framework]," Echidna said, that made Elizabeth weirded out, spite? and memories of Papa? Echidna wanted to get pregnant to spite on Papa?
She had Maximilian for that reason? She birthed [The Shadow Pact] for that reason?
Elizabeth was aware that Mother and Papa had some trouble getting pregnant, but…to birth a child for that reason? This Woman was mad.
"Perhaps those soul clinged to me and ended up in that child's body?" Echidna said nodding, "That would explain why she was this untalented, and why she was birthed with a power that was anathema to shadows."
….Elizabeth so wanted to pull out the stopper and use Chloe's Lightning…
But no, Chloe never hated Echidna, and Elizabeth using that, even if it made it easier would mean using Chloe's gift to trounce Echidna…
Besides, Elizabeth didn't want the easy way out, not yet anyway. Not while Echidna was still looking down on her.
But she didn't have a way to hurt Echidna, and Echidna was toying with her, she wasn't counterattacking, she had full control over the shadows around…Elizabeth could barely keep the coherence of her Shadow spear, and any shadow that was sent away was eroded away…
She….she was checkmated.
"So, is the tantrum over?" Echidna asked as the Shadow Spear was ripped apart and thrown into the shadows under Echidna's Authority. Elizabeth lost complete connection to it. "If you need a reason to stop fighting try to use your [Infosec] skill on me, I'll allow it to pierce my defenses."
Elizabeth so wanted to punch her again…
"Identify," But for now, she did as Echidna wanted, she was sure the older Woman didn't know how powerful her Identify was, so she would use this chance to…HOLLY MOTHER IN THE SKY PEEKING AT MAGICAL GIRLS KISSING IN THE ACADEMY SHOWER ROOM!
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"So?" Echidna asked once more, "Ready to surrender?"
That was….stupid, these stats were stupid. What the heck was even that? How was that a thing? And the skills….
"I thought skills never capped like that," Elizabeth said reading once more, all the skills were at 999.
"So you know that they can reach a mastery…" Echidna said nodding, "Good, but allowing them that is bad, since the higher the level, the system grants you more boosts. If you let them cap to mastery without capping them to max level, you don't get any bonus."
….This Woman…. didn't let her skills to cap to X and instead allowed them to level to 999? All so she could get boosts?
She was….actually that made sense in an annoying way, unlike how Lilly went around, using the skill slots to get stuff she couldn't do, Echidna had boosted what she could do using the system. And that would explain why Elizabeth was being overpowered here.
It wasn't only the Mastery over Shadows, Echidna was actively being boosted above that too.
"So, will you admit defeat?" Echidna asked with a cool smile on her face, "Kneel, accept me as your Master. And I'll make you someone worthy of being the [Daughter of the Gods]."
….Someone worthy?
Echidna would make Elizabeth someone worthy?
"Hahahahahahah," Elizabeth laughed at that, "You….you really don't remember them do you?"
That made Echidna frown.
"Ah….yeah, there is this saying Papa loved, can you guess what it is?" Elizabeth said wiping a tear that had formed in her eyes from laughing,
"Family above all." Echidna said with confidence, "That is the first scripture that [Framework] sent to us, and as such, should be his favorite phrase."
Elizabeth nodded, that did sound like Papa, "Yes, that is true. But no, it wasn't what I was going for." Elizabeth instead smiled.
Smiled as sweetly as possible, as she started pulling out upon her Shadows, condensing them into herself. Into her Shadow Haven, into her Domain.
"To those in power, to those that look down upon you." Elizabeth started repeating the words that Papa always told her, from the time she started going to school, from the time she started dealing with figures of Authority, "If they try to impose upon you something that you feel that is wrong, punch them."
"What?" Echidna said, the mask of cool beauty cracking as confusion bloomed into her face, "That…that shouldn't…."
"I know right," Elizbeth smirked, "But that is what Papa said, to never let myself be tied down by the Ethos and creed of others, that I should always value myself and know that I should always fight for what I trusted to be right."
Elizabeth remembered, how Papa had said that he hoped for her to try being a Villain before being a Hero, that he supported her becoming a Magical Girl, but that he wished for her to try the life of a Villain first.
"He didn't want me to be tied down by the politics of becoming a Hero, he knew how that was…" And Elizabeth would always trust what Papa said, "He wanted me to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted…"
“That…..that…” Echidna was at a loss of words, "That is not….[Framework] is the [God] of [Family]! That is not what-"
Elizabeth laughed harder at that.
"Yes, Papa is the [God] of family…." She raised one of her hands and pointed at herself, shadows blooming into her hand as she did so, "Our family."
"......Your…..family?" Echidna asked confused, "What do you mean?"
Elizabeth's body continued to be covered in shadows, slowly growing on her, darker and darker by the second.
"What I said, Papa only cares about one Family. Mine." Elizabeth was sure, Papa perhaps cared about the sanctity of the family, he cared about being proper. But he only cared about his own family.
Perhaps if he took in the Prana that was sent to him, then perhaps he would care about families as an idea? But he didn't took that Prana.
And even if he did, perhaps even so he would adapt and become stronger by using his [Unique Skill]?
"....so what?" Echidna said recovering from what Elizabeth said, "Even if that is true, you are still not coming in the top. You can barely maintain your Authority over your shadows. I could….."
Echidna extended her arm towards Elizabeth and pulled….
"What?" Only for nothing to happen. "...how?"
Elizabeth smiled as her idea had worked exactly how she wanted, she had suspected this could happen since her previous discovery with Chloe's Lightning, it was different from the normal ones, it was Divine yes, and that helped. But it wasn't entirely Thunder or Lightning anymore; it was so much more.
And why was it like that? Because it wasn't only mere Lightning, it was Pride too. So what could Elizabeth do then? Mix her Pride with the shadows?
That was an option, Elizabeth was sure that she could make it work, but would she?
No. Her Shadows had never been like that, she was proud of what she could do with the shadows yes, but the emotion, the sin, the thing that was closer to her shadows wasn't Pride. It was never, it would never be. Why? Because there was something else that Elizabeth couldn't help but see in her shadows, from day one.
Even before Nyctophagia made her see the more vicious aspects of Shadows. It was something that was already within Elizabeth, was that why she was taken this easily by the taint?
Perhaps, but even so. Elizabeth would accept it, it was part of who she was now after all.
So, instead of answering Echidna, she allowed her shadows to continue creeping into her body, covering her from toe to head. Vicious maws and eyes growing all over her body.
"What...what are you?" Echidna asked if Elizabeth could feel the older woman's mana trying to make a purchase within Elizabeth. But there wasn't any shadow for Echidna to pull.
Not anymore, no, what was left wasn't mere Shadows.
"I'm Elizabeth Starbright, and you were right." Elizabeth said as she felt the new shadowy substance start dying her Self. Even her hair had started to turn into a something that was darker than black. Elizabeth felt even the new mana bloom into her eyes, and while she could see the strains of hair turn black, she wasn't able to see her own eyes.
But she was sure that these looked black right now.
"You are better at using Shadows than me, but this...." Elizabeth said raising her right hand forward and letting a drop of the shadowy substance drop into the floor, "Isn't shadow anymore, it's my Ravenous Shadow."
Comments
CringeWorthyStudios
Guilt: 9999 > did this skill just level up so much that she literally can’t feel bad anymore? Wow. Also Echidna is super annoying. Can Eli-Eli hurry up and kill her already? Thanks for the chapter!
