Divine Harem: My Sect of Heavenly Beauties

Ying Yue stood up straight and took a step forward, her face filled with a strange darkness that turned the surrounding shadows darker as if a solar eclipse had shone upon it.

Spears, spikes, vines, arrows.

So many things were coming at her from all sides, and there was no gap for escaping. Unless one knew how to teleport, they would need to face them head-on.

However, every single one of those things was smeared in dark blood, and they were so close to her that they would reach her at any moment.

"Shadow Binding!!"

Ying Yue muttered in a chilling tone as her shadow became darker than usual and began to spread around at a rapid speed. The stones, pebbles, roots, fallen leaves—everything was enveloped in the dark shadow as it continued to advance all around her. It only stopped when it had covered all the things that were coming at Ying Yue.

She raised her hand slowly as several hands began to emerge from the vast shadow blanket that was spread on the rugged terrain. The tentacle-like hands were darker than black and rendered even the sunlight useless.

They reached up as if defying the heavens and caught every weapon of the Spiritual Creature. However, the shadows weren't strong enough to break them yet, but that was fine.

The purpose of the shadow blanket wasn't to break the weapons after all. They were just weapons carved from the trees nearby and were practically worthless; the Spiritual Creature could make thousands of them.

What she wanted was the dark blood.

Ying Yue unsheathed her daggers and disappeared from her place as she began to perform a dance with her daggers, slicing off everything that was in her way.

Every weapon, including the vines, was held in place by the shadows, so it was very easy to break everything. But she also had to make sure that the dark blood didn't touch her skin.

As a skillful assassin, she knew that.

After only a few seconds, every weapon was sliced into many pieces and dropped on the dark ground, along with the dark blood. However, this time it didn't get absorbed.

Ying Yue had observed how every time the attacks failed, the dark blood would get absorbed into the ground and came to the conclusion that the Spiritual Creature had a limited amount of dark blood and re-used it every time.

So, she decided to catch it all. This was her plan.

Ying Yue sighed and undid her technique, causing the shadow blanket covering the ground to shrink and come toward her. She made sure that the dark blood stayed on the shadows while throwing away the useless material.

In a second, Ying Yue's shadow returned to normal with a single hand coming out of it. That hand held a dark sphere filled with strange dark blood that was struggling against its constrictions.

"You aren't getting anywhere..."

Ying Yue grinned and picked up the ball, making the shadow hand fall back into her shadows. She looked at the sphere and then kept it safely in her clothes. She needed to maintain the sphere, so she couldn't just put it in her storage ring. She didn't know what would happen then, after all.

She sighed and turned to the side as a thin branch of a tree slashed past her. However, this time she wasn't that cautious. She simply smiled and cut everything the Spiritual Creature threw at her.

'It should be any moment now.'

Ying Yue simply stood in her place as she lazily sliced every piece of wood into pieces. It looked like she had let down her guard, and that's what she wanted the Spiritual Creature to think.

She was right.

Once again, an arrow came at her from behind and was at such an angle that if cut, it would fall on Ying Yue... and that arrow was smeared in dark blood.

Ying Yue grinned and stepped aside, letting the arrow pass by her but soon caught it from behind. Then, in an instant, she took out the dark sphere and threw the dark blood from the arrow into it.

'You are getting anxious, aren't you? Then tell me, where are you?'

One thing Ying Yue was certain of was that the Spiritual Creature was nearby. Judging by how it controlled things related to only trees and how it had kept its presence hidden until now from her, she knew it was a tree among the many trees she was surrounded by.

'Now, how should I find you?'

She walked forward while cutting down the wooden attacks as she thought of something. The tree was very weak, and that much she had guessed from various clues. Without dark blood, it wasn't even comparable to Tier 3 Spiritual Creatures. After all, its control over wood was very poor.

Something clicked in her head as she grinned and took out the sphere once again. She looked at it with complete focus and walked forward, not watching the ground at all.

So, she hit her leg on a rock and stumbled, causing the sphere to drop to the ground. It shattered, and the dark blood she had worked so hard to collect seeped into the ground, disappearing completely.

"Ah! My dark blood!!!"

Ying Yue screamed in horror as she looked at the spot where the dark blood disappeared. Her eyes almost became teary, and she felt like her master was complimenting her in her mind.

Then an evil grin appeared on her face as she raised her head to look at a particular tree. Her face became devilish as she said:

"Just kidding!!"

She dissolved into her shadows and appeared beside the tree she had been standing by in the middle of the battle. She patted the thick trunk of it and said:

"You don't have to pretend anymore. My shadows were mixed in the dark blood, and you literally brought them to yourself."

The tree suddenly trembled as the ground shuddered alongside it, making Ying Yue almost lose her footing. But she was quick enough to climb the tree and reach its thick branches.

"Now, time to make a tree kebab."