Chapter 2269: Surprise

Twelve energy orbs are revolving around Sam.

All of them made of shadow energy ready to do his bidding. Marron raised her eyebrow and stepped forward.

Her staff came at him at an incredible speed. Needless to say she is faster than before and Sam even his shadow form found it hard to dodge it cleanly. One of the orbs moved parallel to the staff and exploded.

*BOOM*

The staff's direction changed and it almost threw her off balance. Sam took this chance and slid underneath the staff before closing in the distance. As she was about to pull herself together, the remaining orbs started circling her from different sides.

*BOOM*

*BOOM*

*BOOM*

The explosions rocked her completely and she left herself wide open. Sam's dagger started glowing with some runes as well. These are dark black runes with faint red and purple hue.

*SLASH*

*SLASH*

He got a clean slash on her torso and a stab landed at her shoulder. It was aimed at her neck, but she managed to move and avoid it a bit. The hit on her torso was blocked by the armor. It didn't penetrate deep enough, though the armor was decently damaged messing up the inscribed defenses.

The hit on the shoulder on the other hand was clean.

Sam didn't want to let this chance go. As Marron stepped back hurriedly like a red colored blur, he suddenly disappeared from her front in a puff of black smoke. She dashed a hundred odd yards backward and came to a halt.

*PUFF*

Only for Sam to emerge from behind her and stab another dagger into her back.

She sensed his move and tried to dodge. The attack still landed on her back, right beside her shoulder blade. This one is also not deep and didn't manage to penetrate all the way through her armor.

*SWOOSH*

Marron spun around with her staff. The staff brushed past his shoulder and even hurt him a bit. Sam disappeared once again and reappeared from her rear.

This time Marron anticipated it and managed to land a thrust with the rear of her staff, but at the same time...

*BOOM*

An explosion of shadow energy emerged from the spot where the dagger was lodged in the rear. Then only Marron consciously realized that the dagger was still stuck in her armor. Not noticing that cost her, her armor's inscription network, at least the ones on the rear.

Along with a good and solid damage to the flesh making her bleed.

The second spot from where she is bleeding after the face. The explosion threw her forward towards Sam who took the thrust squarely and felt like his lungs are burning.

As she came towards him, he aimed his hand at her and shot another energy beam with shadow energy.

She couldn't find her balance and hurriedly swung her staff to block the attack, but took the residual force that came from the explosion upon contact.

*BAM*

She kicked the ground and leapt into the sky, levitating and keeping as much distance from Sam as possible.

She realized that she needs to reassess her situation at the moment.

For the next couple of seconds, neither Marron nor Sam moved. Both of them stood still one in the air and one on the ground. Sam took deep breaths to calm himself down and two dozen shadow energy orbs started circling him while he did that.

He also tried to recover from the blunt hits he took.

They are hurting even in this fusion form. Marron on the other hand just looked at him once and then closed her eyes. She was in a deep thought for about ten seconds before she opened them again.

Sam shot himself into the air like an arrow moving towards Marron. He left behind tailwinds of shadow energy as he moved. Marron zeroed in on him with her attack.

*BOOM**BANG*

The noise of explosion and the noise of clash. Except for the two, nothing else was heard for the next few minutes. Marron became extremely ironclad with her defense and attacks. She kept her movement to minimal.

Sam didn't have the advantage of utilizing her shadow anymore. So, he has to manage with the energy orbs. They are exploding continuously, but their job was not to deal damage, but help him dodge, escape and create openings.

Sam didn't use any other tricks and kept with the shadow fusion.

He knew for sure that the current attacks of Marron, would send him to high heavens with one clean, undefended, undeflected hit. One and only one will be needed if he is not defending himself.

To make sure that doesn't happen, Shadow fusion is the only one that is malleable, agile and spontaneous enough.

The tango continued in the air and Sam appeared to hold himself. However, the control of the flow was still in Marron's hands.

*BOOM*

With an explosion Sam managed to find another opening, but as he approached to land a hit, Marron made an unexpected move. Her staff went between both of Sam's hands. With a twist and a turn, Sam's ands were stick in a very weird lock, within a flash.

Before he could make sense of it, he is already face to face close with Marron.

Sam gritted his teeth and dozens of energy orbs appeared around them. Marron tried to break Sam's arms, but the shadow fusion is helping him a bit, however, her energy that is trying to invade his body, is hurting him.

"Go on, explode them."

"Exploding is not all that they do."

The next moment, orbs arranged themselves in a formation, creating an energy concentration point behind her back. She sensed the thread and aimed to escape, however, Sam used the same lock and leveraged his strength against her, keeping her in place.

As if that is not enough, several vines purely condensed on shadow energy emerged from within the orbs and tangled around her, locking her in place.

*SWOOSH*

The energy beam of shadow energy was shot at her, at that time, she gritted her teeth and looked at Sam. Her eyes glowed with that blood red color, the small blood drop that has been dripping down the cut from her face turned into a sharp needle shooting towards Sam's eye.

*SWOOSH*

Sam had to let go, but the vines tangling her didn't just disappear, instead they exploded. Marron moved out of the energy beam's path and braced herself for the explosion of the vines. But to her surprise, there is no massive explosive force destroying her. She stumbled down as the vines disappeared into the puff of dark black smoke.

Her heart raced and she breathed heavily. Sam kept as much distance from her as possible. That was a close call.

The needle made of blood almost penetrated his eye. If not for his immediate reaction... an eye is way too much of a sacrifice just to land a hit.

Marron looked at Sam with her heaving breath. She is furious. It is apparent in her eyes. Two dozen more orbs appeared around Sam as he looked at her with a smile. As if to respond to Sam, blood came out of the wound on her back. Several blades conjured out of blood hovered around her.

"You are done."

She muttered and dashed towards Sam.

The staff came at Sam, when the orbs moved as usual to deflect, the blades reacted and attacked the orbs. Deflecting them, making them explode prematurely. Sam activated ripple style and repel style, meeting the staff with his daggers.

The resulting explosion up on contact sent him down, creating a gap.

*SWOOSH* *SWOOSH*

Two daggers were thrown at her from the bottom. She easily deflected them, but he was not done.

*SWOOSH* *SWOOSH* *SWOOSH*

Projectile weapons were thrown into the air all aimed at her, the blood blades were enough to deflect them as they moved towards him followed by her with her bloody staff.

However, the deflected projectiles that she went past by reacted with the shadow energy, emitting it in their full glory as humanoid figures appeared out of them. Shadow undead emerged from the projectiles and are now hovering behind.

Marron widened her eyes in disbelief as the undead appeared behind her.

Sam took out his staff as shadow energy raged from him. He kicked the ground and shot towards her

*SWOOSH*

The blood blades were all shot towards him as Marron turned around and blocked the attacks from the shadow undead. Just when she was about to blow the head of one of the undead, she realized that the blades missed the target.

Sam disappeared in a puff of smoke and he reappeared behind one of his undead. That undead happened to be the one that she was targeting.

Her staff connected with the undead, while Sam's staff banged her on the head.

A clean directly hit.

Marron spun like a top while in mid-air, with blood splattering out of her mouth.