The Insider System

Chapter 350: Night Life Pt.2

It didn't take long for another phantom to show up which let Fendis try out his new attack formation. Like most attack formations his shot out an attack which quickly poked thousands of tiny holes into the phantom. "Was that what it was supposed to do?"

"Yeah, I didn't make it for a situation like this but I figured it would still be effective so this was a good opportunity to give it a try." Donny had assumed this wasn't something Fendis had made up on the spot because it took a while to come up with formation when you were first starting your training.

"What kind of enemies is it meant to be used on?" After his question Fendis pointed at the sky. "I'm sure you know this but when you're flying it can be hard to aim especially at small fast things so I was hoping to make a formation that could do a good amount of damage in a wide area. You really only need to hit something like a small wyvern with one of the air spikes to kill it."

Donny could see the usefulness of a spell like this but he had to point out a problem. "You'll need to get a lot better at weaving the formation if you hope to do it in air." Fendis seemed to already know it had been too hard for him to weave the formation to successfully pull it off in a fight now and said. "I plan to do it a few times before I sleep each night until I get better."

This was a known method to get better with a certain formation so Donny left this problem for Fendis to solve on his own since it seemed he knew what he was doing and said. "Do you want to finish this one off so we can move on?" The one Fendis had tested his formation on was heavily damaged but it still hadn't fallen below ground so it still needed a bit more.

"Give me a second, it's still powering back up." Hearing this Donny wanted to ask if Fendis wanted some help increasing the efficacy of his formation but decided not to because if someone helped you all the time it wasn't good for your future prospects. "Ok I'm going to look around by myself again, call if you need any help."

Fendis was fine even if his formation had a long cooldown so splitting up to cover more ground was still the best option even if Fendis planned to stop and work on the formation at times. "Alright I'll probably stay here, so could you cover the rest of the ground we've been assigned, please."

Donny nodded to Fendis' request while walking away because he had already planned on walking around and this request didn't change that. After a few seconds he saw a single Phantom pause and he wanted for its head to emerge to decapitate it. He felt it was possible that he could destroy the phantoms before their whole head was out but he didn't see a reason too just yet since the phantoms were still coming at a slow pace.

If there came a time later that multiple came every second he would just start shaving the tops of their heads off as he ran around clearing the streets of phantoms. He didn't think it would get that bad though since this town would have been abandoned already if the problem was more than just a great annoyance.

With how boring this job was he couldn't help himself and started to think back to all the exciting tales he had heard of this town when he was younger. There was a good chance whenever you heard a rumor that it had been exaggerated as it passed from person to person but for it to be so drastic it made him think the early days of this problem before they figured out things like don't use Earth Magic must have been much more hectic.

This was the Earth Domain so it made sense that when these things first started to show themselves at night most people tried to defend themselves with Earth magic and these empowered phantoms that caused massive amounts of death must have been what the stories everyone heard had been about.

Now that they knew all the tricks to dealing with these things the only way for them to kill anyone was if the person wasn't paying attention and the phantom emerged right next to them. Even then they still had a chance to fight it off so there was a good chance they wouldn't die.

He found the reality of this situation a bit disappointing since he had felt so much excitement to finally see these ghostly things he had heard about so many times but he was happy the situation was under control because people did live here. There was also still the mystery aspect to this citation so it wasn't like he had completely lost interest.

The most obvious question was what were the things they were fighting. It was long suspected that the Demon Lord had something to do with them because of their appearance and the fact they appeared around the time a Demigod went missing which was something he was known to cause but no one had ever seen these things anywhere else in all of the world.

If they were a type of creature the Demon Lord had made, why had he never used them in any other fight? This single question made most people start to think it hadn't been the Demon Lord but one of his many underlings that had come to this town to take on the Demigod that lived here in the past.

If you then added the fact neither of the two Demigods had ever been seen again there was a good chance two divine cores laid under this town somewhere. Sources of divinity were rare enough that he was sure every person in the world that had an interest in becoming a Divinity at some point would come to investigate if these rumors were true in the hopes of being the one who had solved the disappearance because by finding the bodies you would have everything you needed to ascend while still having a core left over.

This wasn't the reason he was here this time though so it was best for him not to think about his future plans because he might convince himself to stay or come back as soon as the situation in the Metal Domain was over even though he knew he wasn't ready to do something like this yet.

It was hard to ignore the fact something was going on in town that might lead to this mystery being solved soon making him have to find another lead in the future which could take years. "Help!" Hearing a scream coming from nearby Donny didn't wait even a second to rush off towards the scream because from the direction it came from he knew it wasn't from one of his group leaving a guard or citizen as the ones who needed aid.

The mayor had said they couldn't let anyone die so if he didn't make it in time it could really affect the amount of food they were given. Before even arriving to where he had heard the scream earlier he could see the problem with a very obvious giant phantom a few streets over.

He had no idea how one could have gained so much size so quickly but with the fact he could see it he didn't waste any time and sent his shield towards its head to start poking holes. He wasn't sure how much damage one of these things could take once they reached this size but the first of his attacks didn't make a noticeable difference to the things size so he hit another part of the head.

Three more of his attacks landed on the phantom's head before he finally arrived at the scene and was able to see what the situation was like. He wasn't the only one who had come to help from his group and he could see they were all looking at the same thing. Turning to see what it was he saw three people laying on the ground in the wake of the giant phantom.

If these three turned out to be dead it meant they had already partially failed but it was best to not let the thing continue its slow rampage. "What are you doing, why aren't you attacking it?" After his rushed question the closest person to him said. "There's someone inside it."

Hearing this startling claim Donny turned back and tried to peer through the massive creature's smokey body. Eventually his eyes landed on a part that was slightly darker and wasted no time using his shield to try and carve the hopefully still living person out of the phantom's stomach.