Chapter 116: One Strike

Everything happened in a second!

When Sora’s figure disappeared from thin air, everything in front of him turned grey. The sky was an eternal grey, even sunlight and moonlight were the same color. This one second was short, and the scenery around Soran was rapidly retrogressing. His body had assimilated with the shadow in an instant, temporarily transforming into a form of shadow creature (body assimilation). The surrounding scenery had also distorted.

Shadow Jump which was a spell-like teleportation ability opens up the dimensional channel of the shadow plane. It could only last for one second, and it did not really allow the user to enter the shadow plane.

In the next moment, Soran had appeared behind the Elven Ranger.

The shadow of the Elf twisted weirdly, it turned into a twisted outline, which eventually turned into Soran’s shadow, followed by a blurred shadowy figure suddenly appearing.

The Elven Ranger’s face still had a malicious smile. In his mind, the Elf’s purpose had been achieved; the hunters would have allocated part of their people to go after Soran and Gloria so that he would face less danger. As long as the hunters were busy with the three people next to him, he had a chance of escaping. After all, he was still a Son of Fear. He had even begun to plan his escape route, his face filled with malicious intent.

Suddenly his whole body stiffened. The sharp end of a sword had passed through his chest, piercing his heart in an instant. Then with a loud roar, the sword twisted.

“Die!”

Soran’s face was grim. His hands turned and twisted the knife. The blade of the sword broke the elf’s armor.

While piercing his heart, a big hole was left in the Elf’s chest. A crack appeared on the curved sword that was of military quality. The weapon could not withstand the sudden explosive power, and there was a crack on it.

The shadow behind them was still twisting and the shadow of the Elven Ranger overlapped with Soran’s shadow. Soran appeared grey, like a dark shadow. When he finally pulled out the sword, his shadow returned to its original shape, and the blurred shadowy face gradually became clear.

The body of the Elven Ranger fell flat on the ground. Soran killed him before anyone could even blink.

The Gnoll’s grin remained stiff on his face, and the other hunters’ faces showed disbelief.

A long row of data then appeared.

Activated Dark Vision!

Activated Shadow veil!

Activated Shadow Jump!

Activated Shadow strike!

Shadow veil successful!… Ability [Evade Sight] activated!… Shadow Jump successful!…Activated ability to traverse through the Shadow Plane dimension!…Shadow strike successful!… Your attack has 9 added shadow damage!… Backstab activated!… You’ve dealt 121 critical damage to the target!… Target eliminated!

Extracting soul energy from target…

Received 3600 Slaughter Experience Points.

Target was a Divine Creature!…

You’ve received its divine powers!… You’ve receive 3 divine points!…

Target had the divine ability of Fear!

Failed to receive the divine ability of Fear!…failed to store shard of divinity!…failed to store shard of divinity!…you do not have any divine professions to absorb the divine ability of fear!…divine ability transferred!…

Then more information appeared in front of Soran.

“The profession Thief is now Level 7.”

“Received 25 [DEX 20+ (INT 20-10)*0.5] Skill Points, HP increased by 11 [Profession HP 6+ (CON 20-10)*0.5].”

11 HP brought about by the leveling-up temporarily alleviated his injury. Although his ears were still temporarily deaf, Soran had regained his perception of the outside world. His anger and killing intent were so intense that he did not hesitate to put his Slaughter EXP into his profession. In Soran’s eyes, the Elven Ranger had to die. His killing intent was so intense that his pupils become bloody red because of the dilation of tiny blood vessels.

All his Skill Points were allocated to Evasion.

Thus, in a moment, Soran reached the requirements to become a Shadow Dancer and did not hesitate to advance into it.

“Advancement into Shadow Dancer!”

“Advancement requirements: [Reflex Evasion](Reached), [Mobile Movement] (Reached), 100 in Sneak(Reached), 50 in Evasion(Reached)…”

“You’ve successfully advanced into the Shadow Dancer!…”

“Shadow Dancer abilities activated!… You’ve used 5000 Slaughter EXP!…You’ve learned the natural ability [Evade Sight]!…Sneak+15, Evasion+20!…HP increased by 13 [Profession HP 6+ (CON 20-10)*0.5].”

“You’ve received one Free Attribute.”

“You’ve successfully advanced into a grade 3 profession!… You have a chance to perform bloodline purification, and received one additional Skill Point!…”

Advancing into Shadow Dancer has consumed more than 13,000 Slaughter EXP. In addition to the additional 5,000 Slaughter EXP, he also needed to pay for the soul energy needed to level up. But there was no doubt about the pros of advancing into a higher profession. Even though Soran lost one Skill Point at the Rogue level, he received 10 points in Sneak and 20 points in Evasion. At the same time, he also mastered the most useful ability of the Shadow Dancer – [Evade Sight]!

“Evade Sight [Profession Talent]: Shadow Dancers have extraordinary shadow abilities that other professions with shadow abilities can’t match. As long as they were in the shadows, Shadow Dancers could use shadow energy to confuse the enemy’s vision and go into Sneak under any circumstances (also during combat). Even if they were exposed to the enemy, Shadow Dancers could still successfully escape into the shadows and disappear from the enemy’s vision. (The number of times the ability could be activated depending on the profession level. Level 1 Shadow Dancers could use the ability once per day.)

The Sneak ability of the Rogue also had some limitations.

You couldn’t just disappear from the other person’s eyes; sneaking was a process of merging yourself into the shadows. This process involved the ubiquitous shadow energy. There were only two kinds of advanced professions who could disappear in broad daylight. One was the Lurker who grasped the ability [Shadow Retreat] or the Shadow Dancer who grasped the ability [Evade Sight].

The former entered the Shadow Plane to vanish, while the latter used Shadow Energy to cover your sight.

The Lurker was no longer in the material plane. Within a second of escaping into the shadow, he would temporarily enter the Shadow Plane and then come back. When he was back, he would be fully integrated within the Shadow Energy.

The Shadow Dancer, however, would confuse the enemy with Shadow Energy. Although the enemy couldn’t see him, he was still in front of the enemy and could be attacked.

“The profession Shadow Dancer is now Level 2.”

“Received 25 [DEX 20+ (INT 20-10)*0.5] Skill Points, HP increased by 13 [Profession HP 8+ (CON 20-10)*0.5].”

“Advance Profession abilities learned!”

“Acquired Profession Talent [Darkvision]!… Your night vision has improved!…”

“The profession Rogue has advanced to Level 9 (Level 7 Thief, Level 2 Shadow Dancer)! You’ve received one additional Skill Point.”

One level in Thief gave 11 HP improvements, and two levels in Shadow Dancer gave 26 HP improvements.

As an advanced combat-type profession, the Shadow Dancer had strong evasive abilities, which could improve the efficiency of mastering Evasion. At the same time, the Profession Level was 2 points higher than that of the Rogue. The Basic Health of a Rogue was 6, and that of the Shadow Dancer was 8, which was the same as most agile warriors. Abilities must be trained or acquired through Ability Points, but Profession Talents were abilities that could be mastered directly.

Profession Talents, as its name implies, were innate abilities! Profession Talents were special abilities that did not require Ability Points to master!

However, Profession Talents were only brought about by profession advancements or innate bloodline.

A total of 37 points of increase in HP had recovered Soran from the state of serious injury to light injury. His vision had been restored, although his ears were still bleeding slightly, he was now gradually able to hear. His internal organs, which were damaged by the supernatural sound wave, quickly recovered. His seriously injured body had completely restored its combat effectiveness. His eyes were fixed on the Elven Ranger in front of him, and he did not hesitate to upgrade the Shadow Dancer to level 2.

With Multiprofessioning, the Profession Level of the secondary profession would only count as half.

Level 7 Thief, Level 2 Shadow Dancer, Soran’s Rogue was now Level 9. Secondary profession level 5 Wizard only calculated as half of the level bonus, so his total Profession Level was now about 12. Three Profession Levels could bring one Ability Point when the total Profession Level was 10 or more with a grade 3 profession, each grade upgrade would also bring an additional Ability Point.

Soran gave up on his other abilities, such as [Danger Sense], [Reflex Evasion Proficiency], [Conjure Shadow]and many others.

And pumped all his Ability Points into the ability [Grasp of Shadows]!

“Spent one Ability Point!…”

“Profession ability [Grasp of Shadow]advanced into [Shadow Manipulation]!…”

“Spent one Ability Point!…”

“Profession ability [Shadow Manipulation] has advanced to [Shadow Weave]!…

“Prerequisites have been reached!… Sneak 150 (Reached), Shadow Weave (Reached), Shadow Dancer (Reached)… You have mastered an advanced ability of the Shadow Dancer [Shadow Jump]!…”

Soran had leveled up 3 times!

He abandoned the combat skills of the Shadow Dancer and the precious opportunity of directly mastering [Danger Sense]. He even abandoned the additional spell-like ability to summon shadow creatures.

He practically gave up most of his core capabilities in order to master [Shadow Jump] in advance!

With one hit.

After Soran had activated Shadow Jump, he was able to use one strike to kill off the Elven Ranger.

(Danger Sense [Supernatural Ability]: Your perception will predict all attacks, whether magic or physical, and any attack against you would trigger a test of Wisdom. If you passed the test, you would be able to anticipate all attacks against you in advance, including directional spells.)

(Note: The effects of this Supernatural Ability could be stacked with the Innate Talent Extreme Sixth Sense.)

(Shadow Jump [Supernatural Ability]: You assimilate yourself thoroughly into the shadows, transforming into a shadowy life form. After activating the skill, any shadow within 100 meters could be used as your jumping foothold across the plane. The supernatural ability was equivalent to a 100-meter-range Blink spell. This ability can only be used under Sneak or in places with shadow.