Bodrick’s words surprised Grayfire who was getting back up. “What? That’s Dale. Why would he be the boss of the Paradise Hunters?” he asked.

“But he said—” Bodrick looked toward Kepli for a split second before turning back toward Dale. “Forget about it. If he’s not the boss, then he’s working for him. Either way, we have been backstabbed.”

“I really don’t like being backstabbed,” Grayfire said. “I think you should die for this, Dale.”

Dale stared at the two of them with his black eyes and his lips stretched until it formed a forced smile. He face seemed slightly darkened by the explosion, but everything else seemed fine.

Carlos slowly moved toward Kepli and pulled him up. Kepli had some broken ribs, and his leg seemed to have fractured as well from the rubble.

“Brother Kepli, what is going on?” Carlos asked.

“Just— just shut up and sit back. Boss will get rid of these two now,” Kepli said.

Carlos looked at the two that were focused on the third one and was surprised. “That guy… is our boss?” he couldn’t help but ask. Was he trying to act like he was here to kill himself? Did he just watch as these two killed their way into his own hideout.

‘No, can’t be,’ Carlos thought. It simply didn’t make sense. But then again, who knew?

Dale moved forward once again, attacking the person closest to him. Bodrick blocked the staff attack with his two axes and immediately used the earth axe to launch large stones at the man.

Dale’s body moved unnaturally, as it changed its dodged by bending sideways at the waist. It immediately got back into shape and slammed its staff at Bodrick.

Bodrick wasn’t ready for the attack and was nearly hit, but Grayfire’s hammer arrived before Gale could hurt Bodrick.

The hammer didn’t explode this time around, only stopping the attack. He pulled bak the hammer and Bodrick launched his own attack before Dale could attack again.

The two of them attacked one after another, and Dale fought the both of them with very unusual movement.

“Something is off,” Bodrick said.

“Yes,” Grayfire agreed. “He’s not using his essence to fight at all. He’s holding back for some reason.”

“That or he can’t use it at all,” Bodrick said. “Let me test which one it is.”

He dashed at Dale who slammed his staff onto him. Bodrick dodged at the last second and hit Dale on the arm that was holding the staff as hard as he could. As he did that, he also used his essence to create a really sharp stone that formed from his Essence that hit the arm as well.

Dale attacked with his other arm at the last moment, punching Bodrick on the face as hard as he could. Bodrick staggered a few steps back as he held his face. That punch had hurt him very hard.

But since he had taken away Dale’s arm, he was okay with wha—

Bodrick stopped thinking for a moment when he saw what was in front of him. Grayfire’s eyes widened in surprise, and a trace amount of fear.

“Hey, hey, hey! What in the living ** is that?” he shouted at Bodrick who had no answer himself.

Dale stood straight with his left fist bent the wrong way. As for his right arm that was torn off, for some reason there was now a black arm that seemed to have replaced the cut off arm.

The black arm seemed to drop wisps of black smoke with each movement.

Carlos was at a loss for word and Kepli simply smiled at the situation. On the other hand, Ning had absolutely no idea what was even happening right now.

𝒪𝚟𝓁𝒩xt.𝐜𝗈𝓂

There were too many things happening in too short a time for him to understand it without someone explaining him the situation.

“That’s… Shadow Essence,” Bodrick said when he finally realized what he was looking at. “That’s a bloody Shadow Essence. How the ** did we not know that Dale was a Shadow Essence user?”

“He can’t be!” Grayfire said. “I’ve seen him only ever use Water Essence. Shadow Essence is just too rare for him to not have made himself big with it.”

“Then what is going on?” Bodrick asked. “That is definitely Shadow Essence.”

“That…” Grayfire couldn’t answer.

“Whatever, let’s kill him first. We’ll deal with finding the answer later.”

The two of them immediately launched into the battle once more, attacking the wounded Gale who still was fighting back. However, now that they both knew that Gale wouldn’t be using any Essence, they fought him without holding back at all.

Within just a few more attacks, Dale lost his other arm as well. Even then, the shadow arm appeared from his body, replacing the parts he lost.

The two bosses attacked more and more, and Dale lost more and more body parts. However, with each loss part, a part made up of Shadow Essence would form to replace it.

The two kept attacking a few more times and managed to take Dale’s head. They waited for the head to be replaced too, but instead of that happening, Dale’s shadow parts vanished, leaving just chunks of body parts that weren’t damaged.

The two bosses stepped back and looked in surprise.

“It’s over,” Bodrick said.

“He’s finally dead,” Grayfire said. “But, he died so easily. What was happening to his body? It looked like Shadow Essence had infiltrated his body, but who did it? You got any idea?”

He waited for Bodrick to answer him, but Bodrick didn’t speak at all. “You hear me?” Grayfire asked as he turned around to Bodrick.

Bodrick slowly turned toward him as well and his face turned to a wide smile. He glared at Grayfire with open eyes that were entirely pitch black, just like Dale’s.

“What the fu—”

Grayfire stumbled over himself while trying to move back in a hurry. He fell down on top of the rubble, but he quickly got back up and faced off Bodrick, who had now been taken over by Shadow, just as Dale was.