I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1223: The Darkness Can Also Be An Ally

The dripping sounds multiplied. No longer one source, but dozens. Liquid shadow falling from the Stalker’s body as it moved through the chamber, each droplet evaporating before hitting stone.

Sael fired toward the densest cluster of sounds. The arrow split mid-flight and struck two positions simultaneously.

One hit solid flesh.

The other passed through empty air.

’Afterimage.’

The real attack came from his left. No sound. No warning except the bow’s frantic pulse against his palm—the weapon itself screaming danger through the bond between artifact and wielder.

Sael manifested a white light platform sideways as a shield. The barrier materialized just in time—something massive slammed into it with enough force to crack the compressed air. The platform shattered, fragments of solidified light dissolving like glass, but it held long enough for Sael to roll away, firing blind as he moved.

The arrow curved back mid-flight and struck the Stalker’s retreating form.

Fourth mark embedded.

Twenty percent slow now. The creature’s movements would be noticeably hindered—each step a fraction delayed, each strike arriving just late enough to matter.

But Sael’s essence was draining. Each arrow cost minimal energy alone, but he’d fired dozens. The platforms added up. The constant repositioning, the maintaining of his network—it accumulated like water through cupped hands. ’Can’t sustain this pace much longer. Need to end this efficiently.’

And they hadn’t even reached the real fight yet.

The Stalker’s breathing stopped.

Complete silence.

Sael froze on his platform, bow raised, every sense straining. The shadow bow’s awareness extended outward, searching, but found nothing. The beast had gone completely still—no heartbeat, no breath, no movement. Like it had simply ceased to exist.

Seconds passed. Five. Ten.

Water dripped somewhere far away.

Then the darkness… changed.

It wasn’t just the absence of light anymore. It became *present*. Alive. Sael felt it pressing against his skin like icy water, seeping through his clothes, trying to find purchase in the spaces between threads. The temperature dropped. His breath misted—he couldn’t see it, but felt the moisture freeze on his lips.

The shadow bow pulsed urgently.

’What is—’

“Arrghh—”

Sael stifled an intense groan as pain suddenly exploded across his left arm. Sharp. Burning. Like teeth made of frozen needles digging through flesh. He looked down—couldn’t see anything—but felt it. His own shadow, the one cast by… nothing, because there was no light… it had bitten him. Small chunks of darkness peeling away flesh like acid, exposing nerve endings to air that felt suddenly razor-sharp.

’My own shadow. It’s using my own shadow against me.’

He manifested a light arrow immediately, pressing it against his arm like a torch. The shadows recoiled, hissing like steam escaping pressure, but the arrow dimmed rapidly. The Lightless Domain was too strong. Within three seconds, his light arrow died completely—snuffed like a candle in a hurricane.

The pain resumed.

Blood ran hot down his forearm. He felt it, sticky and warm, the only heat in this frozen darkness.

’Light doesn’t work. Can’t maintain it long enough. Need another solution. Think.’

Sael fired three arrows in rapid succession—pure instinct, no target—and used the recoil to launch himself toward where he remembered the cavern wall being. His shoulder hit stone hard enough to bruise. He pressed his back against it, limiting attack angles. Basic tactics. Control what you can.

The darkness continued eating at his exposed skin. Arms, neck, face—anywhere shadow touched. The pain was methodical. Systematic. Like being flayed by invisible knives working in careful strips.

His mind raced through options with methodical precision despite the pain:

’Option one: Lunar Aria. Three hundred arrows of light flooding the chamber. Would it overpower the Lightless Domain?’

He considered. Rejected.

’No. The mist would snuff each arrow individually before they could concentrate. Waste of essence. And if I overtax myself now…’

Sael thought about his flaw. If he pushed past his limits, [Moonless Night] would trigger—complete essence lockout when he needed power most. He couldn’t afford to be reckless. This monster was cunning, adaptive. He needed to use his wits, not brute force.

’Option two: light fortress. Concentrate all remaining essence into one massive illumination that couldn’t be snuffed.’

’Maybe. But it would drain me completely. Leave nothing for the descent or escape.’

The third option arrived unexpectedly.

Stop fighting the darkness.

’Accept it. Work with it, not against it.’

His fingers tightened on Northern’s shadow bow. The weapon itself was darkness. Shadow given form and purpose. It thrived in this environment, fed by the very absence of light that was killing him. The bow didn’t struggle against the Lightless Domain—it existed in harmony with it.

’Lord Northern said it was semi-autonomous. That it would choose the best path to destructive offense.’

He’d been treating it like his own bow. Forcing light into darkness. Imposing his will.

What if he stopped?

Sael took a breath. Released control.

He fed the bow every bit of essence he could spare—not light essence, just raw power—and whispered aloud:

“Show me how you hunt.”

The shadow bow woke.

Sael felt it immediately—the weapon’s intelligence surging forward, no longer limited by his conscious direction. It didn’t need light to see. Didn’t need his eyes or senses. The bow existed in shadow. Was shadow. This darkness wasn’t an obstacle.

It was home.

His hands moved without thought, drawing and firing. The arrow launched—not light anymore, but concentrated shadow darker than the surrounding blackness. It curved impossibly through the air, guided by senses Sael didn’t possess, seeing through the void like a predator born to it.

Thunk.

The Stalker shrieked.

Fifth [Constellation Mark] embedded.

Maximum slow: twenty-five percent reduced movement.

Maximum damage boost: twenty-five percent increased damage taken.

The creature’s invincibility had shattered. Now it was just meat that could be killed.

The bow was already drawing again, Sael’s hands puppeteered by the weapon’s autonomous will. Another arrow. Then another. Each one shadow-stuff given form, each one seeing what he couldn’t. His role had changed—he wasn’t the archer anymore.

He was the instrument.

The Stalker moved—Sael felt it through the bow’s awareness—trying to become intangible, to slip between states where damage couldn’t reach.

Too slow. The marks were hindering it. Twenty-five percent might not sound like much, but in combat, that fraction of delay was the difference between untouchable and vulnerable.

Three arrows struck simultaneously. Different angles, different targets, all weak points the bow identified without human input. Joints where bone met cartilage. The soft hollow beneath the skull. The place where the heart—if it had one—would pulse.

The beast materialized involuntarily, solidity forced back into its form by sheer damage. Sael couldn’t see it, but he felt the bow’s satisfaction through their link.

’Found you.’

“Lunar Aria.”

The ability name left his lips before conscious thought caught up. Yes, it was risky. Yes, his flaw loomed close. But the shadow bow had created an opening too perfect to waste—the Stalker pinned, visible, vulnerable.

Sometimes efficiency meant seizing the moment.

Essence poured from Sael’s core like a flood breaching a dam. His heritage abilities responded instinctively—wind gathering, platforms multiplying across the chamber’s airspace in a cascade of solidified air. Not ten platforms now. Twenty. Thirty. An entire aerial city forming in the darkness, each one a staging point for death.

And the arrows…

Three hundred points of shadow materialized around him, each one darker than the void itself. They didn’t glow. Didn’t announce themselves with light. Instead, they drank in what little ambient essence remained, hungry voids shaped like weapons. Northern’s design had adapted—the supreme shadow responding to the environment, becoming the perfection of its element rather than fighting against it.

’Masterwork,’ Sael thought with genuine appreciation. ’He designed it to learn and get better.’

The arrows began to orbit. Slow at first, then faster. Complex geometric patterns Sael could feel but not see—spiral galaxies of concentrated death, music made manifest. Each arrow singing its own note in a symphony of destruction.

The Stalker shrieked again—fear now, not pain—and tried to flee.

Too late.

“Falling Stars.”

Three hundred arrows of darkness fell.

Not randomly. Not scattered. Each one guided by the shadow bow’s semi-autonomous targeting, each one striking weak points simultaneously. Joints. Tendons. The places where skull met spine, where ribs protected organs, where arterial blood flowed closest to surface. The bow knew anatomy the way master craftsmen knew their art—intimately, completely, without hesitation.

The Stalker tried to phase. The marks made it too slow. The arrows caught it mid-transformation, forcing solidity, pinning reality back into flesh that wanted desperately to escape.

The beast collapsed.

Impact shook the cavern floor.

Silence.

Sael waited, bow raised, breathing hard. His essence pool was dangerously low. Maybe fifteen percent remaining. Right at the threshold of [Moonless Night]. One more major technique and he’d trigger the flaw—essence lockout just when he might need to run.

’Please be dead. Please.’

The darkness began to recede. Slowly. Lightless Domain fading with its caster’s death, the unnatural void bleeding back into ordinary shadow.

Gray light filtered back into the cavern. Enough to see shapes again. Edges. The rough outline of stone walls that had been invisible moments before.

Sael looked down.

The Penumbral Stalker lay broken across the cavern floor, three hundred shadow arrows embedded in its flesh like a porcupine’s quills. Already dissolving, matter returning to the void it came from. Smoke and memory.

[Congratulations you have slain a Devilish Destroyer: Penumbral Stalker]

[You have gained an item]

He’d won.

But Sael didn’t move from his position against the wall. Didn’t celebrate. His hands trembled slightly—adrenaline crash, essence depletion, relief washing through him in waves that felt almost like weakness.

And something else.

Understanding.

’I stopped fighting the darkness.’

For over thirty-five years, he’d built his entire combat style around light. Moonlight arrows, luminous platforms, visibility and precision. Light was safety. Light was control. Light was everything he needed to protect the people he loved. It had served him well—kept him alive, kept others alive.

But Northern’s shadow bow had shown him something different.

Darkness wasn’t the enemy. Fighting against it was.

The moment he’d released control, accepted the shadow, worked with it instead of against it—that’s when victory became possible. Not through force. Through adaptation. Through understanding that sometimes the answer wasn’t to impose your will, but to trust the tools master craftsmen had made.

’Lord Northern knew. He designed it this way intentionally.’

Sael looked at the bow in his hands. Already fading, Northern’s essence commitment probably reaching its limit. Soon it would vanish completely, called back to its master.

He smiled. Genuinely. No stern mask, no calculated expression—just honest gratitude for a lesson he hadn’t expected to learn.

“Thank you,” he whispered to the weapon.

The bow pulsed once. Almost like acknowledgment. Almost like respect given back to the student who’d finally understood.

Then it dissolved into shadow-smoke, returning to its master.