They thought the tiger was dead when Sihan sliced its neck, but as one would expect from a monster of that level. The tiger's body turned black before returning to its original form, a shadow.
"I haven't killed it yet," Sihan warned them after realizing he didn't get the sign.
The shadow then gathered and formed a small circle on the floor in the middle of the group.
"Watch out!" Alea shouted as she appeared right in front of Phyrill and used her Fortitude Shield. Sihan also did the same for Laust while Theo activated his Elemental Shield to block an incoming attack for him and Ellen.
Suddenly, spikes emerged in all directions and tried to stab Theo and the others but to no avail. Their shields were too solid for the shadow to pierce them.
Seeing that the tiger didn't die, Ellen placed her hand on the ground and tried to bring the tiger to the surface. "Ice Wave."
Ice spikes emerged in succession in a fan-shaped area and the shadow had no place on the floor anymore, forcing the tiger to return to its original form.
Alea took a deep breath and waved her sword with all her might. "Inch Slash."
The tiger widened his eyes and tried to form a shield by using his shadow, but the Inch Slash split it into two before a sword mark appeared on the tiger's body.
Bam.
The tiger let out a growl as blood spurted out of the wound.
"We're not done yet."
The tiger opened its mouth as black light began to shine on its throat.
"No, you won't." Ellen pointed her hand on the tiger's back and used her fastest skill to stop the tiger. "Frost Nova."
A small blue light flew like that of a bullet and hit the tiger's back, forming an ice crystal right after.
Roar.
The tiger felt numb due to that ice, but it was unable to kill the tiger as the latter still had enough strength to land on top of the ice. He covered all of its legs with shadow to avoid hurting himself from those sharp ice crystals.
To avoid the tiger from creating any more trouble, Phyrill and Laust planned to launch it back to the sky by striking the tiger from below with high-speed movement.
Unfortunately for them, the shadow that covered its legs was just a distraction. The bat wings flapped and released another shadow that cut the ice crystals beneath him as he used both paws to strike Phyrill and Laust, blowing them away.
The tiger landed on the ground and roared as loud as possible before his shadow expanded and covered the whole room with shadow. No light entered this place, blinding all the people inside.
"Use your Awareness to locate the tiger! Also, only those with shields are to move!" Theo commanded.
"Understood."
Sihan and Alea located the tiger and leaped toward the tiger at the same time.
The latter felt their presence and tried to avoid them, but Theo had already used his Blink to appear right before the tiger.
The tiger was too focused on Alea and Sihan, so it gave him a great chance to strike it and without any light, the camera wouldn't be able to see what he was doing.
He waved his left hand down and pressured the tiger using his Telekinesis as if the gravity around the tiger increased by several folds. After restricting its movement, Theo thrust his spear forward and released a torrential wave of Magic Power and hit everything in a straight line.
"Cannon Blast."
That torrential energy cut the tiger all over his body and blood began to flow out at a fast rate, weakening the tiger with a second.
Due to the blood loss, the tiger removed its shadow skill, retracting his shadow before dying.
[Killed a Bat Tiger.]
[EXP+400,328]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
"Nice." Theo smiled and said, "I wonder if we should kill a few more monsters to level up…"
"We can't. It's already troublesome enough to deal with that tiger because one mistake might injure one of us. Besides, we're in a competition… Don't say something like that." Alea rolled her eyes.
"Indeed. Instead of leveling up, I am more curious whether this guy will drop that skill or not. We can't see each other in the dark because of that shadow enveloping the room earlier and I think this skill is good because it can blind our enemy." Phyrill narrowed his eyes while cheering for Theo to touch the tiger.
However, the latter came to a halt when he heard Phyrill's words. He turned to Phyrill and asked with a frown. "What did you say?"
"Ehm? What?" Phyrill's eyebrows raised as he didn't understand Theo's question.
"I want you to repeat what you say."
"Instead of leveling up, I am—"
"No, no. The one last part." Theo shook his head and stopped him right away.
"Because it can blind our—" Phyrill dropped his jaw as he came to a realization. "All I can see is darkness."
When the others heard those words, they thought they had the right monster since they indeed could only find darkness earlier. Alea even asked for confirmation. "So, does this mean we have gotten the right one?"
"No! We got the wrong one! If Theo touched the tiger, it wouldn't drop us any key. Trust me." Phyrill shook his head and glanced at Theo as if asking him to touch the tiger.
Since they had realized the true meaning of the hint, Theo touched the tiger, leaving only one skill and a material card… Nothing else.
"All I see is darkness. That's the key. This tiger can see the light, so it's not true. The monster who can only see the darkness is a blind monster or a monster that doesn't have eyes!" He told them with great confidence.
Even Theo nodded in agreement, supporting his argument.
"!!!" Sihan and the others drew a gasp as Sihan quickly headed to the screen and searched for such a monster. There was no such a filter for the monster, so he needed to look through it one by one. But as one would expect, Sihan found a single monster with wounds in the eye part, blinding it. It was a one-eyed cyclops.
He showed it to the rest while saying, "I think this one is the correct answer."