Chapter 227 – Floor 40: Part 3

  The abandoned warehouse towered like a relic of a lost age, its shattered windows cast long shadows across the concrete ground. Weeds grew from the cracks in the floor and rats scurried at the edge of the light created by the evening sun.

  Lumina stood at the entrance, her golden glow piercing the darkness that lingered in the corners of the building. From a distance, a person could think that the Hero was the sun itself, descended from the sky to fight the night.

  She radiated beauty, her presence enhanced by the soft glow of the golden light that surrounded her. Her long, flowing hair shimmered like sunlight, cascading down her back and occasionally flickering with vibrant hues.

  Lumina was dressed in a sleek, form-fitting suit that appeared to be woven from threads of light. It was shift colours with her movements, changing from bright yellow, to blazing orange and fiery red.

  “Shade!” Lumina shouted at the darkness, her voice echoing off the warehouse walls. The Hero was aware that her adversary was here, the League had transmitted his location to her phone only a few minutes ago.

  They were never wrong.

  A low, sinister laugh reverberated throughout the building, coming from all around her. Shade emerged from the darkness, shrouded in shadow that warped and twisted around him as if it were alive. His skin was pale, almost ghostly.

  But it was his eyes that were most unsettling. They were a deep, unnatural black with hints of red. Shade wore a long, flowing cloak as dark as the night. As he moved toward her, he seemed to fade in and out of existence, merging with the darkness.

  “Ah, Lumina. You were always so predicable. I send out a call to the League and you come running. No backup? No ‘S’ Class babysitter following behind you to keep you safe?” Shade taunted.

  Lumina stiffened at the insult and the light flared around her in reaction to her emotions.

  “I don’t need back up to deal with you, Shade. The Light never fears the Darkness!” Lumina replied, her tone filled with pride.

  Shade scoffed at the proclamation and began to laugh mockingly. With a flick of his wrist, shadows slithered across the floor, coiling around Lumina’s feet like serpents. She responded by summoning a shimmering shield of light that deflected the darkness with a burst of brilliance.

  With a shout, the eruption of light burned away the shadows and Shade stumbled back several steps. No longer laughing, he slowly raised both of his arms over his head. Like a wave, the shadows behind him surged forward.

  Snapping his fingers, the wave of darkness separated and morphed into tendrils that shot forward and wrapped their way around Lumina’s shield of light, draining its energy. She let out a gasp and stumbled forward a step.

  It felt like Shade was sapping away her very essence, and a coldness slowly crept its way up her arms from where she was holding the barrier in place. Shade, regaining his arrogance, sauntered his way toward Lumina.

  “Do you feel that? The light fading? That’s your hope slipping away!” Shade hissed gleefully. He had been looking forward to the conclusion of their conflict for years, since they had both been Class ‘D’ heroes. Until he learned that being a Villain was far more profitable.

  Straining, Lumina pushed back against the darkness. Her shield flickered slightly before flaring to life once more, momentarily illuminating the entire warehouse around them. Shade flinched from the golden glow and shielded his eyes with his hand.

  “Why won’t you just die!” Shade screamed madly. The darkness, driven to the corners of the warehouse roiled and bubbled. Responding to his call, they burst forth once again and slammed against the barrier of light.

  “Do you think you can defeat the darkness! We’re both Class ‘A,’ Lumina. It was foolish to come here by yourself. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure the League knows what happened to you. Maybe I’ll pin your corpse to the walls of their Headquarters. I know how much you love attention, you’ll be worldwide news!” Shade sneered, his madness slipping into his speech.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Lumina staggered and fell to one knee. The barrier of light flickered and faded like the dying, evening sun.

  “Light will always prevail!” Lumina spat out, her voice strained. She tried to regain her feet, to find some small shred of strength within her, but there was nothing left. Shade was relentless.

  Seeing that she was on the edge of defeat, he summoned a vortex of shadows that twisted and howled as it sped across the floor. The shadows enveloped Lumina, clawing at her. The shadows whispered to her, giving voice to her doubts and fears.

  It was a hint of the madness that lurked within Shade’s mind.

  “Give up, Lumina. You know how this ends.” Shade whispered eagerly. He could already imagine the things he would do to her, each more unpleasant than the last.

  “I.. won’t!” Lumina managed to say, fighting against the pain and the darkness. Covered in blood, her vision was beginning to fade when she heard someone speak from behind her.

  “Sanctuary.”

  A swirling tempest of energy drove back the shadows that Shade had summoned, freeing Lumina. A crystalline shield materialized around her, shimmering with rainbow light. With a powerful hum, the shield expanded, wrapping her in its protective energies.

  Lumina felt cut off from the world around her, as if nothing could penetrate the barrier that kept her safe. She turned around to get a better look at her saviour.

  A young man was slowly walking toward them from the entrance to the warehouse. Handsome, with long, dark hair, he was dressed casually and not in a Hero costume as she had expected. He was nonchalant about walking into danger, with a hand in the pocket of his jeans.

  A young woman tentatively walked behind him, her entire expression showed how terrified and nervous she was to be here. Lumina recognized her from the League.

  ‘What is Elena doing here with a Hero?’ Lumina thought in confusion. Elena was a junior Executive who was often matched with newly recruited, low ranked heroes to guide them in their first few months.

  “Another na?ve hero thinking he can save the day? Pathetic. Don’t you know that I’m the Class ‘A’ Villain, Shade!” Shade screamed, thinking that the young man had no idea what he was dealing with. How dare he interfere just when he was about to finish with Lumina!

  The young man looked at Shade, shrugged his shoulder, and turned his attention back to Lumina.

  “You alright?” He asked, not concerned at all by Shade’s shouting.

  “You need to leave! Elena, you should know who Shade is, a new hero can’t fight him!” Lumina called out to Elena, who was shaking her head while staring at the Villain with wide-open eyes.

  Shade focused his attention on Elena for a moment before he noticed the symbol on the front of her jacket. His eyes narrowed instantly.

  “You’re a League Executive. Come to bring a new Class ‘A’ hero to fight me?” Shade asked, his tone hard and Elena trembled harder in fear as she could see the shadows coiling and moving menacingly behind the Villain.

  “Class ‘D.’” The young man replied, his focus finally on the Villain standing before him. Shade stiffened at the statement, shocked, before he burst out laughing.

  “Class ‘D’ and you think you can fight me?! Your little shield is more pathetic than Luminas. Normally, I would kill you slowly, but I want to concentrate on Lumina. Goodbye.” Shade said, nonchalantly gesturing toward the young man.

  The shadows surged behind him, coiling up to form a massive, serpentlike creature of darkness. Its form was so massive that it nearly touched the ceiling of the warehouse. It shot forward, its mouth open to devour the young man standing in front of it.

  “Light.”

  The young man pointed at the approaching monster and spoke a single word. A tiny pinprick of light formed in the air in front of him, flickering like a white ember cast from a fire. It seemed to be on the edge of being snuffed out.

  It flittered through the air toward the monster, its motions uneven and erratic. The shadow monster swallowed the ember of light as it swept forward to consume the young man.

  The resulting explosion of light was far beyond anything Lumina had ever seen. Its pure white intensity made the sun look like a candle in comparison. No shadows were capable of resisting its radiance. Shade, bereft of the darkness that powered his abilities, collapsed onto the ground.

  Panting, he desperately tried to regain his strength as the light slowly faded away.

  “You can control shadows? That’s a nice trick. I can do something similar. Do you want to see?” The young man asked as he walked forward. Standing in front of Shade, he looked down at the Villain while he waited for an answer.

  “We’re nothing alike!” Shade spat out, baffled at how the young man in front of him crushed his shadow creature so easily. The young man smiled and shook his head.

  “Don’t be like that, think of this as a game. You attacked, and I countered it, so now it's my turn. Tell you what, if you can counter it, I’ll stop, and you can leave.” The young man said, and Shade shivered at the words.

  He didn’t know why, but the young man in front of him was suddenly terrifying.

  “No, I don’t want-” Shade stammered; his only thought was that he needed to get away.

  “Sure you do. Alright, here we go.” The young man said as he took a stepped back and raised his hands above his head.

  “A Starless Night.”

  When the police arrived later to take Shade into custody, they found the Villain curled onto the ground, his arms wrapped around his legs as he slowly rocked back and forth. Elena, who had seen what Mathew could do over the course of a day, didn’t even blink at the fact that he took down a Class ‘A’ Villain.

  And Lumina, released from the protective barrier, stared at the young man and only had a single thought. She was witnessing the birth of an ‘SS’ Class Hero.