Luke’s first idea was to bend the space when the sword approached him and then connect to where the dark armored woman’s head was. However, he was using mana to do that. There was a chance that the sword would just eat the mana and cancel the spell. So, Luke decided to try something else... something even more risky, even though that didn’t make any sense. It was the only idea that he had.

The dark armored woman prepared her sword and focused her body to charge with all her might. Even her friends began to move away from the area since they knew things could get nasty real quick now. With the added power, her sword began to eat the matter around in a radius even though it wasn’t touching anything. Even if he dodges completely, Luke won’t escape unscathed. It was really time to take things seriously...

Luke began to do the same with his sword, and the weapon began to emit such a cold that even the dark armored woman’s friends hundreds of meters away began to shiver. The dark armored woman smirked since it was clear who would win that trade... She also had a lot of mana at her disposal, so the quality of their attacks would determine the winner. Darkness against ice... Only a fool would think that the winner wasn’t already determined.

The dark armored woman raised her sword and charged, while Luke moved his sword to the right side. A vertical against a horizontal attack... The one who will attack first will win... Although Luke buffed his speed and strength to the limits, the one who won the trade was the dark armored woman. The aura of her sword suddenly increased in size and then touched Luke’s elbows and completely destroyed them. The pain had been more vivid than even getting hit by lightning... Luke felt like his arms were being eaten away by a chainsaw very slowly. The damage spread from the elbows to the shoulders and Luke’s wrist. He only escaped the range because he moved to the side while preparing his own attack.

Luke opened his eyes wildly due to the pain he felt. It even forced him to drop to his knees, unable to breathe. Meanwhile, the dark armored woman was smirking from ear to ear, preparing to finish Luke off with the next strike. However, the katana suddenly appeared above her head, and then touched it. Unleashing all the mana Luke had stored there... In the next moment, the entire area was frozen by a thick layer of ice, and the dark armored woman was locked in a massive block of ice. Despite that, she didn’t die.

"Tough bitch..." Luke said after he used Heal to stop the bleeding from his wounds.

Her friends finally realized that she fell for Luke’s trap, and they came to help her, but then Luke transported himself and the woman to his dimension. Soon after, the effects of his buffs were out, and most of his mana had ended. Thanks to that, his entire body began to tremble due to the pain... He put his body beyond the limits, and now he had to pay the price. Still, there were no signs that the woman and the shadow would escape from the ice.

Luke waited for several hours until his body was finally able to move again. During that time, he also healed himself. He finally realized that the ice would never melt in that dimension if he leave them like that. Still, by using Soul Eater Sword, he created an opening and made Essene Sword pass until it hit the core of the dark armor. Luke was fairly certain that he didn’t hit the woman yet, but his sword still began to receive the essence.

"It is time to talk, asshole," Luke said. "I know that you can move here... Do anything funny and then I will make the sword pierce you deeper to kill you once and for all."

Luke didn’t get a response until he made the Essence sword reach the woman. It didn’t seem like the shadow wanted her to die. Most likely, his existence was deeply connected to her now. If she dies, he dies. In any case, the shadow could move since it was essentially made of mana, but without the woman, his actions were limited.

"Stop... Don’t kill her and I will tell you everything I know," The shadow said.

"That will depend if I will like your answers or not and I think that you are lying or not," Luke said.

For a moment, Luke imagined that he had heard a defeated groan, but that was probably his imagination. Regardless, he had to keep his guard up because he was pretty sure that those shadows were way older than most overlords, so they might have a few tricks up their sleeve.

"If I feel you using any mana, you two you will go down in the same moment, do you understand that?" Luke asked. "Now answer me... What are you guys? I know another person who had a shadow like you."

"So that is why you weren’t surprised by our skills, that explains a lot," the shadow said.

"If you try to buy time to think again, her head will roll," Luke said.

"... We are... Fragments of the memories of worlds," the shadow replied.

"What was that pause for and what was that supposed to mean?" Luke asked.

"That is because this isn’t something easy to explain, we aren’t sure ourselves of this as well," the shadow replied. "We slept for many years, since the start of everything. We only woke up when the worlds we were in started to be bombarded by waves of mana."

"Waves of mana... Do you mean the Crystals and the monsters?" Luke asked.

"Yes, the worlds were any form of life exists, mana is present, but not in active form," the shadow explained. "We gained consciousness when creatures that could use mana appeared..."