“SOUL RESONANCE!!! Shadowy Betrayal!!!” The lone figure yelled after she took a few steps back, out of the creatures' shadows. As she was taking those few steps back, Sooyoung's 'dead body' transformed back into shadow and returned to the lone figure's side.

As she yelled, the lone figure's right arm transformed into a scythe blade, which was coloured as dark as the shadows. Slamming her scythe arm into her shadow after yelling the codeword, six tendrils sprouted from her shadow and shot forward connecting with the shadows of the six creatures.

As soon as the connections were made, a dark, shadowy spike emerged from each of the creatures' shadows, piercing right through their souls. As the lone figure pulled her scythe arm out of her shadow, the spikes dissolved back into the shadows, ripping out the souls of the creatures with them, back through the tendrils and back to the lone figure.

At their dying point, the creatures heard a chilling voice: "Betrayed by your own shadow? How does that feel?" After that, they heard an evil laughter that sent chills down their spines, before they collapsed to the ground as empty shells without souls. Meanwhile, the lone figure sniggered in contempt: "Hmph... Weaklings... Be glad that your souls are now part of mine!!!"

Locking away the excess spiritual energy, absorbed from the souls of her latest victims, the lone figure then proceeded to check on the girls. Jessica, Tiffany, Sunny and Hyoyeon had already passed out, while Taeyeon, Seohyun, Yuri and Yoona were barely awake. After the creatures were defeated, the three daughters of the God of Sleep immediately started meditating together to regenerate their spiritual energies, while Taeyeon was struggling to stay awake with pure willpower.

"Aigoo, my little Taengoo... Everything's going to be okay now. I'll pass some of my spiritual energy to you and then you can meditate on your own to regenerate the rest of your spiritual energy." The lone figure told Taeyeon as she transferred some of her spiritual energy to Taeyeon. Immediately, colour returned to Taeyeon's cheeks and the lone figure had to suppress her urge to pinch those cute, little cheeks.

"Sooyoung unni... You've got a lot of explaining to do..." Taeyeon said weakly, as she started to meditate. Sooyoung nodded and went on to impart some spiritual energy to those girls which passed out. One by one, the girls regained consciousness and started meditating as instructed by Sooyoung.

"That was too close..." Sooyoung thought, as she watch the girls regenerate their spiritual energy. After they were done, Sooyoung told them: "I think now is time for a little lesson about spiritual energy and souls, before I explain the trick I used on the enemy."

"Sooyoung! WATCH OUT!!!" Hyoyeon warned, as she saw another creature materialize behind Sooyoung, ready to kill Sooyoung in one stab of its claw. Sooyoung didn't even bother to turn around, instead she just grinned.

Two scythe blades arched out of her spine, one curved upwards, the other downwards, splitting the creature clean in half and killing it instantly. Sooyoung quickly raised her arms in a defensive position as she felt the presence of another six creatures.

"Using the same trick on me? That's just stupid..." Sooyoung thought, as the six creatures appeared and began to stab her like the last time. However, this time Sooyoung was prepared to kill...

Two scythe blades arched out from the back of her elbows, decapitating the two creatures standing behind her. Another two arched out from her shoulder and curved forward, piercing straight through the skulls of the two creatures standing in front of her. The remaining two creatures, one at her left, the other at her right, were both sliced into half by the two scythe blades that arched out of her waist, curving upwards. Just like that, Sooyoung killed the six creatures simultaneously by making six scythe blades arch out of the various parts of her body.

After she was done, she retracted the blades and continued her lesson: "Now where was I? Oh right! Spiritual energy and souls... A soul is essentially made up of spiritual energy. The more spiritual energy you have, the stronger your soul is. Which is why Taeyeon, Seohyun, Yoona and Yuri still had enough strength to remain conscious before I came to rescue you girls. If one is skilled enough, like me, one can manipulate one's spiritual energy to attack or defend oneself."

"As to what trick I used on the creatures... When I shadow jumped away, I didn't shadow jump to the roof, instead I shadow jumped to my room, used my 'Hijack' power on my own shadow and sent it to the roof. On the roof, my shadow defeated the creature by distracting it and forcing it to soul align with her, which forces it to enter my world, the dead world of shadows, a place which is completely covered by shadows. In my world, only I can see in the shadows, so the creature never saw me transforming my right arm into a scythe blade and use the blade to stab it." Sooyoung explained.

She took a deep breath before continuing: "Now, let me introduce myself properly... I am Choi Sooyoung, Blade of the Shadows, Maiden of Death, the second daughter of the God of Death and I am half-weapon. Even though, I can make scythe blades arch out of practically any part of my body and I can transform any part of my body into a scythe blade, I cannot transform fully into a scythe, only the blade, that's all."

"And for the benefit for those who are a little slow..." Sooyoung started, shooting a meaningful glance at Jessica and Tiffany, who were oblivious to her action. "My innate power is my shadow jumping ability. My soul aligned state power release is 'Hijack', where I send my shadow to hijack someone else's shadow and gain all the powers and knowledge of that person or creature. I can also use this power on my own shadow, as I did just now. However, if I hijack a weapon's shadow, my shadow can still use all its power releases, but it can never transform into that weapon. My shadow, like me, can only transform parts of her body to become scythe blades. And as for my soul resonating state power release, I rip the souls out of my enemies and absorb them." Sooyoung finished with an devious grin on her face.

"So, what is the reason for not telling us this until now?" Hyoyeon asked.

"Well... I was afraid that if you knew about it, you'll feel like you're not needed, since I technically don't need another weapon..." Sooyoung replied, unsure of how her partner would respond.

"You pabo! Why would I feel that way? If you can defend yourself when I'm not around, that's much better, so now I can put my mind at rest when you run off without me!" Hyoyeon laughed.

"Really? That's what you think? I feel so relieved now..." Sooyoung let out a sigh of relief.

"No, actually I'm really hurt, I feel like I don't belong here and have no reason to stay here anymore." Hyoyeon replied, acting hurt.

"You know... you're a very bad actor, right?" Sooyoung said, raising an eyebrow at her partner.

"Is it that bad?" Hyoyeon asked. To her utter dismay, everyone else nodded, but she just laughed it off saying: "Yeah, I know... Guess I should take some acting classes!"

"Anyways... We should get back to training! Let me summon your trainers and discuss how to continue the training. We might decide to start travelling first and train on the way to the source of evil." Sooyoung told the girls.

After summoning Taeyeon's parents, Krystal and Yonghwa, Sooyoung had to thank her reflexes, which saved her from getting chopped into minced meat. First, she transformed both her arms into scythe blades to block Krystal scythe arm and Taeyeon's father's sword. At the same time, she made a scythe blade arch out of the knee, curving upwards, to block the crossbow bolt that was released by Taeyeon's mother. Simultaneously, she made two scythe blades arch out of the back of her shoulder, curving downwards, to block Yonghwa's twin daggers.

"Chill guys! It's not like I really wanted to ditch them, but the trainers of the Vanguard of Death are not allowed to fight with the vanguard, unless absolutely necessary to prevent the premature deaths of any member. It has always been like this. Just think about it, if we keep fighting their battles for them, they won't ever gain the experience they will need to fight a battle, if we're not around. And they're perfectly fine now, aren't they?" Sooyoung explained to her enraged trainers.

What Sooyoung said made sense, so they decided to let her off. After which, they went to check on their loved ones, to make sure that their loved ones were truly fine.

Hyoyeon sighed and complained: "I wish I had someone to worry about me..." Even Hyoyeon's sister, Krystal, was fretting over her other sister and her other sister's partner, showing no sign that she was worried about Hyoyeon. In truth, Krystal knew Sooyoung would take care of Hyoyeon, so she decided to concentrate on making sure her other beloved unni was okay.

"I'm still here!" Sooyoung told Hyoyeon, ruffling Hyoyeon's hair. Hyoyeon smiled, knowing that Sooyoung meant it and she was glad that Sooyoung chose to be by her side, instead of her cousins'.

"Seohyun already has her Yonghwa and her unnis to take care of her. YoonYul can take care of themselves perfectly, so I have no need to worry about them. Not that I'm only worrying about you, because I don't have to worry about my cousins... I would still worry about you even if I had to worry about them." Sooyoun told Hyoyeon.

"You can read minds too?!!" Hyoyeon asked, surprised that Sooyoung knew what she was thinking about.

"You're my weapon and when we soul align, I can read all of your thoughts, remember?" Sooyoung answered, smiling.

"Oh right... Wait a minute... Then why is it that I never knew you were half-weapon, when I read yours?" Hyoyeon quesitoned.

"Ahh... I blocked you from that information... Once one learns how to manipulte one's soul, a lot of things can be done..." Sooyoung replied.

"Oh really? What else have you been hiding from the rest of the girls and me?" Hyoyeon asked, eyeing her partner suspiciously

"That's for me to know and you to never find out about!" Sooyoung teased, sticking her tongue out at Hyoyeon. Before Hyoyeon could respond, Sooyoung got up and held an emergency meeting with the other trainers.

After they were done discussing, Sooyoung announced: "We're setting off at first light tomorrow morning, so please pack up your things and you girls have the rest of the day free to do whatever you want."

The girls nodded their heads is acknowledgement and dispersed, each pair heading off to do whatever they wanted to.

Over at the evil mastermind's castle, the evil mastermind was very unhappy. Flipping a table, the evil mastermind swore to make Sooyoung die the most painful death ever... "Choi Sooyoung! You better watch out. I still have many tricks up my sleeves, that was just one trick out of many!!!" The evil mastermind shouted.