Chapter 18

My breathing was haggard, fatigue hit me like a hammer hits an anvil and It felt as if I’d been ploughing the fields for three days straight...However...it wasn’t my tired body that took my breath away, or made me weak at the knees.

Standing in the same elegant pose as when we were in the neverending white world, was the figure that I had seen. Her bat like wings spread across her back and she stood floating in place above the ground, as if rejecting it. Her skin was blue-gray and blemish free. She had lustrous silver hair that flowed down her back. The whites of her eyes were inky black and her pupils were a luminous gold. With features as sharp as a kukri, she gazed down at me.

We stared at each other for a few moments. Energy finally returned to my legs and I stood up. As if seeing this as her chance to finally regain some control over the situation, Walburga spoke.

“W-what are you doing fool! Bind her to you now! Don’t let her escape! Outstretch your hand and call her name!”

Walburga’s eyes were laced with madness as she spat out this order. It seems to “bind” her to me, I’d have to call out her name, there was just one problem with that…

“He doesn’t know it.”

The figure raised her delicate fingers to slide a few silvery strands of hair behind her slightly pointed ear. Her voice was graceful and dignified and she was effortlessly able to regain control of the pace.

Another few moments went by and nobody said a word. This whole situation was beginning to drag so I decided to do the only logical thing and introduce myself.

Despite having a domineering presence, she was shorter than me. I faced toward her fully and took another long look. Her age wasn't something I could pinpoint, but her aura and figure indicated that she was at least the same age as Astoria, if not older. A round necklace made up of miniature skulls hung around her neck and she was wearing a tightly fitted leg cut black dress. I caught her eye and held her gaze.

“I am Calcifer Hemlock, I suppose I am the one that summoned you. This is my master Walburga....”

“Summoned me? Hah! You are mistaken Calcifer Hemlock, I came here of my own volition. You think that someone as green as you could conjure me and attain ownership of my services? Laughable. ”

The figure briefly glanced at Walburga.

“So this is what’s become of Walburga the Wise, pitiful...Looks like your obsession with power and knowledge has led you down a path of ruin.”

“What was that girl!? Who do you think you’re talking to!?”

Walburga snapped her boney fingers and an ominous red ring materialised around the figure.

“If you don’t start showing me respect girl, I will have to resort to teaching it to you the hard way.”

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“Hm, pathetic.”

With a simple wave of her hand, the ring surrounding the figure disappeared. Walburga looked taken aback for a few seconds but regained her composure and was about to do something else...

“STOP!”

The heat and bloodlust that was beginning to surround these two was now directed toward me.

“L-let’s calm down eh? Ummm, well if I didn’t summon you...why did you come here?”

“Hm, I felt a compatible source of nourishment. A surplus of Lich Essence was discharged from this location, paying particular mind to Walburga the Unwise over there, I can safely assume that it came from her, if that’s the case, then I will…”

“Why I outta!”

The figure turned away and looked as if she was preparing to take her leave and Walburga was edging closer to another furious outburst.

“Wait!”

They both stopped and turned around to reveal looks of irritation.

“I grow tired of these stoppages, Calcifer Hemlock...”

“That discharged whatever, was mine. I was attempting to summon a Bane. You’re lying...the one that summoned you WAS me, I saw you, in that neverending world of white. When I felt as if I would be stuck there forever, you appeared and helped me return here.”

“So...what of it? I didn’t give you my name in the Realm of Quandary, You can’t bind me to you, if you don’t have my name.”

Something about her way of thinking reminded me of a certain someone...I cursed my luck, flashed a wry smile and thought back to the white world.

Now that I had calmed down a little, I remembered something. Along with shaking their heads and vanishing, the figures in that world also verbally rejected me. They would state something like “I xxxx am not worthy”. I was too enthralled in the suffocating atmosphere of that place, that I had overlooked this.

The hundreds, if not thousands of names began to circulate in my mind, they were all slowly coming back to me.

I replayed the appearance of every Bane in my mind and worked my way toward the moment where she appeared. My memory had always been a strength so it was easy to recollect every single encounter.

Finally the point where she appeared in front of me in the white world surfaced. I focused in on that moment and tried my utmost to remember. There hadn’t been an occasion where someone didn’t give me their name, so it was probably necessary to do so before appearing or disappearing. The moment where she nodded and flew toward me played back in my mind.

Sure enough, she didn’t say her name like the others, she mouthed it...it was blurry but the sight of her moving her lips after saying “I” was on constant playback in my mind’s eye. What was her name?

The reasons why she tried to make an effort to deny that I summoned her was unknown, however...there was a loneliness in her eyes, a loneliness that I had seen a little too often recently. Plus she was able to dispel Walburga’s magic so she must be pretty resourceful. One way or another, I’d make her mine.

Another few agonising moments passed and the sweat on my brow was becoming increasingly visible. The figure’s patience was beginning to wear thin and she turned away for what could have been the last time. She parted her bat like wings and prepared to ascend to the upper echelons of the Twilight Tower.

My mind raced as it attempted to piece together every syllable of her name. Frame by frame, letter by letter, it was becoming clear, until finally, it was complete. It wasn’t a name that I had heard before, but I was certain it was hers. The scene replayed one last time in my head and I made my move.

She was in the latter part of her ascent, when I reached out and called for her, for the first time.

“Va...Vasilisa!”

“H-huh!?"

A piercing white light extended from my outstretched hand and surrounded Vasilisa. I felt something inside me surge and knew that it had been done. Vasilisa had been bound to me, I had attained my first Bane and going by this feeling, she was a pretty powerful one.