I took Giana's spirit out of my dimensional pocket and gently lowered her into the lake. The power spot was strengthening her spirit.
She was still unconscious.
My nightmare flashed by and then the events that led up to this situation.
I shook my head and focused on Giana’s spirit. I couldn't keep her too long else her spirit might outgrow her body and getting her back to her body might become a problem. She was stable but in a weakened state, so I tried to get her to a better state and hoping this would work.
Noelle was watching me with a smile that I didn’t like. "Is it working?"
Slowly but surely, she still isn't waking up and I don't know why…
Noelle stabilized her spirit a bit more and I put her back in my dimensional pocket after 15 minutes.
So tired…
Noelle made 2 huts, but I decided to sleep on a tree branch.
"I made a hut for you! Go sleep in a bed!"
It's fine, I'm used to sleeping outside.
She tried to drag me out of the tree and into the hut, she made for me, but she couldn't catch me.
"Fine, have it your way!" She stomped and slammed the door of her hut.
-
A lot of noise. The first thing I saw when I woke up were noisy humans and before I could react, Noelle burst out of her hut. "Can y’all be quiet? Do you want me to kick your ass?!"
"What did you do to our home! It looks like a jungle!"
"Yeh turn it back!"
The remaining humans were noisy and complaining.
"This place is pretty, eh? It took a lot of work." Noelle looked proud, and she put her hands on her hips.
"Turn it back, turn it back!" The humans started to demand and chant.
Noelle stomped and it felt like an earthquake. "You guys are making a big mistake, this place isn't yours anymore and if you have complaints, you can bring them to Agnis or me, we will be happy to remove you from your problems, permanently. So be nice and wait till the spirits put you in the dirt" She stomped again which shook the area.
I guess she got this under control. I was still very sleepy, but I decided to get up and eat. I still didn't eat enough to balance my energy deficit created by [Silver Torrent] so I invited Noelle to feast with me. Some spirits were curious and wanted to try out some food.
They ate anything, but they all loved various forms of bread and similarly baked goods. I checked on the humans and the last 3 elders seemed to have been cooking up some plan. This doesn't matter because Noelle and I will step in when the spirits get tired or are on the losing side. The energy of this power spot seemed to be less dense around them; they must have a technique to nullify the effect of the power spot. I could see how this made sense.
The spirits might not have as much of an advantage as I thought.
Another cool breeze. "Agnis! Is it true? Were all these spirits enslaved? Can I fight with them?!"
Sorry, do I know you?
"It's me! Nayani! How could you forget me in a day!" She started telling me her life story and how we met. I was just messing with her, but it backfired so I tossed some bread over to her which distracted her and made her stop talking.
I called over a high spirit that was monitoring the area.
Hey, you guys need to do something about this, you spirits are too addicted to bread, as things look now humans could easily enslave you again if they lure you in with bread.
"Hmm this bread is good, but mine is better!" Narwhani said while she was clearing out the bread.
Ah right, Narwhani was a baker, maybe you could bake for these spirits here to show them what real bread is.
"Oh! That's a great idea! And the name is Nayani! I'm going to ask my sister to help!" She disappeared in a chilly breeze.
"Didn't she say she was going to help these spirits fight?" Noelle asked after clearing out several desserts.
It seems that bread is more important… At least that problem is solved, I guess.
We finished eating and took a seat near the lake. There was an open space next to the lake where the battle would take place. It would be 426 humans against over 500000 spirits. More than 70% of the spirits abstained or just wanted to watch, but the rest were interested in retaliating.
The only problem were those 3 elders. If I were running a village like this, I would have someone who can deal with numerous spirits, similar to how I fight. It doesn't matter if I fight opponents that are way stronger than me, strength isn't the only deciding factor.
The battle between Noelle and the bald elder started an hour later. She had a lightning crystal spirit helping her. She had a rough start but was starting to even the score. The elder she was fighting had the ability to remove buffs and augments, quite a pain in the ass. He also tried to get her in the water so she would lose her footing.
The battle between the humans and spirits began. As expected, a lot of humans kicked the bucket in the first few minutes and the released spirits got escorted by non-combative spirits to safety, the spirits that got defeated got sent back to their power spot, which was here, but they wouldn't be able to fight for quite a while.
After 30 minutes, it was just 2 elders and 5 guys left. Over 10000 spirits got their asses kicked, so they weren't doing that bad, the elders were carrying the other guys, however.
Talking about elders, Noelle caught the one she was fighting with a [Lightning stomp], got him trapped in crystallized lightning and finished him off with her crystal punch.
She came to sit next to me, and I tossed a towel at her that I had fetched out of my dimensional pocket. "Phew, that was a hard fight, how are the spirits doing?"
Decently, you're bleeding.
"I underestimated him a bit."
What rare fruit do you need to fill your soul container? Maybe I have some on me.
"Invisible Crystal Papaya."
… No wonder you guys are going extinct; didn't those crystal papayas go extinct some centuries ago?
"Well not to jab at you but to find them we need the help of you nine-tail foxes and well your numbers are quite low and have too many things on your plate to go hunt for papayas…"
I see I'll try to keep an eye out for them, what do they look like?
"Uhh, I heard that to you guys it looks like a 7-sided light purple rock, but to us, it looks like a well it doesn't look like a papaya but to us, it looks like a fruit. It seems to grow in between dimensions or something. It's a product of the spatial fabric being repaired or something.
Hmm.
I went through my archive and found that I had a variety of strange-looking rocks saved up.
How about these?
I took out some invisible 7-sided rocks. I had no problem seeing them and apparently, neither does Noelle.
"Ugh, most of them are spoiled, but these are still fresh." She picked up 3 rocks.
I'm sorry, I didn't realize that they were fruits …
"That's fine, my father said that that is one of the reasons we don't have a good supply of them because only we can see it as a fruit. For you guys it's just a strange rock and gets ignored or stored as a rock, but 3 fruits are enough."
Yeah, I can see how this is a problem for you guys.
I threw the spoiled rocks away.
What does Yvonne need?
"Oh, don't worry about her she has over 400 lives, her race is also doing quite well. The six tails and four tails are doing quite great, last time I heard about their status."
I see. That's good to hear.
One of the elders negated the effect the power spot had, and they started to push back. It was just the 2 elders, and of them was roughed up. The high-water spirit that I talked to earlier was doing some work on Roughed up elder.
They were doing something strange and it gave me reason to believe they were going for some collaboration magic.
Hey, do you think those 2 are brothers?
"Isn't that obvious?"
This might be bad news for the spirits.
"Why?"
You'll see, we might have to step in later. These spirits aren't weak but they are fighting 2 strong guys that have a lifetime experience of fighting spirits.
The fact that these elders hadn't kicked the bucket yet is a testament to their strength and experience. The minor spirits backed off because they realized they were no match, the medium spirits did the same, only the support spirits stayed in and helped the high spirits. There weren't many of them, though. There were only 47 competent spirits left, fighting against these elders.
"Are the spirits going to lose?"
I don't know, but if they don't realize the elders are preparing collaboration magic, they might.
"Wait they are? I wanna see it too! Link me up!"
What do you mean? I don't need Elgards eyes to see that.
"Huh? Then how?"
Now this could be the case because they are brothers but they progressively match their fighting style and tempo at which they use spirit magic. They need to synchronize else it won't work and this is hard to pull off in a chaotic battle unless you have a special skill or ability to do so.
I pointed at my eyes.
For example, if I link your vision to mine it's possible for us to use collaboration magic even though we don't know each other well. They have to take the normal route as they have no such thing. Also, collaboration magic is way stronger if the participants are alike. If I attempted collaboration magic with you and attempt the same collaboration magic with Giana, the one with Giana would go easier and pack a bigger punch because I have more similarities to her because our race is the same .
"Hmm so them being brothers is a huge advantage for them?"
Yeah, family members using collaboration magic is the worst-case scenario for their opponent, the only thing that's worse if they're twins. It also seems these 2 are very close, so it's going to get nasty for the spirits if they don't do something.
"And you know this from experience, I guess?"
Uhh… no I studied magic.
A spirit caught on but too late. The elders finished their collaboration magic and… combined. They looked like a strong middle-aged bald man with a red beard. It didn't look impressive, but he gave off a strong aura that reminded me of Azu and some other witches I messed with in Witchaven.
Yeah, the spirits are screwed, let's get ready.
Noelle seemed intimidated and shivered a bit. I guess she never encountered someone as strong as this Bald combo.
I'll take this one then.
Noelle grabbed my sleeve. "I need you to be alive to save Giana, I'll go, I just got 15 lives from those papayas."
You are intimidated, fighting him is a bad idea, don’t worry, I got this.
I created a [frost wall] because Bald Combo tried to absorb the higher spirit to become stronger.
It's ok guys, I'll take it over from here.
"So, you've appeared! Perfect! We spent a day preparing to take you on! Giving us time was a huge mistake! After absorbing you we will be stuck together forever, but it's a small price to pay if we could become you!"
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Great, now I too have a stalker. We put in a lot of effort to create this place, so I would appreciate it if you didn't raze it to the ground. Also, you got lucky that the spirit sisters did not participate, they would have put you in the dirt but they are too busy baking bread so I will have to step in.
"Hah, can't you feel our power?! There is no way you can win!" I made an illusion of me creating a silver spark and the Bald combo flinched. It seems he was full of shit. He was probably buying time to wait for his next power-up or something.
So, do I refer to you as singular or plural?
"I am the storm that is approaching!"
These guys also watch too much tv, but it seems he sees himself as a new singular entity. Although the sky started to become cloudy, maybe he did summon a storm.
Their problem was that if it started to rain, they would be giving me an advantage. I had to assume he knew what he was doing. I decided to wrap things up fast because fixing the damage caused would become a pain. I was going to use some magic I developed and based on magic I 'borrowed' from Witchaven.
I did a quick check to see if I didn't base it on taboo or dangerous magic. I started some epic orchestral [Boss music] and set up a new magic skill that I named [Eight' Moonlit bridge]. This skill is special, it's impossible to draw its full magic circle, to complete it I need to hit certain types of skills and when they are successful, I get rewarded by getting a piece of the magic circle getting completed. It requires 8 parts before it’s complete.
Frost walls got created by me to protect the surrounding area.
Bald combo started to throw around [Wind scythes] and made a huge [Tornado]. The wind started gathering and formed an enormous wind-based kraken.
You guys do know that a wind-based kraken doesn't make any sense right?
“Shut up! We’re using magic! Magic doesn't need to make sense!”
I wanted to retort but he had a point. It looked silly but this Kraken was no joke. I had to make sure I didn't fly away. I don’t consider myself weak to wind magic but this certainly annoys me. I used [Shadow bind] on myself. It annoyed me but all this wind had an interesting downside for him.
I used [Foxfire: Summer Heat], the wind fed the flames and the wind Kraken swiftly turned into a fire Kraken. I released the [Shadow bind] but still got blown away by the fire current.
I should’ve used [Pressure]….
Shiiiit!
While getting blown away, I saw that Noelle didn't seem as intimidated anymore. “Thank you for making me laugh!”
You got the wrong idea! This was an accident!
Noelle stomped and I fell to the ground. Bald Combo was panicking a bit because his Kraken was on fire. It was flailing and setting the surroundings on fire.
Nooo! Our hard work! You asshole! You are really asking for it now!
“But isn't this your fault?!”
He picked the fight so it’s his fault!
I continued [Foxfire: Summer Heat], controlled the flames and condensed most on my tails. I appeared behind Bald Combo and used a fire-augmented palm strike before kicking him in the air, all the fire on my tails followed the kick and sent a powerful narrow fire pillar up to him. It sent him flying upward, and it ended up in an explosion.
The first part of [Eight’ Moonlit Bridge] was completed. This situation was beneficial for the next one. I created a frost bow and shot [Ice arrows] at him. I could kill 2 harpies with one fireball, the ice would melt because of the high temperature up there and would rain down and douse the fire, and to complete the next part of the circle I needed to deal high piercing damage with either earth, water, or wind element. I was attempting to pierce him with these arrows but that didn't seem to work out.
I could still do other types of damage to him but up to a certain threshold, if I go over it my magic circle will fail. I froze a lance and kicked it toward him. It narrowly missed him, unfolded and turned into a [Frost Umbrella] It started spinning and shot icicles in every direction. Bald Combo was riding the wind so he easily got out of range. I swapped myself with an icicle flying in his direction and pierced his shoulder with an ice blade. He lost focus and fell down.
The second part of the skill got completed. Next up: a heavy earth based skill. This sucks.
Hey Noelle, can you throw me a crystal hammer?
I didn’t like conditions that required 1 specific element. Noelle threw a hammer at me, which I caught, but it pulled me along its trajectory.
“You should eat more Agnis!”
I still wouldn't get heavier!
While Noelle was keeping Bald Combo busy, I tried to figure out what to do. These kinds of techniques that require certain actions to happen limit my attack density. I can’t keep my opponent busy at all times like I normally do. I was making him look like a fool for a bit but now I can’t do anything, and he is regaining his momentum as a result. Maybe using and tweaking this skill was a bad idea…
Talking about momentum… I threw some daggers at him with all my might. I swapped myself with the daggers and carried the momentum I had with the hammer over to the direction the dagger was flying.
Noelle saw it coming, so she defended herself. I successfully crashed and hit Bald Combo. The impact sent me flying again. But at least another part of the skill was completed.
Noelle pointed at the hammer I had left behind. “Are you done with this?”
Yeah.
She picked up the crystal hammer and starting to swing it at Bald Combo but he shattered it with a punch. He ran in and punched Noelle, but it looked like he punched a wall. He ended up hurting his fist and Noelle punched him back. He jumped back using wind and simultaneously shot out a [Wind scythe] which hit Noelle and left a shallow cut on her torso.
My next condition was something I could work with. The [Boss music] intensified, I shifted stance and used [High Voltage] to hit the clouds, since he was already kind enough to make a stormy environment.
I threw a lightning-charged dagger at his shadow, which would briefly [Shadow bind] him when it would hit his shadow.
Here catch!
Noelle saw this as a sign to use [Polygonic Armament] as I used a skill I had never used before, [Lightning rod]. It just draws in lightning, nothing special.
“Hey this music is pretty good. How about you help us out on one of our concerts? I’m sure Giana will pay you well!” Noelle made a face that annoyed me and I ignored her.
A purple lightning bolt shot from the thunderclouds to the dagger, zapping Bald Combo and hitting Noelle. I fired a red [Lightning rod] off and hit it again, since my next requirement was to hit my target with something he got hit by in the past. The 4th and 5th requirements were met. I needed 3 more.
It sucks that these requirements were quite random, so the next time I use this it will be something different. Judging by how much of a pain in the ass, this technique was, I would probably never use it again.
Next up, submerging him for over 5 minutes. [Drowning Pulse] It is. This requirement was more lenient because as long as I did this, I could hit him with whatever I want. I connected to the air leyline currents and started [Drowning Pulse].
Noelle stomped and raised the ground beneath her. “Hey, I know this is part of your fighting style but can you ease up on flooding the area every time?”
I shifted to [Water Dragon dance] and sent a dragon to pick her up.
You can fight on that dragon.
I let the dragon dance on the leyline currents and went back to [Drowning Pulse]. The dragon that Noelle rode on became electrified because she was still augmented with lightning.
“How do I steer this thing?” She said as she tapped the water dragon.
That is a good question, maybe you can build a channel through which the energy goes on which it rides, I don't have enough arms to drown this Bald Combo and control that dragon.
“You had no issues doing that in that fishbowl attack!”
It’s not a fishbowl attack! It’s called [Hsien] and my tails do the heavy lifting there.
“Well then, put your tails to work!”
I’m going to drop you…
“Uhh, in that case, I'll figure something out to steer this dragon, don’t worry!” Noelle gave a thumbs up and created crystal channels, forcing the dragon to follow them.
Bald Combo made an air bubble, so he didn't care much about what I was doing. It seemed he was attempting another collaboration magic. Persistent guy.
I used [Surface flip] which caught him off guard and I froze his bubble and popped it.
[Downing Pulse] created a vortex, pulling him down. I crushed all his attempts in making air bubbles by either interrupting them or crushing them with water pressure. His eyes and mouth started to glow as if there was light coming out of them.
He needed to stay submerged for 4 minutes, but he seemed to be in the middle of a power-up. I froze the surface with frost magic, creating a 1-meter frost layer preventing him from breaking out. I covered him with frost to limit the scale of his power up. He seemed to have been close to getting there, but because I kept sapping energy from him, it took very long.
He ate something, became huge and sent out a huge energy wave that cracked the frost on the surface, resulting in him breaking through. This condition failed, so I got a new one. Keep him airborne for 5 minutes? Really? I might actually fail this technique if I get these dumb conditions. It is an instant fail if I get a complicated earth-based condition.
This skill got delegated to ‘scrapped’ or ‘never use again’ as this was bullshit.
The weather was acting strange, and Bald Combo gave off an intimidating aura. I shifted to [Stormy Tides] and [Waterspout] and launched him into the air. He was sending out a crazy amount of tracking magic attacks with some lasers here and there, and he was just spamming attacks to hit as much as he could. I started to slowly shift to wind Dragonvein to keep him in the air. My body moved to match the [Howling Updraft] technique, which involved kicking off the air, and everything got pushed upwards.
Daggers and wires got connected to gliders so I could move around easily. Some of the wires got wrapped around Bald Combo so he could stay controlled while in the air.
I had to make sure to evade everything he sent at me because 1 or 2 hits would kill me.
The dragon Noelle was riding also got blown upwards. “Why can’t you just fight on the ground like anyone else?”
Polygons formed in the shape of a hammer, Noelle solidified the air and started to swing her hammer. She ditched the dragon and ran over the wires that were spread around in the airspace. She also solidified the air and hopped over ‘Air Tiles’.
Bald Combo was quite tangled up, so there were more than enough wires going towards him. “Let me go!”
Don’t worry, I will let you go when the time comes.
I increased the strength of the updraft and shifted to [Wind dragon dance]. I rode a wind dragon and weaved between the attacks he was sending at me, using another wind dragon to body-block some attacks that were hard to weave in between.
We were reaching a similar altitude of the shortest mountains in the distance. The drop will be nasty. Luckily, I will just float down.
It then reminded me of Noelle, who would drop like a rock.
Oh…
My stance shifted and I used [Tempest Step] to have an easier time moving through the air. Tornado kicks went out to create small tornadoes that sent out sharp [Wind Blades].
In just a bit we could start the descent and I will still hit the 5 minutes.
My tails reminded me that I had forgotten something. I had shadow clones make triple clones when we attacked the village, but I never used them. They were on standby and frozen over. I stopped using wind Dragonvein, and we ascended for several seconds before we started to fall. I sent the triple clones some energy and made them wait below us.
In 30 seconds, I would know the next thing I had to do.
The next requirement was to land 1000 hits, easy. I electrified the wires and started zapping him and shooting [Lightning Bolts] at him. This shocked Noelle and she fell off the wires.
Woops!
I shot wires at her and grabbed her. She slowly was getting heavier, indicating that I might have pissed her off.
Noelle! I’m sorry! Please relax!
The lightning was continuously doing damage to Bald Combo and I reached the target, next up was doing a certain amount of damage within a small timeframe. Well, it's my lucky day, if Bald combo crashes into my 6 triple clones down there they will instantly explode.
So, Noelle, I know you might be upset, but can you protect us?
I pointed to the ground where the 6 triple clones were waiting.
“Oh, hell no! Those things hurt! You can’t be serious?!” She looked at me and saw I was serious. She grabbed the wire and pulled me towards her and created a bulky crystal shell. “You will have to go on a date with Giana as repayment.”
If I get to live to see another day, sure.
We crashed down and set off the biggest steam explosion I ever saw, Some triple clones exploded a bit earlier than others and caused a chain reaction that evenly distributed the force of this enormous explosion within the 2 seconds that this happened. Bald Combo got sent flying, and so did the crystal shell.
He crashed into a frost wall I put up at the start of the fight, and the magic circle was completed. The sky turned dark and a blue circle appeared in the middle of the magic circle, which had 8 silver paths going out of it, connecting to smaller silver circles that touched the edge of the magic circle.
I created multiple frost dragons and used them to get Bald Combo into the blue circle. The blue circle froze him in place. The 8 moonlight bridges with the circles on the end started to fold up and rise. Slowly turning into a cage with no roof.
The moment they stood vertical, it looked like Bald Combo was trapped in a cage with 8 full moons shining upon him and then the magic blast happened. This was pure arcane and frost attribute. Bald Combo roared in pain and collapsed. The moonlight bridges folded down again, the blue circle spun 1/8th and the bridges folded up again. This would repeat for 8 blasts in total, I had made attempts to have it do this 9 times but that would mean 9 pain in the ass requirements and a lot of extra bullshit.
Maybe another time.
Noelle pointed. “What the hell is that? I have never seen magic like that?!”
It’s a royal pain to set up, but it does a shitton of damage.
“Is this the reason you did all those weird things?”
Yeah…
“I guess that’s the reason I’ve never seen it then… It looks cool though!”
It hits 8 times and the final blast hits the hardest.
The final blast happened and the skill disappeared. Bald Combo was bloodied and seemed close to kick the bucket. “Hahaha, so strong! I thought I could beat you like this, but I guess you’re not called a mythical beast for no reason!”
Noelle rubbed her temple. “Uhm, bald guy, I think even a human could pull that skill off, unrealistic with the pain-in-the-ass conditions but possible nonetheless.”
“Shut up! I want to feel good about myself by telling myself that I lost to a mythical beast!”
Hey, at least he’s honest.
“Even though I didn’t want to resort to it, I guess I’ll have to do this!” He pulled out something and I didn't know what it was but found out after inspecting it. It looked like a round pill the size of a marble, but I could sense thousands of spirits being compressed in it. I took out all my tails and tried to cut off his arm, but he already swallowed it.
“Hahaha! I can see you realized what this is, but it’s too late!”
He had to go for a stereotypical villain powerup…
His spirit magic spiked and seemed to become some sort of pure spirit, I don’t know if Noelle can hit him like this. He also became huge and the pressure he gave off was hard to bear. He lost all reason and was just a wild beast rampaging. Noelle through attacks at it, but she couldn't interact with it at all.
Right, I forgot about this, bosses always have an enrage.
Noelle cocked her head. “Enrage?”
I pointed at the beefed-up Bald Combo.
This guy is probably going to one shot us if we let his power go out of control, we need to put him down fast.
“I see… I can’t hit it though! Good luck!”