Chapter 166

Demon Summoning Part I

Alexa stood on top of the black with golden edges casket that her mother had spent agonizing hours choosing. This was the casket that most closely resembled the uniform being worn by Warden, the man who would forever be remembered as her father.

Yet, there was something terribly wrong. Not just with where she was standing, yes standing on the casket of anyone was terrible, even her rationale mind agreed this was not the best of places. Unfortunately, there was nowhere else for her to go. There was a deep thread of energy that had come from five different locations all around them and had converged right above Alexa’s father’s casket.

Worse, there was too much energy.

“What are you doing?” Her mother cried out. Her mother, who was wearing her Judge costume, said as tears came to her eyes. Alexa knew that these tears were warranted in this case, and even she felt the slight tinge of tears coming to her eyes, a reflexive action caused by her mind coming awake as it desperately tried to absorb as much energy as possible. Normally, such a feat was a good thing, amazing even, as it meant she was not only getting stronger, but also able to fully be human. That she could experience the full gambit of emotions, unfortunately this was not the day that she wanted to be able to feel. Today was the day that she wanted to be numb, to be immune to the pains this world had in store for her. Unfortunately, she knew that this was not to be her lot in life.

Sticking out her hand, she tried to directly shield the flow of energy from overhead. As she stuck her hand up, she felt the moment the stream of energy landed on her outstretched arm and started to absorb the abundant energy, but it wasn’t enough. Her tiny arm could only block so much, as the rest of the energy in the stream that was now coming down flooded the body and flowing over her arm and into the body of her dead father.

The energy was odd to the touch, it felt like it was an odd blend of Space and Spirit magic. Not that she knew what either of those schools of magic felt like for certain, just that in her mind this is what she assumed the two new and highly unique threads of magic would be.

“Get down!” The Priest and others whispered to her in hushed but commanding tones.

“It… It’s a summoning! A demon summoning!” Vision, one of the greatest Seers on Earth, and one of the primary reasons why the League was still rated as the number one overall guild in the world said.

Panic.

With that everyone started to scream.

Alexa would too, but then she felt the moment her energy reserves filled up completely, and she got a message from the system, at the exact worst moment possible.

Level up.

Your level in Absorber has reached level 40!

+30 Willpower, +20 Perception, +20 Free Attribute Points.

With reflexes that were mostly instinctual at this point, she distributed the experience equally across her four remaining attributes, allowing her to keep her well maintained balance of Attributes.

Physical Attributes Rating Strength 357 Agility 357 Endurance 357

Mental Attributes Rating Intelligence 357 Perception 957 Willpower 1,357

The seven at the end came from the fact that she had managed to spend seven hours over the last few days inside a dungeon, planning with her pack for the future. Of course, none of the things they had planned for would come to fruition. They still had one trick up their sleeves, but Alexa wanted to wait until the attackers had revealed all of their plans. Surely this one event was not going to be everything, at least that is what Alexa thought to herself.

Then she saw what was actually happening.

The energy streaming over her arm, the combination of Space and Spirit energies, came together, slowly pouring over Alexa’s outstretched arm like it was molasses.

Then a drop, or rather the first of many drops touched down and fell onto the body of Warder, her father. That was when all hell broke loose, literally.

Void Essence. Uncontrollable, volatile, and corrupting, that is what she felt.

Whoosh!

There was an explosion of force, as Alexa who was at the epicenter of the force was thrown back violently, as a wave of corruption exploded from the casket, bulging out the sides, and blowing off the lid like it was the top to an overworked pressure cooker.

BOOM!

A wave of corruption spread out covering everyone.

Pain.

Pain and ecstasy mixed in Alexa’s mind as the Void Energy began to be devoured by her body as she flew through the air.

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Spiraling end over end, the world was a blur for a moment. Alexa’s eyes tracked everything, then her mind saw it, or rather saw her. There in the front row, sitting right next to where Alexa had been sitting moments ago sat a Super wearing a bright red uniform. She had been blown back in the attack, everyone had. Just seeing her in pain caused Alexa’s heart to ache. But there was something else.

While Gina had been hit by the blast, she was seemingly affected the least by the violent explosion, then Alexa saw why there was a golden glow emanating from the bag between her feet.

“Use it now!” Alexa shouted, desperately focusing every ounce of her consciousness to focus on Gina, pointing at her and trying to direct her attention to her.

There was a moment of pause, but then Alexa saw a flash of realization in her eyes. Even before she landed, she could see Gina, in her L.I.R. Super Suit, have a moment of recognition, then the surge of light blue energy that always happened, right before she used her analytical powers. That was another great thing about Gina, now Alexa didn’t have to try to work through trying to explain what she felt and why Gina just got her. She could understand from a simple glance what hours of words and countless explanations never could to others.

This time, she understood the ask, and began reaching down between her legs to the glowing bag between her feet.

Thud.

Alexa landed, but it was okay, as there was a pulse and burst of golden light that lit up the sky like a secondary sun. Just seeing the golden glow rising over the edge of the stage that she had just been blasted past, made Alexa realize that the trump card had been effective.

The rays of light shot out from the tiny starting point, bursting out, erupting along the lines of power that had been drawn in the sky, and burned away all traces of power that were visible to her highly advanced eyes.

Relief.

Alexa got up, letting out the long breath she had been holding back all this time. It had worked, their special gambit that happened more by chance than anything had paid off.

As Alexa wrestled her way to her feet, she felt the traces of Void Essence that had been clinging to her get burned away as she stood up and was in line of sight to the glowing golden orb that Gina held up high overhead.

Seeing her there like that, Alexa imagined an angel holding up the sun in the sky, making sure it glowed brightly so everyone could see properly. At that sight, Alexa thought Gina was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life. Her body, coated in rays of golden light burned brightly into Alexa’s retinas as a symbol of hope, of someone who she knew she could trust regardless of what was going to happen next.

Then just as quickly as it had begun, the golden light died out.

Flicker.

There was a slight pulse, before the energy that had been pouring forth from the golden orb within Gina’s hands winked out of existence.

That was it, their one trump card. A card that up until they got to Bottomless Gorge, they didn’t know they would even have. The minute they got to Bottomless Gorge, the secret lair of their entire pack, they noticed a slight change come over the orb.

***

Flicker-flash.

Bottomless Gorge saw and instantly began reacting to the now twice stolen sphere from the elves. This time she lacked any protective box to carry the orb in, but this time the box was completely unnecessary as the orb itself was empty of all energy. That meant that once she entered the dungeon, despite having her Illusion magic fully engaged to cover her movements, Bottomless Gorge was able to identify her and her movements easily.

That’s when Bottomless Gorge reached out and connected a golden thread of energy to the dormant sphere, causing it to illuminate and breaking Alexa’s Illusion she had around herself.

“What is that?” Kylie asked, startled by first Alexa’s presence, and then the now glowing orb within her hands.

“It is an orb.” Alexa said, then as more people gathered around, Gina pressed.

“You know what this is?” Gina asked.

Alexa paused, then after a second she nodded. “I had my doubts at first, but now I am certain. These orbs are a relic from the time of the Precursors.”

Oh!

At that everyone got closer looking as Bottomless Gorge seemed to fill the orb up with some unseen form of energy.

“What does it do exactly?” Kelvin, who had been right beside Kylie asked.

At that Alexa paused, then answered as succinctly as possible. “It burns away corruption.”

***

Oh.

Everyone let out a gasp of relief, and of shock once the glowing energy from the orb dissipated.

Ten seconds, that was the length of time that the orb burned brightly. Long enough to be captured on every camera, long enough to be shown to the world not only what, but who had held up the glowing orb.

Long enough for everyone to forget why she did what she did.

“You just attacked the president!” Talik, a former Super who had taken over duty as a presidential bodyguard shouted. He had been in the front row right side. They had been close enough to even now still be coated with Void Essence, despite the brightly burning beam of light that had come from Gina’s orb, it was not enough. Worse, now that the light was gone, everyone was apparently blinded to the fact of what had happened.

Moving.

The world blurred around Alexa, until she was in front of the bodyguard who was pacing towards Gina.

“And you!” Talik added, pointing one finger at Alexa. A finger that was now glowing with some kind of fiery energy. A finger that was directed squarely at Gina. Seeing the gesture for the act of aggression that it was, Alexa moved on reflex more than anything.

Crunch.

Alexa’s fingers wrapped around Talik’s entire hand, before squeezing tightly so he couldn’t move and then draining the energy from his manifesting talent.

With that Talik looked shocked, not quite registering the fact that Alexa was there, that she would stop this action. Within seconds she was draining the energy from his body, the energy freely flowing from the elder Super and flowing directly into Alexa, filling her with a swell of energy and power. Power that her body instantly began converting as quickly as possible. She had already been full before, and now this extra energy she claimed was going directly to her next level, as she was at full combat readiness.

“Calm down! You need to stop!” Gina shouted from behind her.

Hearing her desperate cries, Alexa turned to look at Gina, trying to see what was happening to her, what could make her cry out this way. Then when she turned, she saw the truth, that Gina was not being attacked, that she was worried about something.

Looking at her, Alexa saw the same brightly glowing eyes, the ones that showed Gina was using her powers of probability, that she was calculating the future. Then Alexa realized why she sounded so concerned, that everything was going poorly, at least that is what her gaze and face spoke of. Seeing her, Alexa relaxed slightly, turning to Talik who was on the ground, desperately trying to yank his hand free from her indomitable grasp.

A quick scan around the audience that was still here, the audience that was still recording, she could see a range of shock and horror filled faces. Even the status of the Supers from both the League and The Clan were in disbelief at what had happened, at what was still happening.

Seeing everything, Alexa nodded then let go of Talik, and gestured for the rest of her pack to get behind her.

Then just as everyone realized she was retreating, that she was giving up ground, everyone moved forward.

At that, Alexa felt her mind racing as she prepared for what she would do next, at what she would need to do to make sure that she and the rest of her pack survived what was to come.

But before she could do anything, a dark overcast shadow filled the sky.

Looking up.

Everyone looked up, every Super that had been creeping forward, every body guard that wanted to take down Alexa and Gina both, everyone including the diplomats from around the world, and the media crews all looked up to see that a glowing dark red sphere had begun to build around them.

The blood red sphere was so large that it began to block out the sun, causing an unnatural darkness to cover the sky.

“No, no, no.” Vision cried out. Her cries from the back of the crowd causing many of the members of the League and those nearby to turn to her. But all they saw was her frantically looking around at the sky, seeing that it was being covered in complete darkness.

“What did you do!” Vibranium shouted out, his finger pointing accusingly at Gina.

Of course, it was easier to blame someone than to stop and think for a moment. It was easier to think that the golden rays of light somehow caused this, regardless of the fact that the two powers felt nothing alike. Regardless of the fact that the golden light felt like it purified the land, while this encroaching blood bubble felt like it would devour anything and everything within its wake.

At this moment, Alexa could only nod in acceptance, she had been outplayed. Worst, she had used her trump card, the fully charged sphere too early, a rookie mistake, something that would be easily exploited by her enemies. While she had stopped it, the summoning through her father’s corpse, that did not negate the fact that the enemy clearly had a backup plan, one that would be even more insidious than the first.

Gasp!

People at the fringes of the audience, those with seats parked farthest away were the first to notice.

“What are those? Demons?”

Looking out to the distance, Alexa could see the figures that the audience was talking about. They were hard to make out fully as they were far away, but the dark purple energy they radiated all but showed they were malicious in nature.

“RISE MY MINIONS! A Knight needs his vassals!” A corrupted voice cried out, one that exuded both power and confidence. Worse, Alexa knew that voice all too well.

“J…Jim?”

Only then did Alexa realize that she hadn’t stopped anything, she had only delayed the inevitable.