Sachihiro

We circle the property as carefully as possible following the path I have laid out. It seems I am the sole 'expert' on spirits and sorcery we have on this mission and have been assigned the Battle Chief without even realising it. My awareness is making spirit traps and triggers easier for me to spot and plan against as they 'shine' brightly at the spiritual vibrational spectrum.

The property is big and heavily warded but thankfully the wards are all spirit-based and though they are too complicated for me who has only spent 2 years learning at Spiritus. My natural affinity for spirit plus my Awakening in whatever it is I've Awakened in has given me much greater sensitivity even to hidden spirit-based energies if I look closely enough.

But even with me circling the property with the team leaders and marking out safe paths I can only get us maybe a half kilometre into the property line before even I can't make heads or tails of the defenses. The team leaders are proven strategic warriors not necessarily the most powerful or skilled, but each attack will be spearheaded by an Awakened with a artifact shield bearer at his/her side.

We now number 73 Tundrans as we were joined on this expedition by several of our countrymen we met exploring the Sandie kingdom. The Ministry of Information spies watching the manor have been unable to tell us what to expect since they are unfamiliar with sorcery and have been wary of getting closer. Which turns out to have been the smart decision since the wards start well before the actual property line markings.

The initial attack group is made of 30 people who will rush in from all sides as quickly as possible trying to limit the enemy's response time, so the fastest of us are in that group. The second group is either going to help if the is a need for a fighting retreat or assist in the most pressed areas of counter attack but if all goes well they won't be needed. The last group is to lay back and do nothing unless the second group is also failing and they need to rush in as a concentrated attack or ambush any pursuit if we can only get the children out but can't exterminate the threat.

Only a decade ago no one with Barbarian blood would have even entertained the possibility of a retreat. But now after facing the fae then the Sandies and their allies we have learnt quickly to try and preserve our lives as much as possible. Which I'm glad for, but to be honest we are still very much a suicidally stubborn people and though plans for retreat may be layed out they may not be followed.

Especially by the tribesmen that are yet to go thought the academy. The Proelium trainers just have ways of knocking in discipline and the following of fluid battle plans even in the most stubborn of skulls. I look at the manor a last time as everyone gets into position around the wooded area. The ready signal comes and I immediately send the execute signal.

*

I move left swing right to the imperceptible impact against a pseudo flesh, armoured to resist the force and the sharpness of my Razor. The thing slashes at me with the thick extended ethereal tiger claws and I dodge back leaving the air screaming where it is retched by the creature. The is a resilience to the creatures that bellies their incorporeal forms.

Even to my awareness they seem to be barely here and I can barely keep sight of them. They seem to be changing forms at will, moving from a tiger to a snake to a hawk with each and every attack. Defending against them is confusing and needs concentration due to their polymorphic forms.

More flow out of the manor still like blood crazed night hounds rushing at bleeding prey. They come rushing out mostly in fleet footed four legged forms that seem to be all teeth and ripping strength ready to rend flesh apart. But they are met with shields hammers and blades without even the slightest of hesitation and my own heart rate increases as already some are going into the Rage so as to stand a chance.

I'm hurting these spirit creatures, we are all hurting them to some extent but these are very resilient summons. And they are smart too, way smarter than any I have ever come across summoned into incorporated form this way and they keep everyone from the manor, which I fear is the point so I signal the second group to ignore us and attack the house directly through mental communication with da.

Twenty Tundrans flow like an avalanche from the trees, mostly moving straight for the house but some stopping long enough to help a fallen or overwhelmed fighter with the spirit creatures. The fighting quickly deteriorates into an all out slug fest of axes, hammers and swords as we try to keep the creatures back as much as possible.

People are dying, actual people that have names, homes and dreams they had aspired to as the things rip into us with claws, fands, spikes hands depending on what shape they come at an individual in. Very little of any type of plan survives first contact with the enemy and neither does our strategy for dealing with these sorcerers.

With my awareness as accute as it is it actually becomes more potent in a fight. I'm receiving information about things happening all around me even as I focus on my own opponents and keeping them off me. Ceza bellows as he goes into the Rage and begins hacking away at a creature with his axe with a thick aura cladding his body even as he is being shredded apart.

Ford is swinging his hammer around as he runs through them as best he can moving from fight to fight, releaving the pressure from some of the most pressed fighters. Alvida goes down in a spray of blood as a sprit creature the shape of a bat with the tail of a snake sinks it's fangs into her shoulder and changing into a form with claws to rip into her.

Ava actually goes down on one knew but resurfaces again with a load roar and a burst of chakra as she swings her poleaxe to and fro at speeds trying to do as much damage as possible. I take it all in periphery even as I focus keeping at bay the increasing number of creatures circling me. Their strategy is simply to swarm all the Awakened in large groups forcing us to defend more as much as possible while the other's face the resilient creatures without the advantage we can provide.

It's a simple strategy but its working as there seems to be no end to the swarming around everyone Awakened on the field that was in the initial group of attack. Some of the most damaged pulling back while the fresh ones flow forward trying to find an opening in my defenses. But with my new senses, with my now inate blessing of tanghes that allows me to understand body language body, with my experience as a warrior I know we are losing this fight.

The flow and ebb of the fighting is being cartalogued at the back of my mind even as I eventually hurt one enough for it to disappear from this realm like smoke to wherever such creatures reside. Ase the orc goes down with a tortured scream as they overwelhm her and I feel the rising bile at the back of my through at the distaste I have for these creatures and their masters.

This is actually my first fight aince ive Awakened and clinically I realise i am twice as fast as I was and I hit twice as hard with much more situational awareness and time to think and plan every single stroke, move, slash, stab and again I banish another one of these creatures. Everything seems to be moving at a slightly delayed motion including myself, and though the delay doesn't mean I'm fast enough to dodge and defend against every coming attack. I does mean I see them all coming and I decide which to take in order to give greater counters and which would be too debilitating for me as of yet.

They reach the threshold at which more numbers give diminished returns and get in each other's way at 7 attackers for every Awakened warrior and they keep filtering out the ones damaged enough to be banished by the next attack. They circle and attack from all around as bats bombing in the air, as large wasp-like creatures that try to stab into my back, as snakes slithering at my feet, as wolves nipping at my legs.

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It isn't just the Awakened that are hurting them either. Everyone with an artifact is causing them damage but there are so many of them that they just retreat letting the fresher ones take attack lead. "They are regenerating!"

Someone shouts and I curse under my breath as I feel the substantial unclean spirit energy come in like a bad odar from the house. And yes, with its arrival all our hard bloody work comes to nothing as every hurt or banished creature rejoins the fight as though undead constructs of a necromancer. But these things are worse than undead because they have intelligence, they plan, and they don't do suicidal attacks even as it's clear that we aren't permanently banishing them.

I see and I feel the benefits of Awakening in my own fight and I'm slowly becoming aware of others as I'm in the thick of it, but really is it? Has acquiring this meagre power been my life's ambition since I was a child listening to stories of legends that had Awakened? It really can't be because I don't feel that powerful so I seek within myself and burst the pool that is my spirit reserve and I activate and I do something I have been yet to do as an Awakening, I activate a skill.

I activate spirit oppression and on a purely physical level nothing happens to the naked eye. But the creatures all around do become slightly more corporeal, do start taking more damage and do release pain-filled bellows more often encouraging the fighters on. No one not sensitive to spirit is aware of any form of struggle happening on a spiritual level but as I see the creatures begin to struggle under my oppression I'm realising this is where I should have focused my attacks from the beginning.

Razor's naked blade is now honed in spirit and no longer in aura and I cut through the creatures with much more ease. Delivering debilitating injuries if not banishing them outright as my superior perception and speed start showing themselves. I convey the effectiveness of spirit with my mind to no one in particular very grateful to Vevina for teaching me that skill.

*

Albert

These cretins dare to attack me in my own marked territory! I will show them the folly of their actions, they will rue the day they ever heard my name I will make sure of it. The audacity, and I thought the people of this kingdom cowed and submissive enough for my tastes.

I watch my summons swarm the attackers and rip into them through the empathic link I have with them. I'm inwardly fuming but the attackers are fairly weak and easily dispatchable barbarians and orcs and dwarves most of whom as mundane as the shit I took this morning. The few Awakened barely passed their first level of Awakening, and all seemingly Awakened to swinging clubs and sharp objects.

"Kill them slow." I send to my creatures, Yolanda coming in from her private quarters stretching her neck.

"We have company?" She asks, clearly seeing that we do with her own spirit sense . I hate stupid questions and I just turn away from her.

I was about to seriously start on one of the other children before enjoy a barrel of wine and now they've ruined it for me. Now I'll have to hurt one of my toys to asway my frustration after I take care of this and that will leave it ruined. One less child to play with in this already anorexic child slave market.

I use up my vast spirit energy to open and keep the portal to the Spirit Plane open as each morphic spirit comes through. My attractive portal skill attracts low level spirits that are easily controlled once here for the duration of the summons. They love it here and come with glee for the short duration of the summons.

The skill specifically adopted to only allowing morphic spirit creatures through for some reason, but that really isn't a problem. More of the barbarians come in from the woods and I frown at Yolanda casually looking at me. The portal at this level I can keep open for hours but that's not the point.

"Are you just gonna stand there?" I finally ask.

She shrugs and goes outside to go face the barbarians coming in bypassing my summons. The creatures are a lot more powerful on their own plane in whatever form they take there than they are here when they are summoned to Gaia.

I also walk outside and watch as Yolanda meets the few that have made it this far. She uses her spirit hold to stop them in their tracks, a skill that almost always works on opponents that aren't prepared for it. But one that can never hold the powerful for long nor even the weak after they are attacked.

But her attacks are decisive as she accumulates and sends spirit force punching through their chest's one after another in an impressive display of sigil mastery.

As they come they get trapped within her hold but I notice a few of them shaking it off before she has accumulated the power to finish them. She notices as well and instead uses the quicker spirit slash to disable her opponents as they come out of the hold. I snort at her weakness, the woman is over 150 years old at least and has been a sorcery for more than half that time but she's having to use real effort to get rid of several novice Awakened and mundane warriors, pathetic.

I turn my back to her and notice that my summons are dealing with the initial attackers efficiently but they look raggered themselves and their numbers have been reduced. No more are coming in through the portal so I close it and activate a summons rejuvenation to bolster them again. I open the portal again and those that were banished come rushing out like a pack of hungry scavenger dogs.

The is suddenly a shockwave from Yolanda's side of the house and I frown, but with my little imp I notice her struggling against a of three of the savages. Her spirit shield shining brightly as they pound and chop into her shield with hammer and axes. My frown deepens as I notice that even those she had dealt with initially with holes in their chest managed to get as far as her feet before needing more encouragement to do.

Then there is suddenly a blistering suppressive force spreading from the center of my side of the house like the glaring of the sun in the sun in the Gonubi Desert at the height of Summer. I release the discomfort with a spirit cleanse but my summons seem to be very susceptible to the oppressive force. They they have a fledging spiritist amongst them, that's interesting.

I watch the invaders attack with more vigour and success under the influence of the spiritual force. As a summoner I can't negate it directly but I can easily kill the offending worm. "unclean thing slither from the cold depths under my direction and reap death as your reward" I summon one of my personal babies from the depths of the Styxian waters of the Spirit Plane.

[Ssshhhaa...]

[Ssshhhaaa...]

The Styx affinity creature slithers out of a portal the size of a coin from the palm of my hand. It's body slimy and completely black with no eyes and a forked tongue tasting the air around itself. It extends as it slithers out leisurely, not one of my fastest to summon but very affective against martial monkeys.

"Go my dear, feast." And the thing slithers into the fray in it's horrifying glory.