Elizabeth’s POV: I’d been stuck in the back of the room guarded by the strongest soldiers and magicians in the room while all the other guards were fighting for their lives on the wall Leonidas had erected. I’d seen so many of them die while father and mother wouldn’t even let me cast spells to help them. When I saw Leonidas’ soldier die after protecting Leonidas when he saved me and my family I’d wanted to go to Leonidas’s side and fight alongside him just as I had for millennia ever since he had rescued me from slavers when I was a child in our past life. I’d followed him loyally ever since and even though he’d never fully trusted most of those who’d served him including me I’d always been willing to die for him. He’d given up everything for his house and the alliance of 110 houses as a whole. He’d even sacrificed his very emotions. That was why all of us followed him, even if he thinks we only followed him because he was one of the strongest of our generation we all respected him for his undying loyalty to protecting the dimensions from the ever present threat of the Elderazi. Now I could do nothing despite only wanting to be useful to him, I could only watch as he fell into despair as soldiers died all around him. When the elven queen I’d been about to kill him I had immediately started casting my strongest magic to protect him not caring wether my parents and guards tried to stop me or not. Even if it messed up our plans and father forced me to marry some old sleezebag noble from another country to “bring our countries closer together” I wouldn’t care as long as I was able to protect Leonidas just as I knew he would protect me. When the elder had appeared and held the elves princess hostage if immediately teleported to Leonidas side and started bombarding him with every healing spell I could think of. My mana pool was 30,000 times that’s of the average human and I was emptying everything into it. His medics were doing the same and every soldier around us was ready to throw down their lives the second any elf tried to touch us. The medics had brought a stretcher and were giving Leonidas blood transfusions to keep him alive while any user of holy and healing magic among them frantically bombarded him with every spell they knew. Outside the wind was howling, rain was pouring and lighting flashed across the sky. The soldiers pushing the stretcher were moving towards a area in the back near the rest of the nobles as medical equipment from their base was being brought in and assembled as quickly as possible. They’d used almost all available mana cores to get their troops here as fast as possible but that had come back to bite them seeing as know they’re couldn’t take Leonidas back to their base where much better equipment was stored. I was running with them and as soon as they reached the medical staging ground the doctors started hooking all kinds of machines both technological and magical up to him. My mana pool was nearly empty so all I could do was stand there holding his right and and pressing it to my forehead as I cursed my powerlessness and cried with all my might. Leonidas mother had rushed over and after she told the soldiers she was skilled at healing magic she rushed over to him and started directing the doctors to wherever was needed. Stopping for just a second she took in his battered body and I her hand covered her mouth as I heard her say, “oh my poor baby!”
Tears were in her eyes but she had managed to calm down the doctors who had all been in a state of panic before as they finally started working together. As negotiations between father the elven queen and the elder council of Leonidas army continued they were almost entirely ignored as the medics and doctors worked frantically to keep Leonidas alive. The final diagnosis was terrifying, Leonidas came out of that fight with two concussions, his left arm was broken, his right knee cap was shattered, his spine was seriously damaged, his finger bones were shattered, his wrists broken and his right femur was almost broken in two. What was worse was his body was absorbing the healing magic instead of allowing it to fix the broken areas. Suddenly I looked up, spotting a shadow with wings flying straight at one of the windows that had survived the battle I screamed, “Defend your master enemy attack!” Soldiers from both sides alike looked up and as the window shattered a dragon in humanoid form flew through the shards and landed in front of us. All the soldiers around us actually lowered their weapons seeing her and for some reason looked relived. The elven queen on the other hand looked shocked. I knew the elves had a couple of dragons in their forest they’d made deals with to protect them but if she didn’t know why this one was here it had to mean it wasn’t one of those. As soon as the dragon landed the elders bowed to her and the elder closest spoke first, “ lady Tiamat thank you for coming”
She only dismissed him with a flick of her hand before she hurried towards us. Stopping right next to Leonidas she growled, “what fool dared to harm the master!?”
Without looking at her one of the doctors told her the elves had done it and her glare swept the ballroom, when it settled on a certain elf in the ballroom who’d killed the most human guards her eye glowed and he dropped to the ground clutching at his throat as his skin started to bubble. The rest of the room could only watch in fear as the elf died a slow and painful death. After he died his body and the bodies of several other elves flew towards her. Speaking to us now she said, “the master is trying to form a spirit bond right now. He is trying to do what should be impossible and tame two spirits of opposing sides. He is trying to become a paradox amount paradox’s.”
I looked at her and although i was scared to ask her what she meant I had no choice if I wanted to help Leonidas, “what do you mean oh great dragon?”
She only smiled at me and patted my head, “calm down little one we serve the same master I will not harm you. But for your question he’s trying to subdue the spirit of life... and death!”
I was shook for as long as I’d known him Leonidas he’d hated life magic and even in this world I knew he hadn’t trained it. When he was born he was the eldest child of the then true gods of creation and destruction and as is required by laws older then chaos and order the dimensions must stay in balance. So his twin sister was born 100 mortal years after him, which for their people is not a very long time. Once both of them were born they were bestowed with the laws of life and death. As twins who controlled supreme laws they shared a special connection that allowed them to use each other’s powers to a lesser degree. However as far as anyone in the alliance knew they had always avoided using each other’s powers. If Leonidas was trying to combine any two opposing powers he best chance would be with those two but I don’t know why he would try to. Even if he now had his emotions back he must be feeling truly powerless. The medics around me continued to work tirelessly and even when they ran out of mana they used every skill available to help. Watching as Leonidas face scrunched up in pain I made a vow to become strong enough to repay him for every time he had saved me.
Leonidas POV: Everything hurt! I don’t think there was a single part of my body that didn’t have something wrong with it and even my healing factor couldn’t keep up with the damage my body had taken. It was a struggle just to keep my eyes open but I knew if I closed them I might not wake up.
Was I going to die again? When I’d just started to get used to this world. No! I’d made a promise to Charlie that I would live on, dying here would mean that he had wasted his life for nothing. Think! Think Leonidas! I haven’t come all this way for nothing! I have a world to save, power to reclaim, old allies to contact and answers to find about why I was reborn on this world and why I can’t remember any of my powers past my ethereal arts. If I die here I leave Elizebeth on her own and at the wims of a world where women are seen as bargaining chips, and despite her skill I knew there were people stronger then us and if she were to be forced into a marriage before her body could handle her power they might find ways to restrict her abilities so she can’t defend herself. I can’t allow that! And even more worrying my soldiers would be without a Leader and chaos knows what those idiots would get up to. Grasping for straws as my eyes slowly started to close I finally found an answer. I was a champion who didn’t have a spirit yet so if I could convince one to enter my body and form a contract it wouldn’t matter if I died I would be able to use my semi immortality to come back good as new. The only problem was I couldn’t be hasty as it’s impossible to break a spirit contract so I can’t choose just any spirit it has to be one the resonates with me and one that would enable me to heal my current body without needing to go find another host. I’d spent a lot of time modifying that body and it would be a pain to have to start over. That left me with only one option. With the amount of healing and holy magic being thrown in me I knew I could make a contract with a spirit of life but I’ve always despised life. Me and my sister never saw eye to eye but we didn’t hate each other. We just refused to acknowledge each other in front of others. Now my life depended on making a contract with life. Unless... I could use the death energy from all the corpses to bond with a spirit of death as well! It was a very risky process and I would have to force the spirits to except the contract but the power I could gain from it would be on another level. If I failed I would die a worse death then any mortal could possibly imagine. Now the only question is how do I beat two spirits who are on the level of minor gods without getting my ass beat a second time. A contest of mental strength is a horrible idea because they are literally spirits. Since spirits don’t have a physical body they use their minds all the time so it is highly unlikely they’d be any weaker then Isabell in mental combat. On the other hand offering them something they can’t resist might work and if not I should be able to activate the first phase of my true demon lord transformation and deal enough damage to convince them to submit and form a contract with me. I’d already seen that Tiamat, my dragon body guard assigned by the world to make sure I don’t die before I can free it had arrived. Since the world had appointed her I figured she should be able to control the spirits to some degree in the worst case. She also seemed to realise what I was trying to do and had dragged some bodies over towards me so that I could attract a spirit of death. As soon as I felt two spirits on either side I reached out with my mana and connected to strands to each of them. As soon as they were connected I dragged them into my mana core where I should be able to talk to them. After I grabbed the two I sent my consciousness towards my core and prepared to either fight for my life again or negotiate like I’d never negotiated before.
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Inside my core I headed towards an area that had two opposing auras crashing together. As soon as I arrived I saw the two spirits glaring at each other and a massive amount of killing intent was in the air. I sighed as I waited for the two to calm down since this was in my mana core and the mana was far purer in here then anywhere else I could control the time to some extent so despite my physical body being at deaths door I figured we still had a couple hours in here before I had to hurry them up. After almost two hours of staring at each other and even throwing a couple of attacks at each other they finally calmed down and seemed to notice I was waiting for them. Seeing they had calmed down I asked, “tea?”
Taking a seat in the chairs I had conjured life took the tea and sipped from the cup delicately. Death on the other hand was far gruffer, “I don’t like the delicate stuff got any mead or wine?”
Luckily for him I did although it would be more accurate to say I remembered the taste and since it was in my body I was able to recreate both the flavour and texture.
After they both were situated life looked at me and asked, “why have you brought us here mortal?”
Death didn’t say anything but I could tell he was interested because he went from being completely absorbed with the taste of the wine to eyeing me as he drank some more.
Giving them both a smile I decided to cut right to the chase, “Well as I’m sure you noticed my physical body is dying.”
Death cut me off, “Yes yes and you want us to do something about it? I’m not very sorry to tell you we can’t break the laws of the world no matter how abnormally delicious your wine is.”
I Glared at him and the bottle disappeared from in front of him and he looked around frantically for it, “As I was saying I am a spirit less champion so I was hoping to make a contract with both of you. If you agree I can give you the truth.”
I’d given death the bottle of wine back as I was talking but as soon as I finished speaking he’d gone from stroking it lovingly to staring right at me. Both of them looked incredibly startled at my last sentence and that was my plan. In order for a spirit to grow stronger they needed to become more In tune with the law or element they represented. Spirits that had understood their law completely were called pillar spirits and they’re power was equal to that of a major god. This world had no pillar spirits yet which was why the gods could do what ever they wanted without fear of the world trying to kill them because the strongest spirits the world currently had in its arsenal were those at the level of a minor god. This wasn’t enough of a deterrent even against the members of divinity under the level of a minor god because those above them would kill any spirits trying to attack them. These two were at the level of a minor god and desperately wanted to move up in power so they could help their planet. I exploited that so they would say yes. It seemed to have worked for death because he pulled out a contract sheet and started writing immediately however life hesitated, “if I except will I have to work with death?”
I nodded my head and told her, “you both will reside in my body where you will have access to the information you seek. And as long as you help me I will teach you what you don’t understand myself.”
Death looked up from what he was doing and hurriedly held his hands up. “Wow there mortal I’m all for working with her if it helps protect the world but we are opposing elements if we both enter your body we will tear it apart! Our energies just can’t mix!”
I laughed not at him exactly but when he stood up in such a hurry I’d expected something worse then that, “I have a unique constitution you don’t need to worry about me dying from your energies I’m 100% confident I can survive it! It’ll just hurt like hell for a little bit.”
Death still seemed unsure but he continued to write the contract. Life also seemed excited but she maintained her mature air as she wrote a far neater contract. After they finished I read them and biting my thumb I left a blood imprint on the contracts binding us all to the agreements on them forever. As they started the process of assimilating with my body I was racked with a massive amount of pain as the two opposing laws clashed, gritting my teeth I started sending my own mana throughout my body dragging the life and death mana currently rampaging through my body towards the five points of my body. After that came the tricky part I had to evenly distribute every kind of mana in my body evenly throughout my body that part took an hour in which the pain and the little bit of life mana in my meridians(mana veins) kept me alive. After that process was over everything I could no longer keep my eyes open and I fell into an eternal slumber.
Just kidding I was dead for about 1 minute while my body healed and then death woke me up and I was met with a fist to the face. “KABOOM!” The air shook and underneath the stretcher I was on the ground caved in. Then Elizebeth, Cassandra, mom and dad wrapped me in the tightest hug I’d ever felt.
“Can’t breath!”
After they released me and the pain from my not fully healed ribs had left me Elizebeth was still burying her head into my chest as she sobbed. I don’t think any of the adults knew why she was so emotional around me but they probably suspected that she was just upset that the person who had saved her died. I on the other hand knew she was blaming herself for not being able to help me in the fight and for me nearly dying. After a couple of minutes of remaining like this she finally looked up at me and wiping tears away she glared at me and said, “you reckless (sniffle) idiot! Your not allowed(sob) to die on me again! (Deep breath) do you understand me my prince?”
I gave her a somewhat forced smile as I could feel the hateful stares from some of the older noble children on my back as I nodded my assent. After she left my soldiers took positions throughout the room as I fell asleep. It had been a tiring day and I just wanted to go home so I could start training for real with father.