As I rotated my body, I unleashed another wind slash towards its unprotected back where no barrier was deployed. Although I managed to disrupt its posture, its body seemed quite tough as well, showing no signs of injury. It seemed that to damage this evil spirit, I’d need to land a direct hit with my wind blade. But could I pull it off?
As I pondered this, the surrounding walls cracked loudly, and parts of the walls, cut into rectangles, came flying at me.
“Guh!!”
I sliced through the wall bullets speeding towards me from all directions with my sword, or dodged them by flying around using spirit techniques. While it wasn’t difficult to fend off the attacks themselves, it was painful to consume spirit power and time. I thought about ignoring this evil spirit and escaping while I still had energy, but considering the range and power of its spirit techniques, I’d likely be caught quickly.
Even to escape, I needed to inflict some damage, but currently, I lacked the means. Summoning other lower-rank spirits I had in stock would be useless against this opponent; they’d be sent back in seconds without even serving as a diversion.
Naturally, this limited my options…
“… I really don’t want to do this,”
I frowned at the strategy that first came to mind. It was probably the most reliable method among the available options, but I was a bit scared of what would happen after executing it.
“But, other methods would–Gah!?”
It seems I got too lost in thought in front of the enemy. I was late in noticing the debris flying from behind, and it landed a clean hit on the back of my head.
Even though I had strengthened my body with spirit power, for a moment, the impact made my mind go blank, and I stopped moving. The evil spirit wouldn’t miss this opening, of course, and unleashed a barrage of debris to follow up on my immobilized state.
“Uraaaaah!!”
However, I managed to regain my senses, rechanneled my spirit power, and swung my sword horizontally with force, literally blowing away the incoming debris with a gust of wind.
Yeah, there were several concerns, but it seemed I didn’t have the luxury of hesitating much longer.
If I continued fighting like this, I might literally die. Well, I might get scolded for doing this, but I had no choice. As always, I’d leave the aftermath to my future self.
Thinking this, I took out a tool from my pocket. It was a test tube with a needle attached. Inside was a liquid glowing red.
Without hesitation, I stabbed this vial containing the ominously colored liquid into my neck.
A sharp pain ran through my neck, but ignoring it, I injected all the liquid, then pulled out the now-empty test tube and threw it away.
“Phew…”
I let out a small sigh as I felt my depleted spirit power recovering.
The liquid in the test tube I had injected was a spirit power enhancer. Moreover, it was a highly rare one mixed with dragon blood.
I had received it from Gares earlier. He probably brought it to recover his own spirit power after using the magic sword, but it was a lifesaver.
Thanks to this, I could recover my spirit power and face the evil spirit in peak condition.
“I’m really counting on you,”
I muttered prayerfully as I next took out an emerald-colored sealing stone from my pocket. Needless to say, sealed inside was a high-rank wind spirit trained by my master.
Facing the evil spirit, which was watching the situation unfold with a somewhat dubious look, I grinned and lifted the sealing stone as if to show it off, then broke the seal.
“Come forth, Sigrum!!”
A green light shone between me and the evil spirit, and wind raged like a storm.
The evil spirit, which had been observing quietly until now, seemed to finally sense danger instinctively. It once again destroyed the surrounding walls and hurled debris at high speed towards the light, but all of it was deflected to the left and right by the wind barrier that appeared before us.
“Kiiiiiiii!!!”
Letting out a high-pitched cry that echoed throughout the ruins, a pair of giant wings spread from within the light. What appeared was a spirit in the form of a hawk with green feathers that exuded a certain divinity.
The wind spirit Sigrum. I summoned again for battle the spirit that had transported us to Luna’s ruins.
“Sorry, but I need one more favor.”
“Giiiiii!!”
As I formed a temporary contract with Sigrum, I landed on its back and patted its soft feathers while muttering. Sigrum responded with a loud cry as if to say “can’t be helped,” and wrapped itself in spirit power and wind.
Sigrum’s sharp eyes and the evil spirit’s somewhat round eyes crossed. The two had contrasting eyes, but both were filled with overflowing hostility, fighting spirit, and killing intent.
“………..”
“………..”
A moment of silence enveloped the scene. As Sigrum and the evil spirit glared at each other, the tension in the air kept rising. After a few seconds, or perhaps a minute passed – my sense of time had become numb – the two roared.
“Giiiiii!!”
“Ooooooooh!!”
Sigrum wrapped itself in wind, the evil spirit in darkness, as they charged at each other. Their clashing spirit powers enveloped the surroundings in a storm.
The sight of gravel and debris violently dancing in the air due to the raging wind was like a storm itself. Moreover, blade-like wind strikes released from Sigrum’s wings were mixed into the storm, and the debris touched by these strikes rapidly diminished in size.
Yet, even in this environment, the evil spirit remained intact.
It swam gracefully with its pectoral fins spread wide in this wind prison that would have instantly shredded any ordinary spirit. However, it seemed impossible even for it to completely fend off the wind strikes coming from all directions, and its previously unscathed body slowly began to accumulate cuts. Still, showing no signs of flinching or fatigue, the evil spirit swam through the storm, selecting larger pieces of debris floating in the air and accelerating them with gravity towards Sigrum.
“Gii!”
But these too were all blocked by Sigrum’s wind barrier. The high-speed debris bullets were deflected in random directions by the wind wall, crashing into the surrounding walls and shattering into pieces.
It was truly a back-and-forth battle, but purely in terms of combat, it could be said that we, using Sigrum, had the upper hand.
In a battle between spirits… however…
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“Guooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!!”
I couldn’t help but cry out in pain as my spirit power was rapidly depleted by the intense battle between the spirit and the evil spirit, clinging to Sigrum’s back.
The biggest problem in this battle was my spirit power as Sigrum’s user.
I was holding on now because I had recovered my spirit power, but I was bearing almost all the spirit power for Sigrum’s spirit techniques.
This is one of the clear disadvantages of a temporary contract.
Unlike a contract that binds spirits and souls, a temporary contract is based solely on spirit power.
Because of this, temporary contracts can be formed with most spirits except for high-rank spirits with strong self-awareness, and the contract can be terminated at any time.
However, a connection based solely on spirit power, without any trust relationship, has a weak binding force on the spirit. Even if you order spirits to use spirit techniques, they won’t activate them unless the contractor supplies spirit power, and they might even ignore orders.
Therefore, temporary contracts are mostly used with lesser-spirits that have almost no will, or low-rank spirits with weak wills. If you form one with a high-rank spirit, you basically have to forcibly control it with your own spirit power, but usually, you reach your limit after just a few minutes of control.
The reason simplified contracts aren’t used among spirit masters is that the drawbacks are just too severe.
In other words, when a spirit summoner tries to use a spirit in battle under a simplified contract, there’s a chance the spirit won’t obey. Even if it does, both the spirit and the summoner’s spiritual energy are drained during the fight, usually leading to the summoner collapsing from exhaustion within seconds.
Well, unless you’re a spiritual energy monster like me.
“Aaaahhhh!!”
I unleashed a surge of spiritual energy into Sigrum. Upon receiving my energy, Sigrum spread his wings wide and unleashed a storm of wind blasts toward the evil spirit.
With one flap, Sigrum sent out hundreds of wind attacks, creating a storm that turned him into a walking disaster. I couldn’t help but think how amazing it would be if he were a contracted spirit.
“Ooohhh!!”
The evil spirit tried to block the approaching wind blasts by deploying a barrier.
While it managed to completely block the attack itself, it couldn’t withstand the force behind the wind infused with spiritual energy. The evil spirit staggered, its stance broken.
“Time to finish this!”
There was no reason to let this chance slip by.
I leaped off Sigrum’s back and, with all my strength, swung a sword wrapped in wind down onto the evil spirit’s exposed back.
The wind-coated blade struck the barrier directly, creating a roaring sound, but the barrier held, and the blade didn’t reach the spirit’s flesh.
“Tsk!”
I clicked my tongue and pushed the blade deeper with all my strength. A small cracking sound emerged, and a faint fissure appeared on the surface of the barrier.
It seemed that the damage from previous attacks had accumulated, weakening the barrier.
Just a little more, and I could break it, but I needed more power to do so.
In that case…
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