Chp.38: Summoning a spirit

Kotaru hit once again Hara, who still defended herself with her magical shields. Soon after her came Tikka, and then Teramon, and then Keita again. They had been continuing that dance in the sky for several minutes now. But suddenly, Hara let out a little laugh. Kotaru narrowed her eyes. "What's so funny?"

"I'm laughing because I've noticed your attacks are decreasing in intensity. You're starting to feel your mana depleting, aren't you?" Hara replied. "But most of all, I laugh because you gave me exactly the information I needed to defeat you!"

Kotaru gritted her teeth. That was technically true: while their bodies didn't have the physical restrictions of real bodies, their mana still wasn't unlimited. In fact, the mana core needed to recharge over time by absorbing the constant mana. It didn't contain infinite mana, and as a result, using it continuously as she and her sisters were doing was rapidly depleting it. And indeed, after struggling relentlessly and with the same intensity for so long, their attacks had started to fade in power and their speed had diminished.

Of course, that didn't mean they were defeated. The mana in their bodies was still a necessary amount for a level adamantium warrior, so they could continue to fight for several hours before completely depleting their reserve. In that specific case, Kotaru estimated that they could continue for about another twenty minutes before their speed dropped enough that they could no longer keep up with Hara's spell casting speed. However, there seemed to be more to it. "What do you mean? What information are you referring to?"

Hara grinned in amusement. "Before, I had no idea what kind of creatures you were. I didn't dare take the initiative because I was afraid of getting the wrong element... but now I know exactly what you are! Living corpses!" shee answered. "I have no idea what magic you're using, whether it's necromancy or some other kind... but it doesn't matter. All reanimated corpses have the same weakness... fire!"

Of all the elements, corpses were most vulnerable to fire. This was a simple matter of logic: as they weren't living creatures, they couldn't be seriously injured by the other elements. The water could suffocate them, submerge them or hit them with its power by blowing a hole in their bodies, but this was useless against something that was already dead. The air could blow them off like grains of sand, or seep into their bodies and inflate them to blow up their lungs, but even that would do no harm to a corpse as it would rise without even a bit of pain. The earth could sink them or hit them in multiple places, but unless they hit the right spot, the corpses would remain active and would simply have to break the spikes of earth or get out of the hole to continue fighting.

Fire, by contrast, was the perfect weapon. Skin and flesh were combustible, so they burned regardless of whether the body was still alive or not. And getting rid of the fire was certainly not easy, since it spread and burned very quickly. If a corpse caught fire, it would be consumed rapidly until its tissue and muscles were too damaged to allow it to continue moving; there was even the possibility that if the head caught fire the heat would damage the brain, severing the magical connection and killing the corpse.

"Do you want to use a fire spell against us?" This time it was Kotaru's turn to laugh. "Fool! Even if I could find the time to cast such a spell, the fire would take several minutes to completely consume the flesh to the point of rendering these bodies useless! We could effortlessly put it out!"

Fire was a powerful weapon, but it worked only if it was used against was a creature unable to react quickly to attack. If Kotaru, Keita, Tikka, or Teramon were hit by the fire, they would simply tear off the burning piece of skin and throw it away before it spread to the rest of their body. Or they would use their mana to fortify the affected area and make it impossible to burn, putting out the flames. The possibilities were many.

But Hara still looked confident. "Sure, you could... unless your whole body burns so fast that you can't fight back"

Kotaru clenched her fists. She didn't like that situation. "Maybe, but no amount of magic can create a fire that hot. It would take an immense amount of energy to do that. Even if you were at your best shape, I doubt you could create a fire hot enough to consume us in so little time". She wasn't talking nonsense: she had in fact calculated how much energy a level adamantium warrior could emit, and then she had evaluated how many level adamantium warriors were necessary to obtain a fire that would burn bodies too quickly to be able to react. The result was that even if Hara had been able to draw on all of her legendary level strength, equal to about 100 level adamantium, she wouldn't have been able to obtain such power. The only creatures who could generate a fire so powerful, or even more powerful, were the adult dragons.

But Hara's smile widened. "Who said I'll use a magic?" she asked, and then she raised both her scepter and her free hand. Divine power flowed from them and made its way to the sky.

Kotaru acted immediately: she lunged at Hara and struck her again before she could chant a spell. But Hara laughed. "Useless! This isn't magic! I don't need to concentrate, because I'm not the one doing it!"

The four dragons looked at the sky; Hara's divine power was condensing into a sort of red stripe that formed a circle, within which lines and designs were forming. "Is this... summoning magic?" Kotaru exclaimed, remembering one of Maldor's lessons. Summoning magic was an advanced branch of magic based on life magic, and allowed certain creatures to be summoned and bound to the user's will for a short period of time.

But Hara shook her head. "Didn't you listen to me? This isn't magic!" she repeated. "This is the ultimate gift that the goddess Heloisa bestowed upon her greatest servants... the summoning of a spirit!"

Kotaru's eyes widened. Spirits were creatures akin to the goddess Heloisa, as to many other gods, and therefore the legendary levels that she chose could call them back in an emergency. Ordinary mages could do this too, but only with a large energy cost (indeed they had to get a lot of mana-imbued items and gems) and only with low-ranking spirits. In the case of legendary levels, however, their divine power allowed them to call upon very powerful spirits. The dragons didn't know much about how these godlike creatures worked or what they were, but after all their time among humans they had acquired enough information to understand that each legendary level could summon these mystical beings: in the case of saints like Hara, they could summon spirits; in the case of heroes, angels; in the case of the demon kings, demons; and in the case of the overlords, ghosts.

However, there was a price to pay. Summoning one of these mystical beings required at least half the divine power of a legendary level. For this reason Hara had waited to figure out what her opponents were before acting: if she summoned the wrong spirit, she could find herself in a stalemate again, and she wouldn't be able to summon another. Also, since she was already largely drained of her power, she would have left herself vulnerable. If she was wrong, she could pay the price for her mistake with het life. But now that she knew exactly what to summon, she had no more reason to hold back. Normally she wouldn't have used a spirit summoning for four simple level adamantium warriors, but since otherwise it would have taken her much longer to eliminate them, and it was clear they were trying to hold her there, she preferred to end the fight quickly. Furthermore, the summoning of a spirit didn't require any concentration or magical formula: all that Hara had to do was to unleash her divine power and address her wish to the goddess, and she would be herself, through the divine power of her servant, to open the door for one of her spirits to descend into the mortal world.

The circle in the sky filled completely with strange glyphs and symbols, and then glowed with a bright light. Kotaru, Keita, Tikka and Teramon looked away, but Hara raised her arms and smiled: "Come to me, Ifrit!"

The light goes out, and in its place, a figure appears in the sky. It was about ten feet tall, and in appearance it looked like a human being with skin so dark it looked as if it were made of coal; all over his body there were cracks from which a reddish glow emerged, as if instead of his blood there was liquid fire. It had a very long and thin tail that ended in a flame which, despite giving the impression of being very hot, did not expand and did not burn the being's skin. But this flame still pale in comparison to the enormous fire that surrounded the face of the being as if it were a mane, which started from the shoulders and stretched behind his neck for almost half a meter, shining with extreme intensity and moving as if he were dancing completely oblivious to the direction of the wind. The creature's face was that of a human, but it had a flatter nose and two small fangs emerging from the lower jaw; her eyes had golden pupils and red irises, and were surrounded by a crimson glow. The being was almost completely naked, except for two yellow and red pants and several rings and jewels scattered on his legs and arms.

The being remained impassive for a few moments, then he turned and looked at Hara: "What do you need my assistance with, chosen one of my mistress?"

Hara pointed to the four dragons: "Ifrit, eliminate those abominations!"

The spirit nodded briefly, then moved his hand slightly. It all happened in an instant: one moment before nothing was happening, and the next moment Keita was engulfed in such an amount of flames that her body was charred and then shattered to ash within seconds.

'No... no way! He killed her in an instant!' Kotaru thought shocked to see this. Was that the power of a spirit? And then the gods? How superior were they to them? Compared to the power of an adult dragon, Ifrit's power wasn't so incredible… but by newcomers' standards, it was extraordinary! Not even Hara, a legendary level, could generate such power!

Ifrit moved again, and again the movement was imperceptible; this time, it was Tikka's turn to be engulfed in flames and reduced to ashes. Teramon went on the attack, but it was enough that his body approached the spirit's qurllo for it to catch fire; very soon, it burned with such intensity that flesh began to give way to bone and the brain boiled, severing the magical connection.

Hara looked at Kotaru, who was now alone. "You've designed your attack very well, I have to admit that. You're probably one of the few who've managed to put a legendary level in trouble despite having such a small number of warriors" she said. "But now, you have lost"

Kotaru gritted her teeth, but suddenly a smile formed on her face: from her position, in fact, she could see a small glow coming from the arena. "Too late, Hara! Too late!" she exclaimed elated. "Come on, burn this body too! But we've won by now!"

She didn't have time to say anything else: Ifrit's flames surrounded her and reduced her body to ashes, which dissolved in the wind. But the echo of her mocking laughter rang in Hara's ears for a long time. She didn't know what Kotaru meant by her last words, but it clearly couldn't be any good. "Ifrit, go to the royal palace and help Thornag!" she ordered. The spirit nodded and disappeared into the sky in a trail of flames.

Hara wanted to follow him, but she preferred to stop for a moment. Though she didn't show it, she was currently exhausted. The intense battle and the summoning of a spirit had nearly drained her. So she came down from the sky, finally being able to put her feet back on the ground, and she began to heal the teachers of the academy who had been injured, as well as obviously her wyvern.