EnroItzal

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The Chimera with the body of a snake and the head of a dog snarled at Erin.

Though Erin didn’t speak a single word of whatever language a snake-dog spoke, she understood the meaning behind the snarl. It was an insult and a taunt, befitting of the Necromancer’s nature.

Standing on the altar of the Necromancer’s throne, Erin lowered her body into a stance that allowed her to defend herself and Aedan from all directions. Aedan couldn’t move and neither could she since she needed to be here to make sure Aedan wasn’t disturbed.

Ba’al moved fast in his current Chimeric body but not fast enough to escape Erin’s vigilant and steadfast gaze. Her sight followed his every movement. The Necromancer clicked his tongue but he didn’t know how with the mouth and tongue of a canine. Realizing the futility in throwing off Erin’s gaze, he launched a direct assault.

“Slow,” Erin muttered and took a step aside.

The Necromancer missed his strike.

Erin countered with a slash that was too quick for the Necromancer to follow. He quickly reeled his body away and retreated a good distance from Erin.

Erin sighed. “This is disappointing but it is to be expected. I have heard castors who rely on their Familiars and thralls to do their bidding are extremely vulnerable to direct confrontations. It seems to be true, after all.”

Ba’al hissed seethingly.

“You can’t even compare to the monsters above ground. You’re fast but only faster than a normal animal and no faster than a beast of magical nature. If it weren’t for your Undying and Crimson Lotus skill, this would have been over minutes ago. So do us both a favour; submit already. You have lost.”

Ba’al hissed even louder and unleashed bolts of red lightning at Erin.

To conserve her Mana, Erin decided not to use Thunder Shell or Arcane Aegis. She chose Arcane Edge, Aura Shot as her means of defence. After all, Combat Arts consumed less Mana than Magic Arts in general. She struck down all of the red lightning bolts with Aura Shot but it had only consumed a quarter of Thunder Shell’s Mana consumption.

In the midst of her defence streak, Ba’al struck at the intervals of her retaliations but Erin shed not a drop of sweat and instead gave a smile. She spun around and hardened her tails with Arcane Armor, letting Ba’al ram straight into the pseudo wall of steel. She heard the disgruntled cries of a snake and a wolf. The strange amalgamation of noise sent shivers down her spine. Before the Necromancer could recover from his dazed state, Erin lopped his head off.

“Huh, figures.”

Per her expectation, the headless Chimeric body flailed around in pain before collapsing into the piles of carcasses as streams of red lightning left the body.

“No experience… this is just tedious...”

Although Erin understood she was having an easier time than her fight against the Ashen Knight, it didn’t mean the conclusion would arrive any sooner or easier. The Necromancer was weak in a direct confrontation but its Divine gifts made him durable in a fight. Erin could use Mystic Blade but the mere thought of it was making her Sixth Sense erupted like a string of fireworks. She took this as a sign that her limit usage of Mystic Blade had been reached. As handy as the skill was, the drawback was too risky to be a reliable skill. Until the Spirits were gathered, the two were stuck in a stalemate without a clear winner in sight.

As Erin waited in dreadful silence, she noticed a faint red glow to her right, a clear indication that Ba’al had found his next body to possess. She sighed and turned in the direction of the glow. The end was just right in front of her but the tenacity of her foe had stretched the distance in between longer than necessary.

This time, the Necromancer possessed the body of a four-armed ape with the skin and head of a lizard. Unlike the previous body Ba’al possessed, this one had suffered much from the explosion. Much of its flesh and bones were exposed but given the body’s physique, Erin didn’t think its defence was any less than it was.

As soon as Erin saw Ba’al bent his new body’s legs, she immediately understood the course of his action. Ba’al shot at Erin like a bullet using the incredible muscles in his new body’s legs.

“Too slow,” Erin muttered, with a hint of annoyance in her tone.

Those fists that were twice the size of her head came for her but she had yet to move a single inch from where she stood. She forewent her sabre and switched to her fists. One glance was all she needed to know that her sabre would not be able to cut through that flesh easily. She activated Brawler and timed her uppercut perfectly with Lightning Rush. Fleet Foot could only make her move faster from one spot to another. It couldn’t make her perform any other action faster but that was where Lightning Rush came in. Though she could move as fast as lightning due to her body mass, she was still moving fast enough to escape the grasp of Ba’al’s perception. Her uppercut hit him square in the jaws, sending him flying into the ceiling.

A roar of indignance and rage swept the room. The roar, of course, came from Ba’al. He punched his way out of the ceiling his head was stuck to from the uppercut Erin gave him. As he fell back to the ground, he bundled his fists up and swung it down like a hammer. Erin used all but one of her tails, hardened with Arcane Armor, against his crass attack. The ground beneath her feet cracked but Erin herself wasn’t fazed.

With Ba’al leaving himself open, Erin used Iron Fang towards the spot she felt his “heart” was.

Ba’al quickly leapt back before her tail could reach but Erin wasn’t disheartened. She didn’t think it would work in the first place but Ba’al most likely retreated in hopes of preserving this body longer.

“Are you so deep in denial that you refuse to acknowledge the reality before you? This is the truth, albeit awful. You are nothing without your puppets and thralls.”

Ba’al sneered.

“If you do indeed have more to spare, you would already have done it. You’re not the type to be reserved.”

He snickered, red lightning crackling in its four palms.

Erin shook her head. “Oh… you are really vexing.” She instantly knew what Ba’al was going to do.

He picked up the carcasses around him and infused them with red lightning.

“Tenacious fuck...” she cursed.

Ba’al threw the corpses infused with red lightning in his hands.

Erin threw her own magic in retaliation. More precisely, she cast Lightning Barrage. Dozens of lightning bolts emerged from the magic circle in front of her palm. The lightning bolts shredded the volatile corpses mid-air and flew straight at the Necromancer.

Ba’al didn’t let up. He continued picking up the carcasses around him, infusing them with red lightning before throwing them at Erin.

The lightning bolts collided with the volatile carcasses, ensuing in a series of explosions. Some explosions were small. Some didn’t even explode at all. Some explosions even destroyed the other infused carcasses. The reason for the inconsistency was simple. Ba’al was not in his right mind. He was cornered and as Erin had said, his arsenal had run dry. His bestowed skill, Crimson Lotus, was the sole reason he lived this long but it wouldn’t be long before even that skill turns useless. Refusing to submit, he persisted on, throwing the carcasses infused with red lightning at the Fox-kin.

The carcasses were plenty enough to last this battle of attrition for half an hour. The room began to shake from the series of explosions. Erin thought the room would collapse but at most, only some dust poured from the ceiling. She appraised the rocks that comprised the room.

“Huh? Unknown?” she gasped in her heart. The description was simple. It merely stated that these rocks were mere simple minerals but infused with the peculiarities of The Singularity for many years, giving its present strange qualities. Erin found it strange the rocks and stones above did not have such properties which drew her to the conclusion that the source of The Singularity’s peculiarities stemmed from underground.

[Warning. User’s Magic Vigour has reached below the 25% threshold.]

Without stopping Lightning Barrage, she simultaneously cast Mana Harvest, drawing the Mana in the vicinity into her. The amount of Mana she drew in surprised her. It was almost enough to replenish her Magic Vigour to full. The Mana was mostly drawn from the carcasses. Dead husks they might be but since they were puppets before their death, plenty of Mana lingered within their bodies long after their death. If they weren’t used as explosives, the Mana Erin yielded would have been thrice the amount she had gotten.

Ba’al roared at Erin. He noticed her Magic Vigor nearly depleted but from a single use of some spell, she recovered most of it back. He sunk lower into his pit of despair. Due to the small piece of divinity he possessed, his Mana was near limitless. He thought he could get an edge with this advantage of his but that hope was shattered. Soon, he ran out of carcasses to throw. There were still plenty of carcasses but all those within his reach were no more. He could only grit his teeth as dozens of lightning bolts bombarded him at once. No matter how tough the Chimera body he possessed was, the lightning spell completely obliterated it into nothing.

Erin felt a touch of warmth on her cheek. It didn’t alert her. Rather, she smiled gently at the sensation. The Spirits were returning but it still wasn’t enough to form a spell.

“Give up, Ba’al. The Spirits are returning. Once enough has gathered, you won’t survive.”

“If I... unleash my... miasma, that endeavour... of yours... would be... useless,” the Necromancer responded, unexpectedly.

Erin looked towards the direction of the voice and found he was now inhabiting the body of what she presumed to be a Hobgoblin. She appraised the body and found nothing noteworthy to be worried about. The level of the deceased Hobgoblin was only level fifteen. But she did wonder why he chose this body.

“If you can do that, you would already have done so. I know your nature. I know your kind. You can’t bluff your way out of this, Ba’al. You have lost, that is the reality.”

Ba’al chuckled. “That is... not my reality… You… underestimated me… I have not… lost,” he said and stuck his hands into his own body. He cried out in pain but he stuck his hands deeper. He began to utter an ominous chant.

Erin quickly closed their distance and slashed him in half.

“You’re slow, Vixen...” he said and cackled. The miasma within his body began to leak out.

At first, she was worried about the miasma scaring the Spirits away but the miasma was so dense that it leaked out in the form of fluids.

“Try stopping this...” he taunted. The miasma spread and sought out all the carcasses in the room.

“What did you do!?” Erin shouted.

“If I die… I’m taking you with me...”

Suicide explosion was the first thing that entered Erin’s mind but the red lightning that comprised his soul was only weakening instead of expanding, an inverse sign of an explosion. The miasma wrapped around the carcasses and pulled them into the darkness that was slowly expanding with Ba’al in the centre.

Erin leapt back to where Aedan was and prepared for what was to come. She swallowed a lump as a familiar and dreadful feeling brushed her skin. It was the same feeling when she was fighting against the Demon, Ashen Knight.

“No way… Demon summoning… and he’s using himself as the vessel?”

Erin knew next to nothing about Demon. She didn’t know the signs of a Demon summoning and what was needed to summon a Demon. Her lack of relevant knowledge had led to this bleak development.

The darkness covered Ba’al whole, slowly moulding him into a form that Erin could not recognize.

“Aedan... Are you done yet?!” Erin asked urgently.

“Demon summoning...” Aedan said, out of a sudden. “That’s unexpected… his Patron God will be most unpleased.”

“Screw his Patron God. How do you intend for me to stop this thing?”

“Spirit Magic is our only choice now. Thank god he didn’t disperse the miasma into the air.”

“How close are you?”

“Very close. Just a few more minutes.”

“I don’t think we have a few minutes,” Erin said, grimly.

"Seconds, then."

The darkness finished moulding Ba’al and it seeped back into his body, revealing a quadruped with half of its flesh seemingly made out of shadows. Erin couldn’t think of any beast or animal the creature in front of her resembled. When she Appraised the creature, she understood that Ba’al was no longer alive. The abomination in front of her was a completely different being, a Demon.

[Experience gained +10% - Level Progression: 39%]

At the same time she received that notification, she felt the air around her had somehow lightened. She was able to breathe much easier and her surrounding seemed to start singing a sweet melody to her. The Spirits had gathered.

“Done,” Aedan said. He opened his eyes and stood up. “This is truly unexpected...”

“Can we still use the same plan?”

“Of course, we can. It’s a Demon. Demons are vulnerable to Spirits...”

“I feel a “but” following.”

Aedan chuckled. “But… this Demon most probably won’t just stand there and let us drenched it with Essence Flame.”

“Do you have another plan then?”

“Simple. I lock its movements and you attack it with Spirit Magic.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

“Things always sound simpler than they actually are.”

“Don’t care,” Erin declared. “I have enough of this. This will be his last surprise. I’ll use Mystic Blade if I have to.”

“Well then,” Aedan cracked his knuckles, “what else are we waiting for?”

Erinthea - Faerie-kin: Five-Tailed Fox-kin

Level: 31 | Status: Mild Exhaustion

Might: 22 | Arcane: 41 | Finesse: 36

Magic Arts
Spirit Magic Lv. 8 | Arcane Edge Lv. 5 | Arcane Armor Lv. 10 | Lightning Magic Lv. 10 | Arcane Aegis Lv. 7 | Mystic Tail Arts Lv 1

Combat Arts
Sword Art Lv. 8 | Fleet Foot Lv. 5 | Brawler Lv. 5

Innate Skills
Appraisal Lv. Ex | Night Vision Lv. Ex | Sixth Sense Lv. Ex | Toxin Resistance Lv. 8 | Lust Deviant Lv. Ex | Mana Harvest Lv. 1 | Lightning Resistance Lv. 1

Unique Talent
Mystic Blade Lv. Ex | Revenant Lv. Ex

Level Progression: 39%

Remaining Skill Points: 2

Remaining Ability Points: 0

EnroItzal

Ba'al is dead but the fight ain't over and the final round begins. Next chapter will be about the situation back at Quinteburgh.