章節 28: City of Ravens (14)

When he finished his chant, water started to gather where the razors were. Soon a figure came to be with a general shape of a human, entirely made of water with two legs and two arms. Taller than me with arms twice as thick as ordinary parson Undine looked domineering.

Inside of the Undine currents were ravaging through him like beasts that got loose, with the razors as their teeth's and claw's.

The blood that was holding my hand trapped was already mostly gone, I used more force and freed myself. With a flick, I got the rest of the blood off my hand and got ready.

Undine, an elemental summon. It had no mind of its own and needed to be controlled making the spell more difficult to master. There is one item necessary to form it.

Instaurare Core, a small piece of metal that can have any shape, and it has only one property, storing elemental essence! An Arcane Artist will charge it full of his elemental essence to be later used as a power source for a summon like this, other than that it can be used to power seals and enhanced items.

Novakovic must've had it embedded in his belt, the core was now swimming in the currents inside of the summon and the only way for me to stop it, is to destroy the core, with no power source the summon will collapse.

The inside of the summon is filled with razors if I want to destroy the core I would have to stick my hand in it. With the protection from my soul essence, it should be possible but… if too much damage piles up and the soul image breaks…

Novakovic's eyes started to glow in a blue, and Undine trembled and began to move. Sliding on the floor it approached me, its arm bulged, and razors started to spiral inside of it.

He began to swing his arms trying to hit me. Its speed wasn't significant, and I was able to evade them while doing so I tried to observe it's inside looking for the core, but the fast movement and the razor blades made it difficult.

Having no luck finding it I looked for an opening trying to get behind him and try to get to Novakovic. The summon has only two weaknesses, the core, and the summoner. Novakovic clearly knew that he controlled the summon skilfully not letting me pass through it.

Changing the shape of the Undine and shifting the position of the razors efficiently as to not let me pass through while he himself kept his position behind the summon. If I try to force myself through I will have no choice but to suffer some damage.

From the looks of it the current inside of the Undine was faster, and under higher pressure then the water blades or the water jets, and the razors will do more damage than any of them.

The fight dragged on, while my body gradually became more sluggish the summon kept attacking with the same speed. I had little chances to avoid damage by it either if I wanted to destroy the core or get to Novakovic. I clenched my teeth and decided to act.

If one of the razors was the core, then the chances I will succeed in removing it were small but were better than nothing. I looked for one that seemed to be more in the back, more protected. I waited… and stroke!

With a quick jab I plunged my arm into the elemental, my soul image screeched from the pressure of the moving current. I opened my palm and grabbed the razor and withdrew my arm from the summon.

When my hand was out, I took out more than one razor, in the cracked soul image three razors embedded themselves. I ceased the soul image on my arm causing the razors to fall with a few drops of blood and immediately manifested it back.

One of the razors went through the soul image further enough to cut the back of my hand slightly. It wasn't a severe cut, but if I get hit in any major blood vessel, it could be dangerous.

Since my soul was still full on soul essence and it looked like this is the final stage of the fight, I decided to do something different, it was something that I learned three days ago, partial expansion. Like normal expansion, it would increase the size of the soul image, along with the strength and defenses but for a smaller cost as only a part of the soul image is expanded.

The soul image on my arm grew bigger, and with it, my strength rose! I started to remove more and more blades from within the summon while dodging his attacks. But with no luck, after I removed dozens of them, nothing changed while my soul essence was slowly diminishing.

I had no choice but to reconsider my options and decide. I will break through the summon and knock Novakovic down! With three quick hops to the back, I increased the distance between Undine and me. With my body as low as I could take it I pushed more soul essence and used full expansion!

My soul image increased in size a few centimeters and began to glow more brightly, I pushed on the floor with all my power. The symbols suddenly started to emit a stream of warmth, spreading through my limbs.

The floor cracked with every step I took. In less than a second, I was in front of the Undine.

With full speed I entered the inside of the summon, the currents and razors hitting against my soul image. As if in pain my soul image shrieked, razors embedding themselves in it, currents forcing it to crack. All in one instant!

But I moved too fast, with a splash and dozens of razors in my soul image I got to the other side and run up to Novakovic! With a panicked expression, he tried to run, but before he could do anything, I garbed him by the neck and hold him up.

His eyes lost the blue glow, and as my grip tightened his face turned purple and body convulsed.

When I realized what I was doing I let go of him and let him fell. He was still alive but unconscious. A medic team rushed in and took care of Novakovic's injury. The fight was over, someone from the stands came over to me and started to talk to me, but no sound was entering my mind.

I didn't know why I did what I did, but… it had to be adrenalin.

"What did you say?"

"… congratulation. Miss Johnson asked me to escort you back. She also asked me to relay a message. She said 'It was a success, I will contact you later'"

"Sure. Shall we go now?"

"Do you need any medical attention?"

"No, just lead the way out."

Back at the apartment I checked my wounds, and every limb had at least ten wounds, none of them deep but the sheer amount of them could be dangerous. If they were bleeding. Scabs formed and the wounds looked like they were healing already.

I noticed it with the first cut that I got during the fight. Before the fight ended a scab was there already.

When I woke up the next day my body felt refreshed and when I checked the wounds all that was left is a little bit of pink skin.

I couldn't be sure if it were the symbols themselves healing me or if they already changed my body to be like this.

The phone on my desk started to ring, I put my clothes on and picked up the call.