Low-Fantasy Occultist Isekai

[False Angels] were relatively common in Earth's past, as beings born from religion's failure to protect its believers. With the collapse of mana levels, they became rarer, but they remained a known entity.

Nick had not personally faced any, but his grandfather had, and he had prepared Nick in case he ever encountered one. The first thing to do, he'd said, was to deny the creature any belief in their power.

If he made the mistake of considering them too strong, they'd be empowered and would make exorcizing them much more difficult. Now, Nick didn't want to go that far, as he had a totem in need of a spiritual occupant, so he couldn't overwhelm and destroy it.

That was the most commonly employed method when facing such a creature, and as he stared down the intense power of its anger, Nick could see why. Allowing a [False Angel] to ramp up was unwise and ran the risk of it feeding on the fear generated by its growth.

[Force Barrier] was already active to protect him from the attack, but Nick couldn't risk matching it again. The subsequent explosion would be far more powerful than the previous one and could either kill the angel or send them all careening into the ether.

While the ritual technically anchored Nick to one location in the physical world, he knew better than to trust that anything worked as it should in the astral plane.

Tanking the hit was his best chance. Allowing the enemy a free shot was never wise, but he was sure a combination of [Force Barrier] and [Wind Armor] would suffice. Do I have another choice? Using [Vacuum Sphere] now risks killing it. No, I have to open the way for Talbot.

That decided, Nick crafted a protective shell of wind around his astral form, grateful for his previous practice and ready to confront the might of the [False Angel] head-on.

More and more dark energy coalesced into its form, and when it finally reached its apex, it released with a thrum of power.

Nick put a good portion of his free mana into his defense, pushing [Wind Armor] and [Force Barrier] to their limits.

It wasn't at the level of the monstrous construct he'd fueled with the lives of the fae, but it was by far the closest he'd come to that using just his own mana.

The shield was so thick by the time the beam struck that Nick could see its effects on the ether. A bang echoed in his bones at the moment of contact, but he remained in full control, empowering his defenses more with every passing second.

Worryingly, the angel's attack was also becoming stronger, but just as Nick began to notice cracks in the barrier, it cut off abruptly.

A yowl echoed through the astral sea, sending any lingering spirit fleeing. Nick's senses soon gave him an idea of what was happening, showing Talbot shaking the false angel for all it was worth, his silver claws and fangs brutalizing its eyes.

"Bring it here!" Nick called, working furiously to redirect the excess power he had summoned into the ritual itself. He had prepared for a lesser spirit, but that didn't mean he couldn't change things on the fly.

When Talbot dragged the monster into his vicinity, Nick acted. He didn't bother with an explanation as he had with the remnant. There was no benign intelligence to convince here, just a spirit to shackle.

He bit his thumb until it beaded with blood, activating the ritual's provision for reticent spirits, and when he spoke, his voice thundered through the ether.

"Behold this bleeding hand of mine,

Gashed with the sacramental sign!

I stanch the blood; the wafer soaks it up,

and the high priest invokes!

There is no grace: there is no guilt:

This is the Law: DO WHAT I WILT!"

Where once thin chains of red power had snaked around the remnant and kept it still until it agreed to terms, this time Nick used a fully fledged binding.

The false angel had lost and would die if it refused. However much it might despise servitude, it was a creature born of despair. When order was imposed upon it, it could only accept. It knew it would cease to exist as it was, but that didn't mean much for a spirit.

And accept it did, as the thick chains of power dragged it down into the circle, where its essence was broken down, its strength stripped from its grasp, and it was all channeled into the owl figurine.

When it was all done, Nick returned to the material world feeling drained. The false angel hadn't been strong enough to kill him, but capturing the spirit alive had taken more out of him than he'd expected.

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