Chapter 136: Battle At The Factory-Finale (2k words Extra)
Bierzim’s massive demonic form dissolved into reddish motes of light that swirled around Dante like a vortex of energy. The light grew brighter and more intense until it was nearly blinding, then suddenly collapsed and merged completely with Dante’s body in one brilliant flash.
When the light faded, what stood in their place was something different.
The fusion between Dante and Bierzim had created a new form that combined aspects of both.
The body was much more slender and humanoid than Bierzim’s original grotesque shape, influenced by Dante’s human physique serving as the base structure. But demonic features were still present throughout.
The fused form was just under seven feet tall, smaller than Bierzim’s original eight. Its skin had shifted to a lighter blue hue. It retained the same number of arms and horns, but the devious, protruding teeth were gone.
Most notably, the massive wound Bierzim had sustained on its neck from Ragnarok’s recall attack had stopped bleeding. There was still an obvious scar running across that part of the throat where the cut had happened, but the injury itself was no longer actively hemorrhaging.
A fusion between summoner and summon was an advanced technique that required the combination of both the Borrow skill and Bond skill at significantly higher levels than most summoners ever achieved.
It took considerable time and dedicated practice to reach this point with your summon.
Bierzim had been Dante’s summon since he had first awakened his summoner class at the age of six, giving them over a decade of shared experience and bonding to draw upon.
By fusing together, the combination became slightly more powerful than either individual component fighting separately. It was the closest thing to the summon being truly alive once more rather than existing as a spirit.
It also served as an indirect way to repair damage sustained by a summon during combat. When fusion occurred, both bodies merged their physical structures into a unified form.
Since Bierzim had a severe cut across its neck while Dante’s throat was completely intact, the resulting fusion blended both conditions together, and the wound effectively ceased to exist in any meaningful way that would continue causing harm.
The logic, while unusual, was sound: if one half of the fusion was injured and the other wasn’t, the combined form would settle somewhere in between, reducing or even eliminating the damage depending on its severity.
"I had no idea that was even possible," Ethan said as he watched the transformation that happened almost instantly.
However, Nina didn’t waste time being impressed by the transformation.
She raised her longsword and flames reignited along its length, extending the blade’s effective cutting edge.
Then she moved forward in one explosive burst of speed and swung the flaming sword down toward the fused form.
But Dante-Bierzim raised the hand holding the spear and blocked the sword’s descent with the shaft of the weapon. Then it extended its arm outward with tremendous strength, forcing Nina backward several steps.
The fused summon’s voice spoke then, and it was a disturbing blend of Dante’s cold monotone overlaid with Bierzim’s guttural demonic rumble speaking in perfect unison:
"Impaling Death."
Right then, several more copies of the exact same spear materialized simultaneously in the rest of its free hands. And two were hurled at the same time toward Nina and Ethan.
Nina brought her shield up in front of her just in time as one spear slammed into its surface with enough force to drive her back a full step.
Ethan thrust his left hand forward, a purple magic circle forming before his palm as a translucent spatial sphere materialized around him, encasing him in a protective barrier just as the second spear struck its surface and bounced off.
This was Ars Orbis, the Tier 6 space element spell he had learned from the mini grimoire he won at the auction. It created a defensive sphere of compressed space around the caster.
But those first two spears were only the beginning.
The fused summon hurled more in rapid succession, then even more after that. The spears kept reappearing in its hands so fast that it became impossible to track individual weapons anymore.
Its arms began moving like blurs of motion, creating multiple after-images as they hurled spear after spear after spear in an endless barrage.
The assault became so rapid and relentless that both Ethan and Nina were forced to remain completely stationary, unable to advance or maneuver as they focused everything on defending against the overwhelming barrage of projectiles aimed at them.
Nina gritted her teeth as she held her shield up as each impact drove her back another inch.
Ethan had a deep frown on his face, but his spatial sphere was holding up remarkably well under the sustained assault.
This was thanks to the effect of his Amplification trait boosting the spell’s strength past its original Tier 6 level all the way up to a Tier 7 defensive capability.
If Ars Orbis had remained at its original tier of 6 strength, the barrier would not have lasted even half this long against an impossibly large barrage of attacks from a legendary-class summon.
However, in Nina’s case, something different was happening.
Her shield began to take on a fiery orange aura, glowing brighter with each passing second and every spear that struck its surface.
The Shield of Pythos possessed a unique property: it absorbed all incoming damage and attacks directly into itself.
As it absorbed more and more force, it stored that energy within the shield itself and displayed a brief orange glow.
However, the shield had a second function tied to its absorption mechanic, and the condition to activate that ability had just been fulfilled.
Nina turned her head toward her summoner for just a brief second, and Ethan glanced back at her.
Then he mentally confirmed that she could proceed. He knew exactly what skill she was planning to use and understood that the effect radius of it would absolutely catch him if he wasn’t protected properly or out of its range.
Nina then turned toward the fused summon, straining herself to slowly walk forward while still under the constant barrage of hurled spears.
Then she whispered in a solemn voice,
"Counter Burst."
An omnidirectional explosion of solar-energy erupted outward from the Shield.
The burst was massive, a sphere of pure concussive force and searing heat that expanded outward at incredible speed.
It sent everything in its path flying backward, including every spear that had been hurtling toward Nina when the skill activated.
Dante-Bierzim was caught directly in the blast radius, the fusion’s eyes widening in shock when the wave of explosive energy slammed into it.
The shockwave spread outward in an enormous circle that shook the entire factory structure.
When the overwhelming brightness finally faded and the dust began to settle, the fusion was down on one knee, using the spear in its right hand as support to keep itself from collapsing onto the ground. Its body was covered in several severe burn marks.
Nina saw the opening and dashed forward in one straight line with her sword extended before her, aiming to stab the blade directly through the wounded fusion’s chest while it was still vulnerable and unable to properly defend itself.
But even in its severely injured state, Dante-Bierzim raised its spear with trembling arms and managed to catch Nina’s blade in a desperate clash .
Nina forced the blade downward with all her might, trying to overpower the weakened fusion. At that exact moment, Ethan reappeared behind the kneeling summon in a burst of black smoke.
He drove the legendary sword forward, piercing clean through its chest from behind. The strike was so precise that the fusion’s entire body jerked backward, its eyes widening in shock and pain.
——
Isabella, for the better part of the last several minutes, had been relentlessly chasing after Casper, who seemed to be impossibly fast on his feet for someone being hunted down by such an overwhelming volume of darkness projectiles.
Then suddenly, the massive omnidirectional explosion went off from Nina’s Counter Burst skill.
The shockwave was so enormous that even Isabella felt the concussive force from her position midair.
This made her quickly turn around with widened eyes full of alarm, especially knowing that her lover was in there.
Panic gripped her chest for just a second. But almost immediately, she sensed Ethan’s magical presence and let out a breath.
Then she turned back toward.
But in that moment, where her attention had diverted, Casper slipped completely out of her immediate sight.
Isabella’s eyes narrowed as she scanned the area below her with increasing frustration, searching for any sign of movement or disturbance that would give away his position.
She grunted in annoyance when she also realized that she couldn’t sense his mana presence anymore either, which meant he had somehow suppressed it.
But Isabella wasn’t limited to just sensing mana.
She closed her eyes and focused her awareness outward into every dark corner and shadow in the immediate area around her position; probing into spaces where someone might think to hide from her sight.
But she found nothing, and that became deeply annoying.
Isabella opened her eyes again and hovered there for a moment, her head turning left and right as she scanned the visible landscape.
Where could he have possibly gone in such a short amount of time?
However, what Isabella did not know was that Casper had concealed himself by pressing his body flat against the side of a partially collapsed wall in a corner of the yard still bathed in the glow of the early evening sun.
Of course, he hadn’t known what terrible stroke of luck this positioning had been for him.
He had simply picked the first cover he’d found when Isabella’s attention had been pulled away by that massive explosion, diving behind it on pure instinct.
If he had hidden himself in any shadowy corner or if there had been even a single shadow being cast around his body by the structures near him, Isabella would have picked up his location.
And now that she wasn’t actively directing her focused awareness outward anymore, she wouldn’t immediately sense him through those shadowed corners anymore even if he moved back into them.
Isabella hovered forward slowly, moving around the corner where Casper was pressed silently against the wall.
She drifted closer and closer, hunting him like a vengeful ghost seeking its prey. Casper held his breath as she neared his position, then watched as her shadow-wreathed form floated past the corner without looking in his direction.
Her gaze was fixed forward and slightly to the left, scanning other potential hiding spots rather than checking the sunlit corner right beside her.
The moment Isabella hovered past his position without noticing him, Casper remained absolutely still.
He didn’t move a single muscle as he watched her shadow-wreathed form continue drifting forward.
He waited patently, counting the seconds in his head as she moved further and further away from his position.
Only when she had floated a significant distance away, did Casper finally move.
He shifted his weight carefully from the wall, taking one slow step backward.
He kept his eyes locked on Isabella’s distant form the entire time, ready to freeze instantly if she showed any sign of turning back in his direction.
But she didn’t.
She continued hovering forward, her focus still directed ahead as she searched for him in all the wrong places.
Casper allowed himself some grin as he backed around the corner of another section of broken factory structure, finally putting solid cover between himself and her line of sight.
Only then did he turn and move with more speed, though still keeping his footfalls light as he put more distance between himself and the Grand Caster hunting him.
By the time Isabella’s instincts finally told her something was wrong and she turned back to check the area she had just passed, Casper had already repositioned himself to a different section of the factory yard, leaving quietly.
——
A/N:
This will be counted as an extra Chapter and not part of the intended upload(with bonus inclusive)
Family’s kinda celebrating easter at the moment, and I sorta have to be out there to greet the uncles and the aunts (you know, the usual boring stuff)
I’ll be back with new Chapters soon.