"I am sorry to disappoint you, but I'm a human." Kael answered with a grave expression upon hearing the evil spirit's words. It seemed like the evil spirit sensed something from his blood.
"This is impossible. Your blood clearly holds mana. Only evil spirits can hold mana. But your body I can clearly feel qi from you as well." The evil spirit felt unbelievable.
Mana was the counterpart of qi and held the same amount of power although entirely different. Humans can gain qi through cultivating their bodies and condensing their vitality. In order to reach the rank of a captain, a human has to condense his vitality into a strand of qi. Mana was the absolute opposite of qi, as it was the energy condensed by absorbing the energy of the world. The reason the weakest of evil spirits was equal to a human captain ranked warrior lied in the fact that evil spirits automatically absorbed energy from the world during their transformation and condensed some mana. Human's didn't have the ability to absorb world energy and condense mana and evil spirits didn't hold onto the ability to condense qi as their bodies held no vitality.
"I don't care whether you believe it or not. You don't belong to our plane of existence. Either you voluntarily retreat and return to the ghost realm where you originally belong, or I will force you." Kael replied patiently.
"I won't go to the ghost realm. I still have to get revenge on the guy who turned me into this appearance and slaughtered my landsmen. And you'll help me to achieve that goal." The evil spirit smiled cruelly and laughed, "As I see it I hold the advantage so I'll just kill you and absorb the energies inside your blood. That should be enough for me to reach the rank of a great spirit."
Evil spirits had rankings as well. As the first four human power ranks didn't apply to spirits they only had five rankings. A normal evil spirit equaled a captain ranked human and was simply called spirits. The next ranked spirits were great spirits, followed by greater spirits, grand spirits and finally mighty spirits.
The evil spirit charged at Kael and attacked with the sword. Kael blocked the incoming sword with his staff and the claw with his enchanted arm protector. While both parties engaged at close combat the situation of the mercenaries took a surprising turn. Although a few mercenaries fell during the fight and were gravely wounded they finally gathered up and formed a formation around the caravan and started to fight back the incoming waves of zombies. Although the zombies were massively in the majority their movement patterns were simple and mindless and the mercenaries didn't feel pressured taking them down.
When the evil spirit saw the situation from the corner of his blood red eyes a hint of panic could be seen but he quickly hid it. Kael didn't miss this detail and taunted, "Are you worried?"
"Pah. I did never put my hopes onto these mindless slaves anyways. Wait till I kill you and I'll take care of these footsoldiers within seconds." It sneered back. Suddenly a purple flame appeared on the sword blade and spread onto the staff.
The glow on the staff dimmed lightly and the fire heated it up. Kael dropped the staff quickly after the heat reached a searing temperature. The burning staff fell to the ground and disappeared after a Kael undid the dharma equipment summon hurriedly in order to reduce the qi usage.
The evil spirit charged at again and Kael didn't dare to block his attacks again, so he dodged them. He continued dodge attack after attack, continuously avoiding the incoming attacks. This continued for a while until the flame on the sword suddenly extinguished. The facial expression of the evil spirit changed upon this accident and tried to retreat hurriedly.
"Dharma equipment." Kael used this chance and resummoned his staff striking at the opening. The evil spirit tried to block it hurriedly with the sword, but his grip wasn't strong enough and the sword flew out of his hand. A piece of paper appeared in Kael's hands and he quickly reached out and attached it to the evil spirit.
"A sealing talisman." The evil spirit cried out anxiously and tried to pull it off while retreating, but the talisman stuck to him like glue.
"Seal." Kael knocked the staff end into the ground on the top rings rustled loudly. He took his hand of the staff and formed finger seals with his hands and shouted out upon finishing. The staff shined brightly with golden light enlightening the whole area.
"NOOOOO." The evil spirit cried while it was pulled off into another world. It's body slowly started to deform and contract. It quickly shrank until it disappeared entirely.
...
When it disappeared the zombies started disintegrating into ashes fluttering away with the wind.
The mercenaries loosened up and relaxed, sighing in relief. They quickly checked their numbers and saw that there were not many losses. Although they had many gravely wounded, their deaths only amounted to four who were taken off-guard during the sudden zombie attack at the beginning. Then they turned towards the area where the fight with the evil spirit happened and saw that Kael collapsed on the ground. They quickly hurried towards Kael and checked onto his situation.
"What happened?" A voice called out and Melissa appeared behind the circle of mercenaries.
"He was wounded at his abdomen during the fight against the evil spirit and exhausted his qi. Although his situation isn't grave he lost a lot of blood and the wound needs to be stitched up." The leader of the mercenaries gave an answer.
"Ok. Lift him up and carry him into my carriage. Although I'm not knowledgeable about medical treatment, my butler should be able to stitch up and bandage his wound."