This dagger that once belong to the Angel of Shadows was a divine relic that could easily kill the fallen in front of him, but there was no way he would be able to control it such an extent. And Shui didn't plan and begging for a miracle either.
"A divine relic?! Still, what do you plan on-"
"Shh. Just watch."
Curious as to why Shui took out the dagger, Miss Spirit wanted to transfer a little more of her attention over, but her current task was too pressing for that.
With the dagger in hand, Shui closed his eyes and entered the state of triple harmony and Still Heart. As his soul was uplifted and he indulged in a feeling of serenity and omnipotence, Shui also opened his Sage Eyes. For the first time, when confronted by Shui's blue eyes, the fallen shook from fear. Those eyes didn't seem to belong to the ant before it, but instead it resembled the eyes of the ones who had suppressed it for millennia.
The fallen tried to run away, but it couldn't move its legs due to the whip of fire that was now wrapped around it.
"Kirrr!!!"
Shui hoped that this could keep the fallen occupied until he finished completing the pseudo-array, but he knew that the only thing he could do was finish up as quickly as possible.
Shui raised the dagger in his hand and murmured something indecipherable. Perhaps he looked like a madman to the other disciples, but Miss Spirit was able to tell what he was doing. But just because she could tell didn't mean she believed it.
'Could he actually be trying to use that relic to make a connection to the natural laws? No, more importantly, how is he speaking rune language?'
Judging by how clumsy his pronunciation was, she knew he had recently picked this up. It would be more natural to assume that he had been studying rune language since he was a child, but even then she couldn't understand how a human under 20 had managed to come this far.
'And those eyes, which god do they belong to?'
The more she thought, the more questions she had, however, she also knew that this wasn't the place nor the time to get answers.
'I should help him.'
While he seemed to have made a connection with the natural laws, it would take too long for him to succeed in borrowing their power since he was just an amateur. Therefore, Miss Spirit decided to temporarily split her soul to allow a piece of her to help Shui while the rest focused on tearing open a gap. She would suffer terrible damage if this piece was destroyed, but she judged that it was a necessary risk made to ensure that she could get her power back in the future.
"Miss Spirit, is Shui over there?"
The red spirit had already found a gap to exploit so all she needed to do was to continue pouring in her energy. This gave her enough leeway to respond to Kate.
"Yes, why? Do you want to go to him?"
Kate didn't react excessively to Miss Spirit's provocative tone, she only shook her head with a faint smile.
"No. Even though he wouldn't say it, I can tell that Shui wasn't too confident about this. But, if it's him, I believe that he'll definitely make it back, just like last time."
"Hmm, that sounds nice but, are you sure it's not just that you're powerless to change anything? So all you can do is wait like a princess for her knight?"
Miss Spirit's response seemed a bit mean-spirited, however, Kate's expression only became gentler.
"You're not wrong. If I thought that I wouldn't be a burden then I would definitely go to him no matter how much he didn't want me to. But I'm not believing in him because I have no choice. If it's my rival and friend, the one who I respect, the man who I admire, the one that I love. If it's him then, I'm sure that he'll be able to at least meet my expectations, otherwise, he wouldn't be the only person I wanted to chase after."
Miss Spirit didn't turn around to see the lovely face Kate had, still, her emotions had been conveyed.
'What a darling little girl. Shui, surely you won't let down two beauties will you?'
Meanwhile, Shui had finally received the permission of the natural laws to elevate the maximum power of his inscriptions after a vague exchange. He had long ago thought about how he could push the power of inscriptions beyond their limit, but it was only after seeing Miss Spirit use rune language to negotiate with the natural laws that he could see a clear path to this crazy idea.
However, what would certainly surprise the red spirit was the fact that Shui hadn't intentionally spoken in rune language, that murmuring was completely based on instinct and his interpretation of the intricate symbols that he saw through his Sage Eyes. By using the dagger he attracted the interest of the natural laws and was conversing using his martial intent, so rather than the effect of rune language, he thought that the reason why this went smoothly was because Miss Spirit was helping him, which wasn't wrong but it would be farther in the future before Shui realised what a feat he had accomplished.
'Okay, next up is...'
Shui could feel the limit of his inscriptions being released. Normally once an inscription reached a certain profundity it would naturally transform into a rune, but Shui knew that he wasn't at that level yet so he instead increased the maximum power he could drag out of his inscriptions.
'Fire.'
One by one, 'Fire' symbols were shaped from the blue flames that surrounded the fallen and rose to circle around it. These blue 'Fire' symbols quickly grew in number until the fallen couldn't fly even if it wanted to.
"Krrr! Krr!"
Soon, spinning wheels of blue flames formed above the fallen's head. The fallen growled at the wheels as its fur glowed with a dark light. Shui expected that it would have some defensive measure, but his heart shook when he saw the blue flames weakening when they made contact with the dark light. His control over the pseudo-array was still firm, but doubt made him hesitate.
'Will this really be able to stop it?'
As this doubt gradually sunk in, the fragment that the red spirit left behind communicated her intent to him.
'That's..., fine. I trust you.'
Shui transferred majority of his control over the pseudo-array to Miss Spirit's fragment while he tried to keep the fallen in place with the flickering blue flames. While the fallen focused on stomping out the flames, the spinning wheels above its head underwent a silent transformation. Due to Miss Spirit's efforts to keep this change hidden, from the outside it wasn't noticeable, but through Shui's Sage Eyes he could tell that the 'Fire' symbols were evolving into runes.
"Wait but then, what about all my effort?"
"Shut up, I'm focusing."
Though still upset over the time he wasted removing the limit of his inscriptions when she just turned them into runes, Shui still had to admire her abilities.
'If its with this,'
'Kirrrrrr!!!!!"
When the spinning wheels started lowering, the fallen released an enraged roar and the dark light it emitted expanded. However, though it extinguished the ring of fire on the ground, the blue spinning wheels not only confronted the dark light, they also forced it back to its original position and clung tightly to the fallen.