Rica POV
All my perceptions as a mage can perceive is darkness, no sound, no breath of mine, no living being.
I spread my mana even further, not knowing what I will find, or if I find anything in the first place.
"Walk the path I am showing you, or else you will get lost in the shadow"
Mi Sang Hee, her light deep voice, came from everywhere in this darkness.
"What path do you mean?"
My words are finally spoken out, not silenced by the surrounding darkness. A path of light opened up a second later, leading me far in the distance I can't perceive with mana sense.
"Follow this path, and you will reach him... do you really want to meet the spirit in you?"
Mi Sang Hee and I entered my spirit sea, in it are three huge realms.
One of darkness and light, indicating my connection with panda. One of the four elements combined, showing my bond with the four element spirits.
Likewise, one of the four advanced elements combined, like lightning, ice, wood, magma, indicating new spirits forming between the spirits without them knowing.
We entered the realm with darkness and light, blinding me literally by the pure darkness.
"Why is this preparation to our festival?"
Mi Sang Hee Inquired, hoping for me to respond truthfully. I am trembling by the decreasing temperature the closer we get to the centre.
"We need his help to bring all the spirits under control for the entire festival-"
I stopped as I look at the emerging light in the darkness. It didn't grow brighter, but silently glowing in the darkness.
"So that Kim Yong won't succeed with his plan"
I never thought a light could pierce this darkness. It grows brighter and brighter until my eyes needed to adapt, temporary blindness disturbed my sense of direction even more.
"Rica, I can't help any more than this. He denies my entry and makes my control of shadows useless"
Her voice echoed in my head this time, indicating that her soul couldn't influence my spirit sea any more than this. The light subsides so slowly that each step feels so heavy and... dangerous to take.
'He won't kill me, right?'
My vision suddenly turned dark, no turned dark as well as blinded by the light. Now every step I take is feeling even harder and worse than the one before.
"Rica, I can ease the effects of the dark side, nonetheless the light side will crush you if you don't control it or resist it"
Mi Sang Hee confessed... or explain it to me, my mind is occupied by the penetrating light and swallowing darkness. A small amount of this energy entered my body, my soul, pushing through my veins.
"Remember the tournament"
An extreme deep, moreover tired voice entered my perception from everywhere. The pain of the two energies colliding in me, made it even harder to remember something almost two months ago.
"Remember when I took over your body and fought an old friend of mine"
'Yeah, that time you went out of control, furthermore you risked losing one of MY ARMS'
Annoyance and pain is the only memory I have of this day. He overtook my body, which itself is a huge toll on my body, moreover risked multiple times that my body could have exploded of overload from his mana.
"Remember how the pain coursed through your body, when I controlled you"
'Ugh, fine, let's do it like you want damn Panda'
I focused on the sensation of pain, channelling it like the day he overtook my body. It wasn't so different to my normal control method except one step... the core.
In the core, normal people use, he somehow balanced the light and darkness. I heard from some kind of people who came from a so-called china, that in their culture exist a symbol for balance... I don't know how they named it.
'I need to remember how he created the balance'
I don't know how the symbol looks, so I'm purely guessing what to do. I manipulate the darkness to rotate, after this was done, I try to add the light to the rotation.
It utterly failed, My core feels weird and blood would leak out of my mouth if this is my real body.
I created two balls who rotate in the same direction, the light turned brighter and the darkness somehow got even darker.
'It works, but I can just use one of these two attributes'
I tried to combine them by directly pushing them together... it failed. The ball to some degree mixed with each other, then it exploded halfway through.
'How can I create this damn symbol?'
I staggered a bit by taking the next step, blood somehow leaves my mouth. My body feels slightly heavier, moreover, it hurts to move my mouth.
'It even affects my body outside now'
A core, no a small part of the core, turns into darkness, somehow collecting even more. A small, light ball is inserted in the darkness part.
"Hey, you want to do the yin and yang symbol, right?"
I nodded my head, pushing the light in the remaining part of the core. Mi Sang Hee condensed a ball of darkness, putting it at the bottom centre from the light part.
"Now rotate it in your core"
I started to do it, the powers now mixed perfectly without injuring me, moving like an unstoppable engine.
"You have the qualifications now to summon me, I will await your summon"
A strong wave of energy blasts me and Mi Sang Hee back to our bodies, we both shocked to see a spear out of light hovering between us.
"Use this spear to summon me when you are facing an opponent you can't beat"
No doubt that Panda thought about Kim Yong, he was as soon as I got him, so interested in him and called him something more terrifying than monsters.
By the way, he means by monsters the gods or lords... not sure why the Astral Queen doesn't get his respect, yet the Dragon king gets his respect.
'Was the Dragon king also a lord?'
It feels weird thinking about such small details in their names. Kings, Queens, as well as noble titles are in use in the demon rankings... but the lord rank?
Non-existent.
Equal to these angel records of various races... real angels don't even exist, nonetheless didn't I exclude the theory that these two things are somehow connected, and Kim Yong knows how.
'Well, we accomplished what we wanted'
I never expected it to be so easy, despite me spitting a bit of blood. Mi Sang Hee also bled a bit, showing from her white hoodie having two small red spots on it.
"Let's meet up with Ms. Lundin as planned"
"Yeah"
????? POV
"Leader, we have the coordinates"
The night sky, the buzzing sounds of the old cars, the forest surrounding this city. It is beautiful but reeks of inferior creatures, staining its beauty.
"We will attack the city tomorrow night, prepare all the things we need so-"
I stopped mid-sentence, the pressure descending upon us made me kneel. It is released from the city, a few hundred kilometres away.
'What is a strong being doing in such an old city to release so much of his pressure?'
It can't be that our mission leaked to the other squads, we made sure to leave with everyone who knows of this secret.
"Master, we have a problem"
[Soul speech has been activated]
[linking the souls to every target chosen by the host...]
I waited for an answer, from my skill as well as from the master... the silence prevailed over 30 seconds.
'This is weird, master replies back after ten seconds passed'
Master never missed the timing... so why now? It made no sense, the most important mission of our live, and he doesn't reply like he normally does.
"Wow, I understand why your master feared coming here"
As soon as I heard a cold and monotonous voice with a mocking tone... cold sweat trickled down my back.
The sound of cars and the air whistling through the grass disappeared. The night sky seems to fall from it.
"Well, I need you for my plan, so forget you met me here"
'What is-huh'
"Leader the strong pressure vanished, Master died, moreover are we called back to the headquarters to explain the situation"
My brain feels weird, it feels like I forgot something. Something important or more fundamental.
I grab my hair, pushing it back. The mask on my face feels even colder than before, my hair got smoother... what happened?
"Leader, is something wrong?"
'Frick disease, I can't tell who talks to me'
"Yeah everything fine"
My disease, I have since birth, to hear every voice as cold and monotonous. As you can probably guess, it is annoying and dangerous for my field of job.
I turn around and walk back in the huge forest, not minding their confusion.
"Hurry back and let me do the explaining!"
"Aye sir!" "Aye sir!" "Aye sir!" "Aye sir!"
Master died in a span of 10 seconds, which means we need someone of A- or A rank to gain the Nether grail.
'I don't know why they need such a strong artifact for a few children'