A Thousand Spirits
A Thousand Spirits
Spirits are fundamentally good and pure.
This is not a subjective guess but a truth proven by statistics.
Spirits are beings born with an innate talent tied to their attribute, and once that talent gains self-awareness, they become a distinct race.
For that reason, innate talent and ego rarely bloom in turbid attributes.
Spirits originate from pure attribute power, and the self-awareness that sprouts in this way inevitably distances itself from malice.
- Wipe 'em all out!
- How dare a dead bastard crawl out here!
- Get back in! Get back in the coffin!
"......"
Craaash! A storm slammed down onto the ground.
Undead caught in the storm were ground to pieces.
The remains, pulverized into dust, fluttered up and were then incinerated completely by the sweeping flames.
The high-ranking fire spirit that poured out the flames smiled brightly.
- Burned one! Next!
- Now that one! It's the next strongest!
Lee Ji-yeon made a baffled expression at the pure will thoughts seeping into her head.
'Spirits do hate undead that much...'
Fire and water, earth and lightning and wind.
Most spirits are born from these natural attributes.
A spirit bearing a natural attribute is nature-friendly and feels a physiological revulsion toward beings that defy and harm nature.
Undead satisfy those conditions perfectly.
They are corpse dolls that bind the flesh and thought residue which should rightfully return to nature.
Undead that openly mock the natural order are impure beings that can never be tolerated by spirits.
She could even understand that brutal spectacle—trapping them in water and boiling them alive with fire.
- It's not brutality! We're simply returning them to where they ought to be!
"I-is that so...?"
A wind spirit passing by puffed out its cheeks.
It was a high-ranking spirit, as expected.
- Yes! I'm so happy to greet the Queen directly with words! But I'm busy right now, so I'll greet you again a bit later!
As Lee Ji-yeon responded with a bewildered face, the spirit shook its arms enthusiastically and hurried on its way.
- Boom!
Soon, intangible blades rained down up ahead, sweeping across the ground.
An undead that retained quite a defined shape went flying into the sky. Lee Ji-yeon recognized it as an entity approaching the 4th Rank.
'Good heavens...'
A 4th-Rank undead was reduced to that state in a single blow.
Lee Ji-yeon's jaw dropped.
Of course, she could also erase an ordinary 4th-Rank entity without a trace, but what mattered was that the attack from a single spirit was far too powerful.
'I know the junior's spirits are each uniquely powerful, but...'
Isn't that a bit too much?
With her mouth agape, Lee Ji-yeon scanned the battlefield.
Spirits were shooting across the sky in a frenzy. The world shook as a result of their movements, as if they were competing with each other.
- Blam! Crash! Cr-aaaash...!
Flames poured down and storms swept in. A tidal wave surged, the ground shot up to smother, and lightning bolts pounded in.
There was no distinction between front, back, left, or right. Attribute power transformed into lethal weapons and crashed down without mercy.
Before nature's fury, the seemingly limitless army of the dead was gradually erased.
There were plenty of high-grade undead mounting something resembling resistance...
- Ah! This bastard is holding out!
- Concentrated attack!
Each time, five or six high-ranking spirits gathered and hammered in a coordinated attack.
Where the saturation bombardment of attribute power stopped, not even a corpse to put in a coffin remained.
A single high-ranking spirit was powerful enough, yet such spirits were moving around in groups of at least four or five...
"Insane."
Having thought that far, Lee Ji-yeon suddenly turned her head and spat out her shock aloud.
Dozens upon dozens of high-ranking spirits were gathered in one part of the sky.
On the ground below them, a 3rd-Rank monster could be seen being pummeled endlessly by the attribute power bombardment.
- Kraaaaaah─!
The 3rd-Rank undead let out a ferocious roar.
The spirits sneered and released their attribute power to shake off the roar, but in that brief gap in the shelling, the 3rd-Rank undead kicked off the ground.
Its mountain-like body shot up in an instant.
Naturally, its target was the spirits. At this, Lee Ji-yeon took a few running steps and kicked off the ground herself.
"Hup."
Lee Ji-yeon shot forward like a cannonball, placing herself between the undead and the spirits.
Meeting the undead's wide-open eyes, Lee Ji-yeon raised the hammer formed from her winged garment.
Grrrr... The vitality energy and aura condensed in the hammer's head seethed violently.
Expansion Ability: Strength to Uproot Mountains, she swung the hammer with abruptly surging physical power.
Expansion Ability: Mountain-Breaking, the vitality energy discharged from the hammer crushed the undead's head.
- Squish!
The crushed head collapsed, obliterating the neck. The undead, its throat blocked, fell without even a scream.
She hadn't killed it in one blow. The undead, with its bizarrely fast regeneration, would recover soon.
But she didn't care.
That was because the immense attribute power cascading from above her head instantly shredded the 3rd-Rank undead.
"...Heh, heheh..."
Lee Ji-yeon, suspended in the void with a spirit's help, looked down and let out a hollow laugh.
The current situation... was it called a Tower Master's invasion? She'd heard the guy commanded a formidable army.
She had planned to manage her stamina, assuming a protracted anti-army battle, and aim to cut off the army's waist at the right moment.
But the spirit army's power far exceeded common sense.
This wasn't the level of cutting off the waist. It was more like grabbing the head and legs and crumpling them together.
She didn't know how many times her common sense had shattered while living alongside Lee Ha-yul.
Wearing an expression of enlightenment, Lee Ji-yeon shrugged her shoulders and raised her hammer again.
* * *
- Senior Lee Ji-yeon, are you injured anywhere?
"What on earth is all this about?"
- Ah...
Lee Ji-yeon trudged back and immediately said that.
Her words were cut off front and back, but it wasn't hard to understand.
Because what the spirits were up to was transmitted through the contracts.
- Um... well...
I didn't get a direct answer to the question about her safety, but I let it pass since my detection told me she didn't have a single scratch.
I stayed hugging the tree branch and subtly turned my head.
In the center of the forest stood the giant fairy tree.
Between two roots as thick as the tree itself, a blue vortex was spiraling.
It was a gate connected through the fairy tree as a medium.
"Did the connection succeed?"
- No, not yet.
The connection was established, but the isolation field was so strong that only a limited range of targets could cross immediately.
- Woo-woong...
Something leaped out of the undulating vortex.
A water spirit in the shape of a puppy.
The spirit shook its body with a fluttering motion and immediately looked back at me, and my wings fluttered involuntarily, scattering a five-colored light cluster.
- Whooaah!
The light cluster that enveloped the spirit turned blue and solidified like an egg.
In less than a minute, the spirit split open the egg and flashed to its feet.
Long, gently flowing hair and a curvaceous body made of water energy. Its rank and aura had suddenly surpassed a wall and soared.
It had naturally ascended into a high-ranking spirit taking on a humanoid phenomenon.
- ...Woah! Master! I've become a high-ranking spirit!
"Ubbu..."
The spirit looked over its body, its eyes shining. Then, just like every spirit before it, it rushed over and hugged me tightly.
- Amazing! It feels great! I'm so happy!
"Ubbrb..."
- Yeah, congratulations on becoming a high-ranking spirit.
- Heeheehee!
My mouth was blocked by its water-balloon-like embrace, but my sound transmission went through clearly.
The spirit beamed and rubbed its cheek against the top of my head, expressing joy and affection.
- Okay... great. But since the others have gone ahead, I'll go too.
Swallowing its regret, the spirit gave me a peck on the cheek and flew out of the forest.
"...What was that just now?"
- Right now, only spirits connected to me and the fairy tree can come and go.
The isolation was so strong that it was difficult to break straight through immediately.
'If we put time into it, it'll be broken through eventually, but...'
That would mean facing the army corps and the frontline for a long time.
A prolonged anti-army battle against the Tower Master of the Dead has to be avoided.
We need to break through the army as quickly as possible and smash the Tower Master of the Dead or the tower itself in a short period.
That's why, if it seemed like it would take too long, I'd intended to break through the army on my own and charge in.
'That was the plan a little while ago, but...'
However, a variable appeared as the spirits whose connection was restored ascended to high rank one after another like bamboo shoots after rain.
Not just one or two.
Not just ten or twenty.
Eventually, not even a hundred or two hundred.
A full thousand mid-level spirits had ascended to high rank.
Even I was stunned by the result that far exceeded expectations.
'At this level, we should be able to push back an incomplete army of the dead in a head-on clash.'
Overconfidence was forbidden, but both my gut and reason gave the same answer.
"...But why did it kiss you and then leave?"
- Huh?
While I was sizing up the situation for a while, Lee Ji-yeon, who had been standing like a stone statue, approached.
"And without any resistance, either... like you're used to it?"
- Uung...?
Lee Ji-yeon tilted her head slightly.
The moment my shoulders flinched from her somewhat chilly gaze, an earth spirit abruptly emerged from the undulating vortex.
It wasn't a lower or mid-level spirit.
It was a spirit already at the high rank, Terramor.
- Ah...! My king...!
Terramor, having set foot on the ground, urgently looked around, and upon confirming me, its eyes widened.
Terramor's complexion swirled.
Relief and joy, happiness, self-reproach, shame...
It seemed Terramor had also suffered emotional distress because of me.
- Terra—
Just as I was about to convey an apology, a hand suddenly protruding from the undulating vortex again grabbed my wrist.
'Huh?'
My body didn't react. It was because there wasn't a speck of hostility and the presence was familiar.
The hundreds of layers of magic I had draped over myself didn't react either. She was excluded from attack targeting.
Lee Ji-yeon must have noticed as well, as her springing legs came to a halt.
The owner of the hand slowly emerged from the vortex.
"...Dad."
My daughter. A woman clean and white from head to toe... Seo-yul.
'......'
The moment I sensed Seo-yul's appearance, my breath caught.
Her long, soft hair was utterly dry and brittle, and tear tracks were clear around her eyes.
Her five-colored wings drooped limply, having turned turbid, and the cold eyes looking down at me bore traces of bloodshot veins.
- S-Seo-yul...
In that instant, all thoughts of the Tower Master of the Dead or anything else were violently crushed inside my head.
It was dizzying, like a red-hot blade had been jammed into my chest. A searing pain gouged at my insides.
It felt like my brain was being reduced to pulp.
I wanted to be a good parent.
No matter the circumstances, I'd put my child through this kind of misery.
It was not just pathetic, but loathsome.
I reached out a pitifully trembling hand. After agonizing over whether I even deserved to hold it, I carefully held Seo-yul's hand that was gripping my wrist in return.
- I-I'm sorry... Seo-yul... sorry... Are you o-okay?
My sound transmission wavered so much the words blurred. But the meaning must have gotten through, because Seo-yul parted her tightly sealed lips.
"No, I'm not okay."
- Huh-euk...
Blunt words that were almost sharp... spoken in banmal.
Cocking her head with a rebellious air, Seo-yul roughly pulled my wrist.
Looking down at me, helplessly pulled into her arms, Seo-yul cocked her head again.
"By common sense, would I be okay? If my parent is dying with a spear through their chest, what kind of insect-like child would clap and be happy about it?"
At the razor-sharp retort, my throat clamped shut completely.