12th Move | Spiritual Surgery

"Are you sure this will work?" Shizue asked without her mask, worry clear in her voice. The superhuman looked extremely vulnerable as she lay there on the operating table, wearing only a thin gown. The room was rather dark, with the only light source coming from a headlight directly above the operating table that was slightly aimed away at the superhuman.

Her worry's only logical, as according to her, I'm about to perform something comparable to feats that only an S-rank mage could do.

It took a week of constant tinkering, but everything was finally ready. Over that period of time, I upgraded the subspace generator and created a reinforced surgery unit to be placed inside the generated pocket dimension.

The surgery room is something I see that could be created in my old World's future. It's a portable room the size of a typical bedroom that contains everything a surgeon might need to perform emergency surgeries that could stabilize wounded soldiers in battle. With enough armor to tank multiple RPG rounds, the unit could be placed near the front lines and act as a temporary shelter as well.

While Shizue stayed, the three adventurers left Metropolis four days ago after we negotiated their silence by granting the status as the first humans to receive Tempest Citizenship. With that citizenship, the Jura Tempest Republic is legally obligated to come to the adventurer's defense according to the Constitution.

I sighed at Shizue's questioning. I'd been happy to answer her questions... if I hadn't already done so multiple times over the past week.

[Silenced Emotion: 50%]

Still, I can't blame her for worrying all that much. After all, I too would be worried if someone got ahold of my soul.

Thinking of Shizue's soul also brought up an interesting cultural quirk of this New World that's different from my old one, namely, the activity known as 'Soul Viewing'. Apparently, in this spiritually inclined world, Soul Viewing is synonymous with marriage among the wealthy or desire for marriage in various forms of literature. It is treated with an extreme amount of respect and care since when one gazes upon another's soul, it is considered a share of privacy deeper than even having penetrative coitus.

Oh second thought, perhaps Shizue was more worried about me viewing her soul. A tamer comparison would be a patient getting uncomfortable getting naked in front of their doctor.

"Of course, and don't worry," I reassured her while I trudged over to one corner of the room and brought forth an IV pole with a bag of clear, water-like general anesthetics attached. Next, the smell of alcohol filled the room as I used a set of tweezers to dunk a cotton ball inside the cool sterilizing liquid before rubbing it over a section of Shizue's left forearm.

I stared into her eyes with confidence clear in my eyes, "I'm your acting doctor so I'll keep to the doctor-patient confidentiality that exists within my old World."

Shizue remained steadfast unconvinced, unmoved by my constant battering wind of reassurances.

How troublesome. [Psychology] told me how Shizue does trust me, it's just still uncomfortable for her since she's never done this before.

Then, I uncapped and slowly inserted a needle into the sterilized area with the goal of eventually hitting a vein on her left forearm at a 10-degree angle. As I was doing this, Shizue didn't even flinch when the titanium needle pierced her skin.

Afterward, I covered the inserted site with multiple white medical bandages.

I'll use an example from my old World to put her worry to rest, and to pass the time as I wait for the super anesthetics to take effect on Shizue's above-average human body. "In my old World— in my country, at least— have this thing known as the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or the PIPEDA that governs how the private sector collects, uses, and discloses the personal information of their clients. It's often viewed in the same light as America's 'HIPAA' or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act."

The way Shizue furrows her brows tells of how she wants me to elaborate.

"With that act, patients trust their doctors to perform things such as urethral sounds and prostate examination."

"And... what are those?"

I'd bite back a mischievous smile, but with [Silenced Emotion] turned up so high, I can't find it in myself to laugh at what's about to happen.

With an easygoing tone as if I'm talking about a rock collection, I responded, "Urethral sound is when doctors stick something up the hole from which you pee, and the prostate exam is when a doctor sticks something up your anus to check for complications or infections."

Her face blushed up like a storm in embarrassment. I think if I didn't have [Silenced Emotion] turned up so high, I would've burst out laughing.

"I signed a contract with you. So worry not, you'll serve me until the time of your death."

Shizue nodded before finally going under.

Near absolute silence flooded the room. The only sound that exists now is the heart monitor nearby that turned itself on when the patient had gone under.

Now, normally, a surgeon might put on a pair of plastic gloves before starting the first incision, but given how I took a full acid bath right before I entered the room, I think I'm safe.

Time to go to work.

The problem when talking about a hypothetical immaterial thing that exists within humans is just where exactly is it? Souls are... a very strange concept if you think about it. Something beyond the material, something deeper within ourselves that is both eternal and our true identity.

Personally, before being reincarnated, I'd just always imagined the soul as something people made up to use as an anchor within an ever-changing world, yet that's clearly not the case.

I started this spirit extraction surgery by putting on a pair of specialized goggles that allowed me to see the souls themselves through the tracking of Magicule particles that usually go around the body like blood.

Magicules are fascinating things. They have an effect on reality yet they couldn't be interacted with using matter. I first hypothesized they were a type of boson field like the Higgs Field which gives particles their mass.

It was postulated in Quantum Field Theory that the universe is composed of multiple fields, and excitations (also called quanta) within these fields are particles of their underlying quantum fields. If Magicules is indeed a field then it must mean there's something more to either the electromagnetic force or the act of thinking as thoughts somehow affect Magicules and change how they affect reality.

Case-in-point: telepathy. Rimuru was able to telepathically communicate with me by, according to his words, 'flinging' magicules at me. That sounds a lot like how radio works.

This means that magicules were able to carry information and that somehow, a brain is able to pick up on seemingly intangible things. Magicules aren't a field then.

The telepathy was the final evidence I needed to confirm that there's something more about the electromagnetic force— one of the four fundamental interactions of the universe— than scientists in my old world realized.

That realization made me unable to sleep. It was as if an individual had just discovered Relativity was wrong.

So using this logic, the operating table that Shizue lies on shoots out microwaves in the 300 Mega-Hertz range and the goggles receive them in such a way analogous to how the eye sees visible light. By seeing the anomalous disturbances generated from magicules that course around the soul inside the body as the microwave photons pass through, I could see the outline of Shizue's soul.

That is most likely the Spiritual Body, which means...

"Ugh."

I pulled up the goggles. Its weight might have been uncomfortable had I remained a human, but as a Perfect Homunculus, it was no problem.

I felt frustrated. The annoyed type of frustration that comes from when things just don't work out as intended even after you try multiple times. The goggles are too primitive. I don't know what I was thinking when I built it with the remaining leftover scraps.

I then looked at the various tools I've built. Then, I picked up one of them to observe it.

The tool in question looked somewhat like one of the drills that dentists use to clean your teeth. In reality, it was a 'scalpel' that shot out a stream of Gamma rays that decayed rapidly into radiowaves like a blowtorch.

Then, I pulled the goggles back down to my eyes. With my remaining free hand, I placed a finger on an exposed part of Shizue's skin.

My chest glowed a crimson red, so bright that it shone through the sterile outfit I was wearing. Like roots from a growing tree, threads of the same glowing crimson grew down my arm, covering it in such a thick layer that it looked almost as if only my blood vessels were visible.

Now, I was able to see exactly Shizue's soul, so much clearer than before.

If I had to describe what a soul 'looked' (you can't really see it since it's blocked by a human's fleshy body) like, I would say it's like this 'gaseous' thing that's permeated throughout the body.

Doing the spiritual equivalent of a full-body MRI scan, I found an anomaly within Shizue's soul. Like finding a virus, the anomaly was fundamentally different from the superhuman's Astral Body and was wrapped around it like a python choking out its victim.

The edge of my lips curled up into a small smile.

"Gotcha," I then proceeded with the next part; which was preparing the transferred body. Pressing a button on the graphene panel next to me, a section of the room's wall opened up to reveal a fleshy blob creature. The thing was covered in human skin but looked more like a slug as it didn't have any bones, limbs, or much of anything besides organs and a 'mouth' with feeding tubes stuck in it.

This was a genetically engineered immortal organism, created from Shizue's very own DNA. I created this organism in hopes of fooling the Greater Spirit into thinking it's also Shizue. However, as with all clones, this organism has no soul whatsoever to speak of, so once Ifrit realizes this they'll obviously attempt to break out.

I don't know the effect of time experience on possessed spirits, but I still made the blob experience time much slower compared to that of a human. With this safety measure in place, I want to trap Ifrit inside the blob creature long enough for me to clear the area and gear up to fight the Greater Spirit

Grabbing the laser blowtorch 'scalpel' I had specially crafted for this occasion, [Surgery], [Metaphysics], and [Soul] carefully guided my hands as I slowly and meticulously began the first cut on Shizue's body. As the soul is within one's body since I don't have the confidence to remove it without any loss of function, the laser blowtorch cut into Shizue's flesh as well as her soul.

This means I must be both aware of where the laser is cutting on the spiritual and the physical since if I merely touch Shizue's heart with this laser I'd instantly kill her.

I stared intensely at the laser blowtorch as it made the first cut, its effective range is currently three centimeters. It was a curious sight, with the beginnings of the laser blowtorch being invisible while half a centimeter away from the emitter radiating a rainbow of visible light.

It looked almost as if the laser blowtorch was somehow telekinetically holding a pinprick of the rainbow.

[Biology] then reminded me how it was due to my being unable to see Gamma and X-rays, so as the photons decay into a less energetic state I could finally observe them when they crept into the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The smell of burnt flesh saturated the room like a morbid incense after I carefully pulled the laser blowtorch away from Shizue, having completed the first incision. My muscles were still ridiculously tense.

I turned the laser blowtorch off before breathing a sigh of relief and hanging my head like a Christmas decoration. I was like a student who has just finished the first really hard question on an exam that'll account for like 50% of their grade.

Feeling the muscles in my arms much more relaxed than before thanks to the breathing technique, I turned the laser blowtorch back on again and started another incision.

This is probably the most stressful situation I've ever been in both lives. Like carving a statue but you only have a single stone, I currently don't possess any abilities to heal a soul, so any mistake I make is likely permanent and very crippling since that's a wound upon Shizue's soul itself.

Even with [Silenced Emotion] running so high, I can't help but continue to be tense. Leaning forward, my eyes were mere centimeters away from the smoking incision point and my focus never waivered even for a millisecond.

Completing the second cut, I turned to face the clock and saw how only four minutes had passed.

"This... is going to take some time isn't it?" Dread was clear in my tone.

Looking down at her body with two long lines of burnt flesh that can be healed with a single transfusion of stem cells, I next looked down at my articles of clothing in an attempt to distract myself from the feeling of biting off more than I could chew.

My current clothing will cause anyone to think of a surgeon mid-operation. However, the massive piece of electronic goggles on my head makes them think either it's Halloween, I'm in a Military get-up, or I'm a very confused cosplayer.

Feeling somewhat refreshed, my attention returned to the patient in front of me.

"Time to get back to work."

_____________________________________________

Here's something I was able to conclude definitively: souls and the intangible spirit were affected by electromagnetic radiation, and probably gravity as well. Based on how quickly Shizue's soul was cut, it seemed the more energetic the radiation, the more it affected the soul.

The process is similar to how giving too much energy to a machine would overclock it. And being overclocked long enough would kill the spirit itself.

Granted, this isn't very likely to happen since people often have fleshy bodies that would absorb most of the radiation one would be exposed to from day-to-day activity, concentrated sources would eventually render even the meat armor useless.

However, spiritual beings such as True Dragons seem to have a such high tolerance for radiation that when I asked [Laser] how to kill a True Dragon, the specialty responded by giving me the blueprint for a tinkertech Gamma laser that utilizes the power of an entire galaxy to overlock their soul and cause it to implode.

This world views True Dragons as supreme immortal beings that cannot be put down permanently. The text about them describes the Four as something more akin to natural disasters rather than any being with intelligence, with emphasis on 'disaster' for Veldora.

Could a True Dragon reincarnate from their very soul collapsing in on itself akin to a singularity that forms from the death of a star?

All my specialties are silent on the matter.

Logic dictates that everything that has a beginning will also have an ending, yet these True Dragons defy that. They seemingly defy entropy. They don't obey the laws of thermodynamics, as they generate more energy than they consume. In fact, magic in general seems to break many iron-clad laws about the physical universe.

I had always viewed entropy as the ultimate enemy before my reincarnation. But upon seeing the visage of True Dragons, I see them as more akin to cosmic recycling bins or cosmological reversal machines responsible for beating back entropy, and that's the reason why I think they are unkillable:

True Dragons are living, breathing— EXISTING— Maxwell's Demons that perpetually release energy out into the universe to starve out the Heat Death of the universe, or in this case, the Multiverse.

To make an enemy out of one would be the height of foolishness, I can't say enough that I was glad Veldora was trapped in that prison.

To fight against Maxwell's Demon is to fight against infinity itself: they have an infinite amount of energy to throw at you, while you have a finite amount. Perhaps they're constrained by how much they release at once but the point still stands: they can always outlast you.

The fact that Veldora was trapped in that cave gave me some hope in containing the other three True Dragons in case they went rampaging or became an issue. [Dimensional Physics] and [Quantum Physics] suggest the barrier that caged the Storm Dragon was built with an enlarged form of a single bubble of the quantum foam. The very fact that it's possible with magic or skills to do is...

Disturbing. Right now, that technology is completely out of my reach, even more so than the gravastar shield of [Dimensional Physics].

I finished that grim thought as I finally reached the cancerous growth within the spiritual body: Ifrit itself.

Shizue's body looked like it had undergone a serious case of medieval torture. Burnt scars and cauterized wounds were sprawled all over her body, all with varying depths like the trenches on an ocean floor. From a single glance, I'd say there was less than 50% of her original skin remaining.

If this had been my old world, I'd be charged with a serious case of disfigurement and medical malpractice, but with the technology I have access to, I can heal all of Shizue's scars without any evidence that it had existed in the first place.

In fact, the sole reason Shizue was still alive at this point was due to tinkertechs made by [Life Support].

Focusing on Ifrit, it 'looked' somewhat like a massive burning flame that was consuming part of the superhuman's soul. It was slowly but surely expanding itself and would've completely consumed her in a few months or so. In medical terminology, it was like me seeing late-stage cancer.

I took a deep breath while turning my head to hear that satisfying crack while also doing the same to my fingers.

The final stage. I'll need to concentrate like I never had before to successfully carve out the growth and place it inside the blob.

I've already come this far, there is no chance I'm failing. Yet the required precision is so fine that even modern machines would have trouble with it.

The laser blowtorch neared Shizue's body once more, and I held my breath. The final stretch.

Right before the laser could burn more of her skin, it distanced itself.

I feel stressed out, like a student moment away from getting the result of an exam. A single mistake and best case scenario, Ifrit would be alerted. Worse case, Shizue dies.

God damn, this is like performing a lobotomy with only yourself and a kitchen knife! It's doable but it requires so much precision and finesses...

Anxiety occupied my body, making sweat continuously drip down my head and my head felt a sense of constant restlessness.

I took several deep breaths, and my anxiety was tempered a bit, but it was still there.

Having Shizue as a bodyguard would aid me immensely. There was no way I was going to let her die before she had fulfilled her contract with me.

I turned back on the laser blowtorch and returned to my surgery— white, glowing, staring.

Shizue was now suddenly awake and was now staring at me. Her eyes were white and there were whisps of fire around her.

"Ah!" I suddenly back away, my hand grasping my chest as an obvious sign of my past as a human despite no longer having a heartbeat.

How the hell is she awake? That super anesthetic I injected her with was strong enough to put a blue whale to sleep!

The silence was suffocating as I froze in shock. Shizue continued to stare at me like the main monster in some kind of horror movie right before the jump scare.

The bed she's on suddenly begins to glow and slag like a wax structure in an oven as her body is consumed in flames, her clothing and flesh remain unharmed tell me of what's happening;

That being Ifrit had somehow awakened during the surgery.

Fuck, how? Did being almost cut off from their host somehow automatically awaken Ifrit? Like how animals become much stronger as their bodies release adrenaline in moments of danger?

I started backing away from the bedridden form of Shizue. Step by step I neared the exit of the pocket dimension. Just as I was about to hit the lockdown button beside the pocket dimension, the operating bed that Shizue was on was now outright melting from the heat that Shizue's possessed form radiated. Anything flammable— from paper to certain chemicals— all burst into flames.

Opening the exit door to a stretch of another hallway, I smacked the lockdown button before closing the exit door on an emerging Ifrit.

Cool air greeted me. I was deposited into my lab.

"Fuck." I ripped off the goggles and my eyes focused on a single spot on the ceiling as I lay there in a daze before taking control of myself and getting up.

Quickly jogging over to a panel on the wall, I pressed the leftmost button out of three on the panel.

"The Lab is now under a Level 3 Lockdown with a single Class Keter object running loose, please evacuate the area until an Officer affirms it's safe." A synthesized voice announced, both inside the lab and outside while every nearby security guard was alerted of this fact.

After the populace was alerted, I ran towards a vault door on the other side of the room, sidestepping many machines, tools, and other tripping hazards. From the corner of my right eye, I saw a computer monitor displaying a warning that the pocket dimension's stability is rapidly decreasing, and is projected to collapse in 93 seconds.

Inputting my right index finger into a hole in the vault door, the edge of my mouth tread downward as a sharp pain greeted it. Pulling out, I saw a tiny droplet of blood covering the pinprick wound created by a needle.

It was a biometric security measure. I assumed that any magic user could replicate a person's voice, fingerprints, iris, and password, so I implemented the most secure method of identity verification I have access to as of right now.

Seconds passed, and the vault door clicked open, only to accelerate as I pulled on the door.

Inside this vault is where I kept my most advanced weapons to fight against Ifrit.

The opened vault revealed multiple large weapon racks filled to the brim with props to a science fiction space opera film. Only, they weren't props, they were actual weapons that could arm a squad and have them fight with the power equivalent to multiple regiments.

Normally I would only enter after a thorough cleaning and decontamination but this is hardly normal, isn't it?

Something came down from the ceiling of the inside of the vault. It was a black sludge with the consistency of corn syrup. The black sludge continued sliding down my body like water in a shower as I reached for a disk-like object.

Placing it over my chest, the black sludge nearest to the disk hardened and smoothed itself out, and very quickly, more and more of the black sludge hardened until I was inside a form-fitting nanosuit.

In reality, despite looking rather scary, the black sludge was nothing more than a collection of multiple colonies of nanomachines with each a specialized purpose that worked together to create a quick and protective armor.

In the aftermath of my and Shizue's battle, I realized the Aerial Combat System, while capable of dishing out great acts of violence, limited me too much in terms of quick movement. The nanosuit was designed to remedy many of the ACS's shortcomings by aiding me in movements instead of restricting them.

While it can not fly, I can punch and physically react to things much more quickly.

I tried to take a deep breath and was successful despite my head being completely covered.

"Filter: successful."

Next, the areas around my eyes lit up to display what I would be seeing had my head not been covered by the black nanosuit. Heads-up displays overlaid my vision, giving me information about where I was and the weapons in front of me.

Looking over the entire weapon selection, my eyes stayed on a large sci-fi-looking gun with blue and grey as its main color schemes. Physically, it's a little larger than your average M-249.

The nanosuit's HUD showed it was the 'Entropy Rifle'.

The Entropy Rifle is what I made one night when I tried to make a quantum computer, only to realize that I'll need near Absolute Zero temperatures. Now, any normal person would likely just send the computer up to space but I have a different solution (and I don't have the capacity to send anything to space yet): [Refrigeration]. Once I was done with the computer and had decided to house it underneath the lab, I realized that combining [Refrigeration] and [Laser] had given me the blueprint for a freeze gun.

Recalling the fact that there is elemental magic in this world and that the fire element is one of the most destructive, I made the rifle in a few hours to combat any potential fire or water users.

The Entropy Rifle is essentially a kinetic siphoner. Whatever the ray hits, it saps the energy out and stores it within the gun, leaving the target colder than before.

How this affects spirits is unknown and requires field tests.

"Well, the best politicians know how to use a crisis to their advantage, I guess I should do the same, shouldn't I?"

However, just in case, I grabbed a Pulse Rifle as well since lasers have proven effective against spiritual lifeforms and souls.

With a single flip of two switches, the E-Rifle and the Pulse hum to life.

I turned to leave the vault—

*KABOOOM*

A massive explosion occurred that sent out a shockwave which slammed the vault door closed. Particles of dust fell from the ceiling and the whole room rocked as though it was on a ship sailing in a storm.

Ifrit must've gone out—

Wait, if this is outside— my tinkertech. Ifrit destroyed my labs and thus, all my tools are gone.

Despite [Silenced Emotion] running so high, I couldn't help but feel what felt like an ice cube sliding down my back.

God fucking damn it! My tools! My tinkertech!

Instead of physically exploding out in rage, I merely thinned my lips until they could no longer be seen.

_____________________________________________

The thick vault door creaked open as I pushed with a single hand. The sight of my laboratory half-destroyed didn't confirm the worst of my fears since things were at least salvageable.

The whole roof of the laboratory was gone, everything was in a wreck, and the surgery unit was a slag of melted metal, rendered beyond usefulness.

Through the destroyed roof, I could see exactly how the skies were now filled with dark clouds that blotted out the sun.

Ominous. It was as if the sunlight was fleeing away from what was about to come.

"Well, at least this ain't the Dark Lord huh?" I chuckled at my joke. Looking at the floating body of Shizue, a massive amount of Magicule is leaking out creating a massive firestorm with her at the center.

Without any context and just looking at the current situation, I'd have easily assumed that Shizue was a human who got experimented on, gained superpowers, and somehow broke free from the researchers.

The hovering woman stared at me in particular. I felt a bit unsettled, as with the nanosuit zooming in on her face, I could see clearly how lifeless her eyes were, as if— well she IS possessed forcefully due to Ifrit's untimely awakening.

The nanosuit showed how the temperature in the firestorm was in excess of 2500 kelvin.

I pushed aside the feeling of wastefulness, raised the Entropy Rifle, and pulled the trigger without a single hesitation.

*ZEERM*

The air around the beam flash-cooled and the carbon dioxide formed condensed into liquid form and fell like rain before quickly boiling away before it could touch the ground.

The freezing beam didn't even touch Shizue inside her firestorm.

Damn. Pulse lasers it is then—

Before I could level the other weapon at Shizue, the firestorm veiled my misbehaving subordinate's form completely. Once the firestorm passed, my finger hesitated when I saw that in Shizue's place was a fiery dark-skinned male with horns on his head and strips of fabric wrapped around his waist.

"Huh?"

Using my moment of indecision, a bright circle that wouldn't look out of place in a cultist ritual appeared underneath me. [Magicule] instantly dissected the thing and acknowledged its existence as 'somewhat boring' before giving me the information about what it is and its purpose.

Fucker intends to vaporize me with a [Flare Circle]...

As I was thinking this, the nanosuit took emergency control over my movement and threw me out of the circle's radius.

Instinctively, I tried to resist as any normal person would when they suddenly started moving but still, the suit managed to throw me out of the range not a single millisecond too late as the moment I was out of the circle's radius, an inferno of fire erupted where I had once stood.

The suit threw me out with such a great force that I went through a section of the laboratory's remaining walls. I rolled out into the streets like wheels on a car before stopping.

The first thing on my mind was perhaps I should adjust the nanosuit's automatic dodging program, as when it threw me out of the ruins of the lab, I was accelerating at 15 g worth of force, more than enough to cause unconsciousness had I remained a human.

Looking around the cityscape, I saw no hobgoblins anywhere near as the security teams had formed a perimeter 40 meters out in the distance.

Turning back to face my laboratory, I saw that nothing remained. Even the wreckage was gone.

[Silenced Emotion: 80%]

Looks like I can't recycle my lab anymore.

A cold fury consumed me. Unlike the usual fury, you would find in places like road rages, what consumed me was a passive anger that causes people to commit great and terrible acts to remedy.

I aimed the Pulse laser dispassionately at Ifrit like a seasoned medieval executioner being called up to decapitate another criminal. With [Marksman] controlling my arm and hand, I fired off short bursts of gamma lasers at Ifrit which all will hit.

*VE—VE—VE—VE—VE—VE*

It sounded like a toy laser gun. Pulses of blindly bright light shot forth from the Pulse Rifle, all aimed at a particular spot on Ifrit's body.

Unlike what most fiction would have you believe, lasers that are capable of melting iron in an instant have huge waste heat, so instead of having a continuous wave that slowly chips away and melts the focusing lens, I decided to prolong the lifespan by having it shoot out small pulses of a normally super powerful laser.

"Arh," multiple circular, sunken wounds appeared on Ifrit's chest. The Greater Spirit of Fire looked down at his wounds, appearing almost shocked and offended at how a person like me was the cause of it.

Six massive pillars of flame erupted around Ifrit, lighting up the crater and making him look more like a demon than any spirit, what with all the fire and brimstone motif. The pillars subsided to reveal fucking flying demons.

No, not now [Biology] and [Magicule], I don't care if they're actually some kind of salamanders. If it looks like a demon, flies like a demon, and throws fire around like a demon, then it might as well be a demon.

I ignored the part of my mind that was insisting I name them as what they actually are according to those two specialties.

Not the time! My abductive reasoning is perfectly fine for now!

Those flying demons then flew around, setting fire to everything below them.

Oh, you may have destroyed my lab, but you're not destroying Metropolis. I raised the E-Rifle and pulled the trigger.

I won't allow it.

*ZEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERM*

Since it was a continuous beam, the sections that didn't hit the demons continued to fly toward the sky and caused areas of the dark cloud to condense into snowflakes.

As for the demons, the effect of the E-Rifle was instantaneous. The flying demons weren't able to fly anymore frozen, and gravity's pull upon those supernatural entities took hold once more causing them to shatter like a glass statue when they hit the ground.

"HEY, YA SURE YOU'RE A SPIRIT? CAUSE WITH ALL THIS FIRE AND LAVA MAKES YOU SEEM MORE LIKE A DEMON!" The suit projected out my yell before I fired a short burst of the E-Rifle once again, this time at full power.

*ZEEEERM*

Upon hitting the fire spirit, Ifrit seemed to go into cardiac shock with his mouth opened wide and the fire on his hair temporally extinguished before it was back once more.

"Heh," I had a smile on my face, it seemed that the Kinetic Siphoner was a resounding success.

Continuing with that trend, I again blast the spirit-demon thing with more of the E-Rifle, only this time Ifrit moved at the last second and I was only able to hit the Spirit's tail as he quickly moved out of the way.

"Hrm." Leveling both rifles at Ifrit, my hands were guided by [Marksman] as I began to act more like a sentry turret letting out a barrage of both freeze rays and pulse lasers.

*ZZEEEEEEEERM*

*VE—VE—VE—*

*ZEEEEEEEEEEERM*

*VE—VE—VE—VE—*

All of them were a bull's eye, as expected. With only two charges into [Marksman], I can definitely hit the eye of a human target from over ten kilometers away.

"RRRRRRAAAAAAAARGH!"

A heavily damaged Ifrit responded by breathing massive gout of fire in my direction with the intent of vaporizing me again.

The nanosuit automatically moved quicker than I could react the moment it detected the build-up of heat, thus, only part of my foot was caught within that cone of fire. Thankfully, in the area where the heat had melted the nanites were ejected like waste, quickly replaced by fresh new ones gathered from elsewhere on my nanosuit.

Turning my attention back to the fire spirit, I questioned my own eyes when I saw that there were now a dozen Ifrits.

"The fuck?" I couldn't help but swear.

"Scientia!" A familiar voice called out to me.

I turned my head to face an approaching Rimuru on wolve-back. Normally such a sight would've made my brain pause and do a doubletake, but since I'd already seen it in the form of goblin riders, I merely made a note of it inside my head.

"Rim—"

Before I could even say his name, the nanosuit automatically moved again when another [Flare Circle] formed underneath me. Just like before, I barely got out of the way as I barreled into another building.

I was like a child in a city made out of cardboard.

"RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

I could feel the frustration coming off of Ifrit from that roar.

As I was within the cover of the building, I stared down at the half-broken and sparking Pulse Rifle, barely operational thanks to that barrel through a wall while the E-Rifle was still functioning at full capacity. An idea came to mind.

Peaking out of the hole I came into this building through, I spotted Rimuru was now fighting against Ifrit with spider silk and sonic blasts.

He should be able to buy me enough time for what I'm about to do.

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AN: now this may be unpopular that Inspired Inventor can recreate the effect of other Ultimate Skills, but there will be an explanation for it.

Also concerning spiritual lifeforms, due to how vague the series is about whether or not physics can affect spiritual lifeforms, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that weapons like railguns or chemical explosives DO NOT affect spirits but directed energy weapons like lasers or focused radiation do some damage. Also, True Dragons and Primordial Demons often possess or create a body for them to interact with the world, meaning that if at any time in the future, you see them wincing from a railgun blast, know that it's due to it chipping away at their physical body.

(the very fact that, according to the Tensura Discord, no one can go FTL except cheating it using portaling shows that the spirits obey at least some laws of physics)

Shizue/Ifrit is considered a half-spirit, that's why the E-Rifle worked so well. Scientia is going to have a rude awakening when they fight against a spiritual lifeform.

Also since gravity affects spirits, I'm going to say that weapons utilizing such forces will also affect them.