Taking the Mikhail

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Spirit : Outworld Destroyer

Level : 5

Abilities :

Forbidden Knowledge (Rank 1) : User can catch a glimpse into the truth of a being or object. Chance of discovering something hidden, obscured, or usually nonsensical, effectiveness depends on user's Intelligence.

Arcane Orb (Rank 1) : User creates an orb of pure arcane energy which penetrates all defence and attacks the body and soul directly. Ability is entirely dependant on user's Intelligence, it uses a percentage of user's whole mana to cast and deals bonus damage based on the amount used.

Astral Imprisonment (Rank 1) : Locks a target away in a hidden pocket dimension for its duration, and temporarily steals the Intelligence of those affected. Deals damage to the target and those around it once the duration ends.

Essence Shift (Rank 2) : User gains a percentage of his mana back after every cast spell. Enables user to absorb mana from his surroundings.

Sanitiy's Eclipse (Rank 0) : A large-scale psychic attack that deals massive damage to all those caught in it. Bonus damage is dealt to those who have lesser Intelligence than the user.

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Outworld Destroyer's abilities are exactly as Michael had expected, though, Essence Shift didn't work as he'd initially expected. The way it worked was by using the mana expended after each spell to open minuscule rifts to random dimensions and sucking up mana from there. He didn't have to worry about sucking an area dry of magic due to this.

Arcane Orb was a stupidly powerful spell too, the ability to negate most defences was incredibly effective... The only real problem was actually hitting someone with it, the orbs moved somewhat slowly, not only that, they were quite big and bright depending on how much mana was used in their creation, making them extremely visible.

Regardless, he'd spent enough time playing around for now. He'd visit Medusa and Spectre later to see if they were willing to be friendly. His new [Lich Lord] ability basically made him able to bring any of his spirits out whenever he wanted, though, the restriction of them being under his current rank still applied.

His deal with Shadow Fiend was still active, especially now considering his Conceptual ties to Deals, Pacts, and Bargains that he'd inherited from Clavicus Vile. If he was ever able to before, he now couldn't breach the terms of his contract, any attempts to do so may result in his destruction... He couldn't die of course, but he imagined having a Concept linked to your soul stripped from you was very, very painful.

Fortunately, his deal with Shadow Fiend specified freeing his soul from the book, meaning that he wasn't required to summon him into reality because his soul would still be trapped...

Shaking his head, he uses Haunt to appear directly in from of a now clumsily wandering Charlotte who seemed pretty out of it.

She stops before him and her face freezes as anger, desperation, guilt, and rage overtake her features.

Michael was pretty taken aback by her reaction, but soon realised the problem... She'd been enslaved by Clavicus Vile, who he now was... "Chill out Charlotte..." he tries pacifying her while reaching up and snapping his new horns off.

He couldn't completely remove them but that didn't mean he couldn't stop them from growing... He reaches his hand into his inventory and pulls out some metal, an ebony and gold alloy he'd been messing around with in the past.

With his new Phoenix abilities combined with the control he'd learnt from Lina's teachings, he melts them, and with Telekinesis crafts them into two dark gold rings. Ebony was closely interlinked with death due to it being the blood of Lorkhan, and gold was very good at holding enchantments.

With this in mind, he layers the Concept of Death over them before sliding one on each of the knubs of his horns, preventing them from growing any further.

"Voilà, back to my usual handsome self... Somewhat." he adds at the end since his horns were still visible...

Charlotte just continues staring at him, this time in utter confusion... "Michael...?"

"Yep." he grins, popping the 'P'.

"How..." she trails off, unsure on where to start.

"How did I free you? How did I beat Clavicus? Why do I have horns? Why does some of my hair resemble yours?" he lists off on his fingers.

"... Yes."

"All of the above? Let's go home first so I don't have to repeat myself." he starts while reaching a hand out to her, only for her to quickly back away in suspicion.

"Prove it. Prove who you are." she all but demands, her staff at the ready despite how disoriented she is at the sudden reclamation of her soul.

He rubs his chin at that, "Your mother likes painting, and the first one she did in this world was of the Statue of Azura."

...

"That not enough? How about Illococoo being Sylphid? Or Kirche being your best friend school?"

"No... You could have taken that from my mind... Do something only Michael could do..." her eyes shine slightly as an idea comes to her, "Make a pact that you are Michael."

"Sure." Michael easily says, conjuring a binding contract made of magical parchment. He'd learn the method to do so from Clavicus, who had a flair for this sort of thing, kind of like Rumpelstiltskin when he really thought about it.

He hands it to the girl but she quickly frowns and backs away when she reads through it... "Mikhail?"

"Ah, right. That's my name now, not by choice or anything, like a regular name I guess?" he sheepishly admits.

...

She lets out a sigh and give a small smile, "Only Michael is so dumb..."

"I'll have you know that I'm probably the smartest person in existence right now." he irritatedly retorts, eight hundred Intelligence was equivalent to twenty-six geniuses of geniuses among humans stuffed into one person.

"Liar."