The Shadow Fighter

Melany jumped back after her attack on the spirit failed. It can't trap me within the effect of her domain, but the longer I stay here; the more exhausted my shadow spirit gets, weakening its related skills.

"Demon dogs! Defence mode!" She jumped back several times as the dogs followed her while biting the tentacles coming out of the spirit.

I need to find its weakness; I can't keep fighting like this. I will be the one to lose a battle of attrition. As she looked for a weakness, one of her two demon dogs got stabbed, disappearing back into the shadows.

Melany used [Shadow's Step] to teleport out of the way of one of the attacks and landed upside down on the ceiling. With her hand, she formed a snake. [Shadow's Beast: Demon Snake]

A large snake that was over one hundred feet in length emerged from the shadows, wrapping itself around the spirit's tentacles and squeezing them in one place. Melany ran on the snake's back and charged straight at the spirit, deflecting the remaining tentacles as she got ready for a large attack.

The spirit pulled its box with tentacles and dodged Melany's attack.

I can't defeat it. I'm too weak, too slow, and far too predictable, even for such a creature. I can't be a great leader like my sister is. Should I retreat, I'm free to do that based on his command. No, why am I trying to flee? Again, I won't run again.

Melany and the spirit clashed, the snake and remaining dog did their best to reduce the tentacle numbers as she tried to land a hit, but that wasn't enough. The spirit is her birthplace, its own domain, fighting here is extremely disadvantageous as it would have a near-infinite supply of mana.

****

Alice stared at the mantis and took a deep breath. "You aren't a good runner, are you? That frog could cover a large distance in the blink of an eye." She said, and the mantis charged forward, swinging his arm.

With a smile on her face, Alice slipped beneath his attack and ran away. "See you later! I have more important things to do." She conjured a blast of air beneath her feet and jumped away, lunging from one grass blade to another. Unlike Liam, Alice wasn't willing to kill if she wasn't forced to. As a hero, she understood that sometimes, killing is the only option, but when it comes to the current time, there is no need to harm that mantis.

She stared into the sky with her glowing eyes. Liam is flying toward the mansion…how is he doing that? Am I the only one still unable to do anything? That can't be true.

She looked at her hand. The spirit's magic had made us smaller, that includes our spells. But on the other hand, hour magic capacity wasn't affected, which means I should be able to use way more spells now that they are smaller.

Alice took a deep breath and jumped into the air. This is like giving me several hundred my normal magic capacity, which means that on this scale, I can do this.

She flicked her hand [Bugendai Sozo] she focused on the mansion where she could feel Melany and the spirit clash. A ball of chaos emerged in front of her finger, a single powerful bullet to finish the fight. On that scale, it's like trying to snipe a giant from several miles away.

CHIRP!

Alice turned rapidly to see a bird at her side. At this time? She gasped, shutting the spell over, and twisted her torso to dodge the bird. The bird missed her, but tentacles grew from its back, rushing at Alice and catching her.

"Don't tell me…" She growled and the bird fell on the ground, pinning her in place. "Get off me!"

Several mantis and wolf spiders approached them, tentacles emerging from their bodies as they got ready to attack. Alice could recognize the mantis she spared, he was there coming back to kill her.

"Those… are all controlled by the spirit." She growled, grinding her teeth. "Fine, sorry for letting you suffer." She looked down with a sad face. The last thing she wanted was to have to kill some animals, but it couldn't be helped, they were already infested and controlled by the spirit.

"I'll put you out of your misery. Let death be a relief from your suffering!" She shouted and the bird exploded.

She stood there in the middle of all the bugs, standing with a fist pointed at the sky. "A hero's mission isn't to bring justice, or to slay evil." She suddenly disappeared from their vision, punching the mantis she faced before and killing it with a blast.

"A hero is a mere mortal born from our races, to protect us." She started jumping from one spider to another, blasting them from left to right.

"I never carried a holy mission, nor cared about the gods. I've never served a kingdom, nor cared about status." She took half of the mantises down and faced a swarm of bees and wasps.

"A hero's job is to protect the people, preserve their lives, and relieve them from suffering." She pointed a finger at them, blasting hordes of infested wasps.

"So rest in peace, your suffering has finally come to an end." She rushed through the swarms, putting an end to them.

****

Liam flew into the hallway where Melany was fighting the spirit and he landed on an old cabinet. "What a dusty place." He coughed, walking beside the ant.

He sat on the edge and started watching Melany fight. "She's doing pretty well, don't you say?" He looked at the ant with a smile.

"Worried about your colony? The spirit only started infecting the bugs and animals when we entered, it's like a defense mechanism. I've chosen your colony since it wasn't infected yet, and I made sure the spirit won't even manage to do that." He couldn't understand what the ant was thinking about, but he could only guess.

A massive tentacle that's enough to catch a normal-sized human creeps behind them and the ant notices it first. "Don't bother." Liam said, and it got sliced into pieces.

Controlling the size of my [Hakai] is part of its trade mechanism… I can just make them bigger to counter that.

Melany dodged the spirit's attacks but her stamina was quickly drying out, her breath grew heavier and her movement began slowing down. All the while the spirit seemed to be growing faster and faster the longer they stayed here.

It didn't take Liam long to figure out what the spirit was from watching the fight. That's a human corpse, a young one, probably a child. It seems to have been crushed in a barrier spell… How did that happen? He flew away on the ant's back, looking for clues.