Summoner Sovereign

So I just prepared for another attack. Eliza, having the same idea, charged at me again, but I was ready this time. Drawing both Hei Yue and Bai Ri, I parried her gigantic broadsword, but my knees buckled under the heavy impact. The ground around us crumbled and shattered and I found myself almost falling over, but I gritted my teeth and held firm.

"!!!"

While Eliza was focused on me, she almost didn"t the fiery feathers in time. Bound to my will, Vermilion Phoenix fired his fiery feathers upon our position. Despite the risk of friendly fire, I had him do so because I knew I wouldn"t last long under Eliza"s relentless attack. Drawing Hei Yue back, I countered with a riposte, but Eliza dodged to the side and cleaved at me with her broadsword. I parried her strike with Bai Ri, only to be sent skidding a few meters back.

Pressing her advantage, Eliza swung her sword and conjured a powerful defensive sphere that withstood Vermillion Phoenix"s bombardment. As for me, I hopped back to avoid the stray fiery feathers that streaked in my direction. As I said before, accuracy was not one of my strengths, and the abilities of my Soul Beasts mirrored that. Vermillion Phoenix"s attack, while not very precise, was still more than adequate to force Eliza back and into defense.

"I"ll have you know that my Defense and Defense Support stats are ranked S, and my Attack and Agility are ranked A! Only my Attack Support is ranked B, and I have no Special stat because I don"t use elemental magic like you do!"

She was so confident that she could afford to boast to me about meaningless stats. The h.e.l.l was I supposed to do with such stupid information? What did an S-ranked or ranked stat even mean? I didn"t even know what my stats were, so this was just gibberish to me. In the first place, how do you measure and determine a person"s strength or defense? The amount of kilograms of force he or she can apply with a punch or sword strike? The amount of mana output, in kilojoules? How do you measure defense? The amount of force his or her body can withstand before dying? How did you even define the parameters through which you measured and rank stats in the first place?

All these ranks and numerical values were meaningless. In the first place, the strength of humans wasn"t something you could simply measure in numbers, and they tended to fluctuate according to situation. How about emotional impact? According to different circ.u.mstances, when under a lot of stress (such as life-threatening situations), the amount of adrenaline and hormonal changes could increase your strength tremendously. Do lab-controlled experiments designed to measure your strength account for such scenarios?

Whatever the case, I couldn"t afford to let my thoughts wander. Eliza had cut the fiery bombardment apart and was lunging at me with her ma.s.sive broadsword. She braved the shower of fire from above and closed in on me.

I c.o.c.ked my head to the right, but didn"t raise my swords.

"!!"

A barrage of icicles materialized and almost impaled Eliza when she barreled forward. Black Tortoise had recovered and he was slowly lumbering forward, casting his ice spells in an attempt to drive the Paladin back. The blue-haired girl hopped backward, easily evading the rising ice stalagmites, and instead used them as a platform to hop from one to another. Ascending through the air deftly, she then launched herself at my Vermillion Phoenix, who was soaring overhead to provide fire support from the air.

"Vermillion Phoenix! Get away!"

I didn"t make it in time, neither my mental command nor verbal warning. Eliza"s broadsword flashed down and sliced Vermillion Phoenix in half, causing him to explode into flames. Burning parts of his body rained down on the ground, blazing feathers that curled up and slowly dissipated into crimson mana. Cursing under my breath, I rushed forward, right where Eliza landed on the ground. She swung her broadsword up and around, driving me back.

Despite crossing both of my swords to parry her blow, I was hurled back amidst a shower of violent sparks. Eliza paused for a moment to catch her breath after landing heavily from her aerial attack, and then she sprang at me.

"White Tiger!"

Before she could cut me down, I completed my summoning spell. Despite moving around for quite a bit, I did not exceed the hundred meters from when I started casting the spell, and I was able to bring the huge Celestial Guardian into existence just in time. Lightning flared as he materialized between me and Eliza, his claws las.h.i.+ng out ferociously.

"!!!"

Eliza deflected his claws to the side, but lethal lighting combusted and almost knocked her to the side. She crashed to the ground and quickly rolled to her feet, flicking her hands and grimacing as she tried to suppress the numbing feeling of the electricity that now flowed through her body. With her Paladin"s blessing and defense, she managed to dispel the lightning, though it certainly cost her quite a bit of mana.

"What a troublesome opponent," she muttered darkly. I smiled and shrugged.

"Leo!" I called out as I raced toward her, supported by White Tiger from the side. My golden lion manifested into being on the opposite side, and the two Soul Beasts flanked a struggling Eliza while I came at her from the front.

"Hah!"

With a yell, Eliza, plunged her broadsword into the ground and created a sphere that enveloped her. Both Leo and White Tiger bounced off the s.h.i.+mmering barrier, their claws finding no purchase in the protective enchantment. As for me, I veered off at the last moment, knowing that neither of my swords would penetrate such a fearsome barrier.

"This is the same spell she used to protect herself from Vermillion Phoenix"s flames earlier," I murmured. It wasn"t as powerful as my Black Tortoise"s water sphere, but it was still quite the formidable barrier. Even though Vermillion Phoenix failed to…

…or did he? Something that Eliza said earlier came to mind. She was telling me about her Blessing right after Vermillion Phoenix hit her with that attack from earlier, didn"t she? She didn"t just mention the boost in her defense, but also…healing. In fact, she mentioned healing first, before she brought up the boost in defense.

"…I see. White Tiger, Leo."

My Celestial Guardian hopped backward and began generating lots of lightning, almost causing a storm of plasma in the arena. Leo also followed suit, acc.u.mulating brilliant, golden mana into his body as he prepared to cast his spell.

Eliza frowned, and was about to drop her barrier in order to evade the devastating spells to come, but I charged forward while summoning a pride of Leo Minor. The smaller lions joined me in the charge before they spread out and attacked from all directions. I also came from the front, black and white mana wreathing both blades of Hei Yue and Bai Ri respectively before unleas.h.i.+ng them in Eliza"s direction. She defended herself from both energy blasts with her spherical barrier before hunkering down as my pride of Leo Minor threw themselves at her. Their claws scrabbled against the glowing golden sphere, leaving no effect.

"Don"t think these Soul Beasts can defeat me!" Eliza growled as she prepared another spell, but I smirked.

"Oh, no. I never thought they could."

"?!"

The pride of Leo Minor quickly retreated, all of them jumping away in perfect coordination. The moment they were gone, a jagged web of lightning slammed against Eliza"s spherical barrier, the deadly thunderbolts engulfing her in lethal rays.

"!!!"

Eliza"s eyes widened when she saw her formerly impenetrable defense began to crack. Raising her left hand, she infused her glowing sphere with more golden mana, trying to repair the damage. Despite her best efforts, the cracks continued to expand and surge all over her protective enchantment, causing her knees to buckle from the effort.

"Ugh…!"

Perspiration dripped down her face, which was growing increasingly pale, but she withstood the barrage of intense lightning. The jagged web of deadly electricity dissipated and relented after a few more seconds, the bolts exhausting themselves against Eliza"s diminis.h.i.+ng sphere. For a moment, the barrier dimmed, but Eliza quickly moved to restore as much of the enchantment as possible when she noticed the Leo Minor prowling about.

"Leo, Regulus!"

However, I wasn"t going to give her the time to recover. The moment White Tiger"s spell ended, I immediately had Leo launch an attack of his own. The golden blast of destructive mana seared forward and slammed into Eliza"s protective sphere, shattering it in an instant and engulfing her.

"AAAAH!"

Eliza let out a shriek as she was enveloped in the golden inferno, disappearing from view. She was flung several meters across the arena, cras.h.i.+ng into the wall and cracking the concrete before her fuming body slid downward.

"Ugh…ha…"

Gasping, she struggled to her feet. I could see that she had suffered grievious injuries from Leo"s full-powered Regulus. Honestly, I was surprised to see that she was still conscious.

I darted forward, getting ready to finish her off. White Tiger also joined me, lightning crackling over his ma.s.sive figure as he launched bolts at Eliza.

"!!!"

However, Eliza was far from done. Raising her broadsword, she swung her heavy weapon and blew away the lightning while also unleas.h.i.+ng a shockwave that kept me back. If I hadn"t raised my swords to defend myself, I would have been blown off my feet.

"Kuh!"

Steadying myself, I lowered my weapons and noticed the white glow that suffused Eliza. Her wounds were slowly disappearing, and she was able to straighten herself. In just a few seconds, she seemed to have suffered nothing more than a few scratches and bruises, but otherwise she was entirely unscathed from my spells earlier.

"I see…" I nodded thoughtfully as the mana readings spiked, the gauges and sensors in the lenses of my gla.s.ses going wild. "So that was what happened earlier."

It wasn"t that Vermillion Phoenix failed to destroy her barrier. Those powerful flames had succeeded in incinerating her defensive sphere earlier and burned her. However, Eliza was able to hold onto her consciousness and rely on her Blessing to to heal herself. No wonder she boasted about her Blessing, and the healing aspect was the first thing she mentioned to me.

That was the true power of her Blessing, the unique ability of the Paladin cla.s.s. I believed Pearl was taking notes at this moment, seeing how powerful a healer could be in combat. At the cost of not being able to cast other spells, healers could specialize further if they want to partic.i.p.ate in combat, and train themselves into becoming Paladins. However, only the very talented or the extremely determined and diligent healers too stubborn to give up were able to ever reach the pinnacle of combat healers and become recognized as Paladins. Not just any healer could become a Paladin just because they wanted to be. There was a lot of hard work, and some say talent and luck involved. Of course, I didn"t buy that whole talent argument, but I recognized that a very rare few people were more suited to become Paladins than other ordinary healers.

Again, healing magic wasn"t something just anyone could learn. It was a very complex branch of magic that required you to sacrifice all other forms of magic, such as elemental spells and summoning, to learn. A magic that required single-minded, focused dedication. You couldn"t afford to learn healing magic otherwise if you got too easily distracted.

However, healing magic or Paladin cla.s.s was not invincible. I was going to prove that here and now.

"White Tiger! Leo! Leo Minor!"

While Eliza was still recovering, I had my Constellation spirits attack from all sides. I joined the fight, getting the feeling that this was going to be a decisive moment.

"Naïve."

"!!!"

I quickly jumped back when I sensed something was wrong. So did Leo and White Tiger, but my pride of Leo Minor didn"t make it in time.

"Hah!"

In a single stroke, Eliza swung her broadsword and slaughtered all of my Leo Minor. I had the impression of a gigantic arc of golden mana flas.h.i.+ng across the arena, and the next thing I knew, my ferocious Constellation spirits were all flying back in pieces.

Plunging her broadsword down, Eliza sneered at me, her pet.i.te figure glowing majestically.

"Have you forgotten that I am a Paladin? I specialize in slaying monsters…your Soul Beasts included."