Chapter 7: Chasing Shadow Spirits 3/4

POV (Tiwaz Re)

Etzell and Melissa had disappeared in front of Tiwaz Re and the other spirits. That was because Tiwaz Re teleported the two of them using the teleportation technique.

Of course, the sudden disappearance of Etzell and Melissa made the spirits feel surprised. Because of their surprise, they were silent without doing anything, they just stared at Tiwaz Re as if they couldn't believe that Etzell and Melissa had just disappeared.

"Alright, let's continue the fight!" Tiwaz Re exclaimed.

"Are you sure?" Santral asked.

"Of course. I'm sorry if you found the fight boring, because I can't actually fight while protecting and restraining myself," Tiwaz Re replied.

"What a fool you are, Tiwaz Re. What nonsense are you talking about? I'm sure you're in a state of distress right now," Santral insulted.

Hearing Santral's insults, Tiwaz Re smiled a little and assumed that Santral could fulfill his wishes.

"Do I look like that?" asked Tiwaz Re.

"Not only that, you'll want to sacrifice yourself and make it look like you're protecting the two of them, when in fact you're just running away," Santral replied with confidence.

"Looking at the whereabouts of your two comrades who just disappeared, you must have used a lot of spirit energy to do so, that's not counting the fragile barriers you put up," he continued.

"Eh, is that so?" muttered Tiwaz Re.

Feeling that he had enough of the conversation that had been going on, Tiwaz Re began to focus his Mirror Flip technique without being noticed by Santral and the other spirits.

The giant mirror that Tiwaz Re had used to protect Etzell and Melissa was now starting to shrink.

"You see! Your stupid mirror also shrank once you ran out of spirit energy," Santral said.

"Hahaha! That's interesting, I hope you can fulfill my wish. Well, although I can't get my hopes up. Since you guys are using most of your power just for that fragile barrier, perhaps?" replied Tiwaz Re.

"Huh? Damn you!"

Hearing Tiwaz Re laughing loudly, Santral, who felt underestimated, was very annoyed.

"All of you, ignore the barriers! Attack Tiwaz Re with full force, focus all attacks on him!"

Then Santral ordered the spirits to attack Tiwaz Re alone. That made all the spirits inside Tiwaz Re's barrier attack him unceremoniously.

While the technique-neutralizing spirits tried to destroy Tiwaz Re's shrunken Mirror Flip, the shadow-type spirits used their techniques to create several sharp weapons such as knives, claws, and even swords. Then they attacked Tiwaz Re simultaneously.

"Huh, this is still boring," muttered Tiwaz Re.

Seeing the shadow-type spirits pointing sharp weapons coming towards him, while enduring the Mirror Flip that was cracking and shrinking due to the technique's neutralizing-type spirits, Tiwaz Re began to shrink his Mirror Flip Technique and focused on protecting himself.

Previously Tiwaz Re used a large mirror to defend, but now he used a small mirror as a defense. The reason was twofold, the first because Etzell and Melissa were no longer there, the second because the smaller the mirror, the stronger the mirror's defense.

"Keep hitting him!" Santral shouted.

Tiwaz Re continued to be attacked from all sides, shadow-type spirits and technique-neutralizing spirits worked together to destroy the small mirror surrounding Tiwaz Re. Several weapons and techniques had been launched to attack, but Tiwaz Re's Mirror Flip technique was very tough and difficult for the spirits to penetrate.

The spirits tried hard to exert all their abilities just to destroy the small mirror created by Tiwaz Re from the Mirror Flip technique. Until after a long time the spirits kept attacking, the small mirror began to crack.

"It's starting to crack, keep attacking!"

Santral was happy that the small mirror surrounding Tiwaz Re was finally cracking, which was why he kept telling the spirits to keep attacking.

"Hmm... should I try using the Shadow Cloak again? No, it will be neutralized," muttered Tiwaz Re.

Despite being attacked so ferociously by the spirits, Tiwaz Re remained calm and could still think casually. He was confident that his technique would be impenetrable because the small mirror had a 90% defense.

Tiwaz Re originally wanted to try using the Shadow Cloak technique, but he was sure that his technique would definitely be neutralized by the spirit neutralizing techniques, so he decided not to use it.

Not only that, Tiwaz Re wanted to use the Mirror Flip technique which was used to reflect spirit energy just like he did when saving Etzell yesterday, but it was much more risky, plus the use of Mirror Flip could only be used once with one type.

"Ah, I see. I'd better try to use the Body Enchantment technique," muttered Tiwaz Re again.

With a few things in mind, Tiwaz Re finally decided to try using the Body Enchantment technique. It was the best option for what he was experiencing now, because basically the Body Enchantment technique only lasted for a few moments and could not be neutralized.

The Body Enchantment technique is a technique that functions to increase the strength of all parts of the body in a few moments depending on the level, and can even heal the wounds being experienced by the user.

CRACK!

The small mirror protecting Tiwaz Re was completely broken now, it produced a huge gap and allowed the shadow-type spirits to attack Tiwaz Re easily.

"Feel this, damn it!" exclaimed one of the shadow-type spirits.

"Die!"

"Just die!"

"UHH!"

The shadow-type spirit's attack managed to leave Tiwaz Re severely injured. Santral who saw that felt very happy and watched as if victory was in sight.

"Haha, can you still laugh, Tiwaz Re? Now, let me laugh back at you! Hahaha!"

Santral laughed with satisfaction after seeing Tiwaz Re bleeding from being stabbed by the shadow-type spirits.

"Stab him to death!" Santral ordered the shadow-type spirits.

In a state filled with anger and frustration, he took it out on Tiwaz Re who was lying on the ground while being stabbed by the shadow-type spirits. Just by looking at Tiwaz Re like that, he felt very happy.

Santral no longer wanted to find out about the person who had killed Naste, that was because Santral was sure that if Loke was successfully resurrected, then Naste would not regret it.

On the other hand, Tiwaz Re still had his consciousness and he used that opportunity to use the Body Enchantment technique.

"Body Enchantment: Level 3!"

With his body lying on the ground covered in blood, Tiwaz Re activated the Body Enchantment technique: Level 3.

That caused the shadow-type spirit that was nearby to be blown away. Not only that, his wound also healed instantly. His blood flowing to the ground seemed to be an illusion and now his blood was flowing back into his own body, healing all his wounds.

"Huh? What's wrong?"

Santral was shocked after seeing several shadow-type spirits being blown away for no reason.

"Your attacks are so chaotic and disorganized, it bores me," Tiwaz Re taunted.

"Damn you, Tiwaz Re! I'm at the peak of my anger right now, and I think we should have a one-on-one match!" Santral retorted.

Due to Tiwaz Re's constant taunting and belittling, Santral got so annoyed that he decided to challenge Tiwaz Re to a one-on-one fight.

"One-on-one, huh? That's interesting, let's do it!" said Tiwaz Re.

Tiwaz Re accepted Santral's invitation, then he activated the true function of his own Barier.

"Time Stop: Level 3!"

That immediately made all living things inside the barrier including the spirits fall into a stiff silence, except for Santral and Tiwaz Re himself.

"Damn it, what are you doing?!"

Santral was puzzled by what happened after seeing the other spirits who were frozen stiff and only he could move with Tiwaz Re.

"Hahaha, you're so funny! It turns out you don't understand anything about barrier techniques, how stupid Loke's subordinates are now!"

Tiwaz Re laughed again and mocked Santral for his stupidity in understanding the barrier technique.

"Huh?!"

"Since I used the barier technique before, my victory has been guaranteed ever since."

"What?! Victory? Weren't you injured earlier?"

"What are you talking about? I'm just toying with you guys, even now my injury is fully healed."

"You're just bluffing aren't you? You're actually almost at your limit!"

"No, you're wrong. Any creature that enters the barrier without the user's permission, either directly or indirectly, then the barrier will perform a rude refusal. The user can set the rude rejection automatically or manually."

"What are you talking about? Huh?!"

Tiwaz Re explained to Santral some things about the barrier technique, but Santral did not understand it.

Everyone can use the barrier technique and it depends on the innate technique they were born with. Not only humans, spirits can also use it.

For example, in Melissa's case, she can actually use the chain-shaped barrier technique because her innate technique is Chain Slash.

All barriers tend to be used to confine the target in battle. If both sides use barriers, then they will confine each other. Each barrier had a weakness, so depending on who could find the weakness first, victory would be obtained.

"So that's it, do you understand it now?"

"You're such an asshole, Tiwaz Re! At least let me beat that face of yours. So, let's fight without using any techniques!"

"Yeah, that's fine."

Santral invited Tiwaz Re to fight without any techniques and Tiwaz Re agreed.

"Then, I'll definitely smash your face in!"

"No, please don't give me any more hope, that was boring!"

"Damn you!"

The fight began, Santral climbed down from the hospital fence and attacked Tiwaz Re. He used his foot to kick Tiwaz Re in the face. His movement was fast, but Tiwaz Re was able to avoid it because he had already guessed where his attack would lead.

Santral continued to attack using both his hands and feet in quick succession. Just like before, he aimed his attacks at Tiwaz Re's face.

"If you sold your mask, how much would it sell for? Would I get rich if I sold your ugly mask?"

"Shut up, asshole!"

Although Santral continued to attack seriously, Tiwaz Re was still moving casually to avoid some of Santral's attacks.

The match was unbalanced, with Tiwaz Re far superior to Santral.

"That's enough, you can't even fulfill my wishes!"

"AGH!"

Feeling that he had had enough of playing around, Tiwaz Re kicked Santral in the stomach until he fell to the ground.

"Damn!"

"You want more?"

"AGH!"

"UGH!"

"AA!"

Santral was so battered by Tiwaz Re that he finally gave up. He also realized that Tiwaz Re was very strong and could even match Loke.

"Hey, stop! Please just kill me, don't kill the others!"

"Hmm?"

Showing signs of giving up, Tiwaz Re stopped his attack.

Then Santral asked Tiwaz Re to kill only himself and begged him not to do anything to the other spirits who were silent.

"Don't kill them, please!"

"I originally intended to kill the shadow-type spirits, but you suddenly intervened and it seems like you're asking to be killed too."

Tiwaz Re refused Santral's request and decided to kill all the spirits inside his barrier including Santral himself.

"Chain Slash: Level 3!"

"No!!!"

Unexpectedly, Tiwaz Re used Chain Slash to kill them all, including while destroying the masks of Santral and several other technical neutralizer-type spirits.

"They died quickly, huh?" muttered Tiwaz Re.

"Well, at least I want to eliminate their traces first," he muttered again.

"Shadow Cloak: Level 5, Existence Remover!"

After confirming that all the spirits inside his barrier had been killed, Tiwaz Re used the Shadow Cloak technique to eliminate all traces of them, including the masks of the technical neutralizer-type spirits that were scattered about. Everything simply disappeared and was swallowed up by the shadows.

"It's over here, but not in that narrow alley. For some reason, I have a bad feeling," thought Tiwaz Re.

After there were no more spirits inside his barrier, Tiwaz Re decided to teleport to where Etzell and Melissa were because he felt a bad feeling.