Episode(116) Spiritual Matter, Gaze At The Abyss & It Gazes Right Back
SOVEREIGN OF DEATH~(116)
'Monster'
This thought of the spirit queen wasn't directed at the reaper at all.
The one in her line of sight was undoubtedly the humanoid creature facing the reaper.
The ghost may have seemed like a genuine monster, but the dense amount of magical energy released by this guy was no less than that of extremely high ranking demons.
Even among the heavenly demons she had once had the opportunity to see, there was none with close to enough magical pressure to match this at all.
And even more than that-
As a spirit, the spirit queen was extremely sensitive to people's spiritual matter.
Spiritual matter was the mana that made up the all spirit type creatures as well as the vessel that contained the soul.
This type of mana lacked any attribute at all and even if wielded would only result in a flashy spell without any substance at all no matter how much was poured in.
It was different however for spirits.
A creation brought by the combination of both extremely dense elemental mana and spiritual matter, although spirits could not directly wield spiritual matter, their entire beings were formed from spiritual matter and thus they were able to easily sense its presence.
High ranked spirits that could even wield this energy were capable of bringing forth even greater destruction with the already powerful elemental mana.
But, what was most important about spiritual matter. As it formed the vessel of a creature's soul, it would tell the limit of one's soul capacity.
As long as they were sensitive enough to spiritual matter, spirits could read a person's limit using the spiritual matter emitted by that person.
Nagisa had previously been concealing his own magical power so she could not get a proper read on it.
Now that he released a bit of his magic what she saw terrified her.
A black void. Like a literal black hole that devoured any and everything in its path.
What!?
She trembled slightly in horror.
Just what was she seeing!?
What kind of creature was this and who in their right minds brought this atrocity into this world?
It wasn't just the sheer horror of the deep darkness, there was even a crushing pressure exuded from his spirit slowly forcing out her gaze.
Fine, she wouldn't look.
It was better to ignore this, the less she knew the longer she would survive.
However, the next moment she paused.
What was that?
There seemed to be movement within the darkness and she couldn't help the curiosity peering even deeper.
Although the strain was worse, she wanted to see what it was.
Was it just her imagination after all?
No matter how much she glared at the darkness she saw nothing, only the crushing pressure became heavier and heavier.
The thought of giving up crossed her mind, however she gritted her teeth and decided to activate her trait.
<
Just like the innate ability of spirits to read the limit of one's soul, this trait was passed down by every wind spirit queen and could amplify this ability several fold.
She was the 10th wind spirit queen and had been so for the past 500 years and this trait had become like second nature to her.
When activated the trait would allow one to sense the elemental and spiritual matter around them at a deeper level and as long as they could utilize this ability well their control over the elements would be far stronger than normal spirits.
Her unique trait <
And with 500 years of settling with the trait, her eyes could see anything as long as it was within mortal range.
There was almost nothing in this world that could hide from her eyes once they were activated.
She had no doubt that she would be able to see the truth once her trait was activated.
She didn't know why, but she felt like she needed to see what was hidden in that darkness.
But, the next moment she regretted that curiosity.
<
A chilling voice. It wasn't rough nor deep, rather it was delicate and seemed soft on the ears.
Yet, the might hidden behind it shook her very core.
<
Her spine tingled and the world before her felt as if it would collapse.
[E-Eeek!]
What the hell, is that!?
[Wh-Who are you!?]
Hidden in the darkness, only faint features of the person face visible to the eye could be seen, yet the aura made her want to flee as far as possible.
It wasn't strength. No, it was something else entirely.
The figure brought a finger to its lips and shushed her.
<
It was a threat.
The spirit queen already knew that whatever that was, it likely wasn't powerful enough to kill her.
Yet, that might seemed familiar.
Like the divinity that Gods wielded. It felt like it wasn't complete, or it might not even belong to that being but it definitely carried the power of divinity.
In this world, mana was divided into many energies.
Nature mana and Aura were the lowest.
Nature mana, used as a bridge for interacting with the physical world to produce phenomena through mana. Aura was used for interacting with the life force and vitality of the body through mana and granting strength far above physical enhancement magic.
Then, there was spiritual matter that all spirits carried.
As stated before, this type of mana was of the extremely pure type and carried absolutely no attributes.
Meaning, even if a human was able to sense and control spiritual matter any magic they used would likely be all flash and no damage whatsoever.
No different from farting.
Spirits however were made up of the elements and spiritual matter. Although spiritual matter contained no substance and had no properties to affect any worldly phenomena, the elements themselves contained power to affect the phenomena of the world.
So when paired with the higher form of mana called spiritual matter this made spirits an extremely lethal force.
Humans could only access the elements through mana, while spirits had direct access to the elements.
Spirits could directly apply the elements to spiritual power, but for humans the process would be using spiritual matter to access the elements if they could even use it.
Spiritual matter has no substance, so though one could wield the elements through it, once more it would have absolutely no substance at all.
Anyone could decipher why contracts with spirits were so desperately sought out by other creatures.
Next was elemental mana, mana of the world. These were laws and rules in the form of phenomena thus why they were so powerful.
Each element carried a trace of laws and thus elemental mana was an extremely high stage of mana.
After elemental mana, came divine mana or true mana.
This mana was the mana that made up creation. It was present everywhere but no one could use it until they became a god.
She had no idea what the conditions for this were, but even a weakling using one percent of divine mana could bury an entire continent as they pleased.
One should know that a single continent in Aria was already a third of that of earth.
Yet they could annihilate it with a simple thought.
That was just how powerful divinity was.
In that moment, she didn't even need to make a decision. This person may be weak and may not even be able to wield that divinity, but what if they took possession of this guy's body just to deal with her.
She likely wouldn't even know how she died.
[I-I-I p-p-promise to b-be q-quiet, sir?]
Well, it was hard to tell from the voice whether this was a man or woman but she really didn't want to offend this person at all.
[The hell are you doing?]
All of a sudden, Nagisa's figure appeared before her like a ghost scaring her so much she almost thought she had offended that person.
Ah, it was a long life.
I didn't even get to live out my complete life as a spirit.
Just 500 years, so short yet it was memorable.
Her eyes closed ready for death.
Is she insane? This dungeon is far too difficult, dragging along a crazy person will be hard work.
Deliberating whether he really should invite this person into the party, Nagisa took a step and reentered the battle not even knowing what had just happened.
My eyes focused the ghost as I gradually shifted through the battlefield.
I no longer wantonly threw magic here and there as this guy seemed to be capable of simultaneously opening spatial rifts.
Though I had adapted and learned to easily read the fluctuation of energy and could avoid or deflect attacks, it was still annoying.
On paper, this guy should have long ended up at the bottom of the river as fish feed yet it was putting up such a good fight.
What a pain!
I still haven't used that much magical power nor body strengthening.
This might be good training and I really didn't want to let it go so easily, but I also knew I could not stay here too long.
[I'm surprised, this was supposed to be a one-hit kill scenario-]
It just went to show how sadistic the bastard that made this dungeon was.
If someone else came here, seeing the weak monster they would have thought it was an easy box lunch but before they knew it attacks were flying through space all over the place and they wouldn't even know how they died.
Sheathing hopeless, I sighed while drawing Nightfall.
Unless I resolved to freeze everything in the room I wouldn't go all out with hopeless.
That mosquito was definitely annoying, but I had no idea whether she had resistance against cold and it would be too cruel to freeze her like that.
Nightfall is sharper in any case and I can use my shadow magic easier with it.
With this testing out the full capabilities of that scythe wouldn't be so difficult.
[I guess I'll need to sweat a little]
Shu!
In a blur, his body vanished completely this speed completely untraceable.
The reaper looked around, the spatial perception granted by the scythe fully active.
Yet, no matter where it looked there was no one. The human had completely vanished as if he had been summoned outside of the dimension.
Yet, this wasn't true at all.
Taking advantage of Nightfall's ability to boost concealment while in darkness, Nagisa had sunk into the shadows present and had arrived silently above the reapers head after flanking it and making sure it could not sense him.
Suddenly sensing the figure in its range of perception, the reaper was caught off guard completely.
Note 1: Every Being has spiritual matter, it is the energy that makes up the soul container and spiritual vessel. However, as energy without substance it is nearly impossible for a none-spirit creature to wield spirit matter.
Note 2: Although Fairies, ghosts and such creatures are spirit type beings they are not purely elemental creatures, instead they are born due to natural mana and thus cannot wield spirit matter.
Note 3: Spirit Matter is an energy that forms the soul and thus is a higher form of mana only below elemental & divine/true mana.
Note 4: Spirit matter lacks any substance or attributes thus ordinary creatures that can only access the elements through magical power are unable to wield its might.
Note 5: High rank spirits can not only sense the presence of spiritual matter but also wield it. Used as a catalyst to access power, spirit matter produces nothing, but as a higher form of energy when added to destructive power it becomes even more powerful like a flames meeting gas.