Chapter 114: Closing the Rift

Inari-sama's appearance startled everyone except Anya and Maple who witnessed me summon her.

"How...how did you managed to summon a deity?! That should be close to impossible!" Catmod blurted as he stares at Inari-sama who is currently floating behind me.

"It is not impossible and I am able to connect freely on my master due to his will. I merely just answered his call and here I am now," Inari-sama explained.

"But, if that was the case, isn't Kazuma enduring the burden of summoning deity level familiars like you? And I heard he still has two more familiars. If that was the case, isn't he going to suffer a lot?" Rena asked as she pushed her glasses up.

"Not necessarily. After my master has become strong enough to handle the weight of my materialization, he immediately summoned me to make sure that he can get familiar with the feeling of summoning a deity leveled familiar and as you can see, he is fine and well. That means he can handle the burden easily," Inari-sama explained.

Voltaire scratch his head and shrugged. "If that was the case, then let's proceed with the plan. Kazuma will be the one closing the rift and we will hold back and eliminate the demons as many as possible. Is it all good now? We can't waste too much time gawking here."

"Yeah, that's fine by me now seeing Inari-sama. Even we are overwhelmed, Inari-sama will light our way," Tsukoyomi said as he closed his eyes and nodded.

"Very well, let's proceed. Kazuma, be careful out there and please don't die," Rena said as she pats my shoulder.

With the signal to proceed, we didn't hesitate and proceed to the place. There are demons currently guarding the surroundings so before they can alert, the other magicians who can easily snipe and assassinate them without a sound targeted them first, destroying their "eyes" to the surroundings.

I ordered Yuri and Yuto to cast Charm to the male and female demons guarding before killing them. Due to their 100% hit rate in Charm, any demon that was charmed will not be able to know what hit them before they die. As for me, I slowly move towards the rift, waiting for the right time strike.

My fellow magicians did not wait for any sort of signal. When Yaya's teddy bear appeared on the fray, the demons gathering around started to look into the source of the commotion.

"Don't let them dominate us! Defeat them all!" Voltaire shouted as he releases a discharge from his arms causing a shockwave of electricity to flow into the air and electrocute the nearby demons turning them to dust.

"The humans are here!" the demons started shouting and rallied up the others.

And that sparked the war to the two sides. I didn't participate directly in the fight. Instead, I waited for the two sides to be busy enough. As soon as most of the demons' attention are all fixated to my comrades, I immediately headed to the rift's edge. I am just getting near and not yet really on the edge but the pull of gravity is quite heavy and your movement seems to slow a little bit. However, I have managed enough from it with a little bit of mana focus.

Reaching the very edge makes me want to be afraid of the rift due to some sort of scare factor present on it that I can't really explain. It was like I am experiencing vertigo all of a sudden but it has a different approach in my system.

"The malice in this place is really harsh," Inari-sama said as she covered her nose when we got near on the edge.

"I have already got accustomed to thick malices of darkness before but this is really on a different level. I will be damned if this ever spreads. This is just too much even for me," Yuri said without even daring to

"Let's close this damnable rift before those f*cked up demons notice us," Yuto said while looking around the place anxiously.

"HALT YOU HEATHENS!"

A loud voice suddenly boomed behind me. I was about to look behind when Inari-sama held my head and forced me to face the rift.

"Master, let's close the rift before it gets worse. We will take care of this," Yuto said and released his full-powered up form.

"I will assist you with this. You can't just handle the amount of blood loss if you do it alone," Inari-sama smiled.

"I'm grateful," I smiled and rolled the sleeves of my uniform that has been dirty due to the several battles I have endured.

"You heathens really have no ears! I will teach you how to listen then!" the voice that clearly belongs to a demon shouted and I can feel the fluctuations of mana behind me.

"Well, you have to defeat us first before you can stop my master!" Yuri shouted. Although I can't see them since I was facing the opposite way, I can tell a little bit about the movement and the fluctuations happening behind my back but I have to stop focusing on the battle. I have to start the ritual.

Unlike normal magic spells that I can just use my mana, I have to use my blood on this one. With the pocket knife that Maple lend to me, I started cutting my arm's skin. It was like I am doing a suicide attempt but I made sure that I won't cut my wrists since that would literally kill me in the process.

The pain is momentary but the blood is already flowing fast from my wound. Without wasting any moment, I started chanting the ritual although this is just counting numbers, just in german.

"Eins... Zwei... Drei...Vier..."

Every drop of blood counts one number. Just by counting those slowly, I am getting weaker too like my lifeforce has been sucked out of me, but I have to count until 100 to do this.

"Master, I am here, don't lose your sight and focus. You can't lose yourself in this battle," Inari-sama whispered and warm light started to envelop me.

She is right, I can't lose myself on this one. The main reason this ritual is hard and can eventually kill you is due to the reason that while counting the number of blood droplets, the more your sane mind drift further and further away and if you have no proper control, you will eventually die due to blood loss.

"Sechzehn...Siebzehn...Achtzehn...Neunzehn..."

I am still nearing 20 but my consciousness is about to drift away and I can hardly focus which is why I have to bite my thumb hard to keep myself awake. I can still hear the battles happening behind me but I have no time to see it. I have to close the rift.

The more the spell continues, the more heavy everything I felt is. The blood that flows out of my wound and falling into the ground is slowly gathering and slowly forming into a magic circle. But of course, that was not enough. If the rift is small, you can just have it to 20 to 30 drops of blood but with this size, the 100 drops of blood are just the only thing you can do. But if this is not enough, I have to increase the amount.

Even with Inari-sama's voice, it is hard to stay put and finish the spell. I can't even get my consciousness completely awake and if you add the malice's influence, it just makes everything worse.

"Einundvierzig... Zweiundvierzig...Dreiundvierzig... Vierundvierzig..."

Is this it? Am I not going to make it? Even with Inari-sama supplying me with energy and small life force to sustain myself, it is getting harder to maintain the focus. It's just almost impossible.

"Heh, pathetic."

A voice suddenly whispered in my ear. It wasn't Blue's voice because it sounded different.

"Who are you?!"

"You already know me, since I am you and you are me, we are the same entity. You shouldn't have asked it since you already know it. And yes, I am still saying your efforts are all pathetic. Just go and die already."