233 Chapter 233: Reunion

"Angelica?" Shun Yin gaped at her in disbelief. "What are you doing here?"

"Saving you, obviously."

Angelica snorted impatiently, but continued to keep her eyes on the snarling Cerberus. Her blade glowed white.

"You don't seem to be faring too well against the Dark Church's experiment. I don't blame you, though. It's a result of fusing a monster with a spirit."

She shrugged almost flippantly. Shun Yin continued to stare at her, still sunken in a stupor. Then her words struck something in him.

"Dark Church…?"

"A group of religious extremists who believe that humanity should be eradicated for the sake of the world. They believe the monsters are a sign of the end of the human race, saviors of a dying, heavily polluted Earth. They wish to speed up the process…hence their efforts to artificially trigger Emergence events."

Shun Yin had never heard of them before, but he wasn't given any time to ponder over the issue. Cerberus was attacking once more. Growling, it pounced on Angelica, who calmly stood her ground and watched it approach.

Then she swung her sword and knocked it back with another colossal energy arc that was unleashed from her blade. Even though the Cerberus twisted in midair to avoid a fatal blow, the spell cut deep and blood sprayed across the ground. With a whine, Cerberus landed several dozen meters away from its target to lick its wounds.

"Too shallow, huh?" Angelica murmured to herself. White flames danced around her sword as she infused it with mana, but as she had already seen, they were ineffective against the spirit-monster. She glared in the shocked Shun Yin's direction. "Why are you still sitting there and doing nothing? I can't beat this thing on my own!"

"R…right."

Shun Yin snapped out of his shock and quickly resumed the casting of his fire spells. His sword ignited crimson once more and he took a deep breath as he spread his legs apart and assumed the stance his master taught him.

The Cerberus howled before lunging at Angelica, probably out of retaliation for her attack earlier. While its attention was focused on her, Shun Yin ran to the side, taking care not to be knocked over by its massive bulk in the narrow corridor, and twisted around. Exhaling, he swung his sword and unleashed a stream of flames that washed over the three-headed dog from the side. The monster bellowed as it was engulfed in the inferno, blindly striking out in hopes of landing a lucky hit, but Angelica was far too skilled to fall for that.

She backtracked a little, her sword glowing for a moment before she cut through the flank of the massive hound with her white flames, which erupted into a gigantic crescent of superheated energies. The sacred fire didn't just burn its target – it appeared to have the effect of purifying the Cerberus's demonic aura and weakening it.

But it wasn't weakened enough. Even upon sustaining such damage, the Cerberus continued to pose a formidable threat. While Angelica engaged the three heads at the front, conjuring a white firewall to block its inevitable sonic assault, Shun Yin was forced to deal with the writhing giant serpent of a tail at the back.

When the serpent darted at him, its venomous fangs poised to sink into his flesh. Without any immunity or resistance to poison, Shun Yin couldn't afford even a single hit. Gritting his teeth, he dug his feet in and unleashed a wave of flames that scorched the serpent, blackening its scales and causing it to withdraw with an angry hiss.

"Huff…"

Shun Yin spun about and dodged a kick from the Cerberus's right hind leg, the claws gouging out three tunnels in the reinforced concrete. Jumping high above, he infused his sword with a tremendous pillar of fire that surged outward and left a molten trail in the ceiling. With a determined yell, he swung his sword and the massive pillar of flames upon the Cerberus.

The serpent whipped out at him in an attempt to stop him, but he merely shifted his aim and cut it down. The tail-snake hissed in agony as it was engulfed by a tsunami of flames and charred even blacker than before.

However, it remained intact and very much alive. Terribly wounded, yes, but not at all discouraged from attacking. Shun Yin suspected that even if he cut off the tail, the serpent could probably split off from the main body and live on its own as an individual organism.

"Do you have any idea on how to slay a spirit?" he called out to Angelica, who was fighting off three heads at the same time. She was weaving elegantly through their snapping jaws, evading their fangs and attacks with an amazing grace while punishing their efforts with cuts and abrasions across their faces, her blade penetrating the thick coat of fur that normally protected them from conventional attacks.

Angelica scoffed at his question.

"You can't slay a spirit," she informed him coldly. "You have to slay the vessel. But even if you kill the vessel or the host, the spirit will not die. It will merely return to its dimension. It cannot be slain by conventional magic or normal means."

Angelica paused for a moment to assess the situation, and then she sighed.

"Worse, this spirit monster is worse than the one you fought in Vermillion Aquarium. Normally, vessels that are fused with spirits will burn out very quickly, the spirit consuming their life force at an alarming rate and thus expiring after a short time. However, the Assassins Guild and the Dark Church, working in conjunction, have developed a way to tether the spirit to our dimension without it necessarily burning out the life force of its host. By binding it to a human summoner through a contract, they can anchor the spirit to this world without it needing to consume the host's life force and essence. And the summoner can call upon them any time he or she wants."

"They…what?"

"There's not much of a difference between the two except that the summoner method is more efficient and doesn't require us to expend considerable resources, sacrificing a host every time we need to summon a spirit to our world. Either way, the spirit can be…exorcized by destroying the vessel that contains it."

"Yeah, and I'm asking how we can destroy this thing." Shun Yin tried not to let his frustration seep into his voice. Angelica shook his head.

"I know. But it's not so simple. The reason I'm telling you this is because there's another key difference between the two types of summoning. If a contract has been established, even if you destroy the host, the spirit can be summoned again by the summoner who made a contract with it, with the condition that he or she finds a new host for it to materialize in our dimension once more. However, this in itself presents us with an opportunity and exposes the one disadvantage that a contract-type summoning has over the sacrificial-type summoning. In such a case, the most efficient way to permanently stop the spirit from being summoned to our dimension is to assassinate the summoner. Just like how you would deal with normal summoners who call forth Soul Beasts to aid them in combat."

"So where is the summoner of this Cerberus?" Shun Yin demanded. Angelica shrugged indifferently.

"I don't know. I am aware of his identity, though. He's a priest of the Dark Church. I know for sure he's not one of the Assassins. They have moved beyond experimenting and fusing monsters with spirits."

There was something in her voice that told him that the Assassins had progressed to something far worse than monster experimentation, but this wasn't the time for Shun Yin to ask for an elaboration. He ducked the venomous fangs of the serpent before slashing its neck and rupturing an artery. His flames, however, ended up cauterizing the wound instead, so there was no chance of the serpent bleeding out.

That was fine. He was aware that the spirit monster wouldn't die from such grievous wounds. It would find a way to seal its own injuries with mana or something.

"So what do you suggest we do? You're the one with the most knowledge regarding these spirits and new type of monsters."

"Just like every other monster…we can destroy it through the application of overwhelming power and brute force."

Shun Yin tried not to roll his eyes. If it was that simple, then he would have exterminated the spirit monster already.

"We have to find the summoner."

"He knows the weakness of his magic. What makes you think he'll be hanging around here, in plain sight?"

"He can't be far." Shun Yin remembered the weaknesses and limitations of summoning magic, especially since he had fought alongside and against Glen many times. "He can only be a maximum of a hundred meters away from his summoned spirit. Any more and he wouldn't be able to maintain the existence of his Soul Beast. Not unless contracted spirits aren't bound to the same kind of restrictions as normal summoners."

"Don't worry. They are. In order for them to be anchored firmly in this world and maintain their existence here, they can't be too far from their summoner. The problem is that, in a place like this, there are plenty of hiding places."

"…right." Shun Yin glanced around skeptically. The walls had been ravaged and devastated by the combined onslaught from both the Cerberus and the human mages. He was surprised that they hadn't accidentally opened up a hole into some room where the summoner might just be happening to seek shelter in.

If only they could be so lucky.

Movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention. He saw Angelica being pressured and backed to the wall by the snapping, biting jaws of the three heads, and he accelerated toward the creature.

The serpent tail lunged at him, but he sliced it off at the base of the tail, the flames wreathing his sword erupting into what seemed like a volcanic stream. The tail wailed as it crashed onto the ground, writhing and flailing as it was enveloped in flames and incinerated into ash.

The Cerberus howled in pain at the sudden loss of its tail and whirled around to confront the new threat. Flipping himself over one of the heads, Shun Yin delivered another devastating strike with his sword, the volcanic stream of fire rushing toward the Cerberus…

…only for one of the heads to intercept it with its teeth, its jaws clamping down on the blazing sword and stopping it flat.

"!!!"

Shun Yin struggled to yank his sword free of the Cerberus's jaws, but it held firm. The other heads twisted about to take a bite out of him. Realizing that he would be forced to relinquish his sword, Shun Yin made to let go and dodge, but…

"?!"

White flames surged past him and bathed the other two heads, causing them to yelp. Even the third head recoiled, its maw yawning just a fraction of a centimeter for Shun Yin to quickly yank his sword free. Backing away, Shun Yin withdrew to Angelica's position and took up another defensive stance, getting ready to protect her.

Not that she needed his protection.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah." Angelica nodded. "Thanks. You saved me."

Despite himself, Shun Yin couldn't help but grin. It felt like so long ago since they were this candid with each other. Nine years, in fact. "You saved me too. We're even."

"I'm not going to bother keeping count." The two of them were forced to weave and dodge through the Cerberus's attacking heads. Splitting up, they went on either side of the Cerberus and withdrew to a distance. The monster hesitated for a moment, not knowing who to chase after, but it eventually did a full 180 to face both of them when they reunited a good distance away, behind it. Snarling, it unleashed a howl with all three heads, assaulting them with a sonic wave.

Angelica didn't bother to dodge. She merely raised her sword and conjured a white firewall that completely halted the sonic attack in its tracks. Shun Yin watched in wonder as the purifying effects of the white flames negated the demonic mana that was used to cast that spell.

However, they couldn't just defend. They also needed a way to attack. Gripping his sword, he got ready to cast another bigger spell, but Angelica reached out with her free hand and took his left hand while smiling.

"Wait."

"Eh?"

"Earlier, I said we can destroy this monster with overwhelming power, right?" Her smile widened. "There's a way for us to amplify the strength of our spells to the extent where we can completely obliterate it."

"How?"

Angelica's green eyes seemed to sparkle mischievously as she paused for just one second before replying.

"Resonance."