Debauchery of a Soul-Eating Wraith

Minutes before the devastating fall that announced the victory of the Commander battle;

Astrid had her sword in hand, striking against every Arcane spell that Hernan cast at her and aiming to close the distance between them two but somehow she never managed to. No matter how hard she pushed herself and her speed, Hernan always remained out of reach and he never let her forget it with his gloating remarks.

"You can feel it, can't you?" Hernan asked.

"Feel what?" Astrid retorted with a frown while condensing Spiritual energy and creating a pillar of Glorious light that aimed to strike and roast her opponent with a righteous flair.

"You can feel your incompetence, can't you?" Hernan said not looking bothered by the attack being prepared to end him.

Astrid knew what he was talking about. Although they were both at the Seventh Order/Circle, Hernan Vron was closer to a breakthrough than the Martial Temple's Golden Child.

Astrid was at the Fifth Step of the Seventh Order while Hernan was at the Ninth Step of the Seventh Circle and had been at that level of Spiritual excellence for half a century. Breakthrough into the Eighth Circle had eluded Hernan so far but he had never been all that worried. For his age, his progress was incredible and had easily earned him the title of genius.

Besides, Fifty years at the Ninth step might have been stagnation for some but for Hernan, it was experience.

He had honed his skills, honed his Spiritual perception, and opened himself to enlightenment.

And so, without losing his gloating smile, Hernan smacked his palms together and separated them to show off a Hexagram he had cast which enlarged and stamped into the pillar that aimed to kill him.

The Hexagram warped the aim of Astrid's attack and returned it to the sender. Astrid's eyes widened in surprise but she was not so pathetic to allow herself to get struck down by her ricocheted attack. She moved out of the way and as it sailed past her and eventually shattered into flecks of light…

*BAM!*

"Ack!— Puchi!"

… she was struck by a powerful attack that not only aimed to crack her bones and injure her physical body but infiltrated her body with a Foreign Spiritual energy that took advantage of her stunned state and sent her entire foundation into deviation.

Hernan cackled with excitement.

The move was Arcane. A spell called 'Deviation Demon' which at its most capable state could be used as a curse that when successful would stick with its victim until death. This was a subpar version of it but was the best Hernan could cast because the actual curse required at least hours of focused concentration which he did not have in such an intense battle.

Anyway, this subpar version was enough and Astrid agreed as she struggled to bring her internal energies under control which drained her of her physical energy; A dangerous precedent for a Knight.

Astrid staggered in the air as her flight became unstable and right there was Hernan with repeated Arcane spells striking at her, forcing her to defend herself and making her unable to focus on correcting the error within her.

Unfortunately for Astrid, the strength of her spells relied heavily on her maintaining an internal equilibrium so her defense was already getting broken through and only barely staged away the brunt of her attacks from her body.

Astrid sent her sword into her Spatial ring and formed a strange seal with her fingers while gritting her teeth with effort and annoyance.

'This is it!' Hernan thought. He believed he had Astrid right where he wanted her. She was weary, beaten, and a mess of an expert so now was just when he needed to strike.

So he did.

Hernan Vron cast the most powerful spell he had in his Arsenal, 'The Silent Whisper'.

It was a spell that relied heavily on a mildly spoken word but cost Hernan a half and a quarter of his Spiritual energy reserves while leaving him with a physical weakness that would make it difficult to muster much of an attack following that but he believed it was worth it.

Astrid was in no position to defend herself and the longer the Subpar version of the 'Deviation Demon' Curse continued within her, the harder it would be for her to recover until it became impossible.

The Silent Whisper spell struck. It surrounded Astrid with the powerful mildly spoken word and shredded her like blades that aimed to tear her apart on a cellular level— Her very existence in danger.

"Arrghh—" Astrid started to yell and then she raised her face upward, her beautiful face somehow only further enhanced in its divine look by the righteous 'tortured' expression on her face.

Hernan still had his gloating smile but it shifted into a stunned amorosity as he stared open-mouthed at Astrid. From her body, a compulsive force pulled Hernan's attention and held it. It even urged him to bow deeply to her excellence but of course, the Arkadae Commander resisted such an urge even if he couldn't avoid looking at Astrid slack-jawed.

And then he noticed something that caused his eyes to slowly widen;

Astrid's body which had been getting broken apart began to mend itself. From the inside all the way to the outside.

She oozed a special sort of Spiritual Energy that Hernan recognized. He had detected a mysterious power and righteousness from Astrid's Spiritual energy already but now it was all the more apparent,

"That's Purity… What is Spiritfolk energy doing being used for violence?!"

He got no response but the energy condensed itself into a scale. On one side of the scale, Hernan saw his 'Silent Whisper' spell getting collected, formless as it was and it was soon joined by an abstract construct that Hernan instinctively understood to be 'Astrid's pain' more accurately, it was the pain he had caused her.

With nothing to give it balance on its other side, the Scales tipped and they did not tip in Hernan's favor.

The Scales of Recompense!

A powerful bloodline spell that Astrid had access to from her Father's side. It was a Spell Spirotfolks could use to call upon foundational and Abstract forces to their aid by placing the hurt they had suffered on one side and then assessing if the scales needed to be balanced.

Hernan became transfixed by the scale. Unable to look away from it and appearing doomed but even then, the Arkadae Commander sought some sort of contingency that could turn things around in his favor.

It was about time he donned the Presents he had been granted when he received Command of the Arkadae forces.

Astrid, powered by the forces responsible for the appearance of the Scales of Recompense, let her body relax from his contorted and tortured form while her face seemed to glow with gloat. The mistake Hernan made was to assume he held the upper hand just because he was Four steps above her in the Seventh Order.

The only reason Astrid would ever have had to worry was if her opponent truly surpassed her capabilities by inching close to the peak of the Eight Order and unfortunately for Hernan, he wasn't such a threat.

Hernan had been judged and he needed to pay the price for his deeds for the scales to be balanced.

*WHUUUUUUMMMMMMMM!!!*

The attack flashed across the sky with a thrumming sound and when it struck Hernan, his eyes bugged as every single one of his ribs shattered. The bone of his sternum cracked. His Organs got lacerated, bleeding out and pooling his insides with blood.

His skull cracked, striking a part of his brain and sending strange impulses all over his body. The impulses caused mild paralysis and then reduced Hernan's inhibitions, making him irrational and impulsive.

Hernan opened his mouth to yell but he merely gurgled due to the forceful upward flow of blood from his innards.

He was in perpetual pain and could not even properly react to it.

It set him off.

"Arr- Bi—tch—!" Hernan struggled to say as he struggled to raise his arms and shower off two gauntlets that had been embedded with red jewels that glowed with an intense, almost hellish heat. They felt like nuclear explosions just waiting to be released.

This was Hernan's trump card.

An Eight Star Weapon pair that were individually powered by unstably engineered power sources. When delicately handled by careful, gentle use of Spiritual energy, the gems could serve as an extra source of Volatile energy. Alas, Hernan was in no mental state to be 'delicate'.

He certainly tried. It just was too difficult especially when faced with Astrid's smugness.

'Die!!!' Hernan yelled in his head while pouring every bit of Spiritual energy he still had after his use of 'The Silent Whisper' spell and it was more than enough to set the gems off.

Their energy bubbled rapidly and Astrid's eyes widened in the realization of what was about to happen and the destruction it would wrought not only on her but her allies below. No one, not even her, could outrun the explosion.

She quickly retrieved her Space-sealing Device and deployed it around Hernan, leaving him to his fate.

The gauntlets, stocked with protection had covered Hernan with a layer of Spiritual energy so he had not cared for the destruction to come as he believed he would not suffer it. Alas, that all went to Shit when he got sealed in the weird space-locking Sphere.

The gems exploded, their energies slammed repeatedly against the sphere's barriers, damaging it but also ricocheting its force onto Hernan's protected body.

His defense was eventually shattered and only his incredible constitution as an expert at Seventh Circle allowed him to have a corpse…

… A burnt, charred corpse that fell from the sky -like a fall from glory- for all on the battlefield to see.

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