1306 Calm Before the Storm Part 2 (1/2)

The summoning array split up and stood up straight against the ground. An irregular black tear appeared and energy gushed from it. The green got increasingly thin and the purple increasingly thick.

Low pitched roars were heard from the tear. The elders of the Elemental Hand began giving orders to the mages who were close to them, having them clear the area. All core members of the Elemental Hand prepared to leave.

While the wealth of Alchemy City was vast, with the exception of the underground warehouses, most was concentrated in the hands of the nine elders.

They were not ready to give up the city, but the mages of the Elemental Hand were incapable of taking on the monster that was answering the summons.

The nine elders began to transfer the items in the warehouses and left their magic towers. Mages around the summoning array were shifting rapidly as well. The mages of the Elemental Hand closed in on another core area on the south side of the city, and no longer backing up the mages at the east side, who were still fighting the archangel.

Hundreds of hands shot out from the tear. All of the hands had long fingernails and thick hair.

Purple smog emerged from the tear shortly after, which smelled humid and putrid. The hands were shrouded by the smog. Hundreds of shrieks were heard. The hands corroded until only bones were left.

The roar became increasingly clear and agitated. A 20-meter-tall creature walked out from the tear, clad in purple aura. Every step it took made the ground crack and blister.

Alchemy City's ground was made of rocks as strong as steel. While the rocks lacked malleability, they were very corrosion-resistant.

However, under the purple aura, the rocky ground that had not needed replacement for 1,000 years was stripped, as if it had been subjected to harsh weathering.

A spirit?

The creature had a bony face and its eyes were replaced with soul flames. All nearby mages were surprised.

The spirit plane, like Myers Mainland, had power levels that severely plummeted, but the spirit that emerged from the summoning array looked at least level 12.

There were quite a number of mages capable of summoning spirits. The death mages knew that even in the spirit plane, the kings were level ten at most. However, that monster that emerged was already level 12, and it looked like a lone wolf.

That meant that a spirit plane further away had been opened, once known as the secondary spirit plane.

However, the creature that emerged from the secondary spirit plane was actually stronger than normal.

Something is off. This should have been a teleportation portal for summoning huge beasts from the Orc Continent. Why did a spirit emerging instead? Everyone was puzzled.

The spirit was shrouded in purple aura and held a fork. The five-pronged fork had a head speared on it. The spirit is breathing hard. It is breathing; you can see the purple aura being sucked into its nostrils.

”It's a half-dead!” Someone yelled. The surrounding towers cast high level spells at once, caging the half-dead within.

Half-deads were powerful. While they were horrible as far as summoned creatures went, the souls of half-deads could be used to make good items. Half-deads were pricey even back in ancient times.

”That...idiot...” The half-dead was still choosing its words when the spells hit it. However, the magic spells hardly did anything as they shot into the purple smog.

Spirit territory!

The mages lost all their passion when they realized. There were many creatures capable of possessing territories. A creature that possessed territorial powers meant that they possessed intelligence.

Any half-dead that possessed intelligence was difficult to capture. Their souls were capable of escaping back into the spirit plane. When spirits were crushed, they returned to the spirit plane. However, returning of their own will and being forced back there were different concepts.

Powerful mages could destroy the soul flames of spirits, wiping them out from existence. For this particular half-dead however, it would be extremely difficult to get its soul flames, especially since it possessed intellect. It would set up death magic array in the plane it came from, enabling it to escape back at any given moment.

The nine elders of the Elemental Hand were tempted. Conventional mages were not able to capture half-deads. They should consider themselves lucky if the half-dead did not eat them, let alone capturing them.

However, due to it being within the vicinity of the city's territory, the half-dead's power diminished, which meant that the elders were capable of taking it on.

Crack...

The tear in space behind that half-dead became even bigger. A skull that was over a dozen meters tall emerged and ate the half-dead.

”A skeletal dragon!”

”Let's get it!”

”Run...”

The mages of Alchemy City were all over the place. If the death mages who intended to take the skeletal dragon on were able to tame it, they would become like Grand Duke Iron Blood—acquiring a massive power boost and the ability to ignore level difference.

The ones who told everyone to run were elemental mages. Magic defenses of skeletal dragons were too high, and they had no intentions of dying.