There was still time, and there were also two more messengers. So Rafael decided to test the last two stones, starting the procedure of summoning the fourth messenger soul. As he chanted the magic words of the ritual, Rafael felt something strange this time, as if the whole ritual seemed out of the ordinary, his heart began to beat faster, and he swallowed hard a few times…
When the last words left his lips, he realized that there was a white mist coming out of his mouth. His magical cloak was made of a very special fabric and protected him from the weather. Rafael never expected that something that protected him would work against him this time...
The room he was in had gradually dropped in temperature after the messenger's death within 200 meters of him, but he couldn't feel this change...
It was only with the mist forming in his mouth that he finally realized he might be in trouble...
Along with the final word of the ritual, followed by the smoke of hot air coming out of his mouth, the fourth messenger was summoned. The messenger, who this time was a young man, made an expression of terror as he looked behind Rafael, and then was extinguished like his predecessors...
All the signs he felt before, and now together with the freezing room, the messenger's look of terror, followed by his disappearance, and a chill on the back of his neck granted by his sixth sense...
All this happened in the blink of an eye. Rafael barely had time to turn around when he felt himself being pierced in the chest by several icy blades...
"Hurl"
As he fell on the ground due to the surprise blow to the chest, a jet of vomit came out of his mouth, expelling all of the breakfast from his stomach, his vision blurred, and Rafael continued to feel like he had been pierced by something in the chest. The pain was one of the worst he had ever felt, but when he looked at his hand, he saw no blood…
System alerts exploded in his vision, explaining what had happened…
[BEEP]
[Your "Soul Reinforcement" spell has been destroyed!]
[ATTENTION! USER HAS SUFFERED SEVERE DAMAGE TO HIS SOUL!!!]
[EMERGENCY MISSION ISSUED…]
[ATTENTION! USER HAS SUFFERED SEVERE DAMAGE TO HIS SOUL!!!]
[URGENT TREATMENT RECOMMENDED!]
[ATTENTION! USER HAS SUFFERED SEVERE DAMAGE TO HIS SOUL!!!]
***
At the same time, Rafael's clone, who was standing next to the other members of the Order waiting to continue their Dungeon expedition, fell to the ground as if he were a puppet whose strings had been cut, frightening everyone around him.
Laura's eyes widened, realizing the problem, and she shouted desperately:
"He has suffered severe damage to his soul. Quickly help me start a ritual!"
The 4 members formed a circle around him, quickly supporting the magic circle created by Laura and starting a new soul reinforcement ritual…
***
Rafael didn't have time to heal; he needed to escape, but before he could do anything, he felt the chill on the back of his neck again. He quickly rolled across the floor of the house and managed to escape from whatever had attacked him again.
He held the Exorcist's Necklace ready to activate its powerful, advanced spell and eliminate everything inside the house, but it didn't work...
[The user's soul is too injured to use Relics!]
"Shit!"
He needed to see, there were only two exits from the small place, the door and a window, but if he ran in the wrong direction, he might not remain conscious if he received a second attack...
How could he see which one was safe?
"THE MONOCLE!" He shouted in a weakened voice, as he placed his hand and adjusted the intensity of the spell that was already active…
As a strange translucent form began to become visible in front of the house's door, several cracks spread across the monocle that now exceeded the limits of what the item's standard spell could do…
The creature that became visible to Rafael's eyes filled him with despair; it was tall with long arms and red nails, its head almost touching the roof of the house, and it was wearing some kind of hat… It had completely white and cold eyes and wore a dirty blood-red dress that dragged on the floor… The rest of its face was pale and smooth as if there was no mouth or nose…
Before he could look any further, the monocle cracked, and Rafael used all his strength to get up from the ground and jump through the closed wooden window, breaking it and falling outside the house.
In the midst of this, another system alert sounded, and before Rafael realized it, a black creature covered entirely in shadows latched onto his leg and bit it.
"GROOW"
"ARGH"
The pain from the bite was small when compared to the attack from that abomination inside the house. But the attack from this new creature made him even more tense and worried, Stygai's Shadow Souls could now see him thanks to the complete break of "Hide Life"…
In addition to the one biting his leg, there were more approaching quickly…
Rafael spat a weak "Fire Breath," removing the monster from his leg, and cast a "Wall of Fire" blocking the others from getting any closer. Then he proceeded to summon two golems to help him and serve as a distraction during his escape.
But that was his biggest mistake inside the city, casting those two spells was fast, but it still took up precious time from him, when he was in the middle of summoning the first golem the creature from inside the house had already reached him again, and the feeling of the icy blades piercing his chest happened again…
"AHHHH"
A scream came out of his mouth. The familiar pain would have made him vomit again if he still had anything in his stomach; this new pain also brought one of the worst headaches he had ever had. Rafael also felt something terrible this time, he had lost connection with all his basic spells that he had learned in the last few years. His consciousness was also at its limit, so he used the only thing that still worked in his decayed state that could help: His new innate spell.
Feeling his whole body getting lighter, Rafael kicked the ground with all his strength using his good leg, his now light body reached the height of the roof of several smaller houses, and he propelled himself using gravity in the direction of where the city gates were…
Even though he had chosen a house near the entrance, the jump and momentum were not enough to get there, but since his weight had decreased, when he fell to the ground, he rolled like a weightless corpse and skidded a little more until he finally crossed the city gates… Without the strength to do anything else, he gave one last order to the system, and hoped that his new improved AI could carry it out while he fell into unconsciousness…
****
Special thanks to the Patreons:
Sage's Supporter: Jan, Vinnie, frimorigo, Leery Falcon, Parsa, Scott Robertson, and Pato Senalima!
Magical Apprentice: Axel Bour, Gabriele Sulpizio, Takatchi, mandeep singh, Austin, Kobe Robertson, Paul Gaslac, Niteo akuma, and 704Corleon!
Senior Magic Apprentice: Cole Bromley!