Dragon Heart. Land Of Magic. LitRPG Wuxia Saga. Book 6

Hadjar slammed into the c.h.e.s.t of one of the two Spirits nearest to him. Grabbing the other one by its head, he tore it to pieces, spilling blood and gore everywhere. An Energy Stone — the best food for the Black Blade — hung in the air for a moment. Summoning his sword, Hadjar sliced through the Stone. Since artifactors used them to create items of very high quality, they cost at least a thousand Imperial coins. But Hadjar didn't care about being frugal right now, only about making his weapon stronger.

The Black Blade instantly absorbed the Spirit's essence.

Calculate progress, Hadjar ordered.

The neural network, despite the fact that most of its computing power was currently focused on finding a way to remove the Sword Spirit's mark, still completed this simple task with ease.

[11,904 Spirit Knight level Energy Stones are required to advance the sword to the next level.]

The figure didn't daunt Hadjar. On the contrary, it only made him grin wider. The more difficult a task was, the sweeter it felt to complete it.

"Hadjar!" Someone cried.

Busy fighting three Spirits at once, he'd missed a fourth. It had crept in from behind and swung its flaming sword at him. The flames traced a sharp arc through the air and hit Hadjar in the back. His cloak managed to slow down the blow and weaken it, but not block it entirely. Even Imperial level armor wouldn't have been able to do that.

"Damn it all!" Hadjar snarled in pain and swung his sword in retaliation. "Strong Wind!"

A gust of wind, within which dragons writhed madly, struck the Spirits. The creatures, holding their swords in front of them, lined up, resembling a wall of fire. The wind couldn't destroy them, but it did manage to send them flying.

Taking advantage of the momentary reprieve, Hadjar turned on his heel, his damaged cloak fluttering in the wind. The Spirit that had wounded him was already raising its blade to strike again. Blue flames melted the sand around them.

"RAAARGH!" Hadjar snarled, losing his grip on his humanity.

His teeth and pupils appeared slightly elongated. His left hand shot out and grasped the wrist of the Spirit as he growled even louder. Blue flames licked the black armor that protected his body, but did no damage to it. Without realizing it, he drove the Black Blade deep into the specter's c.h.e.s.t. Its Energy Stone shattered, and the blade instantly devoured it. The specter twitched in agony. It tried to open its non-existent mouth, but all it managed to do was tear the skin on its 'face'. Hadjar swung his sword and threw the mummified corpse at the feet of the other specters.

Feeling the Sword's mysteries clearly, Hadjar turned and slashed the air with a shout. A powerful wave erupted as a result of the collision between his and his enemies' energies and pushed the Spirits away, leaving craters and cracks in its wake.

Hadjar was about to grab his latest foe by the neck, then halted. Instead of black, dead eyes, green ones stared at him with surprise.

"Anise," he breathed out and took a step back.

"Watch out!" She shouted.

Disappearing and then reappearing behind him, she swung her Imperial level sword at one of the Spirits. A crescent of scarlet energy split its gray skin, exposing an Energy Stone. Hitting the specter, she popped the artifact out of its c.h.e.s.t. Before the creature's body could crumble to dust, the Stone disappeared into Anise's spatial artifact.

Hadjar, now standing back to back with her, looked around. They were surrounded by a dozen Spirits. Their huge swords burned with a blue flame.

"F.u.c.k me," Hadjar cursed as he swung his blade, drawing energy from his Core. "Azure Cloud!"

A black cloud formed over the specters. From its darkness emerged a dragon-sword and descended upon its prey with incredible speed. It was about to strike when a dozen of the Spirits simultaneously raised their swords toward the sky. The multiple streams of blue fire merged into one, and the dragon was swallowed by a huge mouth.

"Bloody Hunt!" Anise shouted, activating a Technique that, to this day, remained a mystery to Hadjar. He'd never seen anything like it before.

Swinging her blade, Anise created a scarlet ring of energy around her that then expanded and struck the specters. Unfortunately, just like the 'Azure Cloud', it had no effect. The flaming mouth that had swallowed the sword-dragon collapsed to the ground and stretched out into a wall. The ring of energy crashed into it and disappeared in the fire, which the Spirits passed through as if it weren't even there.

"How many are left?" Tom and Dora landed nearby.

Tom held his injured left arm close to his side. Purple drops dripped down it and fell to the ground. Judging by the flickering of his Spirit, it was more than his arm that had been injured. Dora favored her right leg. There was no blood, but one look through the World River revealed an energy wound. If not for his enhanced meridians, Hadjar would've suffered a similar fate. The blue flames seemed capable of inflicting wounds on one's energy body. Einen, who'd also landed next to them, was the only one among the three of them who wasn't seriously injured. Except for the fact that his ape and Spear-staff Spirit were gone.

"Thirty," Hadjar grunted.

He and Anise launched attack after attack at the group of enemies in front of them. They used pure slashes since those didn't require any energy at all, relying only on the cultivator's skill and not how much power one could take from the World River.

"I'll use my Spirit," Anise whispered.

"Don't you dare!" Tom, Dora, and Einen shouted in unison.

"Do you remember how that went last time?" Dora hissed and struck the ground with her warhammer. The impact was relatively weak, but it was still enough to create a tremor that stopped the ring of monsters around them from closing in.

"You almost died," Tom reminded his sister. "And if the Head of the clan finds out about your Spirit… We'll all die."

"Maybe. But if I don't use it, we'll all die here anyway."

"By the Evening Stars!" Hadjar cried out in frustration. "What is going on here?"

"How do you think we got away from the Nameless assassin, my friend?" Einen whispered to him.

"When I summon it, you'll have a couple of seconds," Anise warned them as blood-red energy swirled around her. "If I don't manage to kill them all, leave me behind and run away."

"What the hell-"

Hadjar's cry was drowned out by the roar of energy bursting forth into the physical world.

Anise had summoned her Spirit.