Let's see if Lloyd catches the reference :)
Part 26
Both opponents dashed towards each other, as Asher swung his sword across Olivia, she dodged out of the way and delivered a blow to the side of Asher. Rolling over, Asher quickly recovered and blocked an attempt at his ribbon. Retaliating back, he jabbed Olivia in the stomach, making her fall back and allowing Asher to grab her ribbon. But she managed to grab the arm outstretched for her ribbon and threw Asher away from her. As they both dashed back at each other after recovering, they both exchanged blows at each other. But Olivia missed a strike that could've left Asher confused, She missed! Now's my cha-, Asher thought, reaching for her ribbon. But she recovered quickly enough and backhanded the side of his head. Grabbing the wooden blade of Asher's sword, she punched him right in the stomach and headed straight for his ribbon. But she had let go of his blade, and it smacked her right across the face. Stumbling back, she looked at the ground around her, but saw no one. As soon as she looked up, Asher was already in her face, dropkicking her to the floor and grabbed the ribbon.
Anthony and Alan clapped their hands as Asher helped Olivia up, "Nice job, the two of you." Alan said. "The sword feels good, I think I need to pair it with another weapon to be better though." Asher said, swinging the sword around. "It would be better if you could carry around a mini arsenal with you." Anthony said. "That way, you could use different weapons depending on the situation."
That striked an idea in Asher's mind, he dropped the sword and sprinted back up to his room. Puzzled, the three followed him. They found him reading a book on a large bookshelf. "What's wrong?" Alan asked.
"Nothing's wrong, I just remembered something." Asher said. "What did you remember?" Olivia asked. Asher closed the book and lit the room to the max the light bulbs could handle. "See your shadows?" Asher asked. The three nodded, and Asher proceeded. He dropped the book to the floor, except it didn't hit the floor. It disappeared in his shadow, he kneeled down and retrieved the book from his shadow. "Whoa," Alan said in awe. He dropped it in the shadow again, and this time he also disappeared in the shadow. The three looked around to see where Asher went. As they kept looking, Olivia felt a sharp tap on the back of her head. Asher was behind her with the book in his hand. "I can use everyones shadows as my storage and movement." Asher explained, returning the book to the bookshelf. "And it doesn't require stamina or cursed energy as well."
"That's nice and all, but what weapons are you going to use, there's a lot, and practicing some against us won't help as much as live practice." Alan said. "I'll pick some out if I find them interesting, and I'll use them on our missions." Asher said, walking back over to the arsenal of weapons. He picked out a dagger, an axe, scratch that, two axes, a long chain, wait no two long chains, and another sword. He turned around to look at the three, they were staring at him nervously. "Well? Let's go kill some cursed spirits." Asher said, storing the weapons in his shadow.
As the four students stepped into an abandoned building, they instantly spotted the cursed spirit. "Cursed mage spirit, specializing in magic and range, grade two, level grade of danger, three." Said Bethany, a grade 1 sorcerer who was accompanying Asher and the others. She was a tall and young woman holding a sheathed spear. Asher could tell she specialized in observation and stealth, as they didn't even know she was with them until they were inside the building. She looked at the students and gave a faint smile, "Don't worry, I won't step in unless I absolutely need to, you guys can have your fun." Bethany said.
Asher smiled back and pulled out both of his swords out of his shadows. He disappeared into his shadow and suddenly reappeared behind the cursed spirit. It whipped its body around having sensed an ominous energy behind it. As it lay eyes on Asher, a sword was shanked into what should be the stomach of the spirit. It stumbled back and summoned several skeletons from the ground, armed with sword and armor. A necromancer? Asher thought, I thought necromancer cursed spirits are grade one or higher?
And he turned out to be right, as Bethany immediately pulled Asher out of the way from a slash that probably would've been strong enough to split his head clean from the rest of his body. "It was hiding its true cursed energy." Bethany said, using a device to talk to someone that was on the other side of the call. "It's a cursed hybrid spirit, specializing in everything, including summoning the undead, it's probably the highest grade one there is. No, it might even be a special gra-" She was cut off as she had to dodge a ray of cursed energy that burnt a hole straight through a wall. "Level grade of danger, whatever the hell the highest is!" She yelled in the speaker of the device while running with the rest of the students. "We need backup over here now! A special grade could help out, and maybe a couple grade ones!"
They ran towards the exit to the building, but as soon as everyone but Asher ran out of the door, it closed. And large boulders threw themselves at the door to barricade it, Asher whipped around and saw the cursed spirit walking towards him. "Asher!" Anthony yelled from the other side of the door. "Hang on! Just stay alive until they get here!" Alan yelled.
Asher immediately jumped into action, about to summon Igris to buy time, but then a terrifying shriek erupted from the cursed spirit's mouth. What the- I can't use cursed energy! Asher thought. The shriek had completely cut off everyones' cursed energy who had heard it. Gripping his sword tight, he dashed towards the cursed spirit, blocking a claw aiming for his shoulder and slashing across the chest of the cursed spirit, as well as pulling out his other sword from the spirit. The summoned skeletons were closing in on him, as he was too slow to escape. Think! How do I get out of here! Asher thought, blocking attack after attack, but some would still go through his defense, a sword cut his calf, and another connected with his hip. I need to somehow hit them all! Asher thought, looking around for something to help him. A rotting arm, moss, a large rock. Wait, a large rock. I hope this works, Asher thought, running towards the rock. He used the momentum running towards the rock to stomp on it and kick off, propelling himself around and around in a whirl, the momentum keeping him spinning. He held out his blades, and felt them hitting metal, more metal, and more metal. As this went on, Asher started to feel really dizzy, but he kept going, using his left foot to propel himself to keep spinning until his swords stopped connecting to anything.
Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity. His swords stopped hitting anything. Asher's feet quickly pivoted themselves to stop himself from spinning. He doubled over, falling on all fours, looking around at the clutter of bones around him and the destroyed pieces of metal. He looked at the ground, his vision was disoriented, he rolled over onto his back. He felt something come back to him, but when he opened his eyes again, the cursed spirit was walking towards him. With the little energy and how disoriented he was, it was even considered a miracle for him to utter the words, "With this treasure I summon, Blood-Red Commander Igris."
As the giant red knight appeared in front of him, the last thing Asher saw was Igris approaching the cursed spirit, greatsword in hand.
And then his head rolled back, and Asher fell unconscious.
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