“[Twin Blades of Conflict.]”

When these words left Rakna’s mouth, two swords of volcanic energy emerged in his hands along with a sound of steel being hammered. Both were Japanese swords with long blades, a single edge, and a small curvature.

When the swords finished forming and the steel started reflecting the sunlight, one could see that each sword was different. The sword in Rakna’s left hand had a red glint on its edge and the handle was black and red. As for the sword in his right hand, the edge was dyed white instead and the handle was silver and white. Additionally, both weapons’ blades were releasing the hue that dyed their edges in the form of a liquid-like mist.

Rakna exhaled and waved both swords in a relaxed manner, their respective colors forming a trail in the air. He lifted the darker katana and pointed the edge at the Celestial Blaze who looked utterly stunned.

“A pair… of swords?” It inquired. “Is that what is supposed to defeat me? I frankly expected more. It appears I was nervous for nothing. Don’t you know that cold weapons are useless against Ethereal Fla--!”

Before it could finish, Rakna swung the sword and a whistling sound reverberated. The very air was cut by the blade and gained a red hue. A transparent red slash traveled the distance between Rakna and the Celestial Blaze in less than a second and before it knew, a chunk of the Raid Boss’s flaming body abruptly separated itself from the rest and dropped to the ground like a leaf riding the wind.

The flames continued to burn on the ground and the Celestial Blaze could only stare in terror as they refused to follow its will. It was as if… it had lost a limb it never knew it had. An experience it could have never expected to live through.

“How did you--?!”

“Juuchi Yosamu,” Rakna interrupted him as he calmly lowered the sword with a red aura. “Or Ten Thousand Cold Nights. That is the name of this sword. Forged by Muramasa when he challenged his master on who could make a finer sword. To test them, they suspended the blades in a small creek with the edge facing against the current.”

Rakna grinned and raised Juuchi Yosamu. “This one cut everything on its path. The fish, the leaves, and the very air that blew on it. This blade was made to cut everything. In this case, that includes the flames you are made of.”

Celestial Blaze barely could register those words. How could a sword projected by a meager spell be able to do something like this? The magic formation behind such a construct was beyond its current comprehension. “What is that spell’s--”

“Tier 4,” Rakna interrupted it once again. “This is my strongest Sub-Spell. Be honored. So? How is it going to be? Even if you could cast your magic, it wouldn’t do much since I am capable of turning my body into my element and the damage would be virtually negated. I can also easily heal from most injuries. To make it worse for you; you are weak for a level 300. You don’t possess fighting skills at all and even if you try to flee, you’re not fast enough to outrun me. You’re a sorry ass of a Raid Boss or Destroyer-Class Wilden when your magic is sealed off as means of offense.”

“This will not--!” The Celestial Blaze was cut off as a flash of star light went past it. Rakna emerged behind it with energy flickering under his feet and the auras of his weapons trailing after him. The Raid Boss froze as half of its body abruptly detached itself and fell off his control. The sentient flame had lost half of its body just like that and the remaining half seemed to be reforming itself into a regular, smaller shape, but with difficulty.

❮◈❯ Weapon Mastery has leveled up! ❮◈❯

“Oh, my bad, sorry to interrupt you again but… what were you saying?” Rakna asked with a grin after hearing the notification. He shouldered Juuchi Yosamu and glanced at the creature with one of his eyes revealing its mechanical lenses.

“I wonder how it’ll feel when I cut you up so many times, the only thing remaining of you will be a microscopic piece of combustion. Maybe it’ll be too small for you to even continue burning? Do you wanna try? I’m game if that’s--”

“My Lord, this humble one accepts to serve,” the Celestial Blaze changed coats faster than the speed of light and without wasting a second, it made itself much smaller and even shapeshifted into a dog before kneeling with its front paws like a good pet.

Rakna blinked at the unexpected development. He stared at the canine made of flames in front of him for a while before opening his mouth, “What the fuck am I? A zoo caretaker?”

“{Pff!}” Fray chortled at the jest. That couldn’t have been more accurate.

“Eh?” The Celestial Blaze exclaimed in confusion as metaphorical sweat poured down its head.

“Ah, whatever. Of course; why not add a fire mutt to my collection?” Rakna grumbled and planted his swords in the ground. “Well, it seems you’re quite brazen in the end. Didn’t you change tunes a bit too fast?”

‘Damn you! My life is more important than my pride!’ The Celestial Blaze screamed inside its mind as it bowed its head. “Nonsense, I simply failed to recognize My Lord’s splendor before I could embarrass myself,” it spoke with a flattering tone.

Rakna stared speechless at the creature. ‘What a shameless bastard…’

“{Arguably more than you, indeed,}” Fray commented.

“Anyway,” the therian muttered and waved his hand, a colorless energy wrapped around his arm and he directed it to the Celestial Blaze’s head. “It’s going to be fast. Just accept my soul fragment inside you and you will join my Guard.”

The Raid Boss grumpily complied and quickly enough, a fragment of Rakna’s soul entered its own and spread out. It merged with it and then firmly clamped down its authority.

At the same time, Rakna grunted and staggered backward. “Woah… I guess pain relating directly to my soul isn’t affected by my body,” he muttered with a wince. “The addition of someone with a stronger force than mine is a hassle for sure…”

Meanwhile, the Celestial Blaze was experiencing the benefits of the Imperial Guard and if it had any dissatisfaction left, it was gone in an instant. The canine form it had taken to please Rakna was somehow solidified and the flames became more condensed; almost solid.

The Wilden looked in shock at its leg and used it to hit the ground where it left a clear imprint of its paw. “This… I have physical attributes,” it said, with its voice sounding far less ethereal than before. It looked back at Rakna with a completely new impression, “What are you…?”

The werewolf grinned and shrugged. “Many things. Let’s move on to the next step of our little agreement,” he declared and an odd transparent magic circle whirled into existence on the ground below them.

“This is?” The Celestial Blaze raised an inexistent eyebrow at the formation.

“I don’t trust you fully yet,” Rakna replied. “This is called the Vow of Accord; a soul contract. The clauses are as follows: One; Party B, you, will not harbor ill intent to Party A, me, upon which case death will be warranted per Party A’s will. Two; Party B must follow every order from Party A and betrayal will warrant punishment. Three; Party B will and cannot hurt Party A, whether directly or indirectly. Four; this contract will last for as long as both parties do not agree to terminate it.”

“That’s just a slave contract!” The Celestial Blaze shouted in outrage. “There’s no way I can accept such an agree--! My apologies, My Lord. I will gladly comply,” it instantly switched attitudes when it saw Rakna reach for the hilt of Juuchi Yosamu.

“Great,” the therian clapped and the magic circle turned into a maelstrom of power than entered the Celestial Blaze’s body and deeply anchored itself into its soul without resistance. Once this was done, Rakna returned to his frost star state and lit a cigarette.

Coincidentally, he saw his two swords change a bit along with Obsidian Blood. He hummed, while the Celestial Blaze wept about the unfairness of the world, and reached for one of them.

“So, any spell that I cast while in one state automatically is converted to the other,” Rakna noted to himself and pulled the sword with the white aura out of the ground. “It also looks like my magic improved by crystal makes it more stable. But it doesn’t seem to have a qualitative difference,” he muttered and raised the blade above the Celestial Blaze, who shuddered at the sight.

“Wha-what are you doing?! I already can’t do anything to you!”

“Calm down. This won’t hurt you,” Rakna retorted and swung the sword down before it could say anything. The sentient flame saw the sword’s aura phase through it and the trail continued until the flames that had been cut off from its body.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the Celestial Blaze saw its body completely back to normal, the other bits of fire having disappeared. “Huh?” It exclaimed in shock and frantically looked at itself; whole once again.

“Yawarakai-Te,” Rakna uttered to clear his confusion. He slid his fingers across the blade swathed in white aura and puffed a cloud of smoke. “Or ‘Tender Hands’. Unlike his apprentice, Masamune forged a sword of mercy. While suspended above the creek, the fish swam right up to it, the air hissed as it gently blew by the blade, the leaves were repelled while the ones split by Muramasa’s blade would be mended back into full upon contact. Yawarakai-Te doesn’t cut what is innocent and similarly, it heals what is unjustly cut by Juuchi Yosamu.”

“The magic formation behind such a spell must be tremendously complex…” The Celestial Blaze said in awe. “How did you learn it?”

“By feeling,” Rakna shrugged and the blaze twitched. “Well, I did give it some thought. This spell’s source, however, is not a magic formation, but a matrix.”

“What?!” The Celestial Blaze yelled.

“{What?!}” Even Fray was astounded.

Of course, both of them knew about Spell Matrixes. The basic way of putting it was that matrixes were magic formations folded into smaller shapes. For example, if one started from simple magic circles, if you were to fold enough of them, at some point, you would end up with a sphere.

That sphere is called a Matrix. But it comes in other shapes. Some absurdly complex matrixes have been folded into specific forms, like origamis. The point was that matrixes were exceedingly hard to design, much less create.

Some mages spend years making one single matrix because the more magic formations you layer to make one, the more complicated it is for them to harmonize together.

“This is this spell’s matrix,” Rakna uttered and extended his hand. A small part of his mana came out of his palm and formed a matrix in the shape of a sword. It had runes, formulas, and markings in red and white. But the most mysterious thing about it was that everything was contained inside a crystal with engravings on it.

“{My goodness, you actually made a matrix…}” Fray muttered as his studious personality went to work and made him draw the magic formations layered inside the matrix onto a blank book of his library. “{How much mana did that take? Matrixes are essentially compact spells on the scale of a ritual and they tend to be highly costly.}”

“It took 3 000 MP from me. But the original cost is actually 6 000 MP. The only reason I can use it is thanks to my reduced mana consumption,” Rakna said and dismissed the matrix as the Celestial Blaze was still gaping at it. He then was about to dispel the swords when his scarf began to move.

“Hm?” Rakna looked down with a scowl as one of the ends of Sonata exfiltrated itself from around his neck and moved around as if it was sniffing the air. “What’s wrong?” The therian asked.

He wasn’t surprised to see his weapon act on its own since he had witnessed it a few times already after it assimilated the Church’s Holy Sword. It had gained a sort of semi-sentience from it. It was not to the extent where it could think or even have an ego, but it certainly had primal urges. Which were mainly eating other weapons.

Even if Sonata couldn’t evolve from it, it could now eat weapons to repair itself faster or sometimes decrease the cooldowns of the perks.

Rakna watched silently as the scarf seemed to search for something. And then, it happened; the fabric came in contact with one of the katanas, and Rakna’s eyes bulged.

❮ ◈ ❯

The Twin Blades of Conflict are compatible for an Assimilation.

Do you wish to evolve Skulking Sonata?

Yes/No

❮ ◈ ❯

“…what in the flying fu--”