“The first thing that you need to focus on will be spirit resonance. Similar to standard summoning, you need to train yourself to match the spiritual wavelength of anyone that you are cooperatively summoning with.” Vivi explained, having Dana and I sit down on the floor, facing one another. “Typically, the more comfortable you are with someone, the easier it is to achieve this harmony.”

“Have you ever done this before?” Dana asked, causing me to shake my head. I had summoned numerous creatures before, but I had never done so by cooperating with another person. At most, I had seen one of Udona’s incarnations create a kraken-like monster long ago. “In that case, let me lead this time.”

Seeing her warm smile, I couldn’t help but give a small nod. The two of us placed our hands together, and I could feel the threads of her spirit wrapping around my wrists. She was pulling at something, so I didn’t resist, letting her capture a piece of my soul and hold it between our hands. Once she had done so, it was joined by her own, causing my eyes to twitch slightly.

It was one thing to know about the damage to her soul, and another entirely to feel it. Each fragment felt like an individual wound, yet also its own complete whole. Almost as if I wasn’t dealing with just one Dana, but thousands. She had adjusted to her state and made it her own, but each fragment felt so small and lonely.

As she was reshaping the fragments to try to match my spirit, I subconsciously reached out with my spirit to wrap around those fragments. I wasn’t constraining them, merely holding them as if in a gentle embrace. Dana’s eyes went wide for a moment, the fragments hesitating. Then, after a moment, they began to relax.

They weren’t healing, or coming together, or anything like that. If it were so simple to repair the damage to her soul, Tsubaki would have done so long ago. No, this was how Dana was. I wasn’t trying to change her, only show her that she was accepted.

As she felt the gentle embrace, Dana chuckled softly. “You were supposed to let me lead, boss.” She chided with a grin. “Cut back by about half the energy you’re using, and the harmony should be just right. You can inject more energy into your part of it when we hit one of the later steps.”

I nodded my head, withdrawing roughly half of the spiritual power that was wrapping around her fragments. After doing so, I felt something within the spiritual power I was using. It felt like when you strike two tuning forks together, just the soft hum and vibrations. Gradually, the energies between our hands were beginning to merge.

“Now that you have achieved harmony, you are creating the seed of your future summon.” Vivi said with a delighted smile. “Maintain this seed throughout the entire process, and then you will each be able to retrieve it when we are done.”

“The next step is to imbue it with the concept. Both of you, take an energy equal to the amount of your personal energy that is contained within the seed. Focus the entirety of what you imagine your concept as through that energy, and then feed it into the seed.”

Dana blinked for a moment at that. “Huh, the next stage is usually determining the matured summon form. I guess this is where things start to diverge.” As she said that, she closed her eyes and focused, as did I.

What is Darkness? Emptiness, black, absence. The cold void of nothing that exists where light refuses to touch. Darkness is solitude, even if you are surrounded by others. It’s the creeping shadow and the total eclipse. I put those thoughts into my spiritual energy, and began to infuse it into the seed. As I did so, I could feel the thoughts Dana was feeding in as well.

What is Darkness? It is comfortable and quiet. The other half of light, helping it to observe everything that hides from its gaze. Darkness is where you can be together with your thoughts, and the infinite wonders hidden beyond the reach of your gaze. Wherever you are, Darkness is there to hold you and keep you safe.

It was hard to imagine two ideas of the same concept, so radically different. And yet, that is exactly what a domain was. Not the true or accepted definition of a word, but what that word meant to the individual that possessed it.

With the two streams of thoughts being fed into the seed, it began to blacken beneath our hands, becoming tangible and pushing our palms apart. Now it was the size of a normal chicken egg, held between our hands with the gentlest of touches.

“Excellent, the two of you did great.” Vivi nodded her head quickly as she watched the egg taking shape. “Now, this is where you really need to coordinate. Like Dana said before, the next important part is to define what the beast will look like. You only have one attempt at this, unlike normal summons. This is because your concept has already taken root. Once you inject the image of the matured summon, the concept will absorb it into itself.”

I chuckled at that, nodding my head. “Okay, then what form do you think would work best? Something like a dog?”

Dana blinked at that, before smiling wide. “I’ve always wanted to have a pet around the Citadel. I wanted to get a slime since they’re so versatile, but after Lifre joined, I thought it would be in rather poor taste.”

“Would you still be able to summon it in the Citadel when I’m not there?” I asked curiously, to which Dana nodded her head.

“Cooperative summons can still be summoned with only one part, but it will be a weaker version only containing the aspect that the individual summoner contributed to.” After she said that, Vivi quickly interjected.

“Summons done this way are a bit different, just as a warning. The concept you gave the summon won’t appear unless all contributing parties are present. You will still be able to have the physical form, and whatever abilities you give your portion of the summon, but it will lack the fundamental concept that you imbued in it.”

Dana blinked at that, before nodding her head. “I guess we’ll each need to create solo summons as well, once this is over. Are we allowed to have more than one concept with this style?”

“Oh, definitely.” Vivi smiled wide and explained. “In fact, the style recommends practitioners create twelve beasts with unique concepts.”

Dana seemed to accept that quite readily, and the two of us began to inject the idea of the creature’s form into the egg. It was a hound, but one that served as both a friendly companion and fierce protector.

After I was done putting my thoughts for its form into the egg, I felt the egg begin to shake and grow again. Soon, it was the size of an ostrich egg, but kept growing, until even both of our hands couldn’t fully cover it. Instead, we moved our hands below it to support its weight.

“Okay, this is the hardest part.” Vivi said, her expression suddenly turning serious. “So far, you’ve been using purely your spiritual energy to establish the form and concept. That means that right now, you are dealing with a feral beast.”

“For a normal summon, this would be the part where you infuse your mana into the summon and bind it to your wills. However, this is another point where the Beast of the End differs.” As she spoke, she began to back up. “The two of you need to keep infusing your spiritual energy at a steady pace, until the beast hatches. Afterwards, you must join forces to defeat it in its feral form. Only then will its mind be weak enough for you to bind it to yourselves. Any outside help, including that of other summons, will result in the beast not recognizing you as its master.”

“That… would have been nice to know before.” I said with a wry smile, Dana nodding her head vigorously. Already, I could feel something clawing against the inside of the egg, Dana and myself continuing to push our spiritual energy into it.

Soon, the egg was larger than Dana’s body, and then larger than my own. Once it was five meters tall, there was a crack. A black claw pierced through the egg, tearing at its shell and ripping it open. The great maw of a feral hound poked out, howling as the egg began to melt around it.

What stood before us was a massive beast of rippling muscle and black fur, gazing down at us like we were little more than food. “Oh, and if the beast manages to win, unlikely as it is, it will completely devour your spirit and ascend as a true god.”

“That would have been nice to know before!” I shouted again, Dana’s voice echoing my own. I glanced over at the elven spirit, both of us making some distance from the beast. “I guess it’s a good thing we chose Darkness?” I asked, Dana giving a light chuckle.

“Remember, I can’t use my void powers here.” She said, the beast splitting in two to rush at each of us. On closer inspection, one of the two beasts seemed to be a shadow, while the one rushing at myself was its real form.

“Right, forgot about that.” I said, holding up my hand to catch the paw of the giant beast. It seemed confident that it would crush me, but its paw was stopped as if it had hit a metal wall. “How about the threads?”

“That I can do.” Dana said as she extended her arms, hundreds of threads flying out to wrap around the shadow beast. She tied its legs together, jumping up and flipping over its back. Her small feet came down to stomp on its spine, pulling the threads taut at the same time and shredding apart the shadow.

Meanwhile, the true form of the summon was biting at me, black fangs approaching my body. Its shadow rose up at my feet, trying to engulf me from both sides. For its teeth, I simply relied on my ki to stop its mouth from reaching me, while my foot came down to stomp heavily at the rising shadow. My foot, wrapped in mana, shattered the shadow and caused the virtual space to shudder.

As I was thinking over my next move, I saw the light blue threads weaving through the black fur of the beast, Dana standing on its back. “Down, boy!” She shouted, her spirit soaring as the threads wrapped around its neck and began to tighten.

The beast tried to pull its paw back, but I held it firmly in place with my ki, causing it to only be able to lash out with its other front paw. However, that too was stopped with little effort. As the threads continued to tighten, and the beast struggled against us, we noticed its eyes begin to dim.

“Now!” Vivi shouted. “Imbue a mark of mana on it, and it will accept you as its master!” Dana and I reacted at once. Dana’s mark manifested at the top of its head, looking like a man wrapped in smoke, while mine was directly between its eyes. My mark was a simple, black circle to represent a full eclipse.

With both of our marks in place, the wolf’s body shattered, returning to both of us. I could feel it taking up residence in my soul, slumbering and waiting for its time to be summoned once again. Vivi let out a relieved sigh when she saw that we had subdued the monster. “Okay… from this point on, you can treat it like a standard summon, assigning abilities to it and feeding it more power to increase its strength. If you want to create a solo summon, the only real difference is how you create the seed. Once you’re ready, we’ll get started on that.”