Awakened humans and Spirits operated on a mirrored ranking system, descending from Grade Five, which is the entry-level grunts, down to Grade Zero, a legendary tier of power that most people only read about in dusty webnovel chapters.
William had pegged the Lady in White as a Grade Four Spirit the second he walked in.
He could read her energy like a seasoned editor scanning a bad manuscript. Her summoner, Debra, was a Grade Five, technically a tier below her own servant.
In the dark arts, a weaker summoner could bridge the power gap by offering a physical sacrifice. The Higher the risk the higher the reward.
William had spotted the subscription fee immediately: Debra was missing two fingers on her left hand.
It was a common, gruesome trade. Some witches went darker, sacrificing eyes or entire limbs to command Grade Three horrors, but that usually ended with the spirit devouring the summoner's sanity.
Debra had played it "safe." A Grade Five could generally puppet a Grade Four if they paid in blood and kept their wits.
Higher Spirits usually meant losing control and risking corruption.
"Nothing I can't handle," William muttered, his eyes tracking the spirit's flickering movement.
He didn't wait.
As the Death Spirit closed the distance, William unleashed a horizontal slash with his materialized blade.
The speed was incredible, but the Lady in White was weightless. She drifted upward, the sheer pressure of William's swing missing her by an inch and tearing a jagged, splintered trench into the wooden wall behind her.
Holy shit that's not just a sword. It's a portable wrecking ball, Lou thought, his eyes wide.
But he didn't have time to cheer for the home team.
The spirit lunged mid-air, her pale hands locking onto William's shoulders with a sickening screech.
The impact sounded like a cannonball hitting a fence. Before Lou could even blink, the Lady in White tackled William backward, their combined momentum smashing through the cottage wall.
Wood exploded outward in a cloud of splinters and dust.
Lou watched in horror as the tank of his party was rocketed through the hole into the dark, open field outside.
Suddenly, the room felt very empty. And very quiet.
Lou turned his head slowly. Jon was still there, a manic glint in his eyes as he stepped over a broken chair. Debra stood calmly behind him, her remaining fingers tapping rhythmically on her hip.
Great, Lou swallowed hard, leveling his shaky flintlock at Jon's chest.
The pro is outside wrestling a banshee, and I'm stuck in here with the puppet and the Witch. This was definitely not in the job description.
"My summon will be done with the gentleman outside in a few minutes," Debra said, her voice sounding entirely too casual for a woman sitting in a room full of splintered wood. "You can stay with us while you wait your turn. While we do that, I'll tell you exactly why I put the old man out of his misery."
Lou's finger twitched on the flintlock. Stay with us? Is she offering me tea while her pet ghost murders my only ride home?
He didn't answer; he couldn't take his eyes off Jon, who was creeping closer like a hungry dog.
....
Outside, the air was cold.
William had managed to stick the landing, his boots skidding through the dirt and carving twin trenches in the earth.
Before the Death Spirit could pin him, he let out a shout and unleashed a powerful, rising swing of his sword.
The blade bit deep, causing a jagged tear along the Spirit's translucent ribs.
It shrieked with a sound that felt like a migraine in physical form, and hissed as it hovered for another strike.
"No need to shout at me like that, you ugly bastard," William said, shaking out his shoulders. "I can't understand a single word you're saying."
As if it actually understood the insult, the Death Spirit shrieked again and blurred forward, moving with twice the speed of its previous attack.
Two steps left. A quick spin.
William moved like a dancer in a heavy coat.
The spirit whistled past him, catching nothing but air.
In one fluid swing, William brought his sword around in a devastating arc from behind.
The steel sliced clean through the spirit's arm. The limb fell away into mist before the creature could retreat to a safe distance, howling in renewed agony.
"That's for laying your filthy hands on me," William said, his voice as calm as if he were ordering a drink at the bakery.
But the victory was short-lived. The shrieks didn't stop, but became louder, vibrating in the very marrow of William's bones.
Then, the Lady in White began to break.
Her elegant, pale skin started to rot and darken, fading from ghostly white to a charcoal black.
The severed limb didn't stay gon but bubbled and hissed, regenerating in seconds. Her eyes were sucked back into her skull, disappearing beneath the skin until her face was a smooth, featureless mask of shadow.
Her frame stretched and cracked. Her height shot up until she was a three-meter-tall nightmare.
Thin, wiry limbs, dark as burnt wood, and a single, massive oval eye that tore open in the center of its forehead.
William looked up at the towering monstrosity, his expression unchanging.
"So that's your true form? You really are one ugly piece of shit," he spat.
He glanced at his glowing sword, then back at the charcoal monster. "I have a feeling I'm going to need more than just the blade for this one."
The Death Spirit dropped into a predatory crouch, its massive, clawed feet sinking deep into the mud. The single eye locked onto William, pulsing with a sick, purple light.
Then, with a force that shattered the ground beneath it, the monster launched.
William didn't even flinch as the mountain of charcoal-fleshed horror bore down on him.
He waited until he could smell the rot on its breath, then stepped aside with a casual grace that made the monster look clumsy.
The Death Spirit slammed into the dirt where he'd been standing a microsecond before, the impact rattling the windows of the nearby cottage and sending a shockwave through William's boots.
It didn't miss a beat, lashing out with a scythe-like claw.
William ducked, the air whistling over his cap, and lunged forward to gut the thing like a fish.
But this wasn't the Lady in White anymore. A third, spindly arm burst from the creature's torso, its jagged talons aiming straight for William's throat.
Clang!
Steel met bone-hard keratin.
The sheer kinetic force of the block sent William skidding backward, his heels digging ruts into the earth until he slammed into the trunk of a massive oak. The wood groaned under the pressure.
The monster was relentless.
It was on him in a heartbeat, a blur of ebony limbs and silver-violet light. William was pinned against the tree, his sword a flickering blur of parries and blocks.
One blow, two, five—the impact of each strike was like a sledgehammer hitting a shield.
On the twelfth strike, the monster's overhead smash broke through. William was launched backward, tumbling through the air before crashing into a second tree with a bone-jarring thud.
"Shit," he spat, wiping a streak of blood from his lip as he forced himself upright. His coat was torn, and his breathing was ragged, but his eyes were cold. "I don't have time for this."
With a flick of his wrist, his materialized sword dissolved into shimmering particles, vanishing back into the thin air it had come from.
He stood there, defenseless, watching the three-meter nightmare charge him again. He took a slow, deep breath, centering the spirit energy in his core.
William raised his right hand, folding his thumb and forefinger into a tight circle.
He squeezed one eye shut, peering through the small aperture of his fingers, framing the charging monster like a target in a sniper's scope.
His remaining eye began to glow with a fierce, blinding yellow, like sunlight being compressed into a diamond. The air around his hand began to hum, the grass at his feet flattening under the pressure of the gathering light.
"Boom," he whispered.