Debauchery of a Soul-Eating Wraith

Anyway, the Arcanists arrived to see the perpetrator of it all guzzling down the blood of a child. Their faces sank at the horror and the weak-stomached wretched but were unable to even vomit due to their ongoing fast.

Luckily, their fast truly made them more Spiritually attuned and had them drawing in Spiritual energy at a faster and more efficient rate than usual. Plus, they had the boost they had received courtesy of the Star-aligning celebrations.

"By all-Pure Spiritual will, we shall exorcise this evil!" said a female Arcanist who stood in front of the others proudly taking charge.

Her hair was black and flowed freely and unlike the others who had on uniforms that were stitched in accordance to the will of the Church, she was dressed in a beautiful star-spangled black gown that clung to her form. The sides were slit and showed off her long legs with her feet covered by beautiful high-heeled shoes also in the color black.

The material of her gown shimmered with every move she made and the stars that adorned them caught the glow of the moon to dazzle enticingly.

Daria was as beautiful as she was the day she left Verdelen City. Her bust was perked up, large as they were, and further North, her eyes were narrowed in rage as the enemy\'s arms were still stained with the blood of the child it had just drunk. The boy\'s carcass now discarded.

This was a Wraith.

The body deformation and extra limbs were different from what Daria had come to associate the term \'Wraith\' with but there was no mistaking it.

"Oh how sweet," the Wraith said, with mirth in its red eyes, "Such synchronized action.

You overestimate yourself!"

*Pah!*

*Pah!*

Both pairs of extra hands the Wraith had, slammed together and the ground around the Arcanists shook before spikes of ice divided the ground and came stabbing towards them.

There was no fear in their eyes. They seemed prepared. Together, with Daria taking the lead, they slammed their palms and cast spells that spread a wave of Spiritual energy all over the ground, reversing the damage their opponent had caused and cutting the ice spikes off at the base causing them to topple.

The Wraith did not look disheartened. The weight of the spikes should still be more than enough to squash a few pesky humans, it thought.

Alas, blades of Spiritual energy charged out, all cast by the woman leading the group, and they sliced the spikes up so they could slammed away by the others into the heads of the Zombies that were bumbling over. Taking multiple of them out.

With a flick of her wrist, Daria called out a staff from her Spatial ring.

It was the one she had been gifted by Evian back in Verdelen City and used to belong to the Rogue Arcanist, Koln. She had made improvements to the weapon in her time back at Sacrosanct.

The wood was now mystically melded with a metal that better conducted Spiritual energy. It was also now embedded with five jewels she had been gifted by Priestess Arlene after her return. Jewels that could be supercharged with Spiritual energy as a backup resource or an explosive release.

By the look on Daria\'s face, it was not a mystery which of the two she was planning to do.

With the use of her movement circle, she was a few feet away from the Wraith before a human could blink and with a trained spin of the staff, she swung it at his neck.

"When—?" the Wraith let out with wide eyes before hurrying to put distance between them.

He succeeded…

*Bam!*

… Only for his entire body to be petrified with shock when he was still smacked in the neck and was forced to kiss the pavement.

*Crack!*

The whirring sound of the staff being spun expertly was all the Wraith needed to hear to know to roll to safety right before the staff slammed into the ground and cracked it.

"Arrrrrrggghhhh!!! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!"

Following that yell was the creation of icicles all carrying Eldritch cold. Again, feeling it only made Daria angrier. She remembered when she first felt that energy and how Evian had used it to reveal some truth of what he was before wrapping her in his arms and—

Ahhhhh! This bastard was just making it all wrong!

Whatever turmoil her mind was going through, Daria kept it off her face as she cast a spell circle and created an arch of flames that melted away the icicles and went charging towards the Wraith who slammed it with a cold chill that canceled it out.

Daria kept pushing.

The Wraith\'s two extra pairs of hands began forming seals in quick succession obviously in preparation for a grand Eldritch spell while his \'normal\' pair created two \'canes\' of ice to battle Daria with.

"I\'ll teach you a lesson on arrogance!" the Wraith announced.

"Because you\'re so full of it?" Daria asked defiantly, knocking aside cane attacks before stabbing the end of her Staff at her opponent\'s chest, charging it with Spiritual energy.

The Wraith parried the staff\'s tip causing the Spiritual energy at the tip to discharge like a detonation. Slamming him in the face with the spark of exorcism.

The Wraith burned but it declined to scream or move away and a second later when a gong sounded, Daria understood why.

As she had struck her opponent with her exorcising spark, she also had been hit with a Heart-stopping freeze.

The spell hit Daria\'s soul and made it difficult for her to muster spiritual energy. The chill it caused started from deep inside her rooting her to the spot and she calculated that she had less than a minute before it hit her heart and finally killed her.

She had seen as the Wraith cast the spell with its unnatural extra hands and had been prepared for something big and she had to say, this was big. It was not a spectacle but it did the job nicely.

At the Fifth Circle, she was just not yet spiritually sound to muster her reserves to save her life and she would have been at a loss had she not had her staff. All she needed was a Spark of Spiritual energy to activate one of the gems on her staff and she could manage that just fine.

The energy from the gem slammed her like an explosive wave and right before the eyes of the Wraith, she was free as fast as she had been bound.

"That\'s the best you could prepare?" Daria said. Unable to help herself from getting in a dig.

"You-!" the Wraith began only to pause when he realized mystical rings were now encircling his body.

He felt immobilized. Trapped in place and what was worse was that he recognized the spell. This was a spell Arcanists used in the diagnosis of ailments of a spiritual nature.

\'Does this- Does this infuriating human woman really think this would be enough to exorcise a Wraith like myself?\'

"You think it\'s weak?" Daria asked like she could read her opponent\'s mind, and then she chuckled at her opponent\'s narrow mind.

The spell was indeed simple or more accurately, it used to be. She had even used it once to \'save\' Evian before she knew what he was.

Anyway, Daria had made important changes. Tweaked it.

The foundation was there and she was amazed how no one had thought to do the same before her.

Anyway, the Wraith resisted and tried to harness Eldritch Energy but failed. Compared to its original version that pulled out the energy for a possible physical altercation, this improved \'Daria Version\' eviscerated the release until the exorcism was complete. Meaning the more the Wraith struggled, the weaker it would ultimately become.

The Wraith strained, its Zombie creations all agitated at the likely end of their master when something happened that threw a wrench in Daria\'s concentration.

*KABOOOOOOOM!!!"

The topmost part of the Sanctorum, where the quarters of the Pontiff was located, exploded.

"HAHAHAHAHA, it\'s done!" the Wraith cackled.

Daria looked at its pale face and saw the Wraith was not rejoicing at his escape from her spell but rather at the destruction happening at the Sanctorum.

Why? She wondered and then shook her head to focus on restarting the exorcism.

"Oh, no you don\'t!" the Wraith laughed and with all six of his hands, he cast a massive ice wall as a barrier between himself and Daria.

Daria destroyed the barrier almost as soon as it was created but the Wraith was gone. She searched but she didn\'t pick up any details to follow.

To be honest, she was not trying all that hard because, at that moment, she realized what all this had been about and knew where all attention should be or at least should have been.

His Holiness, the Arcane Pontiff was in danger and following that explosion, she feared the worst.