92. Echo
Inside Noah's sea of consciousness.
Noah's half-transparent figure had one hand over Assea's cracked image.
His eyes were closed and his brows were knitted, he seemed immersed in a complex process.
Shards of Assea's image began to detach from its figure and feel in the sea.
Little by little, the snake form in Noah's mental sphere crumbled until there was nothing left in its place.
Noah opened his eyes and the snake tattoo on his chest rejected the blood of the Horned snake, expelling it from the body.
Of his blood companion, only a wound remained.
Noah took out a bottle and a pill from his space-ring, one helped to restore his mental energy while the other increased the healing speed of his injuries.
He had suffered some damage from the bat pack and the process of killing the blood companion left him in a tired state.
He meditated to help the medicines do their work and noticed that his mind was clearer than ever.
Without the drawback of the spell from the Assea family, his sea of consciousness felt extremely light.
'It won't last much longer.'
Noah thought and picked a cask full of water from his space-ring.
He washed neatly to prevent any contamination and then put everything away, taking out the bowl full of dense blood.
It was time to begin!
He focused and immersed his saber in the bowl and started drawing on his chest the outline of the rank 3 bat.
Then it was time for the details: four fangs, pointy ears, four clawed paws, two eyes on the sides of the head with one in the middle, and two pairs of wings.
A sort of pressure exuded from the drawing while Noah nodded in satisfaction.
A small heart appeared in his hand, it was the size of one and a half fists.
The rank 3 bat was smaller than the Horned snake, it was only three meters tall so it was natural for its organs to be tinier.
Noah took two rapid bites and swallowed the heart, the drawing's temperature began to rise till Noah felt his chest burning.
This time though he was prepared.
His eyes were already closed and focusing on his sea of consciousness.
His ethereal figure had his eyes opened waiting for the bat image to appear.
When it materialized, it acted in the same way as the Horned snake the previous time: it went berserk and moved
However, the first Kesier rune hummed, followed by the faint form of the second one.
The beast fell on the sea screeching in pain and Noah followed it.
In a few minutes, the figure of the bat formed over the sea at the center of the sphere.
The pressure generated by the sharing of their senses returned and pressed on the walls of the sea of consciousness.
Noah was about to exit his mental sphere when the roots wrapped around the first Kesier rune shot out and entangled themselves around the bat.
'I knew it!'
He could feel from his connection with the new blood companion that it could enter the Demonic form without rejections!
He opened his material eyes and stood up, the tattoo of the bat moved a bit over his body to then stop on his back.
'It seems more alive than Assea, does it depend on the fact that we are of the same element?'
He summoned it in front of him.
The bat was quite lifelike, it had the same size as the original beast which reassured Noah on the success of the process.
'Attack me.'
As usual, Noah wanted to test its abilities.
The bat didn't hesitate and screeched in his direction, Noah spat out a mouthful of blood while his liquid "Breath" was consumed to fuel the ability.
He hastily made it stop and stared with wide eyes at his new companion.
'It can use its innate abilities? But that wasn't specified in Uriah's diary.'
He sat on the floor and focused on healing his injuries, the sound attack had hurt him internally.
He didn't use the potions this time as he wasn't in a hurry, previously he had used them afraid that the ingredients for the spell could have been wasted.
He tested some more times and confirmed that the bat could use all the abilities that he had when it was alive.
'Is it because my element is the same? It makes sense after all, only the body changed while its instincts and its "Breath" remained the same. Anyway, it definitely kept the strength of a peak rank 3 beast.'
He tested some more and activated the Demonic form on it.
Black smoke was released from its body and its power rose visibly but Noah's mental energy was depleted at an even higher speed than when he used that spell for himself.
'However, its weakness is removed when it enters that form.'
Since the bat was smaller than Assea, it could just cover an area of a few meters around Noah.
However, when it activated the Demonic form, the black smoke would work as a connection between Noah's body and the blood companion, vastly increasing its area of action.
'So this is the true power of the Body-inscription spell, wonderful, my battle prowess increased again.'
He looked at the bat for a while and then nodded.
'I'll call you Echo, now let's see if you can make me fly.'
Flying not only was extremely useful to travel, but it could also be used as a way to run away from a dangerous situation.
If he had had that ability back in Twilboia Cliff, he would have never faced the rank 5 snake.
His expectations were not met as he discovered that he could at best use Echo's body to float and not properly fly.
Black smoke covered again the companion's body and Noah entered it.
This time it could fly for a period but its speed was nothing special and the expenditure of mental energy was immense.
'It seems that the body created through the spell is flawed in this aspect, or maybe it's because my "Breath" is only in the liquid stage, or probably because bat-type magical beasts aren't that skillful in flight in general. I'll do more tests later on, now I should rest.'
He decided to return to the empty trunk and slept.