2 Spirit Ashes, 5 Helpers

When the first rays of morning sunlight fell in dappled patches across the ground.

Xia Tong woke up.

The reason he had dared to sleep out in the open ruins with the wandering merchant Kale was because he knew Melina was keeping watch nearby.

"Phew..."

Xia Tong rubbed his slightly swollen temples as his memories gradually returned.

"Last night... after Princess Ranni of the Moon finished speaking with me, I seemed to lose consciousness and fell asleep immediately."

Lowering his head, he found two items lying quietly on the tattered felt cloth beside him.

One was a flask containing translucent grayish-white light. Three wolf-shaped phantoms could vaguely be seen swimming within it like sealed smoke.

The other was an ancient-looking dark gray bell.

[Spirit Calling Bell].

It was a deep gray similar to obsidian, its surface covered in traces of age. It looked exceedingly ancient, and it was ice-cold to the touch.

"Since that's the case..."

Xia Tong looked at the bell and Spirit Ashes in his hands, sensing their strange fluctuations as a bold idea arose in his heart.

Morning.

Deep within the dense woods near the front of the gate.

Specks of blue light gathered, and Melina's figure materialized in the air.

Looking at Xia Tong standing in the middle of the clearing with an eager expression, she frowned slightly and asked in confusion,

"Are you planning to summon Spirit Ashes here?"

Melina looked around, explaining in a serious tone,

"Spirit Ashes can usually only be summoned near a Rebirth Monument. That is a rule left behind by Queen Marika. Without a Rebirth Monument as a medium, the Spirit Calling Bell alone is useless."

"If you force the summoning, not only will it fail, but it will violently tear at your mind, causing severe headaches and perhaps even irreversible damage to your soul."

Faced with Melina's stern warning, Xia Tong did not retreat.

He gently rubbed the icy bell in his hand. A peculiar gleam flashed in his eyes, and the corner of his mouth curled upward.

"Melina, do you know? I once had a dream, a very, very long dream. I failed countless times and died countless times.

"In that dream, I was a weak, unbelievably weak Tarnished. Yet in the end, I grew step by step into the Elden Lord.

"Even then, there was still something I kept thinking about."

"I was often beaten to death by monsters because I couldn't find a Rebirth Monument. How nice would it have been if I could ring the bell even where summoning wasn't allowed?"

Xia Tong raised his head, his gaze turning sharp and resolute.

"Back then, in the dream, I couldn't try it."

"But now, it isn't a dream anymore."

Melina had just raised a hand to stop him, thinking the idea utterly mad. So many people had tried it before!

But it was already too late.

Jingle, jingle!

Xia Tong had already gently shaken the bell in his hand.

A clear bell chime rang out.

Yet the sound was extraordinarily strange. It did not spread outward as sound waves should, but inward.

It echoed directly in the depths of Xia Tong's soul, stirring ripples invisible to the naked eye.

In response, the air before him began to twist eerily.

Buzzz—

Three soft blue-white lights, cold as moonlight, rose from the ground out of nowhere. Like three tiny stars fallen into the mortal world, they emitted a faint, chilly glow.

Within the light, dust and mist in the air were rapidly drawn in and condensed.

Amid the shifting light and shadow, the outlines of creatures swiftly took shape.

Fur, fangs, wild eyes...

They were three gray wolves with bristling fur and vicious gazes!

Stray Wolves!

At the sight of the three solid figures summoned from the light, Melina was nearly dumbfounded.

Her lips parted slightly, and disbelief appeared on her normally calm face.

As far as she knew, almost no one could summon Spirit Ashes without going through a Rebirth Monument.

The Rebirth Monument's purpose was to thin the veil between reality and the world of spirits, allowing souls to appear and manifest physical forms.

This was an ironclad law of the Lands Between.

And yet there was clearly no Rebirth Monument nearby.

Xia Tong had summoned them so effortlessly, utterly disregarding the rules.

In her recollection, aside from demigods, only exceptionally powerful sorcerers and incantation users could forcibly summon Spirit Ashes without a Rebirth Monument.

Of course, she had heard that certain Ancient Dragons could do the same.

But this boy before her was clearly just an extremely weak Tarnished. He had nothing whatsoever to do with strength!

"Torrent, he..."

Still stunned, Melina instinctively patted the horse's head beside her, signaling Torrent to look at this impossible sight.

Not only Melina, but Xia Tong himself was somewhat surprised.

His desire to try ringing the Spirit Calling Bell somewhere without a Rebirth Monument had been more like a bit of mischievous fun.

It was something countless players had wanted to do, and naturally he was no exception.

But he had never expected it to actually work.

And according to Melina, it should have been absolutely impossible for him to succeed.

Xia Tong pondered carefully and arrived at a guess. Perhaps because he had crossed over from another world, his soul did not belong to this world and could partially substitute for a Rebirth Monument.

But from his current perspective, there was simply no way to find a definite answer.

Perhaps if he built a good relationship with Princess Ranni of the Moon in the future, he could obtain a final answer by looking at the matter from her perspective as a demigod.

Melina had yet to fully recover from her shock and was just about to say something else.

Jingle, jingle!

Xia Tong actually shook the bell again!

This time, two more figures emerged in the air.

The two creatures were small and hunched over, with stone-hard bluish-gray skin and tiny gargoyle wings on their backs.

Each held a sharp Forked Hatchet, its blade gleaming with an unnatural dark light beneath the sun.

Fanged Imps!

The moment they appeared, the Fanged Imps seemed able to sense the presence of a spirit.

They abruptly turned toward Melina and let out piercing, grating shrieks, like fingernails scraping viciously across glass, making one's scalp tingle.

It was instinctive vigilance and aggression toward spirits.

"Turn around. Face me!"

Xia Tong immediately gave an order. His voice was not loud, but it carried an irresistible authority.

Hearing their master's command, the two Fanged Imps instantly stopped shrieking, obediently turned around, and looked at him.

The three wolves beside them also stopped looking around. They began circling Xia Tong, occasionally affectionately sniffing at the cuffs of his trousers as though confirming their leader's scent.

"Not only did you ignore the Rebirth Monument... you even summoned two sets of Spirit Ashes at the same time?!"

Melina was truly stunned this time.

Even during the Golden Order's most prosperous era, she had never heard of such an ability.

A hand bearing burn scars extended from beneath her voluminous black robes.

She subconsciously brushed aside the hair before her forehead, revealing her left eye, which was usually closed and bore three curved marks like claw slashes.

That left eye seemed to sense an immense fluctuation in the laws and tried to open.

Its eyelid trembled violently once before finally becoming still again.

"...Forget it."

Melina let out a soft sigh, lowered her hand, and looked at Xia Tong with a complicated expression.

Meanwhile, Torrent's eyes were as wide as bells, and even the half-chewed Rowa Fruit in its mouth fell out.

It seemed to be questioning its entire horse life.

"Damn... I feel a little tired."

In the middle of the clearing, Xia Tong swayed, and his face instantly turned pale.

This was different from playing the game.

Now that he had truly summoned Spirit Ashes in this world, the feeling of emptiness was exceptionally intense.

It was as though something inside his body had been ripped away in an instant, leaving him completely hollowed out.

In the game, the Mind attribute increased one's Focus Points.

And in this world, Focus Points were equivalent to mental strength.

After summoning two sets of Spirit Ashes in succession, Xia Tong's head was already swimming and throbbing, as if he had stayed awake for three whole nights.

Glug, glug.

Xia Tong did not dare push himself. He hurriedly took out the Cerulean Tear Flask and gulped down a mouthful.

A cool sensation like mint sliding down his throat instantly penetrated his heart and lungs.

A light blue energy surged upward along his throat, circling his mind and nourishing his parched spirit.

In an instant, Xia Tong felt the dizziness vanish. His thoughts became clear again, and his Focus Points rapidly recovered.

He thought it over and muttered softly,

"The existence of Spirit Ashes doesn't seem to continuously consume Focus Points. Only at the moment of 'summoning' does it consume a large amount of mental strength."

"It's like establishing some kind of contractual connection."

After recovering a little, Xia Tong looked toward Melina.

The girl still looked incredulous as she murmured,

"You actually did it... This simply defies all reason."

"Amazing?"

Xia Tong replied playfully in a foreign language, though he knew she would not understand.

Melina froze.

"What did you just say? Amazing? Is that some ancient spell?"

She paused, her gaze growing profound as she sized Xia Tong up from head to toe.

"I've heard languages great and small... Could you be a Numen?"

I'm not. Your mother is.

Xia Tong could not help grumbling inwardly.

That was right. Her mother—Marika, the Eternal Queen—was a genuine Numen, someone who had come from beyond the Lands Between.

Of course, Xia Tong still wore a genial smile on the surface and spouted nonsense with a straight face.

"I'm no Numen. I'm an ancient... Descendant of Yan and Huang."

"Descendant... of Yan and Huang?"

Melina lowered her head in thought, trying her hardest to search for the term within the Erdtree's vast storehouse of memories.

But she found nothing at all.

She nodded thoughtfully. "It sounds... like something very ancient and very powerful."

The boring topic came to an end.

Xia Tong's gaze sharpened once more as he looked toward the edge of the woods.

A Godrick Soldier was patrolling there with a torch, completely unaware of the danger lurking nearby.

This time, Xia Tong did not sneak up from behind like a thief.

Instead, he led his "little brothers" forward openly, chest held high.

The sound of footsteps alerted the other party.

Roar! Roar!

The Godrick Soldier spotted the intruder and charged furiously toward Xia Tong with a Lordsworn's Straight Sword in hand.

However, before he could get close.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

The two Fanged Imps simultaneously pulled Magic Pots from behind their backs and hurled them with perfectly synchronized movements.

Bang! Bang!

The dark brown Magic Pots smashed against the Godrick Soldier and shattered instantly.

Blue-white magical flames erupted with a roar!

The soldier screamed and staggered, his armor scorched black by the blast.

Though there were no health bars in the real world, the magical damage clearly left him in unbearable pain.

Awooo—!

Taking advantage of his stagger, the three Stray Wolves had already arrived like bolts of gray lightning.

Working in perfect coordination, they lunged at the Godrick Soldier.

One bit his arm, one seized his leg, and one pounced at his throat!

They bit and tore, tugged and ripped, utterly vicious.

By comparison, the Fanged Imps were much simpler and more brutal.

While the wolves held the soldier's attention, they circled to his flanks and wildly stabbed at his unarmored weak points with their Forked Hatchets, which possessed exceptionally high bleed buildup.

Splat! Splat!

Blood sprayed everywhere.

One of the imps even used its wings to leap up, landing directly on the soldier's head and delivering a vicious face-smashing kill!

Gack! Gack! Gack!

With a few final gurgling sounds escaping his throat,

the poor Godrick Soldier finally collapsed, twitched a few times, and never moved again.

Five steps.

Just five steps.

From the moment Xia Tong gave the order to attack until the battle ended, he had only taken five steps forward.

He had not even drawn his sword or broken a sweat.

"That was way too easy! Is this what it feels like to have thugs doing the work for you?!"

Watching the scene unfold, Xia Tong was ecstatic.

Back when he played Elden Ring, there was no such thing as a "multiple-summon build."

Spirit Ashes could only summon one at a time, and they were limited by the range of Rebirth Monuments.

But now, in this real world,

not only could Xia Tong summon them anywhere, but as long as he had enough mana, he could even raise an army!

This was the true way to play as the Elden Lord!

Not far away,

Melina leaned against a large tree in her translucent form.

She looked over the battlefield strewn with carnage, then gazed from afar at Xia Tong's spirited figure.

Beneath her hood, the corners of her mouth seemed to curl up slightly.

She murmured to herself,

"Maybe... he really is the one chosen by fate."