Xion CH36: 4 Months Later

4 months after duel.

Fall came quickly, and winter was on its way; the deadline for ministers was coming up, and they seemed happy to sit on their hands and constantly jittery. I couldn’t blame them; I would be too if I crippled the leadership of my government with dementia and had a war on the horizon. Young fertile warriors could always be bred to make more Plains Tribesmen, but what about old set in their ways nearly infertile ministers. Especially those known to poison their leaders and make deals with other tribes. Who could trust such women?

Oh, I couldn’t fool myself either. The second the Plains Tribe attacked, I had better have my shit together and be ready to wipe out the army of a god. If I wasn’t ready, then that would be it for me. To that end, I had a plan in the works to manufacture a lot of anti-unit and avatar ammunition and possibly build a reserve of moose. Unfortunately, it was bound to step on some giant toes, but if everything went well, who knows, it might be just the thing we needed.

I upped my weights against them because they were feeling a little light and began storing whole trees pointed at one end in my inventory. Soon enough, I had a stack of 999 trees with the diameter of a ford truck’s length. There were many massive trees in the forest, and with fall coming, the forest was a little slow to react. Even the silver animals couldn’t do much, especially with an air-born Lotus hunting them.

On occasion, I heard a squeal and had a phantom taste of blood in my mouth. But, to Lotus, it was delicious, and she enjoyed eating the silver prey the most. They apparently put up the most fight and had the chewiest bones.

There were a few reasons to clear out an area of forest. My first reason was to establish a herd of moose to be broken and eventually turned into mounts for calvary. With a war of the gods on the horizon, I didn’t think our forest god would survive, so, fuck the forest. But, I had other thoughts and a few a little more grandiose than herding moose.

My connection with Lotus mana was a resource that could be stored in bones. Necromantic properties, types, and origins were a thing as far as magic was concerned. Lotus had an unnatural advantage where that was concerned. I couldn’t afford the books that did anything more than reference what any of that stuff did. But by the reference, Lotus was very good at necromantic magic. Using the mana she funneled into me through our familiar bond was best at summoning undead. Since her mana was all I had to work with, that narrowed down what I could summon.

While that could sound like a disadvantage, it made things easier. I had a near unlimited number of magics, techniques, and perspectives to choose from. Not everyone agreed that elements and origins mattered. Few even persisted those properties mattered in magic. Those who were true mages swore by it, but the older users claimed that everything was merely preference. If I decided that fire was the way to go and focused all my time on fire and fire alone, detectors would eventually determine that my element, origin, and properties were fire or had something to do with fire.

“What are we going to summon today?” Lotus asked.

As a being in my head, she learned my language quickly. “We are going to summon some banshees,” I said.

“I didn’t think there were any other spellcasters here,” Lotus said.

“Should we summon some Grievers, Rottlings, or Poison Fogs instead. It could be a while before anyone invades, and the upkeep of Rottlings or poison fog would be too much for us.” I said.

Banshees were used almost exclusively to interrupt a grand summoning or a step in a spellcaster's plan. They are kind of strong against certain enemies, but not really. As spiritual undead, they are weak against sunlight, with binary stars that weakness is even worse. Qi-infused attacks damaged spirits through will, and banshees weren’t known for their ability to take punishment.

A poison fog would be devastating against any army that relies on a breathing technique. They also hate the living in any form and would plot to destroy me. On the other hand, Lotus could control them without much effort.

The only actual use for a banshee was their scream. It could rattle the manacules in the air for miles and disrupt summonings for even experienced mages. Almost all mages or magic users had at least one banshee in their back pocket to make the other side wary of going all out on a big summon. Of course, that’s assuming the mage doesn’t have their familiar in their inventory or redundant summoning areas. If a mage controlled an entire planet, they could attempt a single summon numerous times, banshees or not. I had a few dozen acres to get this right.

I dug my summoning circle in the mud then applied a bone meal mixed with concrete to it. My hope was to synergize it with Lotus to make necromantic summoning easier. But, unfortunately, I wasn't raising any kaiju-sized undead unless I had a lot more time and hundreds of corpses lying around. To do that, I might need a summoning circle the size of a few square acres. So it was better to walk before I ran.

Once I was sure the circle was right, I placed my right hand on it and slowly channeled some mana to it. A blue light lit up the circle, and I could feel the mana move to the summoning circle’s predetermined shape. The summoning energy reached out and linked up with another summoning circle on a far-off world. That, too, was normal. Summonings at my level only connected to far greater circles which did the heavy lifting.

Light flashed in the circle, and a see-through black-haired girl wearing a white robe appeared. Out connection formed immediately. The banshee connected to Lotus, and I could control the banshee through Lotus. Words wouldn’t be needed; I could give order with my mind and see it carried out. Once I was sure about how that worked, I really didn’t have a use for the banshee.

“Can you sing the SpongeBob SquarePants opening song?” Lotus asked.

I blinked and concluded something that Lotus agreed upon wholeheartedly. Our summoned banshee was of Japanese descent, and listening to her sing that sound would be adorable.

The summoned banshee sighed and needed no further prompting. “Ooh!”