Transmigrated as a Ghost

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Facing off against both great knight number seven Ziemia and her contracted spirit Grunt, Marcus was in quite the dangerous situation.

Even using his ghost form he was completely cut off by Grunt who could just as easily phase through things and follow him wherever he went.

Also, Ziemia seemed to have an obsession with binding him to her family if she could, and if not destroying him.

'I know I cannot win against both of them, but I will just have to try and create an opening for escape.'

Dropping out of his ghost form, Marcus solidified his soul and brought forth his scythe.

The benefits of being in his ethereal form were pretty much negated by Grunt's presence, so he might as well become solid where he could use his physical strength as well.

'Embodiment of eclipse, dark form.'

Knowing that to face a great knight as mighty as Ziemia head on he was going to need be as strong as possible, Marcus used the form of his supreme skill that could output the greatest raw power.

Still, he doubted this would be enough, since against Felcia who was just one rank above, he had to use everything he had to contend with her, and still came out the loser in the end.

'Darkness drill.'

Starting out with his tier four spell, Marcus fired it towards Ziemia, while flying towards Grunt who was honestly the bigger threat.

WHOOSH!

Yet as he tried to move forward, Ziemia let loose a bolt form her oversized crossbow that doubled as a battle ax.

Blowing through Marcus spell, the bolt sped forward going well past the speed of sound, and Marcus barely avoided taking a direct hit by twisting his body to the side.

However, this was not some ordinary bold that Ziemia had fired, and as it passed next to Marcus, it began shaking violently before unleashing a resounding explosion.

BOOM!

Being caught up in the unexpected explosion and with no way to avoid it, all Marcus could do was deploy his defense skills and spells as he was engulfed.

Quickly he felt himself being smashed into the side of the carven that Grunt had created, with minor damage having been done to his form.

Unfortunately, the follow up attack had already been initiated while he was disoriented, and the wall he had slammed into turned into mud and began wrapping around him.

Of course, this was Grunt's doing, and Marcus could tell he was not going to get out of this easily.

'Shine Ring.'

Casting one of his tier five light magic spells, Marcus sent out a massive blast of light energy all around him, blowing the mud away and freeing himself.

Still, as he did his danger sense alerted him to another bolt flying his way at an incredible speed.

Focusing his mana barrier in front of him as well as casting his radiance scales spell, Marcus blocked the incoming bolt. But like the previous one, this one began to shake and crackle before exploding.

Except this time instead of just a fiery explosion, this bolt unleashed a torrent of lightning that began electrocuting Marcus.

Luckily his ghostly nature and with the lightning element being one of the magics he was proficient in, the electricity did little to him and he was able to shake it off.

'Two can play at that game.'

'Voltaic bombardment.'

Sending out hundreds of bolts of lighting, Marcus covered the entire area with electricity, making sure that no place in the enclosed space they were fighting in was clear.

Though it was not like these bolts of lighting were much trouble to either Ziemia or Grunt. With Ziemia simply blocking them with her own mana barrier, and Grunt slipping into the earth around him.

'Eclipse meteor.'

Enveloping himself in the full power of his supreme skill, Marcus blasted right towards Ziemia with one of his strongest attacks.

He could tell that in ranged combat he was horribly out matched right now, and needed to get close even if he had to use an explosive attack to do so.

Naturally Ziemia was not going to just let Marcus approach her and fired off another bolt towards him, which when it impacted unleashed a searing light that scorched even the ground.

She had noticed that Marcus seemed to be enveloped in a great deal of darkness, and even though he also had the power of light, she figured that a light element based attack might dispel his darkness which seemed stronger.

Fortunately for Marcus, her assumption was dead wrong, and the light she hit him with did absolutely nothing to him as a ruler of light.

Smashing through Ziemia's attempt to stop him, Marcus' power actually increased as he integrated some of the light energy from her attack into his own, and was soon just a few dozen feet away from crashing into his opponent.

Yet before he made contact, Grunt slid out of the earth and incased himself and Ziemia in a thick shell made out of earth.

Creating a devastating explosion of light and darkness, Marcus rocked the entire underground area, causing cracks to form and debris to fall all around them.

'Death dance.'

Not waiting even a moment after unleashing his eclipse meteor, Marcus moved seamlessly into using his strongest attack skill, and began assaulting Ziemia at close range.

He twisted around, struck at odd angles, changing his rhythm as he went, and slashed back and forth with a great amount of power.

However as much as Ziemia was a master at ranged combat with the crossbow portion of her weapon, she was equally good if not better with the ax part.

Every attack Marcus made was blocked, and as she got more used to the fluid way that Marcus moved, she eventually created an opening that caught Marcus off guard.

With one big swing of her ax, both of Marcus' legs were cut off and he lost his balance.

Following up on this, the earth around him began shifting again, and wrapped tightly around Marcus like a rope and containing him.

"You are caught. This is your last chance to submit to me, or you can perish." Ziemia said while pointing her crossbow straight at Marcus' head.

Certainly, he might be able to break free from Grunt's bonds again, but while doing so Ziemia would fire the bolt in her crossbow and destroy his head.

Also, to make matters worse, another figure soon appeared into the cavern, with Cibor himself having shown come to backup Ziemia.

"Oh, it looks like you managed to catch that detestable spirit." Cibor said while smiling devilishly at Marcus.

To this point Marcus had been a huge thorn in his side, with him and Relia stopping his first ambush on the rebels. To his fight against Felcia that ultimately led to her being killed by Argus.

"Well, it looks like there is no vampire to save you this time." Cibor said his smile growing wider and wider seeing Marcus' distress.

"Now go ahead and end this Ziemia."

However, Ziemia turned to look towards Cibor and said, "No. I am still trying to recruit this spirit. You know that my family has long had Grunt here as our contracted spirit, and I am trying to add this one to our collection. Now just give me a few minutes to work on the negotiations."

Though Cibor only grew furious hearing this since he wanted Marcus dead, and said, "Fine then I will end this myself."

He did not care about Ziemia's interest in forming a contract with Marcus, and just wanted to kill the being that had caused him no end of grief.

But while the two high ranking great knights had been bickering, Marcus had been quickly forming a plan, and soon came to the best option he could think of.

'Well, if this does not work, I guess I will be testing out deny destruction for the first time. Here goes nothing.'

Swelling with power Marcus began letting out all of the energy within his supreme skill. Allowing it to fully engulf him, before causing a huge blast of light and darkness that seemed to rip him apart in a suicide attack.

Quickly, Cibor and Ziemia deployed their defensive skills, as Marcus' final attack rocked the area and filled it with all of the power stored within him.

The cavern began to fall apart and even the city above shook violently as fissures began spreading throughout it.

Even Cibor and Ziemia could not simply ignore this attack and had to focus everything they had on defense, while Grunt had to give its all to make sure that the entire cavern did not collapse around its contractor.

Eventually the power behind Marcus' attack dissipated, and all that seemed to be left was mounds of dirt and rock that had piled up.

"Where is he? Where did he go?" Cibor said as he searched around frantically.

"Grunt is that spirit still alive." Ziemia asked to her contracted spirit.

With grunts powers he would be able to not only sense the spiritual energy of another spirit, but also could tell if they were trying to had under ground with its attunement to the element of earth

Yet Grunt just shook its head, saying that it could not find Marcus anywhere.

The only things that it sensed nearby were a very small animals that were stuck underground after the violent battle.

And the closest seemed to be a common rat at level one, something that could be found just about anywhere.

"Looks like that spirit really blew itself up. I guess it figured it might as well try to take us both out if it was going to be killed anyway." Ziemia said a bit sad that she had not been able to capture Marcus.

On the other hand, Cibor seemed skeptical that Marcus had truly done himself in. But he could not find any traces of him. And if Ziemia's spirit could not find him while they were underground, than it was likely that he truly did meet his end.

However, while these three made sure Marcus had really met his demise, he was all the while thinking.

'I am just an insignificant rat, nothing to see here.'

At this point all he could do was hope that he would not be discovered.

Still, he did have some precedent to think that his disguise would fool even Grunt, since until he took his ethereal form, even Aerial who is a high tier spirit than Grunt did not realize what Marcus is.

After around thirty more minutes of extensive searching, when they still turned up nothing, Cibor and Ziemia left, believing that Marcus had blown himself up and was no more.

'Whew, I am glad that when I was still testing out soul devour that I used it on something like a rat. Who knew it would come in handy to fool such high-level opponents.'

Digging himself out of the rubble, Marcus scurried back up to the surface, before heading back to the exit of the city. All the while staying in his rat form, not taking any chances of being found again.