Heroine Creation: All My Summons Are Custom Made

”Expanding Shield!”

With that yell, Astensia’s shield was violently pushed outward. The golden dome detonated, causing a shockwave that slammed into the Orc Shamans, throwing them off the crater’s ridge and tumbling into the red dust.

Then the Cross Shield rapidly contracted, shrinking from a massive arena-wide dome into a compact, ten-foot sphere centered entirely around Lancet.

He was completely protected, but Astensia and Renan were entirely free to move.

Astensia immediately kicked off the baked earth, her heavy silver boots launching her directly toward a Shaman that was scrambling to its feet.

The skeletal beast hissed, thrusting its gnarled wooden staff forward. From the tip of the spear, an ice dagger shot directly at her chest.

Astensia fearlessly raised her left arm, angling her golden shield. The ice spear collided with the divine metal, shattering into a thousand harmless, freezing fragments.

Using the momentum of her charge, she stepped cleanly inside the Shaman’s guard, pivoted on her heel, and swung the Blessed Blade downward.

The greatsword sheared effortlessly through the Shaman’s neck and continued its path, cleanly severing the creature’s right arm—and the wooden staff it held—in the same motion.

The Shaman’s headless body crumpled to the ground.

But instead of fading into the blue pixels of the Dungeon’s system, the body rebuilt itself together like reverse entropy. The Shaman’s bones reformed, the flesh knitted itself back together, and the severed wooden staff snapped right back into its spindly hand.

”The staff reformed!” Astensia called out, stepping back as the creature immediately began channeling a freezing gale. ”It’s not the catalyst!”

Across the crater, Renan was facing his own nightmare. Two Shamans were at his sides, their staffs crackling with violet lightning. One thrust its staff downward, sending a bolt of electricity tearing through the ground toward Renan’s boots.

Renan dropped into a sudden slide, the lightning scorching the earth just inches above his face. He planted his left hand in the dirt to brake, coiled his legs, and sprang upward, driving his holy silver sword straight through the ribcage of the second Shaman.

With a sharp twist of his wrist, he ripped the blade free and brought it down in a vertical chop, splitting the creature’s staff squarely in half.

The Shaman shrieked, dissolving into ash—only to immediately reform a second later, the two halves of its staff seamlessly fusing back together as lightning arched across its bony jaw.

”Dammit!” Renan cursed, parrying a follow-up lightning strike with the flat of his blade. ”They’re immortal!”

”They’re not!” Lancet yelled, his eyes darting frantically across the battlefield. He tracked the Shaman Astensia had just decapitated.

As the Orc raised its hands to conjure another ice spear, Lancet saw what he was looking for. Tucked beneath the rotting folds of its hood, a crude earring was pulsing with a green light.

”Astensia!” Lancet screamed, pointing directly at the creature. ”The Orc that controls ice! It’s in the left ear! The earring!”

”Understood!”

Astensia ducked underneath the Orc’s attack, and appeared into its personal space within a blink of an eye.

She grabbed the collar of its rotting robes with her free hand to anchor it, and brought the heavy, flat pommel of her greatsword smashing directly into the side of its skull.

The bone earring shattered into a dozen glowing green splinters.

The Orc Shaman unleashed an ear-piercing, unearthly shriek. Its skeletal body violently convulsed before imploding into a shower of bright blue, permanent system pixels.

”Yes! One down!” Lancet cheered, immediately spinning to his right to watch Renan’s attackers.

The two lightning Shamans were casting simultaneously, their staffs raised high. But Lancet’s eyes bypassed the wood. He stared at their chests.

”Renan! The one on the right!” Lancet bellowed over the crackling thunder. ”The skull pendant on its necklace! The other one has a glowing iron bracelet on its left wrist!”

”Alright!” Renan sidestepped a blinding flash of lightning, rolling over the scorched earth to close the distance. He sprang to his feet, deflecting a physical strike from the Shaman’s wooden staff.

Instead of going for a lethal body blow, Renan expertly flicked his wrist. The tip of his silver sword hooked beneath the Shaman’s rotting leather necklace and snapped upward, severing the cord and slicing the skull pendant cleanly in half.

The Shaman gasped, its magic fizzling instantly. Renan followed through with a spinning backhand slash that separated the creature’s head from its shoulders.

This time, there was no gray ash. Just permanent blue pixels.

Without pausing, Renan pivoted, ducked a desperate swing from the second Shaman, and drove his blade cleanly through its left wrist, shattering the glowing iron bracelet and the arm entirely.

Then he severed its head, giving it a permanent end.

The rest of the battle continued like this.

Astensia and Renan engaged the remaining seventeen Shamans in a brutal dance of parries, dodges, and calculated strikes. Whenever a Shaman reformed, Lancet’s eyes locked onto the glowing source of its magic.

”Astensia! The fire one behind you! The beaded anklet!” Lancet called out.

Astensia parried a wave of fire with her shield, spun, and hurled the golden disc low to the ground. The heavy shield shattered the Shaman’s ankle and the glowing beads with it, returning to her hand just in time for her to block a volley of acid.

”Renan! Acid caster on your left! The jade ring on its right index finger!”

Renan vaulted over a jagged earth spike, cleanly severing the Shaman’s right hand at the wrist, destroying the jade ring before burying his sword in its chest.

Outside, in the Dungeon Hall, the audience of Hall and Class Instructors were watching with intrigue.

Dean Ordenance stood with his hands clasped behind his back. ”Fascinating,” he murmured to himself. ”The boy lacks the physical Grace to engage, yet he commands the flow of battle flawlessly. Lancet’s synergy with Astensia Valengard is breathtaking.”

Maecil Gudgarten let out a shaky breath, a proud, watery smile breaking across her face.

Phiodor Blaze, meanwhile, was gripping the edge of the dais so hard he almost shattered it, his teeth grinding audibly as he watched the display.

Back inside the badlands, the final Orc Shaman fell.

Astensia brought her greatsword down in a devastating vertical cleave, shattering a glowing obsidian belt buckle and splitting the Shaman entirely in two.

Lancet, still inside the Cross Shield, was blinded by notifications.

⸢ +15 Orc Shamans killed by Heroine, Astensia ⸥

⸢ Astensia has gained +800 EXP ⸥

⸢ You have gained +1600 EXP ⸥

⸢ You have gained 300 CP ⸥

Lancet smiled. He’d probably have enough Creativity Points to create an extra Heroine if things continued this way.

The Holy Shield dissipated around him and Lancet stepped out. He opened his mouth to congratulate Astensia, but the words caught in his throat.

A few yards away, Renan was smoothly sheathing his silver longsword. The protagonist was panting slightly, a small cut on his cheek, but he looked at Astensia with profound respect.

He said something to her—something Lancet couldn’t quite hear.

It must have been funny because Astensia laughed.

This was a full laugh, not just the courtesy she had given him earlier. She had genuinely laughed and now was smiling with it.

Lancet frowned. They had just fought together, trading aggro, covering each other’s blind spots as they took down the Orc Shamans. So it seemed the battle camaraderie had created some sense of familiarity.

Lancet stopped walking.

His chest suddenly felt incredibly, inexplicably heavy.

He watched them for a moment, thinking bitterly to himself. He would likely never share that kind of camaraderie with her.

In the Awakener Supreme, some Summoners were lucky enough to possess skills that let them share their summons’ physical attributes, or wield their summons’ elemental powers directly.

Others were not.

Lancet belonged to the latter.

He could build the legends, but he couldn’t exactly stand beside them.

His gaze to the red dirt as he watched one of the dead Orc Shamans dissolve into the Dungeon’s blue pixels, alongside the shattered catalyst it had been owned.

If this had been a fresh Dungeon out in the real world instead of an Academy replicate, those catalysts wouldn’t be fading.

They would be physical loot. He could have picked one up and used the catalyst to cast fire or ice himself.

He could have had at least some way to fight beyond just standing there and letting Astensia babysit him.

Heh. Lancet was just realizing how much this actually bothered him.