Heroine Creation: All My Summons Are Custom Made

Lancet gazed up at the white-haired senior for a long, quiet moment.

The Serpent Society is trying to recruit me? What?

But as the initial shock faded, Lancet’s fan-brain kicked in, and he quickly realized it wasn’t actually that surprising.

The Serpent Society was the overarching, secret confraternity of elite student Awakeners that Renan Falconhart eventually set out to destroy in one of the novel’s major arcs.

They were constantly prowling the Academy’s underbelly, seeking to recruit the most powerful students with the highest potential—especially those with strange, rule-breaking powers.

Someone exactly like an ”Architect.”

The Society didn’t view themselves as evil. In their eyes, they were the righteous rebellion. They wanted to build a world for Awakeners that wasn’t owned, taxed, and controlled by the mundane government or the rigid Academy authorities.

Their ideology was simple: We are the ones with the actual power. We are the ones who have to bleed and die in the Dungeons to defend this world. Why shouldn’t we be the ones running it?

So, with this logic, they did whatever it took to seize power for themselves.

Knowing that, it made perfect sense that outcasts like Caelem, Linzley, and Muskard would be absolutely desperate to join their ranks.

”Well?” Caelem demanded, his silver eyes flashing impatiently. ”What’s your answer?”

Lancet looked the handsome senior dead in the eye, his expression hardening into an unyielding glare.

”How far up your ass do you want me to shove the ’no’?” Lancet spat.

Caelem’s handsome face instantly contorted into a mask of pure, ugly rage. ”You little—!”

He rose up, drew his leg back with a force aimed to kick and shatter Lancet’s face.

But before the heavy leather boot could connect, the floor below Caelem’s feet opened and a spectral, pitch-black hand, dripping with viscous shadows, jutted up from the solid stone and clamped an iron grip around his ankle, stopping the kick dead in its tracks.

Everyone turned to Muskard.

The Spirit Caller was standing with one hand in pocket. His other one—the red-coated arm—was raised, fingers twitching as he controlled the dark spirit hand.

”Control yourself, Caelem,” Muskard rasped, eyes plastered on Lancet. ”We were explicitly told not to harm him. If they see visible injuries on him, we will never be allowed into the Society.”

Caelem gritted his teeth, the veins in his neck bulging. He glared at Lancet, then violently yanked his leg free from the spirit’s grasp, adjusting the lion pauldron on his shoulder as he forced his breathing to slow.

The spirit hand vanished.

Lancet looked away from where the hand was and looked up at Caelem. Rather than fear, the blond bastard kept his face strong, hiding the sudden rush of relief that he wasn’t about to lose his teeth.

Linzley popped up right beside Lancet. She tilted her head, her wild pigtails falling over. ”Do you really think you can just refuse the Serpent Society?” she whispered, her eyes wide and unblinking.

”He doesn’t have a choice!” Caelem boomed.

Linzley turned to him, her pigtails swiping away from Lancet’s view.

”Unless you want your life here to be miserable,” Caelem threatened with a leer. ”Serpents are everywhere, Lancet. Every Class Group. Every year. Every homeroom. Even a sweet little friend of yours could already be a Serpent. We will punish you until you break and eventually join.”

”We?” Lancet smirked mockingly. ”You think you’re actually part of the team?”

He threw his head back and burst out laughing, the sound echoing harshly in the dark alleyway of the Bronze Dorms. The Terribles looked at each other, then at him, fuming.

”You’re just an errand boy!” Lancet taunted, looking right at Caelem. ”Aren’t you ashamed that they sent YOU to give ME an invite? You’re doing their grunt work! If you were really a hotshot, wouldn’t it be the other way around? They’re using you like dogs!”

Caelem’s fists clenched so hard his veins could’ve popped. ”This kid! Are you actively trying to make me kill you?”

”Ooh! Lemme do the killing this time!” Linzley cackled madly, bouncing on the balls of her feet and squeezing her stitched doll. ”Let me! Let me!”

”He’s baiting you,” Muskard interrupted, stepping forward. The Gruesome Spirit Caller looked down at Lancet with cold, calculating realization.

”He’s baiting us into striking him. This lunatic kid doesn’t mind taking a hard hit right now, because he knows it will hurt us the most. He would absolutely love knowing he’s the sole reason we failed our initiation and didn’t get into the Society. Don’t let him win.”

Lancet dropped his smirk, staring up at the tall, slender senior. ”You’re no fun, are you?”

Muskard squinted his dark, hollow eyes at him. His smile was long gone. Now, he was pissed to a boiling point.

”I said not to hit you because it would leave a scar,” the Spirit Caller whispered, his voice suddenly frightening. ”But there are many ways to hurt someone, and it doesn’t have to be physical.”

Muskard touched the ring in his finger. One of the fingers of his red-coated arm. Then, he outstretched the arm.

From his open palm, a formless, shrieking mass of dark gray mist erupted. It shot forward like a viper, slamming directly into Lancet’s forehead and sinking straight through his skull.

”Ughhh!” Lancet gasped, his eyes flying wide open.

What he felt instantly was way worse than physical pain. It felt like a thousand rusted needles were being driven directly into his cerebral cortex. A mental agony.

The Cursed Spirit was inside his head, flooding his mind with irrational terror, despair, and an agonizing, ringing frequency that made him want to claw his own scalp off.

”Argghhhh!!” Lancet cried in pain. ”It hurts!”

He clamped his hands over his ears, a raw, choked cry tearing from his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut, but hot, involuntary tears immediately began to stream down his face. His entire body violently trembled against the stone wall.

Linzley clapped her hands together, giggling with absolute, sick amusement as she watched him writhe.

”Think of the benefits, Lancet,” Caelem raised his voice, so Lancet could hear it through the mental torture. ”Think of the opportunities. You get Items and Artifacts that will help you with your pathetically low Grace Retention. You’ll never be dry again! Think of the power. The authority. The absolute respect of the entire student body.”

Lancet sobbed, his fingernails digging into his scalp as the spirit gnawed at his sanity.

”You get powerful allies,” Caelem continued, his eyes gleaming. ”And best of all, you don’t have to bow to the rules and laws of this oppressive government! You don’t have to serve this wretched institution! Join us!”

Lancet couldn’t even form words to tell him to go to hell. He just cried out, his chest heaving as the psychic pain peaked.

THWACK!

A heavy, whistling sound tore through the alleyway, followed instantly by the sound of shattering stone.

The three seniors flinched. They paused, whipping their heads around.

Buried a full three inches into the stone wall, right between Caelem and Muskard, was a silver, glorious spear. The shaft was vibrating violently from the kinetic force of the throw.

Caelem turned, his eyes darting around the dark, shadowy front yard of the Bronze Dorms. ”Who threw that?!”

Before anyone could answer, the spear violently jerked. It ejected itself backward out of the solid stone wall. That was when they saw that the tip of the weapon was ignited with a furious blue fire.

Acting entirely on its own accord, the spear spun in mid-air and shot directly at Caelem’s chest.

Caelem twisted his torso with terrifying speed, the burning blue tip missing his heart by a fraction of an inch and singeing the fabric of his uniform.

The spear ricocheted off the cobblestones and shot toward Linzley.

”Whee!” Linzley shrieked, executing a rapid, flawless series of backward handsprings, the burning spear barely missing her pigtails with every flip.

Muskard dissolved his physical form into a cloud of red mist just as the spear slashed through the space where his neck had been, reforming a few feet away.

His concentration broken, the dark spirit instantly evaporated from Lancet’s mind. Lancet collapsed forward onto his hands and knees, gasping for air, the agonizing pressure in his skull vanishing like a popped bubble.

THWIP! THWIP! THWIP!

Three arrows, glowing with the exact same blue energy, shot from the darkness of the dormitory rooftops. They slammed into the cobblestones directly at the seniors’ feet in a perfect, threatening line.

Warning shots.

”Alright, alright! We got it!” Caelem shouted, throwing his hands up in a gesture of surrender, his eyes scanning the pitch-black rooftops. He scowled, muttering to his partners, ”I absolutely hate Arsenals.”

Linzley dusted off her skirt, hugging her doll tight as she looked up at the empty roof. ”Too scared to come out to play?” she taunted the hidden savior. ”Hiding in the dark isn’t very ’Arsenal’ of you, whoever you are!”

”Leave it, Linzley. Let’s go,” Caelem ordered, recognizing they were at a severe tactical disadvantage against a hidden ranged attacker.

Caelem turned back to Lancet, who was still kneeling on the ground, his chest heaving as he wiped the tears from his eyes. Caelem reached into his uniform pocket and flicked his wrist.

A shiny, black card fluttered through the air, landing softly on Lancet’s heaving chest.

”Think on it, kid,” Caelem said, arrogant even more now. ”And give us a response soon. The Serpent Society doesn’t like to wait.”

Muskard gave Lancet one final, hollow glare, then turned.

Linzley blew him a kiss and winked.

Without another word, the Terrible Three left, seamlessly melting into the thick shadows of the alleyway until they were completely gone.