Chapter 126: Fire Spirit

"Oh, relax, you overprotective mother hen," Leonidas scoffed, standing up from the table. "She’s a strong kid! She can handle a little heat!"

Leonidas walked to the center of the study, standing a few feet away from Seraphina’s rug. He raised his massive, calloused hands, his amber eyes flaring with brilliant, blinding golden light.

"Behold, the majesty of the Flame!" Leonidas roared playfully.

He clapped his hands together.

FWOOSH!!!

A massive, swirling vortex of pure, roaring crimson fire erupted from the stone floor. The heat in the room spiked instantly, causing the wine in Kaelus’s glass to bubble slightly.

From the center of the vortex stepped a creature of pure nightmare.

It was a Low-Tier Fire Spirit, manifested in the shape of a colossal, demonic hellhound.

It was easily the size of a grown tiger, and its body was composed of swirling, semi-solid magma and roaring flames. Its eyes burned like miniature suns, and as it opened its massive jaws, a gout of white-hot fire spilled onto the floor, singeing the tiger-skin rug.

It let out a low, guttural, terrifying GROWL that vibrated the stone walls.

"Meet Ignis!" Leonidas laughed proudly, gesturing to the terrifying beast. "He’s a good boy! A little temperamental, sure to burn your house down if you don’t feed him enough charcoal, but very playful!"

Kaelus was out of his chair in a microsecond, Requiem half-drawn, his eyes wide with homicidal panic.

"Are you insane?!" Kaelus roared. "You summoned a feral elemental entity three feet from her face?! I will kill you! You pathetic bastard!"

But before Kaelus could cross the room to shield her, Seraphina reacted.

Seraphina was not terrified.

She was, however, incredibly annoyed.

The heat radiating from the hellhound was intense, completely disrupting the comfortable, cool aura of dark mana that constantly circulated within her own body. The bright, blinding light of the flames was giving her a headache.

Her Supreme Dark Core, the ancient, apocalyptic anomaly sleeping in her chest, recognized the heat and the light not as a threat, but as an irritating nuisance.

’It’s too bright and hot,’ Seraphina thought, wrinkling her nose. ’Turn it down.’

She didn’t cast a spell or consciously release a wave of darkness.

Her Supreme Core emitted a subconscious pulse of overwhelming, metaphysical dominance. It was the equivalent of a king casually swatting a fly.

The pulse of dark mana rolled across the room, completely invisible to the naked eye.

It hit the terrifying, roaring hellhound.

YIP!!!

The massive, terrifying beast of magma and inferno froze instantly. Its blazing, sun-like eyes widened in sudden, pants-wetting terror.

The pulse of dark mana struck the spirit’s elemental core, compressing it forcefully.

Before Leonidas’s shocked eyes, the massive hellhound began to rapidly, comically shrink.

The roaring crimson flames shifted color, losing their heat, turning into a soft, pathetic, pastel shade of baby pink.

The magma solidified into soft, warm ash.

Within three seconds, the giant, tiger-sized beast of destruction was gone.

Sitting on the stone floor, trembling violently, was a creature roughly the size of a Pomeranian.

It looked like a tiny, fluffy puppy made of warm, pink embers. It possessed big, floppy ears, and a tiny tail that was currently tucked firmly between its legs.

It let out a pathetic, high-pitched, incredibly cute whine.

Leonidas’s jaw dropped so far it practically hit his boots. "What... what just happened?"

The tiny, pink ember-puppy didn’t look at Leonidas.

It looked at Seraphina.

It sensed the source of the overwhelming, apex dark mana. And its elemental instincts told it that the only way to survive the presence of such a terrifying god was to submit completely and absolutely.

The little fire-Pomeranian scrambled forward on its tiny paws, practically diving onto the tiger-skin rug.

It crawled on its belly, whimpering softly, until it reached Seraphina’s legs.

It nudged its tiny, warm, ashy snout under the hem of her navy dress, desperately trying to hide itself in the folds of her skirt, trembling like a leaf. It stuck its head out, gently, submissively licking Seraphina’s small fingers with a tongue that felt like a warm, rough piece of sandpaper.

Seraphina blinked, looking down at the tiny, pink, trembling puppy hiding in her lap.

Her heart completely, entirely melted.

"Wow," Seraphina gasped, her eyes turning into massive, sparkling stars. She reached down, gently scooping the tiny ember-puppy into her arms, cuddling it against her chest. It was wonderfully warm, like holding a fresh cup of tea. "It’s a puppy! A warm, pink puppy! Papa, look! Uncle Leo gave me a puppy!"

Leonidas Valen stood frozen in the center of his study, his arms still raised from the summoning posture, his brain unable to process the visual data.

"My... my apex fire spirit," Leonidas whispered, his voice cracking with utter disbelief. "A beast that took me three years to subjugate... a creature that has burned entire enemy camps to ash..."

He stared at the tiny, fluffy pink thing currently happily licking Seraphina’s nose.

"...Is a Pomeranian."

Duke Kaelus von Nacht slowly slid Requiem back into its scabbard.

The terrifying panic of a father had vanished, replaced by an overwhelming wave of pride.

Kaelus straightened his dark coat.

He walked over, standing behind Seraphina, looking down his sharp nose at the completely flabbergasted Archduke of Flame.

Kaelus crossed his arms, his violet eyes gleaming with a smugness that could have powered the city.

"I told you, Leonidas," Kaelus drawled, his voice dripping with icy, lethal superiority. "Your fire is weak. It lacks discipline."

Kaelus reached down, gently patting the head of the tiny, pink ember-puppy, which immediately rolled onto its back in Seraphina’s arms, demanding belly rubs from the Reaper.

"My daughter," Kaelus sneered, offering Leonidas a terrifyingly beautiful, victorious smile, "simply has high standards. Perhaps next time, you should summon something with a bit more teeth."

As Leonidas stared blankly at his ruined reputation, and Seraphina giggled, burying her face into her new, extremely cuddly pocket-heater, the political power dynamic of the Empire shifted definitively.