Corvus pounced on the two unaware lost spirits with his outstretched hands pulsing with spirit qi; he nabbed at them, with his qi brushing past them.
Before his hands could clasp around them, the lost spirits easily detected his presence. The big one immediately turned to flee, diving past his left hand and going below his figure while he was still mid-air.
Corvus's eyes followed its swift movement, but he had no way of shifting his body that drastically while still mid-air to stop it in its tracks, so he directed his full attention to the red one. Except, unlike the big one that had dodged him, this one darted past his hands and slammed against his face.
"Ugh." The force tilted his head backwards, causing him to crash face-first into the sand.
Corvus ignored the slight pain of his face slamming against the ground and immediately rose to his feet.
He was not about to lose the chance to capture two superior lost spirits; he believed he could still catch up to them, for he was certain they were already wisping their way into the distance.
But then he felt a bump hit him from behind. He quickly turned his head in the direction of the bump he'd felt on his lower back, only for him to feel another bump hit him on his thigh.
He was then astonished to find the red lost spirit attacking him. Even though its attacks were harmless, feeling more like snowballs being thrown at him, it still couldn't stop Corvus from being astounded by the behavior. It was odd and even unheard of for a lost spirit to attack or defend itself against humans, at least to the extent of Corvus's knowledge.
It was only resentful spirits that did such things. Resentful spirits were already bound spirits that once belonged to a spirit master who had either died or chosen to abandon them, causing the said spirit to accumulate hatred towards humans or even the world itself. Yet he was certain that if this were one, he'd be dead already.
"What makes it so odd?" he wondered as he stared at the red ball of mist bashing continuously against his legs. Corvus knew there was only one way to find out, so he crouched and shot out his right hand to capture the lost spirit, which proved relatively easy since the wisp was so focused on waging war against Corvus's feet.
Immediately grabbing its near-intangible form, he stimulated his qi, releasing it onto the struggling lost spirit within his clasped hands, knowing full well that binding it would prove difficult and consume a lot of time. He remembered the repeated lessons of the spirit instructors who taught the two steps of binding a spirit: suppression and submission.
With the inferior lost spirits, the first step didn't necessarily apply because they found his core appealing. But with this struggling and obviously stubborn lost spirit, he had to suppress the spirit's instincts to reject him and force it to accept his core through his will alone and the little qi his core currently held.
Yet the red spirit even seemed to reject Corvus's qi, solidifying its form, which made Corvus panic. Such behavior was a sign of a spirit forcing itself into hibernation, which stung at Corvus's pride ,it would seem the lost spirit would rather choose a prolonged sleep than be suppressed by him.
But he knew panicking was one way to let the spirit have its way, so Corvus calmed his mind and hastened his breathing rhythms, forcing more of his liquid qi to evaporate into its gaseous form and pour out through his palms onto the struggling red spirit. He forcefully brought his arms towards his chest and sat cross-legged, bathing the lost spirit with more of his qi.
Corvus couldn't help but fear that he might run out of spirit qi before he even reached the submission phase. Minutes that felt like hours to Corvus passed as sweat and fatigue accumulated through the forced, continuous exertion of his qi, almost leaving his core dry.
Corvus was starting to lose hope when he felt a slight tingling sensation move up his hands to his mind, making him exhale a breath of relief he'd been holding.
"You're one stubborn red ball." Corvus couldn't help but chuckle at the red mist that now lay calm in his palm. He had successfully suppressed its instincts, which was proven by the psychic link he'd received in his mind, leaving him shocked with excitement and bewilderment.
For, like what he'd thought, this spirit was a superior spirit, and not just that ,it was a battle spirit. But what left Corvus bewildered was its ability. Unlike any strength spirit he'd heard of, this one didn't seem to focus on any specific body part; instead, it focused on all of them. But not in a way that would make him associate its abilities with those of the Chief Servant, which was raw strength of the body. The red spirit's ability was kinetic force.
Corvus tilted his head, utterly confused by the simple description of its abilities. It made him look back minutes ago to the little duel between the big one and the red one, and the abrupt yet explosive turnaround in their fight.
"Is it rebound strength? Or accumulated strength?" Corvus, while excited, wasn't too sure about its abilities, but he wasn't out of his mind enough to reject a superior battle spirit ,one that had taken him ages and almost his entire qi to suppress.
He closed his eyes before bringing the red spirit before his solar plexus. With the last qi he held within his core, he followed a different breathing rhythm that saw his liquid qi evaporate entirely but kept its gaseous self within his core, spiraling into a small spinning vortex.
Corvus knew he couldn't keep this process of spirit binding up for long, as he could feel slight pains increasing from his solar plexus. It made him wonder how unbearable it would be for people with cracked cores, for the vortex within the core was in an opposite spin from its normal rotation putting extra strain on the core.
Luckily for Corvus, the red spirit seemed utterly subdued, shimmering slightly as its misty form vibrated into a more gaseous state and merged into Corvus's solar plexus. Corvus suddenly felt an extra weight fill him causing him to immediately look within, seeing a red ball consume the spinning vortex within his core.