I Only Summon Villainesses

Fire Lord Ifrit.

That was not a name I expected to hear. He was popular in every magical fantasy anime back on earth, simply the manifestation of the ego of flames.

The name alone would have been enough to shake me. But the part that shook me the most was the implication. This Fire Lord was most likely a Heroic Spirit.

Which meant he was going to be freaking strong. Of course, not as strong as my summons. But for the past four months since settling in the Black Snow Company, I had been doing most things solo.

I’d started from raiding rank F gates and climbed to raiding rank C gates on my own, with no help from Kassie or Maggie. Even though this usually meant spending days and sometimes weeks inside a spirit gate, I was getting the job done and getting stronger with it.

Now having to break that streak with this man… made me feel a little annoyed.

“So are you going to reveal your summons?”

I frowned.

“I don’t remember telling you that I would. Like I said before, scram. Or else I will really kill you.”

Silence hung between us for a few seconds. Then he straightened. The remnant flames around him vanished, and a warm smile appeared on his face.

“I have a message from the Blood Mage… the message was supposed to be delivered by burning the entire Black Snow Company, but I guess I will just have to burn you to deliver it.”

He extended his hand forward. The next moment, his eyes widened.

Maggie appeared behind him, her hand curving toward his throat with her nails hooked like claws, already carving through the air where his neck had been a heartbeat ago.

He vanished in flames and reappeared behind her, but Maggie was already gone. White flames seeped out of her like wind as she tore forward. Before he fully materialized, she had closed the distance, and the moment he appeared, a powerful kick bludgeoned into his stomach.

He folded like a piece of paper and blasted out of the building.

Maggie followed and so did I.

He landed outside rolling across the ground but managed to catch himself and stand with a painful groan.

When he straightened, his gaze fell upon both Maggie and I.

“So that was your summon there… how did I miss that?”

I said nothing. Just regarded him with a cold and focused expression.

I opened my hand and the greatsword materialized in my grip. Over the past few months I’d employed a lighter greatsword for two reasons. It was impossible to wield both in battle, so I usually attached the other one to the Chains of Confession, giving the chains a brutal edge. But here the area was too limited. I didn’t want to go around cutting lamp posts or slashing apart trees. Those were damages I didn’t have the money to fix, and right now every coin was going into savings.

I held Frostfang with both hands and raised it to shoulder level, dropping into a stance that let me gather immense momentum the instant I moved my dominant leg. My line of sight flowed straight along the blade.

Completely locked in.

“Handle his summon. I’ll handle him.”

The man laughed.

“How preposterous of you to think I will call my summon into a battle with a child.”

“Huh?”

’Who’s this bastard calling a child?’

I turned to my side briefly.

“Maggie. Please stay out of this.”

The man watched me with an insidious smile. A very annoying one too, I have to note.

Flames ignited across Frostfang. The frosty nature of the sword bled into the white fire, turning it a blue gradient that made the blade look more ornamental than deadly.

“I’ll make you eat that statement.”

The man grinned like a battle crazed bastard and twirled his arms through the air on some fire bending type shit.

Flames ignited behind him. I counted six balls of fire that formed a cog at his back and connected into a wheel as I lunged toward him.

As I reached him, the wheel moved once. The moment my sword fell, an explosion of flames resonated outward and blasted me into the air.

For a split second I fought for balance, but I manipulated the flames and summoned the flame knives, condensing them sharper, already stabilizing before I drove back toward the ground.

The earth beneath softened and melted inward as I neared it. I didn’t let myself land. I exploded forward with the sword already mid-swing.

The cogwheel moved again, but I had anticipated that. Instead of lunging headfirst with the blade, I sent chains flying in every direction, aiming to snare his limbs. At the same time I channeled flames and shot them forward like a storm swallowing the entire space between us instead of a single focused attack.

My advance was embedded in that storm. He sent the same explosion of flames forward. But this time I deflected it better. His flame power against mine.

The ground vibrated ferociously as his orange flames collided with my white flames, and the disastrous combination trailed upward like a rising tide from a devastated ocean.

The trees wheezed under the heat and for a moment my heart faltered because I thought they might catch a fragment and ignite on the spot.

I consciously curled the edges of the white flames back into the explosion, and that meant intentionally reducing their temperature, which also cut their power.

But that was not even my main attack system. The flames and chains were support. With the storm of white fire successfully countering the first explosion of his cogwheel, I spun forward and unleashed a cacophony of strikes that followed each other, eating into and out of each spinning movement that broke into a forward thrust and then another spin that broke forward again.

The man evaded me. And he was adept at evasion too. He shot flames toward me as he dodged, but that was no issue. My footwork pattern let me sidestep or counter with white flames whenever he threw fire from an angle.

“WOW! This level of swordsmanship? There’s no way you are not a renowned man!!”

Instead of responding, I doubled down. Frostfang slashed horizontally in reverse, returned, then spun into a diagonal cut from the left. I twisted my grip and drove the sword down as he dropped to a crouch after another dodge.

The cogwheel saved him again. He turned sharply and exploded backward with blistering speed while the cogwheel sent rapid explosions forward that drove me into preservation mode.

I crossed the chains over my face and manifested the flames like a fortress wall, but the sheer force of the explosion still threw me backward.

I whizzed through the air and landed on my feet with perfect balance, breathing coldly before I lunged forward again.