There are different ways to find out how many essence crystals a spirit has, most of which are inefficient. However, it was quite easy to find out just how much trouble one had gotten themselves into by simply listening to the articulation of an opposing evil spirit. The more understandable an evil spirit's words are, the least the chance are that their victims would survive, much less escape.
"NOOOOO!!!!! CHEATERS!!!!" The fiery bone spirit roared once again, jumping off the ground to catch up to the fallen prophet. With its two front charcoal staffs raised in the air, it swung down at the falling ball of fire when it suddenly disappeared.
"HMM!!?" It grunted in surprise, turning its head up to the sky to find its prey. Ivan was nowhere to be found, and all its sunken eyes of fire could perceive was a particular constellation in the sky glowing conspicuously more than the others.
It could not sense Ivanhoe, but the Seer was right there in front of it, holding onto a star shaped dagger and striking his neck with it. His scorched flesh soon began to brighten and heal, the skin on his head covering up his cranium before sprouting hair and his melted eyeball growing from mush.
"This cheap coal stove!" Ivan hissed in anger. But at this rate, he could afford to fly higher and increase the gap between himself and his fallen opponent. The blood red dagger he once held in his hand was now a fiery orange one instead. Calling upon another constellation, a transparent spear with its bottom faced up instead of its head appeared. And as the fiery dagger was attached to its blunt circular end, it fused with the spear and transformed it into a blue staff with a weirdly shaped blade. There were no sharp edges or points on this blade's head, rather three swirls that flowed endlessly out of the spear, evaporating with every excessive wave of the fluid. This armament was the spear of opposition: Twis which could absorb essence in its functioning state and create a conflicting essence nature to what it had absorbed.
Grabbing a hold of the water-tipped trident, Ivan revealed himself to the Cremation spirit once again, only this time more prepared for the Deceiver's flame cross slashes. He swung his arms out, immediately extinguishing the flames as the trident's blade burst into vapor. But the supply of water was as endless as Ivan's essence capacity, so the three tips soon reformed, three swirls of water flowing out of the staff.
Ivan snickered. The Spirit's flames had dimmed. "Twis never fails..." His triumphant moment was unfortunately short lived as he watched with full focus, the steam around him blowing downwards and swirling around the spirit's two front coal staffs.
The spirit raised the two arms attached to its back, swinging one burning staff at the prophet, and the other at the fallen forest trees. Ivan extinguished the flames heading for him, then watched as the steam surrounded him in a ball of hot vapor. His body instantly released sweat, just for them to sizzle and dry, his skin turning red as it burnt at a dangerous speed, and now his bones were starting to feel like they were made of the same hot coals in the spirit's hands, being set on fire.
Struggling to even catch a breath, Ivan tried to fly out of the ball of steam, however it followed him closely, leaving no chance to even reach the circumference of the sphere of vapor. The sphere continued to move as he did, and Ivan was quickly running out of time.
'What is this demon?!' Ivan asked, feeling dumbfounded. The Dirge spirit had shown immunity to physical attacks, could wield incredibly quick flame spitting weapons, use steam, as well as grow its flames by simply burning trees--- which by the way, would not run out so soon in a forest.
"It doesn't seem like you can beat it with water and stone..." Aos-sia suddenly spoke. "Its two front staffs also absorb the matter the other arms burn. Well, the good news is, if you can dodge the flames consecutively, it'll weaken its essence. Bad news is... Ivanhoe didn't need her to finish her sentence. He could already see the spirit's flames burn bigger and brighter as it absorbed the flames from the burning trees. Fighting fire in a forest is a very bad idea. Then again, it's not like Ivan was given a choice.
Ivan soon reached a breaking point within the ball of steam, his skin could not take any more water being boiled and evaporated, the pores on his face were starting to leak blood and his throat could no longer handle the choking hot air. Just when one would expect him to fall down from the sky like a poisoned bug, Ivanhoe quickly struck Woden into his leg, then forced Twis in its trident form to expand its water and blow the steam apart.
"Mwahahahaha! Keep the hurt coming, deceiver! You're not the only redhead cockroach around here!" Ivanhoe laughed out loud. The pain was all there was keeping his mind grounded, and his body in the sky.
'If an opposing energy doesn't even counter it, then what in the world is this thing's weakness?!' He thought.
Aos-sia shook her head. What she had found out about the spirit, she had only been able to because of how much contact Ivanhoe had made with its attacks. The fight would need to go on for much longer if they were to try to find its weaknesses.
That was fine by Ivan. He had his own methods. This deceiver would not be the one who would stand on the corpse of the other after this battle.
The spirit swung its flaming sticks in a cross, attempting to once again knock the annoying pest of an opponent out of the sky. However, the Twis tridant was able to once again spread its frighteningly cold water to shield Ivan. The spirit grunted as if in disdain, raising its coal staffs in the air and manipulating the steam around the seer to attack his head specifically. Twis's blade however, expanded into a war hammer's head, blasting through the steam and condensing it.
The spirit threw flames at more trees once again to replace some of the essence it had just lost. But as the stems fell and the leaves withered, it soon realized something terribly wrong was happening. The flames were not rejuvenating its body--- it was not healing!
Dark clouds had appeared in the sky, unbeknownst to the evil spirit, crackling with strips of red lightning. Even stranger was the fact that the demon had not noticed the bolt of lightning lodged into its chest. It was only aware after its repeated failed attempts at absorbing the flames to heal itself.
"This is a hunting ground, Kaso-sha. The hunted are granted no respite while the game is in play!" At Ivan's words, the bolt of lightning suddenly spread all over the spirit's body. The frantic lightning became still, appearing merely as a thin rope wrapped all over its target. The spirit made attempts to either burn the restricting light or drag it away from itself. But no matter how much it tried, it was impossible.
Jeuves's lightning net was one of preservation. But unlike the usual preservation one uses to protect their food, Jeuves allowed only degradation so long as it is according to its master's will. In other words, in the current state this spirit was in, it could not be healed, nor improve its state in any way at all.
"Woden, Twis, Jeuves and Frigga. That's quite the number of armaments you've forced me to summon. Now, Saturn to extinguish your flames the proper way." With the spear Twis in hand and the dark clouds of Jeuves behind him, Ivan summoned the sixth of his seven constellation hunting armaments, Saturn. This armament acts like a poison dart, used for incapacitating and weakening prey.
"Look at you poor thing. You couldn't even touch me. And now..." He pointed a finger down at the restless spirit, a black dot appearing before that finger and expanding gradually into what looked like a perfectly cut sphere of thick smoke. Around that sphere were rings of the same substance, expanding at a much quicker rate. By the time the ball had swollen to the size of his fist, the rings had expanded far outside Ivan's body. As the rings continued to spin violently around the seer's body, a line of flame suddenly struck, yet was met by the Warhammer of water, the hammer quickly increasing its size to immediately condense the steam clouds around them. Holding onto that Warhammer was a slender hand belonging to a tall and graceful Augur spirit who was currently slouched on her prophet's back like a drunk.
"What a waste of our precious time. Hmph! We've paid your pathetic existence too much attention. Dear, hurry up and erase this hothead." Aos-sia complained with a cheek full of air.
"Hothead hm? Not for long." The ball shot down at the creature, the rings spinning so quickly they appeared like another much larger sphere, descending into the atmosphere like a meteor. This meteor was met with four consecutive crescents of flame; however it did not slow, disperse, or get knocked away, but rather, pulled into the momentum of the accelerating rings and setting the entire sphere on fire.
At the sight of the flaming sphere, the demon shuddered, turning its head to run far into the dense forest. But no matter how far and quickly it ran, Saturn was always overhead, stalking the creature like the inescapable pursuit of the moon.
"Who would have thought?" Ivanhoe cackled at the irony. Fire was the cremation spirit's weakness.