"If we were to try, your soul would be destroyed in the process."
"Your soul and the curse have become one combined mass; it is part of you."
"The Grimoire, however, has already been modified by us without you realizing."
"Just now, we combined our strength and refined the Grimoire you hold, overpowering the might of Lucifer's will over it. Now, you're free of his watchful eyes, and the Grimoire might now develop several new functions that will help you in your adventure from now on."
The biggest of the twelve spirits spoke with a wise old man's voice.
"You did… such a thing? Well… thanks."
"There is no need to thank us, we've merely given you back some of the favors you've done to us."
"Planting those trees has helped greatly to our world. And now that you've set into a mission to plant more, you will be helping greatly."
"We know for a fact your greatest motivation is defeating our mortal enemy, Lucifer, the King of all Demons invading our world beyond the horizons of his own."
"You, his mortal enemy, has been foolishly reincarnated by him, as he believed he would enjoy your suffering as you grew up as a human."
"However, you've gone far from his expectations, and become something that might be the greatest threat against his demonic rule and his desire to conquer everything."
"This is his mistake, and we want to aid you as we can."
"Seriously? I never thought the Holy Spirits would be on my side…" I sighed.
"You've become part of our world."
"You've loved the people of our world."
"You've loved our world."
"Now, you are our son as well."
The Holy Spirits were incredibly cold while speaking, yet they seemed to be talking things that were very important and emotional.
"So this means I can wear the ring?" I asked.
"You can, and we shall give it a little boost for you."
"More or less, that is not enough."
"Take our Blessings."
Suddenly, all twelve Holy Spirits unleashed rays of light, showering my soul with a small fragment of their powers. This is what's called a "Blessing" and I am fairly sure several priests have them. Elizabeth has one too and Ellergest did as well.
"Our Blessing might not be much compared to your Curse, but we hope it can be of some aid to your perilous journey."
"The demons will raise soon once more; the Demonic Towers cannot be contained much longer."
"You, the inheritor of the power of Allan, the first Spirit Summoner, have a great responsibility."
"However, we shall not force it upon you."
"You are, already, motivated to go along with it, nonetheless."
"I suppose our motivations simply aligned together." I laughed. "I always had the intention of ruining Lucifer's life, destroy his towers and then go kill him for real this time… It is something I have inherited from Asmodeus, this unwilling desire for revenge."
"A powerful desire indeed."
"A great motivation."
"Now, we can answer one more question before we let you go."
A question? Is this their last gift?
Perhaps I might never be able to speak with them anymore…
So what should I ask them?
Well, perhaps I should simply follow my own curiosity.
"What exactly are you?"
My only question was that.
What were the Holy Spirits?
And how were they related to Spiritias?
I would had also liked to ask what Spiritias was, but I decided to go for that question only for now.
"What we are?" The biggest Holy Spirit said. "In simple terms, we are the pillars."
"The pillars of this world's life."
"Of this world's death."
"Of this world's land."
"Of this world's fire."
"Of this world's dreams."
"Of this world's darkness."
"Of this world's light."
"Of this world's magic."
"Of this world's winds."
"Of this world's nature."
"Of this world's love."
"Of this world's existence."
I see. So they're pillar deities. Beings born from within a world to maintain itself. They're representatives of the entire world's elements as a whole. If I were to even damage them, the world as a whole would suffer as well, just with one of them dying, the entire world might go into unbalance, and disaster would occur everywhere.
Lucifer is most likely aiming at this power, he might not want to kill them, but he wants to take over their entire beings and become the ruler of this world, gaining their powers, which individually, seem to be comparable to his.
The way he's dealing with them is by sending hordes of monsters and invading this world's laws and elements with his foreign Demonic Towers, forcefully trying to imbue the world with the demonic energy to corrupt the spiritual energy this world's works with.
"We were created by the world."
"This world… what is this world? No matter how much I compare it, its entire energy source, quality, and everything else is vastly superior to my previous life's universe."
"An answer has been given for the only question you've been allowed to ask.
"Because we desire this world's balance, we cannot give you more privileges than we had already given to you."
"However, we wish you good fortune."
And without answering that question, perhaps the most important of them all, I was quickly brought back to where I was.
"Oh, the ring fits well!"
"It seems he wasn't rejected."
"Hm? Ah…" I looked around, finding that everything was going alright.
Even though it felt I spent minutes there, in this place it was like just the blink of an eye, instantaneous.
Nonetheless, what I have learned was worth more than I had could have ever imagined.
This ring… is indeed an amazing item, if it even allowed me to have a small chat with these Holy Spirits.
Although I am glad they're on my side and even took away Lucifer's eyes from me, it is not so reliving to know I have their eyes watching over me now.
At the very least they're not as weird as Lucifer.