The Summoner's Rebirth: Awaken, Milady

Water suddenly poured in from the clear sky.

The sun was still up and shining, and no gloomy clouds were present. However, a large volume of water fell down.

A great explanation for this would be Dianthe's manipulation of liquid.

"Rain?" Aria frowned. She tried to get in touch with Dianthe, but the spirit seemed to have exhausted herself.

She began to assume that the water spirit had spent everything for this ominous rain.

'Why would she make it rain..?' Aria pulled back all of the mana she invested into Dianthe, letting her rest in the summoning space after doing her job.

Before long, the monsters strangely began to move weirdly, as if it was dizzied upon contact with the rain Dianthe caused.

"There is something in the rain," Aria mumbled.

Whatever it was, this created a chance for them to finally rest. Aria had been moving about in a frantic manner for so long, for her to stop immediately would be disastrous to her body. Thus, she ran in circles while slowing down her pace until she could bear the aftermath that would come as a result of her struggle.

Thanks to the chaos, Aria was able to lower Alena down to the ground and remove her enchantments. She was immediately overwhelmed with excruciating pain throughout her body as her muscles contracted and twisted upon being relieved of their harsh duty.

She screamed and wailed, tapping or punching on the ground to somewhat forget about the pain.

The insects' movements were stopped for the time being, but Aria's condition wasn't looking great as well.

"The- ugh. Those monsters don't like this water. It's not just normal water is it?" Laying down on the ground as she witnessed several weakened insects fall to the ground and writhe in their last moments, Aria tried her hardest to bear the pain by grabbing into a huge tree trunk.

Still squirming in pain, Aria examined the liquid, but found nothing suspicious.

Her vision started to blur from all the stimulation she received.

"Wait, let me analyze it!" Alena said, taking advantage of the confused monsters and beginning to operate her Main.

Aria had to rest for the time being, but she couldn't stay still. This was her chance to be of use to the team.

She utilized her ability to try and find out the water's usage.

Aria stared at the young girl who worked hard and focused on recovering her body. She took several deep breaths in and out, sweat dripping from her entire body in an attempt to suppress and calm down her body. Her heart was still beating like crazy, and her muscles wouldn't relax. This was the most painful session she had ever experienced in quite a while.

Alena concentrated on her duty, trying her best to collect the water from raindrops and analyzing the components of said liquid.

Her power turned out to work wonders. In just a few minutes, she was able to come out with a result.

"Crystal tears!" Alena shouted. "The name of the water. It's crystal tears,"

She turned around to look at Aria, wondering what the older woman had to say about this discovery. Aria was knowledgeable in pretty much anything, and she had seen this power when she peeked into Aria's fate a couple times ago. The woman would always have an answer or a solution to the challenges that was presented to her.

Sure enough, Aria reacted to Alena's announcement.

"Crystal tears? That means.. I see. All of these guys are crystallized insects. No wonder they are weak to it," Aria grinned, realizing the truth and finally seeing a ray of hope shine through the risky journey they had experienced.

Dianthe truly did a good job. Either her or Rallaka must have discovered the crystal water port and used her liquidity to take the special liquid and rain it all over the place.

Wasting her power entirely was a risky move, but the spirit must've concluded that the rain was necessary for them to clear the dungeon.

Indeed, if she hadn't done that, Aria would've collapsed out of exhaustion.

She struggled to get up, wincing in pain with every harsh movement she created. Alena came to her aid and supported her until she could stand up, leaning against the tree trunk.

Wiping the sweat off of her forehead, Aria heaved a long sigh.

"If that is the case, then our next move should be finding out where this crystal water came out of," The crystal tears ought to have come from somewhere inside the dungeon. Dianthe wouldn't be able to produce them.

"I-isn't it in that direction?" Alena pointed.

Aria's attention was drawn to the path Alena meant. She squinted her eyes and found nothing amiss.

However, before dismissing Alena's guess right off the bat, she decided to run a scan through the area.

Then, she found out what seemed to be Dianthe's 'traces' creating a path of trickling water. The liquid paved a road to somewhere. Because of the unnatural, perfectly straight line, Aria was inclined to believe that Dianthe was indeed the one who caused it.

'She left traces on the paths she went through?'

Aria marveled at Dianthe's intelligence. Unlike other lower - ranked spirits, she was able to consider every side of the plan and covered them beautifully.

'Thank you, Dianthe.' Aria silently offered up her gratitude.

"You're quite observant," Aria praised. "Alena, we're moving there," Aria squatted to let Alena ride her back once more.

Dizziness attacked her mind once more as she struggled to stand straight. Her determination made her unwilling to collapse. Grabbing onto a steady tree trunk, Aria hypnotized herself to forgo the jarring pain. She continuously brainwashed herself to think that the pain did not affect her in any sort of way, when it obviously made her break down.

This time, the enchantments were taken off. If Aria wanted to utilize her enchantments once more, her body would break.

Alena, who noticed the confidence in Aria quickly got up Aria's back. They started marching towards the destination Dianthe marked in full speed.

The monsters, although still blinded and shocked, followed suit in their direction.

Their flight speed was thankfully also lowered, but they would still outspeed Aria who had to carry Alena.

Aria gritted her teeth as she knew that the rain wouldn't last long, and the insects would recover sooner or later. There was not enough time for her to recover.

There had to be something that blocked off the insects.

"Halt the insects!" Aria instructed.

However, inside her mind, she was wondering about another thing separate from the monsters.

About Rallaka.

The spirit should've realized the importance of this rain and tried to contact her. However, the Earthen spirit did not do so, and even after Aria tried to contact him, there was no answer.

Where was he, and what was he doing?

Rallaka wouldn't betray her, because they were bound in a submissive contract. If Aria dies, then Rallaka would also follow her down to afterlife. Knowing the spirit's personality, he wouldn't risk his own life especially when he had the chance to recover: by sticking with Aria and extracting soul force from his enemies.

He could still rise to the top with her.

If not that, then the spirit must've met a horrendous trouble that prevented him from relaxing.

Or another possibility.. He found something else other than the Crystal Water that was important to this dungeon's solution.

'Which one is it..?' Aria calculated as she ran away from the monsters.

On her back, Alena was feeling distressed. She didn't know what else to do.

Alena wondered if she should gamble to prepare a spell that she herself wasn't sure about. Her two months were spent training on controlling the slime because it was her strongest weapon that she could use properly.

Moreover, her other puppets only consisted of weaker monsters than the Silver Slime, which had been cultivated to be as strong as possible within the given criteria.

But within that statement, there was an exception for one particular creature. 

"What could buy time.. I need to decide fast," Alena racked her brains to formulate a plan. Aria had told her where they were heading, it was decently far from the place.

Within her puppets, all of them were monsters that wouldn't be able to halt the insects. Not because they were weaker than them, but the insects could just bypass the creatures in no time and do nothing but waste her mana.

She bit her thumb, her brows furrowing as she counted all of her plausible methods. None of them would work efficiently in this situation.

Even after thinking for quite some time, she could only come up with one other solution, one that she would've preferred to not use if she could.

"...There is really only that one left," Alena began a spell that was foreign to even her.

In this case, it was a do or die situation.