The elemental spirits known as 'fairies', or 'spriggans' if they possess multiple elements, can be divided into five ranks based on their power over the elements themselves. The first three categories are the ones most elemental spirits fall into:
Lesser spirit Medium spirit Greater spirit
These three ranks are often treated as age groups amongst fairies, as their mental age is often reflected in their rank, with lesser spirits usually having the mind of an infant.
As a reference, the spirits Shinji contracted 'Little Flower' and 'Little Thunder', are 'medium spirits' who have the intelligence to start forming their own identities, while having the power to manipulate the surrounding elemental energies on a small scale. They are essentially somewhere between children and teenagers in terms of maturity.
Then, you have the 'greater spirits'. This is the one Nox's brother falls into. Those who have reached this stage are considered to be adults among the Fay as they can manipulate their element with ease. Comparing them to spellcasters, the tier you would need to combat a spirit of the same element would be the 5th at minimum as anything less would easily be warded off by a greater spirit's magic.
However, the last two ranks are only given to the mightiest of fairies who stand above the rest, as indicated by their titles:
Spirit Lords Spirit Kings
An individual who has contracted a spirit lord would be considered an arch mage, the equivalent of a 6th to 7th tier spellcaster. In terms of their assigned elements, only the top experts would be able to lay as much as a finger on them. They could create and control thunderstorms, tsunamis, earthquakes and much more with just a thought, making them akin to natural disasters given life, but even that pales in comparison to what lies beyond.
The highest rank of elemental spirit is the undisputed strongest amongst all elemental-based lifeforms, the spirit kings. They are the absolute monarch of their elements. No, cultivator, mage or beast can match them within their assigned elements. They could split a continent or sink it into the ocean. They can move the moon or change the planet's orbit. They are essentially the gods of the nine elements.
And one of such gods was currently standing before Nox. Its shape was vailed behind a dark haze as it stood eerily still behind Wilhelm's floating figure.
"Kill him!"
The moment Wilhelm uttered those words, the hazy figure of darkness suspended behind the sage seemed to have merely turned slightly to look in Nox's direction, but the moment it did, the dark sky of this isolated space began to twist as a river of darkness came rushing down towards Nox.
Nox swiftly dodged it by hopping through a spatial distortion, intending to teleport out of the arena, but she ended up smacking into the pitch-black wall right outside the stadium instead due to the barrier limiting her spatial movement. The moment she came into contact with it, the wall suddenly twisted before another river came gushing out of it, engulfing her as she didn't have the time to dodge.
"It is done! He has perished!" Wilhelm spoke.
*Swoosh*
"You sure about that?" Nox said, as she came flying past him with her dagger in hand.
The moment Wilhelm let his guard down, the upper half of Nox's body came shooting out of the first river of dark liquid, aiming to skewer the elf, but at the last moment his body was transformed into light particles and moved out of the way.
In the long history of spirit magic, there has been many who have tried to lay claim to the title of sage, but the number of people in all of history who has ever made a contract with a spirit king can be counted on one hand, and out of all of those, there has only been one who has ever contracted more than one at a time. That man is Wilhelm Alfheim, the man who contracted both the spirit King of light and darkness.
"How long do you intend to drag this on Darkness?" The blinding ball of light complained as it exited the sage's body.
This figure of light as bright as the sun itself was the spirit king of the light element, and much like the king of darkness, his figure was hidden behind a vail maid from his own element.
"Hmph! It hasn't even been a minute yet! Stop complaining!"
While the two spirit kings started arguing Nox's legs came falling from the sky, dropping right on top of the two spirits and their contractor.
*Sizzle*
*BOOM*
Just as the legs were about to kick the elvan sage in the face, the light spirit shot a white laser that evaporated Nox's legs.
"See! You couldn't even deal with something as simple as that!"
"Only because you distracted me! So, go back already! We agreed this one was mine!"
"Hey, I was kind of in the middle of something! So, could we pick this up later?" Nox asked, wondering if she still had time to reach the stage before they disqualified her for being late.
"Die! Hm!"
*Swoosh*
*Crash*
While Nox was focusing on the bickering pinnacles of light and darkness, Gladstone had attempted a sneak attack from behind, only to be swatted away like a fly by Wilhelm's wind attribute spirit.
"STAY OUT OF THIS DWARF!"
"What?" Gladstone uttered in confusion from the stands where he crashed.
"FOOLISH AS HE MAY HAVE BEEN, HE WAS STILL MY BROTHER! THIS COCKROACH WAS THE ONE WHO KILLED HIM! THAT MEANS HE IS MINE TO CRUSH!"
"Could we do this later? I'm kind of on the clock here!"
*Sizzle*
"There! Quick and simple!" The light spirit of light said after shooting a laser through Nox's skull.
"Haven't you been paying attention Light!" The spirit king of darkness asked.
"So, is that a no?" Nox said, before using her spirit magic to reconstruct her body back to normal.
"Hm? Is that?"
"What are you guys looking at? Oh, crap!" Nox said as she looked down at her body.
While fixing her body, she had accidentally returned to her original gender by mistake. Showing of her true identity to the two strongest mages in the world who also just so happen to want her dead. However, her sudden gender swap wasn't what intrigued the spirit Kings.
"Spriggan! You are a spriggan!"
"Hm? Wait, you seriously didn't notice until now? Hahaha! And you call yourselves spirit kings!"
*RUMBLE*
The spirit kings were not pleased at Nox's mockery, which was made apparent of how the barrier began to shake and crack in response to their anger.
"Die!" The two proclaimed in unison.
Giant blue lasers and rivers of darkness came shooting towards Nox from every angle. The light and dark began to coil around each other like snakes as they chased after Nox, while she teleported around the place. Wherever she teleported to, she would almost always go near one of the rivers made from darkness, so she could use it as a shield against the encroaching laser, whether by diving in or using her own spirit magic to slice off a piece of the river for herself. When the light started targeting the spatial distortions in advance before she had even finished teleporting, she started making decoy spatial distortions to throw them off her trail, while also.
*Bang*
Redirect some of the attacks back towards the spirit of darkness.
"HEY! WATCH WHERE YOU AIM YOUR ATTACKS YOU BASTARD!" The dark spirit shouted as he rubbed the small scratch on his arm.
"THEN STOP GETTING IN THE WAY! IF YOUR SLOW DARKNESS WASN'T IN THE WAY, THAT THING WOULD BE DEAD ALREADY! ARE YOUR ATTACKS EVEN DOING ANYTHING?!" The light spirit shouted back as it watched Nox escape into another river of darkness only to pop out from inside another so she could taunt them.
"HEY, DARKY-MC-FAIL-A-LOT! MIND TURNING UP THE HEAT! MY BATH IS GETTING KIND OF COLD!" Nox said as she pulled out a sponge and pretended she was taking a bath in the dark river.
"HOW DARE YOU! A LOWLY SPRIGGAN LIKE YOU MAKING FUN OF ME!"
"NO! DARKNESS, DON'T!"
The light spirit tried to stop the spirit of darkness, but it was too late.
*Smash*
Through the entire battle, the two spirit kings had intentionally been holding back. This was because their full might would easily shatter the barrier they were inside, which would return them to the real stadium arena, but the frustration from the friendly fire, the light spirit's complaints and Nox's taunts had pushed the spirit king past its breaking point.
As soon as the barrier shattered, the river that Nox was leisurely swimming in, suddenly wrapped around her as it transformed into a giant hand. The enraged spirit king was engulfed in darkness as he transformed into a giant the size of the 2nd moon.
"PERISH!" The spirit king said as it created a mouth on the featureless face of the giant, before shoving the entire fist that was holding Nox, into its mouth.
*GULP*
*POP*
Just as the king of darkness swallowed, a loud popping sound rang out across the land as half the face of the giant was suddenly missing.
Spirit kings might be unrivalled within their own element, but that is not to say that they are invincible. Any god-like existence who does not rely on the same element as the spirit king they are fighting would be fully capable of matching a spirit king in battle, and one of such beings just so happens to be present at this festival.
"I allowed you on my moon on one condition elf! Or have you forgotten already?" An angry, well-built, middle-aged man said, as he walked through a spatial distortion in front of the sage of the fay.
He had a short brown beard, while sporting a black yukata and sandals. This was the ruler of the 2nd moon, King Tsuki Hiroshi, a rare heaven immortal of the spatial attribute. This man was the reason why the two sages went through the trouble of fighting inside that concealed space instead of ambushing Nox in the open.
"Hmph! We were just getting rid of a bug on yo-!"
"It was to not harm anyone while you were here!" The King spoke, cutting off the high elf.
"It was a criminal who even humiliated your son in public!"
"My son had been getting too arrogant for his own good! I would have like to thank the fellow who put him in his place, but unfortunately it seems he is no longer of this world!"
And with a heavy sigh, the king of the moon waved his arm and split the space in his path, parted the ocean as the sage of the fay disappeared from sight.
"Hmph! Lucky bastard escaped! Well, at least I have another punching bag waiting for me!" The king said before he turned to the giant fist heading towards him.