Asta steeled herself as she felt her muscles and joints tire.  Her mind was focused one on thing - holding dominion over her summons.  However, power quickly waned when those creatures lived off of your own bodily energy and you were pushing them as best you could.  Whenever one would tear through a slime, another would replace it and as Asta's power drained from her body, her summons grew weak and she had to bring new ones out.  Deep shades of violet emanated from the beasts, and from her, to show their connection and that they were inter-planar.  Unfortunately, she was far from a master and fending off these grotesque monsters was all she could muster up.  She only kept one eye on the Varuna in order to ensure he wasn't directing any further power to her.

The woman pushed one of her feet into the dirt behind her, attempting to keep her footing as she felt her knees begin to buckle.  [i]Fight it...[/i]  She chided herself.  It was times like this she wished she'd been able to practice her magic more, but the Church was being relentless in its hunt and she didn't want to be found or become so powerful that she was a significant target.  Now it seemed that it didn't matter - she was at their mercy.

The Magi before their group hissed his insults and fury as he continued to tire them out.  He was toying with them!  If only the coward would drop his cowardly magic and fight them with a blade, he would be singing a different tune.  Asta gritted her teeth - these Vazra weren't doing the trick - the slimes were bigger than them...  But she'd never tried summoning something bigger, and if she did, she'd only be able to pull up one of them at most.  They could break free from her grasp or the slimes could overpower it with sheer numbers...  But the Vazra were weak and they were mostly stalling the monsters, if not defeating them only one at a time.  On the other hand, Vazra were easily conjured, dismissed, and controlled.  They were plentiful on the other side, but Asta knew of only a couple other creatures, many only from stories and far too fearsome to be brought to this plane and controlled by even the strongest of Void Magi.

A flash of green light caused Asta to lose focus as she glanced over and saw the boy from before get blasted with some kind of acidic spell of ruin.  The Ydra snarled in anger - not noticing at first what kind of damage and really been done to Cecil apart from him falling to the ground.  They were all going to die if something wasn't done, and with a wave of her hand, the Vazra she had summoned dissipated with the wind, returning to their realm.  The slimes turned their attention to her, but Asta wasted no time as she scowled and raised her hands, finding a new summon for herself.  This would be no Vazra.  Vazra hunted very small game and, more often, scavenged for food.  Asta was bringing forth a predator.

From the ground, a [URL=http://img1.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spire4/a1651ef4e671db9a67137989ed992cdb1394445241_full.jpg]figure[/URL] began to emerge, crawling to its feet as if crossing planes through a hole.  Its low growl shook Asta's bones even as the tails on his shoulders whipped about hungrily.  A six-legged creature akin to a dire wolf or small bear, but more slender and covered in patches of scales appeared before all of the fighters on the road.  Its eyes glowed with white-hot intensity as Asta readied herself for the battle of wills she was about to have to fight.  Myria hid behind her mistress as the creature surveyed the scene it was pulled into, growling at Asta angrily.  It wanted badly to steal energy from the world, but as their eyes met, it realized hers would be sufficient, if only for now.  It was clear that as soon as she was spent, it would move on to a new power source unless dismissed properly and in time.  Now, for the threat.

The slimes recognized their new threat and began to converge, but the Thistrun leapt for one, clawing at it, clearly more formidable than the Vazra as it tore into the nearest one.  When a second grew closer, it was easily able to fight it with the toothed tails at its shoulders, switching targets as soon as it dispatched the first...  Of course, they were still just as easily resummoned, but the Thistrun was better at handling them and it was still only one summon.  Asta's power waned, however, and quickly at that.  Maybe if she had more practice with this kind of monster, it would be easier, but it was the first she'd ever seen a real one in person, let alone conjured it on her own.

Meanwhile, the Varuna continued his magical onslaught on her friends, adding one more of his slimes to the front against the Thistrun - Asta knew that he was just exhausting her before truly trying to defeat her.  She fell to a knee, her breathing laboured as she stared at her summon...  There was no chance she could keep this up.  The signs were all there - the grass around the Thistrun began to die as it began to test new power sources.  The air hung heavier and Asta blinked, her vision going blurry.

"No... No..."  She muttered, steadying herself with a hand on the floor.  It was growing defiant even as it fought for her, taking more power than she had meant to give.  The power output of the beast only grew as it drained her...  It was smarter than she thought; her hand tightened into a fist before her and she took a deep breath.  If she was going to die, she couldn't let one of these things stay alive.  She threw her hand through the air, but there was resistance as she moved to banish the Void creature.  It could feel her pushing it back and didn't want to go.  She began to climb to her feet, pushing harder against it.  [i]Back, back, you have to go...[/i] She silently urged.

It wasn't going to go without a fight as it turned and began to move in on her, jaws snapping as it moved to pounce.  Before it even reached the air, she finally managed to thrust it back to its own realm in a bittersweet moment of victory.  The Ydra fell back down to see the slimes moving against her again and this time she couldn't summon anything smaller to fight nor draw her blade.  Her vision faded in and out for a moment before the slimes were absolutely slaughtered by some magical power - rocks had seemingly come from the ground to obliterate them.  As she propped herself up on an elbow, she noticed a Magi and a Dimuran converging on the Varuna.  Reinforcements?  New enemies even more powerful than the last..?

Of this she wasn't sure, but she knew that she wouldn't be able to fight them off if they were here to claim a prize for themselves.  At this point, she couldn't even get to her feet on her own.  If that was her fate, then so be it.