The Burning Fiend

A giant Ba-Serpent was snoring as it rested coiled on the small island at the center of the lava lake, Reynolds had spent the last three years focusing on fusing the four Fire Elemental Laws that he had already mastered and was satisfied with his progress.

Having four equally powerful soul focused on the same task helped to increase the speed in which he could perform calculations and try different scenarios, however he hoped that the Yura, Aruko and Onnel would not take too much time to arrive as he was rather bored.

A few days later, a fox shaped metal life form finally appeared on the distance and three Highgods flew out while the metal life form remained floating on the distance. "Are you the Burning Fiend?" The sound was more akin to a growl than a question and the fire serpent raised its head smirking.

Without answering he turned to look at the metal life form in the distance and the three Highgods startled as they hear the screams coming from behind only to realize that the fire snake had destroyed the metallic life form along with anyone inside without even directing a single word to them.

The three frowned and Yura was about to start his attack but was restrained by Onnel's mental message. 'Remember your promise!' Yura growled and started firing questions.

"Where is the elf woman? Does she have a saint body? Have..." Onnel's angry voice interrupted him and Yura snapped out of his angry outburst remembering the question he was supposed to ask. Reynolds at this point was already in human form looking at him amused.

"The only thing you need to know is that you are going to die". Reynolds's confident voice troubled Aruko and Onnel who was not willing to engage in battle before confirming that he was not under the protection of a Sovereign, but felt their spines shudder as his eyes turned purple and the three realized that their soul defensive artifacts were already crumbling into dust.

"W-Wait!" Aruko tried to go back to the 'conversation' stage but Reynolds ignored her as he charged towards them wielding a spear, Onnel trembled when he saw the spear. Even though it seemed like normal Highgod artifact with exquisite carving, he could feel the aura it emitted and remembered he had once seeing a weapon made out of divine sparks that had the same aura, suddenly he understood that they were in complete disadvantage.

"Curse you Yura! That is a divine spark weapon made by Beirut!" Onnel roared as he charged to intercept the attack repelling Reynolds several meters due to the strength provided by the Earth Elemental Laws, but Reynolds seemed completely unhurt while Onnel, who remained on the same place, was frowning and trembled slightly. At this point his soul defensive artifact was already destroyed, and he had to use divine power to protect his soul. Onnel had just experienced the feeling of his soul starting to burn and knew that this was caused just by the touch of their weapons, the worst part was that even if his divine power could protect his soul... the flames were difficult to extinguish and remaining attacking for a while before slowly starting to dissipate.

"Damn you! What are you waiting for? Unless you are planning to escape you should start attacking Aruko!" Onnel growled startling the other two, they were already scared when Onnel mentioned a weapon made by the madman Beirut, they knew that they were in trouble.

Aruko growled wielding her green soft sword that made a beautiful sound as it started vibrating, but Reynolds did not seem affected in the slightest, and he smirked. "Well, it seems that my defensive artifacts are of a higher quality than yours, now... you die!" He charged again while Yura and Onnel moved to meet him, already angered that things were completely out of the script they had expected, but when they were about to make contact Reynolds disappeared leaving a fire feather on his place and two startled Highgods that turned behind to found him a couple of meters below Aruko.

Yura and Onnel cursed at being tricked by such a childish technique, and Aruko screamed as she received the full front of his mental attack along with a barrage of spear thrusts, she barely was able to parry the lethal hits while numerous wounds started acc.u.mulating on her body before both Yura and Onnel arrived to support her.

Reynolds frowned thinking that if they had wasted a little more time the woman would be dead already.

---

A thousand kilometers away, images of the battle were projected through a lens made by Water Elemental Laws. The Lord Prefect smiled at how aggressive the kid was, and he liked his simple strategy and tactics, but he frowned as he noticed that the purple flames seemed a shade darker than before and turned to look at two women that were waiting patiently behind him.

They looked perplexed, and they only snapped back from their trance when they felt the heavy glare of the Lord Prefect. "Annia, Perenne... what do you think of those flames?" His voice contained expectations as he had brought this two women just to ask this question and confirm his suspicions.

"Lord, those flames are filled with traits of the Edicts of Life... strengthening the power of his attacks and nurturing the flames making them more resilient and difficult to extinguish". The woman with green hair said with confidence while the silver haired woman next to her said.

"What are you saying? Those flames are filled with traits of the Edicts of Death, they contain erosion and poison attributes making them direct soul attacks every time his spear touch their weapons". The two women frowned and started discussing among themselves ignoring the Lord Prefect who was smiling and no longer paying attention to them.

'Soul mutate! Fire with Life and Death... his power is already close to an Asura, and he had not yet fused 4 laws... but that weapon, it seems that I'm not the only one who had taken an interest to the kid. It is good that I have make no real move against him, a Paragon is not something I can deal with'.

---

Aruko and Onnel soon realized that their attacks could do nothing to the kid in front of them, they even suspected that he was using sovereign artifacts and dreaded that things would only get worse. Reynolds kept attacking Aruko as he knew that she practiced the Wind Elemental Laws and it was the most likely one to escape.

He kept using his soul attacks based on 'Heat' to constantly bombard them and forcing them to remain at the defensive and spend divine power protecting their souls, the attack was already blessed with 'soul erosion' and 'poison' attributes from the Edicts of Death while the Edicts of Life 'strengthened' and 'nurtured' the attack making it more difficult for them to extinguish the flames that were already burning the curtain of divine power they used to protect their soul not that they had no soul defensive artifacts.

Aruko was the one who was suffering more punishment and growled. "Yura! You put us into this situation... what are you waiting for? Use your damned innate ability!" Yura was unwilling as he would be greatly weakened after that, but he did not seem to have any other choice.

He retreated a few tens of meters and prepared while both Yura and Aruko tried to hold Reynolds back. A moment later, a fox phantom appeared behind Yura and Reynolds could feel how an ocean of flames seemed to appear in his sea of consciousness rushing toward his soul. But a barrier created by his soul defensive artifact trembled slightly when the flames made contact and withstood the attack without trouble.

Onnel and Aruko were expecting the attack to take effect and kill him, but he did not falter for even a second and increased the pressure of his attacks on Aruko who was growing frantic by now. A moment later, Reynolds's spear pierced Aruko's forehead who died with a painful scream and cursing Yura.

Just as Aruko's body was starting to fall down as broken bird, Onnel made a decision in a split of a second and dived to the ground using 'World Walking' planning to abandon Yura. He escaped hoping that Reynolds would choose to deal with Yura who was the one who started the conflict, but he still suffered a soul attack that broke through his defense and almost destroyed his soul. His screams resounded on the Silver Canyon, making the deities watching in the distance to tremble in fear, but he did not reduce his speed and soon disappeared from the battle grounds.

Yura was looking at the place where Onnel had disappeared and knew for certain that he had left, and that he would most likely die in this place. He finally realized that the third party that had started the conflict was not using him to destroy the young man in front of him... no, they were using the Burning Fiend to destroy him along with the Yura Clan.

He had already used most of his divine power to activate his innate ability and could only watch as Reynolds approached slowly and started attacking with his spear. Yura used his giant blade to fight back and realized that the kid was toying with him. Reynolds was using him to try the different attacks he had created on the last few decades. Yura was furious and unwilling, he fell into one of his rage outburst and attacked with his fusion of four laws repelling Reynolds again and again with a huge explosion of power every time their weapons clashed, but every time Reynolds returned unharmed and his eyes were shining as if he was gaining understanding with every exchange.

"Explosion!" Reynolds murmured and a brilliant smile appeared on his face, he had gained insights to a fifth law making this battle more than profitable. Reynolds stopped his attacks and looked at the ravaged Yura who was panting from the exertion. "Who is the third party that started this conflict?" Reynolds asked while Yura smirked. "I wish I knew... I thought somebody was using me to kill you, only now I realize that it was the other way around hahahaha".

Reynolds shook his head and his body became translucent before disappearing as he seemed to fuse with his spear creating a dark purple beam that crossed the distance between them in an instant and pierced through Yura's head. Reynolds appeared a few meters behind Yura holding a divine spark as an interspatial ring floated toward him.

A smile appeared on Reynolds's face as he searched the area for a while, hoping to be lucky and find the one who had escaped, but soon realized that it was a lost cause. He took his winged serpent metal life form and started his trip back to Silver Blade City, he was eager to check what treasures a couple of 7-star Fiends should have in their interspatial rings.

And was happy to find that both rings were not bounded.

---

On the distance a blue haired girl smirked happily while saying to the Lord Prefect. "Look at that... it seems that the young fellow is already looking for you, aren't you happy?" But then she stopped while noticing that her grandfather was frowning. "What's wrong?"

The gray haired man looked at her and smiled. "Well, nothing to worry about. But it would be better to avoid conflict with him, that weapon was made by Beirut... he might be under the protection of a Paragon in the best case. His material and soul defense artifacts are much more resistant than what a Highgod artifact should be... I don't really think that they are sovereign artifacts, but they are powerful treasures at worst. It is good that we were careful and no problem will come back to us... perhaps just to be sure, we should let your cousin remain in seclusion for another thousand years to avoid more problems".

The blue haired girl was growing restless the more she heard to his words, but she smiled with p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e at the last part and nodded enthusiastically making the gray haired man laugh happily as well.