The Burning Fiend

Within a well furnished room, that one might not really describe as luxurious, a khaki haired Talia was listening to Windsor as she was instructing her in the basics of stone sculpting. She had almost no affinity toward earth elemental essence, so if she wanted to upgrade her Demigod earth avatar she would need to work extremely hard and sculpting seemed to be a good way get started, she had created her earth avatar only a decade ago but soon found that pondering the Elemental Laws of Earth was much more difficult for her than pondering the Elemental Laws of Fire.

Reynolds had suggested trying Windsor's method and see if she could make progress before taking a decision regarding fusing with divine sparks, she had no need to hurry after all.

On another part of the room, Talia's saint body was listening intently to her mother's explanation of music and was learning how to play the flute. Her next project was to create a wind avatar and if she managed to become a Demigod through the mystery of 'Music' her progress will become easier than her experience with 'Water Essence' and 'Earth Essence'.

Not too far her water avatar was playing chess with Catherine, and they both seemed to be having fun. Another 50 years had passed and, as they keep approaching their destination slowly, Reynolds was still fascinated with runes and arrays, but they have already mastered all the information they currently had.

He was planning to make a temporary stop on the closest city to see if they were lucky to find more books depicting arrays and their application. Suddenly they felt an explosion and the metallic life form was destroyed making them smile with anticipation.

They were surrounded by a group of 60 deities that seemed startled after realizing that the sword shaped metallic life form they had attacked had so many passengers, and realized that they were in trouble thinking that they were facing many Highgods.

The smarter ones reacted and tried to escape only to turn into ashes in an instant to the terror of the remaining bandits. They had finally figured out who was the young man who sported a friendly and kind smile while killing those who tried to escape.

A red haired man, with a well groomed beard, started cursing to the heavens about shameless monsters baiting innocent bandits, but he did not dare to voice his thoughts out loud. Koral, Talia and Rosarie floated a few meters in front of Reynolds wielding their weapons. Reynolds's voice brought hope of surviving to the nearly 50 deities remaining.

"Well, my two beautiful wives and my gentle daughter want your help for trying their new moves in battle. We are in a good mood so the last 10 survivors would not be killed by either them or me, I would recommend you to put a good effort in this endeavor or I might change my mind". His voice was calm as if he were talking over a drink with friends but his gentle smile caused the bandits to shiver.

They did not realize that a beautiful silver haired woman was smiling with bright eyes while muttering. "10 new toys! Master is the best!" Windsor and Catherine shook their heads and sighed remembering that Jenne used to be a gentle soul who would not dare to harm a bug. Catherine blamed Reynolds for her transformation and started mumbling. "Evil womanizer"... "shameless".

Reynolds just smiled at the antics of the three women while Talia, Koral and Rosarie were already battling the bandits. Talia and Koral were both using the Elemental Laws of Fire to fight, Talia had not being able to found an entry to a third laws and had expectations to find inspiration through this battle. Koral on the other hand was close to master the mystery of 'Mirage' and had found herself trapped with the final step for a while, she hoped to use the battle to breakthrough and only used the 'Mirage' mystery to fight the bandits.

Rosarie had being paying more attention to runes, but she had managed to gain insights on the mystery of 'Ice Edge' and focused of using it to attack while depending on the other mysteries for defense. Reynolds observed the battle calmly while ensuring that no accident came to pass, and smirked before holding Jenne in his arms as she seemed eager to go and pick her new toys.

"Bad Jenne, wait for the girls to finish and then you can play". He said teasingly while she pouted before she managed to regain her calm through his warm embrace. "I know..." She muttered crestfallen causing Reynolds to chuckle and kissed her forehead for consolation.

"Tell me, did you find a new poison? What does it do?" He was curious about her progress, he had stopped temporarily his pursue on the Edicts and his improvement on fusing the four laws was paying up, but he planned to take advantage of her research after he completed his current endeavor.

Jenne's eyes seemed to light up, and she started explaining excitedly. "Master! I think... I think I managed to reproduce the effect of the poison that attacks the soul of all avatars at once even if they are not together. But I'm not sure yet... but I was not able to create a poison that worked by contact like those silver arrows that the Jadefloat Palace sells. Mine only work if ingested, but I think that after a few more experiments I will find a way".

Reynolds was surprised, this technique was quite advanced and normally one would not be able to achieve it before becoming a Highgod through the Edicts of Death. He felt happy and proud of her talent. "Teaching you necromancy all those years ago was quite a good decision". He muttered in her ears making her blush.

He suddenly smirked and a God turned to ashes as he was trying to attack Talia from behind was she was almost overwhelmed by two Gods. Reynolds had noticed that the good was using a special blade and was not trying to kill her, but only tried to land a hit. The knife floated to him, and he examined while Jenne seemed angry.

The man had tried to poison Talia to perhaps use her as a hostage and exchange the antidote for his life, Reynolds felt angry at having killed him so quickly. He gave the knife to Jenne, and she started to analyze the poison with a little disappointment on her face. "I would have needed a couple of hours to create and antidote, but she would have suffered a lot of pain. Master you killed him too quickly!" Her voice was full of reproach, and he smiled while keeping his attention on the battle.

"You are right, but better be safe than sorry. This way Talia did not have to suffer from the poison, so no damage was done". Jenne nodded and stored the knife, it was not an expensive poison but it might prove useful for research.

After a few minutes, only 10 deities remained and looked hopefully at Reynolds before dark chains bound them as they started screaming in pain. They felt their souls and flesh burning by the mere contact with the chains and soon lost consciousness. Jenne was excited and struggled to escape from Reynolds's arms, but he refused to let go playing with her. "M-Master! Please!" She begged and Reynolds chuckled and kissed her before letting go of her.

Talia seemed angry at herself for requiring her father's aid, but Reynolds did not mind it and patted her head while smiling kindly at her. "You forgot to prepare a fire construct for safety, that would have allowed you to escape the ambush without suffering using it to exchange place with your fire avatar. Remember to always have a way out, now... I don't think that the poison would have worked on you due to your artifacts, but it is better to be sure. So don't sulk and learn from it, you know what to do now". His voice was gentle and warmed her heart, she nodded and started repeating the battle in her mind.

Koral seemed happy and Reynolds suspected she might have found the final piece to completely master the 'Mirage' mystery, he waited while looking at her expectantly. She noticed and smiled warmly before creating an illusion of her using the complete 'Mirage' mystery waiting to be praised. He smiled at her and took her in her arms. "Congratulations my beautiful wife". She purred while retuning the embrace.

Catherine looked at Jenne who seemed like a child in Christmas and said to her. "Please, don't forget to ask Rosarie for an isolation array... last time their screams lasted for hours". She seemed to be remembering a bad memory while Jenne nodded without paying much attention causing Catherine to sigh in resignation, but felt reassured as Rosarie patted her head and smiled.

They soon were traveling again, but this time they were using the characteristic winged serpent shaped metallic life form. They would not need to lure bandits for a while and Koral and Talia started going through the interspatial rings giggling like little girls, the two of them specially enjoyed this part of the hunt. Koral had explained that dragon folk were fond of treasures and Talia might have inherited that trait from her.

Reynolds realized that 200 years had passed since his battle against Yura, they would have been able to arrive at the Crystal Cave City within 50 years, but they took their time training and roaming around. He was sure that within another 100 years he would be able to reach the bottleneck for the fusion of the four laws and considered that taking a 7-star mission at that moment might be useful for breaking through and finally achieve the complete fusion.

They were approaching a medium-sized city and would arrive in about 10 years, just enough time for Jenne to finish her experiments... he hopped they would find the books he needed and perhaps they could try some delicacies in one of the restaurants, he had just realized that they had never really visit a restaurant since they arrived to the Infernal Realm and his eyes lighted up with expectation.