The Burning Fiend

A hundred year had passed since Mosi became Shade's playing companion, Mosi had learned to ignore her insults as he focused most of his time trying to figure out what technique Reynolds had used on the kitten. Reynolds on his part had been busy translating Elemental Laws into runic arrays since he had already managed to include the modified 'Soul Brand Array' into his 'Ba-Serpent Attack Formation'.

He had managed to create runic arrays for the mysteries of 'Flame Body' and 'Heat', and he felt he was close to complete a runic array for 'Mirage'. After completing this runic array, he planned on focusing in creating arrays for the fusion of Elemental Laws, he felt that this endeavor would turn out to be easier than creating the runic array for a single law as he only already had fused the laws in question and only need to adjust the arrays after superimpose them and connect them through common lines.

Still, he expected that this effort would take him nearly 400 years. At that time he would have an attack formation with a 7-star Fiend mastery over the Elemental Laws and an Asura power considering that the attack formation would be powered by his flames. Reynolds expected that the power of such attack formation would barely allow him to escape from a Paragon, but he suspected that when he managed to fuse the 5 Elemental Laws and create a corresponding runic array for it... he would not be afraid of anything below the Sovereign level.

His mastery over the mystery of 'Explosion' was growing steady and without any problem, after all it was a middle level law and not as difficult to ponder and master as the 'Mirage' mystery had been. Still, the process was very slow due to the fact that Reynolds was fusing the new mystery along with the laws he had already mastered. He had found fusion points with the mysteries of 'Fire Essence' and 'Flame Body', and every time he progressed with the mystery of 'Explosion' he stopped his progress on the individual law to try finding a fusion point with 'Mirage' and 'Heat'.

During this time Talia and Sasha had become inseparable and stayed together at all times, Reynolds had a strange feeling in this regard as he was not sure if they were a couple or only very good friends, but he felt that he might like this more than his daughter having a husband, so he decided not to think about it.

In a moment of rest from his research in runes Reynolds realized that the only one of his wives that trained consciously was Jenne, and he guessed she would be the first one in the family to become a Highgod as she had already started exploring the techniques for slaving souls.

Windsor was not far from it either, but she focused entirely in stone sculpting. She had mastered the laws during the trance she often fell into while sculpting, she was only missing insights to start exploring the mysteries of 'Gravitational Space' and 'World Walking' and she was close to mastering the mystery of 'Vitality'.

On the other hand Rosarie and Koral were completely absorbed on her hobbies, being runes and music respectively. He did not mind, as long as he was strong they could enjoy life in the way they wanted without any danger and Koral was close to become a God with the 'Wind Elemental Laws' while Rosarie's power had not grown much but her ability in runes was extremely useful for their everyday life and sometimes she assisted Reynolds with his experiments. The only frustration for Reynolds was that he was finding extremely difficult to make progress with the Edicts of Life and Death, he had made good progress with his mastery over slaving souls, but he had found that the techniques for 'poisons' and 'torture' were beyond him, and he had almost no clue regarding the Edict of Life.

"Perhaps after completing my current project with runes I should try to see if I could explore memories from saints or deities to gain insights for the Edicts... perhaps I could even explore those 'soul strips'." Reynolds muttered to himself as he raised his cup to enjoy the fragrance of wine, and he chuckled as he heard, through his telepathic link, how Shade was mocking Mosi who only reacted by unconsciously petting her as if to appease her before continuing with his experiments.

Reynolds shook his head in amus.e.m.e.nt and thought. 'It seems that Shade is taming Mosi and not the other way around'. He then took a file that was delivered a few hours ago, it contained news of Linley, and he was curious to learn if his third brother had managed to find his ancestral clan.

"Linley Baruch reached the Indigo Prefecture and joined the Four Divine Beast Clan at the Skyrit Mountains..."

"... challenged to a life or death battle by an Elder barely surviving until the duel was stopped by the Redding Clan Leader punishing the Elder for trying to kill a promising God".

He read the file again and frowned. "Why would a 7-star Fiend level Elder would want to kill Third Brother? It does make any sense..." Reynolds was curious, but he was not very worried as he was sure that Lord Beirut would not send Bebe away without a powerful protection. "If things had gone out of hand, Bebe would surely make a desperate move and the Elders of the Four Divine Beast Clan would recognize his identity and stop any foolish actions against them".

He sighed and decided to keep working on his runic arrays...

---

Another 50 years passed and Reynolds was close to complete his first runic array that would represent the fusion of two Elemental Laws. He had smiled satisfied the first time he had found that the two superimposed arrays that represented the 'Fire Essence' and the 'Flame Body' mysteries respectively had a several parts that were clearly identical in both arrays, Reynolds had been sure that joining the two arrays through those parts would create a single array that would represent the two laws together.

Instead of forcing the two arrays together, he had started drawing a new runic array following this idea. It had taken him nearly 20 years and today he would complete the first prototype, he traced the last connecting line on the array and waited to see the results of his work.

The runic array did not unravel and maintained a level certain of stability. 'I would need to improve that...' He thought. Reynolds started testing the array and found that he could control both laws through the arrays but the fusion was not complete. This exercise allowed him to meet 50% of the fusion between the two laws, and he was convinced that it was good progress for his first attempt, but he could not help but feel a little disappointed.

He sighed in resignation as he found that his shortcut had not worked as well as he had expected, but then his eyes brightened. "Yes, it did not work as I expected... but wouldn't this be a good way to find the initial point for fusing laws? Specially if there are more than two laws in question". He imagined that after creating runic arrays for the 5 different 4-way fusions and superimpose them, he would be able to find several initial points to start the 5-way fusion instead of spending around a thousand years depending completely on Lady Luck's mood. He smiled brightly and his eyes were wide open with realization. "Becoming a Paragon might not be as difficult as I thought!" Reynolds muttered to himself and then started laughing out loud, it took a few minutes to calm down, and he started to work in translating his understanding of the fusion between 'Fire Essence' and 'Flame Body' into a runic array from scratch for his second prototype.

He was even more motivated now as this new runic arrays would not only make his 'Ba-Serpent Attack Formation' more powerful, but they would help increase his fusion speed in the later stages of the 'Fire Elemental Laws'.

---

Mosi was sitting on his private hall while petting a kitten that rested on his legs as he was thinking completely absorbed in pondering the 'soul branding' and the 'memory shackle'. Yes, he had already understood what Reynolds had done, but he had no idea how... and he felt that he might be able to do the same, but he would need to become a Paragon before been able to do so.

"But the kid did it, and he is not even a Highgod through the Edict of Death... how did he manage to do it?" He muttered as he kept petting the black kitten who purred happily as she received massage while the two silver foxes, that were resting near the fireplace, looked enviously at the kitten.

Mosi was no longer angry with the kitten neither with Reynolds, he felt that Reynolds had given him a precious gift. He might never be able to conquer this hateful woman, but he might become a Paragon one day as he was forced to think in new and different ways to apply his understanding of the Edict of Death. He stopped petting the kitten to massage his own forehead trying to calm the slight headache he had due to spiritual exhaustion, but ended yelping in surprise as the kitten used her claws to slash his leg demanding that he continued petting her.

Mosi absentmindedly moved his hand to scratch her head between her ears unaware that he had become a massage slave while he continued pondering the Edicts of Death. A few kilometers away, within a luxurious courtyard, Reynolds received the image sent by his most loyal slave Shade in which she showed him the pride she felt for taming the old monster. Reynolds could not help but laugh out loud and commend her on a well done job while feeling a little guilty of his little joke on his friend Mosi.