The Burning Fiend

Reynolds was trying to hold his laughter as he witnessed Shade resting over Mosi's head as she gave him commands that he followed without thinking while pacing on the hall thinking about his experiments. Sometimes the black kitten commanded him to change direction and Mosi complied unconsciously, sometimes she commanded to slow the pace... and he complied without thinking.

She always addressed him as 'battle steed Mosi', Reynolds could not believe that the once trembling raven haired beauty, that seemed destined to remain as a saint for eternity, was now a Demigod ridding a Commander of Hell as a battle steed. He noticed that the two 7-star Fiend women that Mosi had commanded to turn their most powerful avatars into little silver foxes looked at Shade with hate and envy.

He took on the scene and decided that he did not want to interfere at the moment, Mosi seemed happy and his most loyal slave was happy as well. Reynolds turned to leave and Mosi did not even realize he had come to visit, Reynolds chuckled as he walked away leisurely thinking of continuing his own research.

A few hours later, he was again in his courtyard superimposing a couple of 2-way fusion runic arrays that had a mystery in common. This time he was going to try his first prototype of the 3-way fusion array, he was excited at the idea and hoping to obtain at least a 40% representation of the intended fusion, this way he would have a better hope that using this method would allow him to become a Paragon in perhaps five thousand years which was the original time that he had expected it would take him to fuse five laws.

After hours of hard work, he interrupted the process to drink a glass of wine and play a game of chess with Talia who seemed extremely happy. Drawing the prototype would take him several days or even months, so he took rests whenever he felt like it, he noticed that Talia was not as concentrated as usual while playing, and he looked curiously at her.

She had become more playful during the last years, and she seemed happier, perhaps it was because she finally had someone around whom she considered of her own generation. The difference in age between his daughter and him was not much, but she was his daughter after all, and she also thought of her mother and aunts as someone of the previous generation instead of friends. For once, she was no longer the only 'child' in the group and her mood seemed calmer, he chuckled thinking that they both had very different experiences growing up, and he did not know which one might be better, but he was happy with their current situation.

"Dad, you are laughing alone!" She frowned at him but the shadow of a smile betrayed her false anger, after a moment she said again. "Dad... do you think I could receive the baptism of Redding clan as well? After all, Sasha and I are both descendants of dragons". Her voice was unsure and looked at him with puppy eyes making him almost spit his wine.

After laughing for a moment he said. "I guess we can ask Lord Beirut, I don't think that it would be much of a problem for you to try... but I would not expect much from it. You already have a water avatar and your mother is fire type dragon while the Redding Sovereign was a water type dragon... at least there should be no problem". Talia pouted unwilling but there was not much she could say about his reasoning, Reynolds started thinking that perhaps it would be a good opportunity to see how the baptism worked while Sasha took part on it... 'It would not be bad to find a way to pass a legacy to my descendants... and perhaps I could replicate it with runes'. His thoughts returned to runic arrays as they always seemed to do during the last decades, and he chuckled at his own situation as he realized that Talia was now ahead in the game and that she had succeeded in distracting him.

A few months passed quickly and Reynolds was drawing the last few traces on his runic array prototype, after a couple of minutes the runic array trembled but did not unravel itself as he feared. The stability of the array was lacking and it might not last more than a few minutes, so he frowned in concentration and started to test the runic array while trying to figure out how much of the 3-way fusion it managed to replicate.

Reynolds smiled after a few minutes, happy to find that even such a faulted prototype had managed to obtain a 42% representation of the 3-way fusion, he was sure now that the method was viable and it would not be long before he manages to fuse five laws through this method. But it was time to focus on mastering the mystery of 'Explosion' and work into translate his understanding of this law into a new runic array.

By then, finding the starting point of fusion between the mysteries of 'Mirage' and 'Explosion' would be easy by superimposing the two runic arrays, and he would continue with his research after reaching this point. Reynolds was so excited with his findings that he decided to allow the two avatars working with the Edicts to joint the effort of mastering the Fire Elemental Laws. This way it would take him less than a year to master the law and around 50 years to complete all the 2-way fusions with the 'Explosion' mystery as a base, while it might take him another 50 years to complete all the 2-way fusion runic arrays.

On the other hand, mastering the mystery of 'Explosion' would help him to increase his speed that was currently his greatest weakness, but he knew that even after this... speed would never be his greatest asset in battle. He walked toward the living room thinking of spending time with his wives and, while walking, he took a peak at Shade's mind to find out that she was sleeping on Mosi's l.a.p while the old monster massaged her head absentmindedly. Reynolds chuckled still not quite believing what Mosi had become since he left the little kitten with him.

He found Jenne reading a book, and he laid on the couch using her l.a.p as a pillow without interrupting her, a moment later Koral, who was passing by, changed into her saint body and coiled herself on his c.h.e.s.t to use him as a bed making him chuckle as he started petting her head just as Jenne was doing the same to him. "Did you girls miss the Yulan Continent?" He did not know why he asked that, perhaps he was unconsciously thinking of going home... 'Perhaps I should return for a visit after becoming a Paragon'.

Jenne seemed to look at the distance for a moment before frowning and shaking her head. "I miss our home within the lake at the Forest of Darkness. But I do like our current life". Koral raised her head for a moment and said. "Master, I miss the Forest of Darkness and the hunts... but I do like life here as well". Reynolds smiled, and he felt that he also enjoyed their current life as it was, he was never one looking for fame or political influence... he was too lazy for those things.

His thoughts diverted for a moment, and he remembered that he had already placed the combination of the 'Soul Brand' and the 'Memory Shackle' in each member of his family, including Sasha... making sure that their souls would never end up slaved. After Mosi took a hundred years without any progress in regaining control of Shade, he decided that the runic array was safe enough to use on his family, and he did not hesitate any longer.

His smile had touch of pride as he remembered how he had 'bought' Jenne from her family before they betrayed him, and that she would never remember the family that she once knew... she will belong to him forever. 'Mosi and I aren't very different at the end... I guess'. He thought shamelessly as he enjoyed the peace of the moment and decided that he would take them to eat at a restaurant later on the day.

---

Another hundred years had passed and Reynolds had not only mastered the mystery of 'Explosion' along with all the 2-way fusions using the newest law in his repertory as a base, and he had completed all the 2-way fusion runic arrays as well. Reynolds was preparing to start working on the runic array that would represent the fusion of the mysteries 'Fire Essence', 'Flame Body' and 'Heat', and he suspected that completing all the 3-way fusion runic arrays would take him another hundred years. This was because he would be using two avatars to work on the 3-way fusion of the mysteries with 'Explosion' as base while his other avatar and his saint body would work on the 3-way fusion runic arrays.

Reynolds felt that he was not far from fusion the five laws using his new method, and he planned to take full advantage of it... after all, he was not making much progress on the Edicts of Life and Death and stopping pondering the Edicts for a few hundred years would not make much difference or... any difference at all.

During the last 100 years Mosi had become so fond of Shade that he had asked Reynolds to free her from his control accepting his loss in the game. Reynolds had found himself surprised at this unexpected development, but he complied happily and unraveled the modified 'Soul Brand Array' while maintaining Shade's current personality that was protected by the 'Memory Shackle Array'. His secrets were protected as not even Shade could remember anything that could endanger him or his family.

The rumors of the new mistress of Miluo Island started to spread like fire. Shade still preferred her kitten form, but she would use her water avatar to accompany Mosi who, just as Reynolds would, had used his own slaving method while keeping Shade's free will, but it was funny that the one in command seemed to be Shade and not Mosi.

Reynolds felt cold sweat on his back while thinking of Mosi's current situation, and he promised himself that he would never allow something like that to happen to him... his own pride would not allow it. But then he realized that he needed to be extremely careful, after all... he and Mosi were not that different and, if it had happened to the old monster, it might not be impossible that one day he ended in the same terrible situation.