The Burning Fiend

Windsor was resting her head on Reynolds's shoulder as they both listened to Koral's music in the living room, they were enjoying the music but Reynolds was sightly more concerned with the memories that were assaulting his mind at the moment. He was thinking that one of his favorite moments during his youth was to wake up in the morning with Windsor laying n.a.k.e.d at his side, they no longer needed to sleep, so he had not experienced those mundane moments that were the most enjoyable for him.

And if he were to be honest, he truly missed such moments. He smiled as he started to pet Windsor's head. She smiled and enjoyed the attention, but did not make the slightest sound as if to avoid disrupting the moment and the melody. Windsor was never truly sure if her thoughts and feelings were hers or were responses to her Master's commands, but she had stopped caring about that many centuries ago. She was happy and that was all that mattered to her.

Reynolds sighed thinking that their time at Miluo Island was coming to an end, they had been living on the island for nearly four hundred years. And during this time Reynolds had managed to master all the possible combinations for the 4-way fusions of the Elemental Laws that he had mastered along with their corresponding runic arrays. He even had created the first prototype of the 5-way fusion runic array after superimposing all the 4-way fusion arrays, and he had being extremely happy after finding a 17% representation for the fusion of the five Elemental Laws.

It was a very low approximation, but with his understanding in runes he was able to identify immediately the starting point for the 5-way fusion. And most importantly, he suspected that he would obtain at least a 5% representation for the 6-way fusion when the time to repeat the process with the 5-way fusion runic arrays come. For the first time, he had complete certainty that he would become a Paragon and Reynolds felt even more motivated to work hard.

"Master, what are you thinking?" Windsor melodious voice interrupted his thoughts, and he smiled at her before sitting her in his l.a.p gently. "I was just thinking that if I use my three avatars and my saint body to train... I will be able to fuse the five Fire Elemental Laws, that I have already mastered, in less than a hundred years. I am excited at the idea..." He smiled brightly and Windsor's eyes shinned with happiness, not only was she happy for his success, but because she knew that he might be comparable to a Paragon in power if Reynolds managed to fuse the 5 mysteries and used the 'Ba-Serpent Attack Formation', it would be at that moment when they would be truly safe and able to go and do as they pleased.

She frowned for a moment and then said. "Master, if you become that strong... shouldn't you go and capture that little elf and the kitten that ran away?" Reynolds was startled for a moment and then started laughing. "Do you think that they could escape from me? They went away because I let them go... don't get me wrong, I enjoyed their company, I truly did... but I am no longer the youth who went around the world conquering beautiful women for my p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e and ego. On that regard... I'm quite happy with my first conquest". He smiled before kissing her, and she blushed happily at the comment.

---

Beirut was sitting on his studio at the most elegant manor within the Prefecture City, he was angry at his grandson who had not even tried to train since he had arrived to the city expecting to enjoy the life he should as a descendant of a Paragon. At that time Beirut had felt a mixture of annoyance and pride at that, but after a hundred years Bebe got tired of the good life and went to live with his 'Boss'. Beirut felt betrayed, but he decided that it would be good for Bebe to live with Linley.

Linley was not entirely safe within the Four Beast Divine Clan and the danger might prompt Bebe to become stronger but at the same time, Bebe would serve as a shield for Linley if things went out of proportion. He could not abandon Linley as he was the best choice to inherit the earth style Sovereign spark, Linley was starting to fuse four mysteries of the Earth Elemental Laws and apparently his water avatar was just as talented, so he might also become a candidate to inherit the water style Sovereign spark.

Beirut sighed in frustration. 'Why did I not wait a few more centuries before giving the fire style Sovereign spark to Bluefire? That kid Reynolds was clearly the best choice!' His thoughts were depressive enough, and he wondered why his reports mentioned that Reynolds was staying on Miluo Island, he was sure that Mosi would not dare to slave Reynolds... he was not even sure he could.

"Perhaps it might be a good idea to ask Bluefire to go and have a look at how the kid is doing there". He muttered to himself, he was concerned because he had expected that Reynolds would have arrived nearly 300 years ago and this was out of his expectations... he did not like to be wrong.

---

Another 90 years had passed and Reynolds had reached the bottleneck to complete the fusion of the five Fire Elemental Laws, he had two options to tackle the bottleneck and complete the fusion. The first one was to look for a battle, but Mosi was no longer a rival in this regard, and he would need to ask Lord Beirut for help if he could not find anyone else. The second method was to start working on the 5-way fusion runic array, he had the hypothesis that the runic array would only be lacking a connection or a rune.

Looking at the missing part might help him to make the connection, and he could even compare it with the superimposed 4-way runic arrays to get a good approximation. This process would take him nearly 50 years, and he felt slightly irritated that he had not considered the problem of the bottleneck, but he decided that performing this exercise might prove extremely useful for later stages as he will surely have to experience the same situation with the other 5-way fusions and the 6-way fusion... and by that time there would not be many people who could provide a life and death battle, he would be above all below Sovereign level and completely defenseless against a Sovereign.

To be honest he was more inclined to look for a battle as he knew that the opportunities to enjoy a good battle would be less likely to occur in the future. So he decided to ignore his frustration and start working with the new runic array, he would still have the opportunity to find a good opponent later on. During this time, Talia finally managed to obtain her last elemental avatar, and they decided to celebrate.

Instead of going to a restaurant, Talia decided to cook herself as it had been a while since she tried her hobby, and living on an island made it easier to find sea food ingredients. Talia decided to use saint level 'Ice Lobster' as the main ingredient for the dish, these lobsters were expensive and very sought after within the island. This only helped to increase the curiosity and already high expectation of her family for the celebration.

Sasha had tried to help Talia with the preparations, but the little princess had never tried to cook in her life and was soon banned from the kitchen due to the expensive waste she was making. The food turned out to be spectacular in both presentation and flavor, and they enjoyed immensely. The meat of the 'Ice Lobster' was tender and juicy but it did not have a strong flavor by itself, the reason this ingredient was so popular was because the meat could easily take the flavor of the condiments making it a perfect choice for new dishes.

Reynolds was considering that they might need a private chef after all, but was reluctant at the idea of having a servant following them all the time. The time he spent with his family was his special, and he was not looking forward to sharing it with strangers... 'perhaps I should have trained Jenne as a chef at the very beginning'. He thought a little depressed, but quickly decided that it might not have been the best idea thinking of how much she enjoyed playing with poisons.

Another 40 years passed and Reynolds was comparing the almost finished 5-way fusion runic array against the 5 superimposed 4-way fusion runic arrays trying to get an inkling of inspiration that would help him to understand what was missing to complete the runic array. It was only a small part of the runic array that was missing, and he guessed that he could somehow patch it and make it functional, but it would not be the solution he needed.

He suddenly got an idea and started vibrating the 4-way arrays trying to see how they behave while superimposed against each other and pondering what part of the five elemental laws was missing in the array. Reynolds frowned after a moment and dissipated the 4-way arrays as the experiment turned out to be useless, instead he created the 5 runic arrays that represented each of the 5 Fire Elemental Laws that he had already mastered and superimposed them one by one against the incomplete prototype trying to find how to reproduce the missing part.

He then had an idea... he only had been using the runic arrays representing the previous level of fusion to superimpose and predict the new runic array, but he could do the same with the single Elemental Law runic arrays and the different combinations of fusions. After a moment he had several runic arrays superimposed along those of the same order, and he found that many points of convergence that he had not been able to find before were now clearly visible within the different arrangements he had just made. And suddenly he found it... the missing part was a point of convergence, that seemed to match with the missing part on the prototype, was visible within the superimposed arrangement of all the 3-way fusion runic arrays.

Reynolds smiled and added the missing part to the final runic array looking for mistakes or issues that he might have overlooked, after a few more minutes he adjusted a few lines and reoriented a couple of runes before completing the runic array that seemed to resonate with his soul. He was almost in shock at the result as it was the most complicated runic array that he had ever seen, but it was more surprising that he could understand it completely helping him to make the last connection into fusing the five Fire Elemental Laws.

Reynolds smiled satisfied and examined the new runic array while his three avatars completed the fusion of laws. After a few hours he felt as if his soul was sublimated, and he finally understood why the Asura level combatants were said to be well-rounded in attack, defense and speed, and almost impossible to kill by another Asura... his soul and body seemed to receive a blessing improving all his abilities to a new degree after completing the fusion. It was far from the so-called 'Will' that the Paragons received after fusing the laws, but there was a clear improvement at this point.

A normal 7-star Fiend would never be a match to an Asura powerhouse... his eyes shined realizing that Mosi was no longer his opponent, he could not wait to go and visit Beirut to try his new power. Still, he controlled himself and started working on implementing the new 5-way fusion array into his 'Ba-Serpent Attack Formation'... he suspected that it will not be long before he could have a fair match against a Paragon.