The Burning Fiend

The two saints left after drinking wine for a short while, Windsor and Jenne were playing with Bolt and chatting happily among themselves while Koral was coiled around Reynolds's arm waiting patiently as she could see that her Master was deep in thought.

'Livingston also practiced the mysteries of fire, in particular the fire elements and his understanding of it seems to be deeper than mine. He used his understanding of what he called the law of fire elements to increase the power and density of his fire constructs but he depended on his spells completely'. He kept repeating the battle in his mind while paying especial attention to his last spell.

'Even if his understanding of the fire elements is above mine, the moment I fused both mysteries my power grows to another level. It seems that my decision of training the two mysteries together was correct'.

He then thought of the mental attack that Livingston had called mental storm. 'Would I be able to do that while I'm using my fire body to change into a cloud of feathers? If so I it will allow my attacks to be more effective. I'm certain I could do it while transforming into a fire construct but if I turn into a cloud of feathers and each feather is connected by my soul, could I still perform the mental attack? How effective would it be?'

"Master, another saint is approaching and his aura gives me a feeling of discomfort". Reynolds was awaken from his meditations by Koral's voice and prepared himself for battle. 'I see, go to Windsor and Jenne and protect them if needed'. Reynolds transmitted his thoughts to Koral who moved trying to avoid creating attention on herself while she coiled herself around Windsor's arm".

The man who approached was wearing a dark outfit that made him look like some sort of monk, it was clear that he was not looking for them and did not pay much attention to them until his eyes stopped on Jenne and he changed his direction towards them.

What to Reynolds looked like an evil smile had appeared in his lips and his eyes never left Windsor, he realized that the girl was a rank 7 magus and descended not far from them. "Girl you should be thankful, the Lord of Darkness will welcome you soon in his arms come with me to the Temple of Darkness to fulfil your destiny". His pious expression gave the chills to Reynolds as he understood his intentions from the conversation he had with the old necromancer many years ago.

"Are you trying to take my woman away to sacrifice her to your lord of darkness in exchange of a fallen angel? It seems that I have no choice but to kill you in order to prevent the rest of the idiots of your church to come knocking my door in the future." Reynolds said mockingly as he stood and prepared for battle.

"Who are you? Why do you know the core secrets of the Church? How dare you to mock the Lord of Darkness? I will capture you heretic and the inquisitors will torture you until you beg for death!" The man's eyes shinned with fervor and his anger was genuine, he was truly a believer of the Church of Darkness and was sure he was doing his duty while taking Jenne and punish him as heretic.

A black scimitar appeared in his hand as he charged at Reynolds targeting his arms, apparently he wanted to cut his arms and legs before taking him prisoner. The first thought that crossed Reynolds's mind was that the saint had a spatial ring and his alert grew thinking that he should not take chances and that it would be better to kill him as soon as possible.

A purple spear appeared in his hand and parried his attack while forcing the believer to retreat as Reynolds body was almost comparable to a saint level magical beast. From this attack the dark priest noticed the strength of his body and that his control on the fire elements was at a high degree of understanding while Reynolds noticed that his 'fire spear' had suffered a slight damage from the impact against the scimitar, that seemed like corrosion, so either that weapon was an artifact or the believer was using a mystery of darkness with corrosive effects.

The tentative attack made Reynolds wary but more determined, his body turned into fire and divided itself into 10 fire feathers while the fire elements in the air gathered around the feathers creating more feathers than soon surrounded the dark priest blocking completely the possibility of retreat.

The dark priest understood the danger and a dark cloud started gather around him at the same moment that the purple feathers started to move in his direction, a disturbing sound filled the area as the dark cloud tried to corrode the feathers and the feathers tried to burn the dark cloud. It turned out that the understanding of the dark priest on the 'corrosion of darkness' was on a similar level than Reynold's understanding on the 'fire elements' but the fusion with the 'fire body' made the difference and soon the screams of the priest declared the result of the battle.

The purple cloud had prevailed and the only thing remaining from the dark priest was a dark scimitar and a space ring, it was at this moment that Reynolds felt a moment of panic as he was suddenly aware of the soul of the dark priest and felt how it was captured by one of his fire feathers. Reynolds recovered his human form and dissipated the rest of the feathers only keeping the one with the soul of the man he had just killed, the feather turned into a small purple flame and he could feel the pain and horror from the captured soul as its sentience was been burned by the fire slowly refining it.

He didn't understand what had happened but was aware that this was an ability he had gained after his magic essences had merged and only became apparent after the baptism he received while becoming a saint magus. He found that by instinct his purple flame had captured the soul and started refining it to turn it into something nurturing to his own soul.

He felt scared, he didn't care for the soul of the dark priest as he firmly believed that the weak were the food of the strong but if this were to be known he would garner many enemies and people stronger than him might try to use him, he took a deep breath and calmed himself. He approached with caution as the corrosive effect of the dark cloud had made an impression on him, after he was sure that no danger remained he took the scimitar and the ring and cut his finger to obtain a couple of blood drops that landed on the ring and the scimitar.

The scimitar turned out to be a high quality weapon but not an artifact while he had no trouble taking ownership of the ring, he used his spiritual power to check the interior of the ring and found a little bit of money, books and letters. Apparently this person was some sort of ascetic and did not care much for material possessions and the interior of the ring was of a similar size to the one he already owned.

He took the books and the letters and removed his ownership of the ring and said. "Koral, this ring will be for you as you are already a saint and it is only proper. You will have time to fill it with whatever treasures you wish". Koral was very happy and immediately took the ring under the envious gazes of the two girls. "Thank you Master!"

"Well, I was planning to take a little longer to return to our home but after this I think it will be wise to avoid further trouble. I suspect that the Church of Darkness will not be much different in its viciousness than the Radiant Church and it is better if they can't relate us to this". Reynolds said with a tone that left no choice but to comply.

"Yes Master, thank you for protecting me!" Said Jenne with tears in her eyes, she also understood that both churches will try to capture her and sacrifice her as the purity of her soul had become more apparent since she started to practice death magic.

Reynolds smiled while holding both women in his arms. "You are my woman, why wouldn't I protect you? Lets not waste more time... let go now Koral, we are traveling on ground for a few miles to avoid the possibility of people in the area relating us with the battle here".

Koral remained coiled in his arm while the three of them ran in the direction of the Dark Forest, Bolt had remained in his smallest form while resting on Windsor head and looked proud as if he was riding a battle mount and extended his paw from time to time indicating the way to follow. Reynolds was speechless he had hoped that the panther would protect Windsor but it seemed that things worked the other way around, this magical beast was even more lazy than Bebe!

While they were running Reynolds started reviewing the books and found that they were dark type magic spells and were useless to them, still he kept them as they were valuable and after taking a quick look at the letters he burned them without a second thought. The letters contained reports of on their activities on the Anarchic Lands and the names of a few people that might have a pure soul or talent they could use.

After a few miles Koral took them on her back and they took to the air at fast speed while remaining silent, Reynolds was still concentrating on the refining process of the soul with curiosity while Windsor and Jenne were still scared of the situation and wanted to go home. Reynolds noticed this and hugged them both to calm them. "Don't worry it is already over and in a few hours we will be home enjoying a warm bath to relax and forget the bad memories, all right?" Both Windsor and Jenne turned red as apples, they had no memory of relaxing while taking a bath with him.