The Burning Fiend

On a seemingly endless desert a group of purple feathers moved along with the sand storm that covered the whole fist floor of the Necropolis of the Gods, Beirut had divided the group in humans and magical beasts and they would not met until reaching the 5 floor.

Reynolds had felt satisfied when he entered the first floor and found that a sand storm seemed to block visibility on the whole floor, he instantly used his 'fire-body' turning into a group of feathers and gathered the fire elements on the air to increase their number forming a diluted cloud that extended for a 5 meters. He was practically immune to any attack as his body was no physical form and even a mental attack would have to identify which of the feathers were the ones formed by his body.

He felt happiness when he noticed that the place was full of mirages formed from the wind and the sand making the vision of a cloud of feathers a completely normal situation in this floor, he found that his spiritual sense was limited and could only extend to 10 meters beyond his 'cloud', he kept moving along the wind while being sure to maintain his spiritual scan in order to attract prey. He imagined that whatever creatures lived here they would likely gather in groups and attack whenever they found an invader.

He didn't had to wait long before a group of 7 skeletons jumped form the sand at floated within the storm looking for the careless invader that was stupid enough to release spiritual scan but they could not found anything as the feathers were almost invisible within the storm.

"Were is the invader?" One of the skeletons asked confused but no one among them dared to release their spiritual sense in fear of attracting trouble, suddenly a couple of feathers touched each of the skeletons and they instantly were engulfed in purple fire and turned to ashes before they could scream.

Reynolds could feel that the 7 souls that were captured were being slowly refined as he kept floating along the storm currents, he saw several of the saints that had entered with him but they did not notice the feathers and he did not attack them, he had no hurry and his purpose was to gather souls more than obtaining treasures.

After 10 days most of the saints that had entered the Necropolis of the Gods had gone to the next level, but he kept floating within the first floor capturing and refining souls. Only after founding that the skeletons were no longer willing to show themselves he started moving towards the stairs leading to the second level, he had gathered almost a thousand souls of low level undead saints that would increase his spiritual power significantly once he had refined them.

He did not enter the second floor and remained floating while thinking. 'I don't know if the next level will restrain visibility like this one and it will be for the best if I can remain unseen while hunting'. He focused trying to make the feathers smaller and thinner and separating each feather within the cloud as much as he could, satisfied with his efforts he entered the stairs and arrived to a jungle, without waiting he started floating following the slight currents of wind within the jungle.

He did not find human saints as most of them had already gone to the third level, this time he did not release his spiritual sense trying to get a better idea of the place and found what kind of creatures inhabited this place. Apparently there was nothing besides plants here and it took him several hours to notice that some of the leaves were little snakes waiting for prey patiently, he smiled in his mind as he started to target those 'leaves' slowly as if by chance.

Most of the times they were indeed leaves but he soon managed to found a snake that burned into ashes instantly obtaining a new soul and happily continued his slow hunt. After a couple of days he had managed to capture another 10 souls that were more powerful that the undead from the floor below but he felt that he was missing something.

Since there seemed to be no human saint in this place he changed back to his human form while been ready to turn into fire instantly and started floating leisurely trying to attract more prey, after only 10 minutes he found himself captured by vines coming from the ground that soon turned into a cocoon. He smiled as his body turned into fire and followed the vines to the ground consuming them at high speed while a scream sounded from the underground, it took him only a second to reach the main body of the plant a hundred meters below the ground and burn it to ashes obtaining a new soul.

Satisfied with his new hunting method he repeated the process for 10 more days gathering another hundred souls before finding the stairs to the third floor, he smiled and decided to explore the next floor. 'I can always come back if the next floor does not have much prey, I should go slowly as far as I can and then perhaps make my way back to gather as many souls as I can'. He turned into a cloud of feathers again and boarded the stairs.

This floor was completely covered in ice and his fire feathers constructs seemed barely able to maintain their form while a thin layer of ice former over them making them look like snowflakes as they floated on the air. Reynolds felt extremely uncomfortable while maintaining his 'fire-body' covered in ice but decided that the effect was good to at least remain undetected.

Again he found no human saints as they had already moved to the next level but soon his heart almost stopped as he found a giant snake that seemed to be sleeping on the ice and with every snore his mouth released a black smoke that melted everything it touches before dissipating in the aire.

He felt terrified as he realized that he had found the guardian of the Necropolis of the Gods and the other saints had already left this level or died here without leaving a trace. After taking a moment to calm himself he started to explore the area around the snake looking for the door to the next level while considering if he should go back to the second level.

He had not met anyone on this floor besides the Ba-Serpent and this was making him nervous as time passed and felt near panicking after spending hours without finding the entry to the next level, resigned while pretending to be part of the air he started to make his way towards the Ba-Serpent looking for the entrance.

Reynolds didn't know that the Ba-Serpent was in deep sleep as it felt that its mission was already completed as several saints had died under its attack a few day earlier and only few had managed to scape to the lower level scared out of their wits with no thoughts of trying their luck again.

He made his way slowly trying to follow the cold currents while approaching the giant snake, Reynolds had never felt more terrified than at his moment and knew that he would have no resistance if the divine beast decided to kill him. As much confidence as he had on his means of survival it would make no difference while facing a completely different realm.

The hours seemed to pass painfully slow as Reynolds forced himself to remain calm and with a mind devoid of all thoughts until finally he found the exit near the head of the Ba-Serpent covered by the dark smoke that it released with its snores. He maintained the pace of his advance without allowing any emotion to form and paying attention at the small time window, were the entrance to the next floor was, free from the dark smoke.

He took two hours slowly approaching never failing to measure the time between each snore and praying that the Ba-Serpent was really asleep and not playing with him. Finally he reached the entrance but he did not change the speed and tried to move as if the wind were carrying snowflakes, when half of the feathers were inside the tunnel the Ba-Serpent opened its eyes and released its divine field causing the feathers to disintegrate in the air and looked curiously towards the tunnel finding that the frozen feathers had turned into fire and formed a man that felt to the ground trembling and panting.

Reynolds was not hurt as the feathers, that were disintegrated, were disconnected automatically from his fire body the moment the divine field touched them. He did not understand how that had happened and the feeling of absolute helplessness sank deep into his soul as he understood the difference in power between deities and saints, he felt the Ba-Serpent eyes focused on him but he understood that he was safe as he had managed to enter the tunnel. Soon the giant snake closed its eyes and went back to sleep.

He remained seated recovering from the stressful moment and started visualizing what had happened the moment the field was released. 'The fire construct is based of the fire body and it is complemented by the fire elements. The moment the divine field touched my fire constructs the part of the fire body that was contained on those feathers dissipated and joined the rest of my constructs reforming my body.'

Reynolds could not understand how that had happened but it seemed that he had touched a part of the mysteries but he had not managed to comprehend it yet. He transformed into fire feathers again and increased the number of feathers with fire elements and after creating a link with his soul between all the fire constructs all of them slowly turned into a mixture of fire body and fire elements extending his control on all of them.

A moment later he dissipated all the feathers and reformed his body shaking his head. 'This is not what I'm looking for, but it is related... then'. Suddenly his eyes seemed to shine and a smile formed in his mouth as if he had realized something.

He gathered the fire elements on the air and created a hundred fire feathers that floated around him, then he turned his body into fire and connected his soul with all the feathers that slowly turned into a mixture of fire-body and fire elements while his fire body maintained a humanoid form at the center of the feathers. Then his body disappeared and a feather appeared on its place while his fire body was 5 meters from his original position, he remained floating while memorizing the feeling and again exchanged places with another feather and kept repeating the process while increasing the speed.

He had understood now how he had managed to survive, the fusion of the fire body and the fire elements allowed his fire body to exchange places with the different constructs connected to his soul creating a teleportation effect that seemed extremely useful for avoiding attacks. He recovered his human form as the feathers disipated and couldn't help but laugh happily.

The Ba-Serpent had paid attention to the process and was extremely excited. 'With that level of understanding on the law of fire elements and the law of the fire body he might not be able to kill all the guardians but he will without a doubt manage to reach the 11 floor and obtain the divine spark.' The body of the giant snake trembled with anticipation as a smile formed slowly on its mouth. 'Finally... I will regain my freedom for sure'.