The Burning Fiend

The sixth floor of the Necropolis of the Gods was a full of glowing red rocks that served as delimiters for rivers of magma that from time to time formed bubbles that released gas after exploding. A group of fire feathers floated above the lava river and moved as if guided by the wind.

The heat of this floor made Reynolds extremely comfortable as he was using his fire body while traveling leisurely, but after a few hours he started to grow impatient as no living being was on sight. 'Perhaps I cannot find anyone here... because no one has found me?' Reynolds though transforming a few of the feathers into a fire bird of the size of a human, after a few moments a purple head broke through the surface of the lava looking curiously to the fire bird.

"What are you? A magical beast? You look delicious!" The Magma Demon left the lava and moved towards the fire bird holding a giant hammer, suddenly a few feathers touched him and he started screaming in pain as his body was slowly burning on the places that the feathers had touched.

Reynolds was surprised and understood that the body of the Magma Demon was resistant to fire as it was made of lava, rocks and flames, still his fire constructs could hurt him. He smiled while transforming into the fire Ba-Serpent and quickly devoured the Magma Demon. The Magma Demon was burning slowly inside the fire construct and was unable to scape while his screams were almost mutted by the fire construct body.

Reynolds started concentrating on how to manipulate the temperature of his flames to kill the Magma Demon while the Ba-Serpent suddenly dived into the lava while coiling itself at the bottom as if sleeping to aid digestion. Inside the snake Reynolds was seated cross-legged while observing the flowing lava around his fire construct and how the Magma Demon was being slowly eroded by his flames.

He concentrated on the body of the demon curious of a living creature that was apparently made of lava and flames and started dissecting it little by little with fire blades trying to understand its mysteries. The desperate screams of the Magma Demon stopped when a rock inside its body was destroyed and Reynolds felt the successful capture of the saint level soul, he imagined that the rock was the equivalent of a core to a magical beast and it was what kept the structure of the Magma Demon together.

He remained on the same position fascinated by what he had just witnessed and kept studying the temperature of his flames trying to rise it as much as possible. After a month the lava around the coiled snake started to burn turning into ashes while the flowing lava continued to flow towards the fire construct. Then he managed to keep the high temperature inside the Ba-Serpent while the outside temperature remained at the same temperature of the lava.

Reynolds smiled and the fire snake started swimming within the lava looking for more prey, after half an hour he found a group of three Magma Demons. Three feathers slowly made their way towards them landing on their heads that started burning keeping them for screaming while the giant fire serpent appeared next to them and swallowed them. Once inside the snake they starting burning at fast speed but it still took a couple of minutes to kill them.

Once again the snake coiled at the bottom of the lava river while Reynolds was deep in thought trying to deepen his understanding on the fire elements, inside the fire construct a real size Windsor made of fire appeared and started dancing with her sword, a moment later Jenne joined her dancing with a spear. The two women looked almost real, almost alive but something important was missing and Reynolds could not find out what.

He suddenly had an idea after remembering the body of the magma demons and the flames forming the Windsor replica seemed to turn into liquid as more fire elements entered the fire construct increasing its density, the same process occurred to the Jenne doppelgänger. The movements of the two women seemed more fluid and realistic as they danced with their weapons.

Suddenly the body of the Ba-Serpent started to experience the same metamorphosis increasing the realism of the fire construct, this new retreat session lasted a full two months and Reynolds felt satisfied with his progress as the fire snake started swimming again. Now that the Ba-Serpent was made of liquid fire it was almost invisible withing the lava and it started devouring Magma Demons slowly.

After another month Reynolds had captured close to 500 saint level souls and was having trouble locating more magma demons, resigned the snake left the lava and started floating looking for the stairs that would lead toward the 7th floor. When he finally found the tunnel an annoying voice resounded within the entire floor. "You are the bastard that has been killing my children?" The lava lake surrounding the entry to the next level was suddenly flowing upwards reveling the Flame Tyrant who was big as a mountain. "Children block the exit and do not let it escape!"

Reynolds was excited for the battle to come and he charged towards the mountain. "What are you? There are no flaming Ba-Snakes..." Reynolds did not answer and his fire snake started drilling through the gigantic mountain that was the Flame Tyrant making him scream in pain, his tremendous size was a disadvantage at the moment. The Flame Tyrant had been overconfident of his own strength and did not even summon his weapon while letting the fire snake crash into him thinking that his body was strong enough to repel the attack without suffering damage.

The Ba-Serpent was swimming through his body as if it was water making the Flame Tyrant angry, suddenly its body started to glow and shrink. Feeling the pressure increasing the fire snake left the body of the Flame Tyrant and floated in the air watching while it shrank to 15 meters tall gaining a similar size to his fire construct. A greataxe appeared in its hand producing a feeling of invincibility that send shivers to Reynolds's soul. 'That must be and artifact!' He thought in distress.

A few fire feathers materialized around the fire snake and made their way on different directions near and far of the Flame Tyrant. "Now you will die!" The Flame Tyrant was beyond angry as he waved his giant greataxe towards the fire snake, but his weapon only cut air as the Ba-Serpent had appeared behind the Flame Tyrant, exchanging places with a careful placed fire feather, and it wasted no time coiling around its head and arms trying to impede it from using the artifact again.

The body of the Flame Tyrant started to burn but it was just like first Magma Demon that he had caught on this floor, it would take too long to kill him. Realizing this Reynolds flame body appeared over the head of the Ba-Serpent holding a purple flame spear and attacked the head of the Flame Tyrant making it explode and then seemed to teleport to another part of the flame snake that was near the Flame Tyrant shoulder releasing another attack destroying its arm and repeated the process with the other arm while the body of the snake constricted the Flame Tyrant grinding its body.

Suddenly the giant greataxe floated in the air and released a blow towards the fire snake destroying it along with the body of Flame Tyrant that turned onto a myriad of rocks falling towards the lava lake. Reynolds felt pain as his fire construct was connected to his soul but he suffered no damage and before the fire elements dispersed they reformed the Ba-Serpent again and it started devouring the body of the Flame Tyrant looking for its core to destroy it.

The Flame Tyrant soul screamed in terror when its core was swallowed by the fire snake, he had gone for mutual destruction knowing that he could reform his body as long as its core was not damaged but he couldn't have imagined that the one suffering more damage from his own attack was him. The greataxe floated again moving towards the fire snake but this time Reynolds was ready and the fire construct dissipated forming a myriad of fire feathers that landed on each of the rocks that were swallowed by the fire snake burning them to ashes leaving only the Flame Tyrant core remaining.

Reynolds wasted no time and he teleported next to the core attacking with his fire spear breaking the core in a single hit, the giant greataxe shrank and started falling towards the lava lake. Reynolds smiled feeling satisfied after a good battle and before half of the Magma Demons could react the feathers surrounded the area trapping them, soon they started burning at the touch of the approaching feathers.

The screams died out soon after leaving and exhausted Reynolds who was examining the greataxe. 'I wish this was a spear... alas this is of no use for me, perhaps I could exchange it for something better'. Reynolds reformed the Ba-Serpent construct and dived into the lake coiling itself at the bottom as if sleeping while Reynolds started meditating seated cross-legged within the fire snake.

He started visualizing the battle again and again and realized that he had obtained victory only because the Flame Tyrant was overly dependent on his powerful body, natural gifts and the artifact... it had made no effort on understanding the elemental laws. 'Such a waste, it is as if my third brother depended only on his dragonblood warrior form without using any elemental laws. He would still be powerful, perhaps even close to the level of those four but it cannot compare to the power gained by understanding'.

Reynolds then emptied his mind and rested while his fire body and his fire construct seemed to feed on the heat of the lava lake, he instinctively knew that he had reached the maximum amount of souls that his fire could contain that decided to wait for the first batch of souls to be refined before using them to nurture his own soul and continue with his hunt.