The Burning Fiend

A few days later a red Ba-Serpent was floating leisurely on the 9th floor of the Necropolis of the Gods, although this level was not as annoying as those covered on ice he found it almost as uncomfortable as he traversed over the seemingly never ending sea.

There was no living creature on this place even the ocean was devoid of life, feeling depressed Reynolds continued his exploration until he found an island and approached cautiously. He floated over the island looking for the guardian or the passage to the next level, he suspected that these floor will only have a single guardian just like the previous level and not long after, at the top of a mountain, he found a wooden house with a stone table on the garden were a young man wearing clothes made of leaves was drinking tea.

"Hmm... a saint level fire snake? How unusual... do you care to join me for a coup of tea? My name is Lo..." the gentle voice did not finish his introduction because the eyes of the fire serpent glowed red and two thin red beans impacted the young man instantly making him scream in pain as fire started surrounding his body. Without waiting to see the result of the attack, the red Ba-Serpent swallowed the burning youth and made its way towards the stairs leading to the 10th floor and coiled itself as if to sleep the moment it entered the tunnel. 'Inviting me to drink tea before a battle to the death? I might considered if it was a beautiful woman but why would I want to drink tea with an unknown male?' Reynolds thought annoyed.

Inside the fire snake Reynolds observed as the burning youth lost his humanoid form and transformed into a pool of liquid metal that seemed immune to fire, never the less he still attacked with his fire spear causing small wounds that were instantly healed making Reynolds remember the strange plant creature he had met before, realizing that his physical attacks were useless Reynolds sighed and released a new round of mental attacks as his eyes glowed red producing even more screams from the metallic creature.

Feeling restless he repeated the attack again and this time the screams stopped and the pool of metal liquid stopped trembling, a moment later a nearly translucent ball floated from within the liquid metal, Reynolds was now sure that the metallic creature was dead as he felt a new saint level soul joint his collection and smiled while mental exhaustion washed over him. 'The mental attack was extremely effective but releasing three rounds seems to be a little too much. I think this attack would work better while followed by a powerful material attack this way the energy spent would not be as demanding'. Reynolds thought as he collected the pearl thinking of the 'Pearl of Life' that the Beholder King mentioned.

He cut his finger to draw a drop of blood and bounded the pearl which shined for a moment before disappearing within his body, he felt a rush of life energy filling his body and was caught thinking again on the effect that fire had on the circle of life. He imagined a forest burning taking the lives of plants and animals alike and how they become nutrients to grow a new forest completing a cycle and starting a new one, flashes of his own life were also slowly repeated in his mind noticing the changes on his body as he grew and how his body was nurtured by life magic and elemental magic improving his warrior training. Unknown to him he was caught in enlightenment for two days gaining entry into the mysteries of life and even found a thin relation with the fire elements, but both insights were too superficial and he could not make use of them at all. 'At least I have a starting point, after I create my fire divine body I should start studying the life magic spells to see if I find inspiration.'

He smiled and collected the unknown liquid metal into his interspatial ring before making his way towards the 10th floor, he was excited wondering what kind of strange creature he would find in the next level. Soon he found himself on a sea of green grass. Reynolds felt his soul relaxing in this place after experiencing the ice world and the water world and a smile formed on this mouth. He did not hide as he have realized that once again he would likely face a single guardian and felt that perhaps he should had remained longer on the lower levels hunting for souls.

He floated calmly on the air looking for the entrance to the next level thinking that the guardian should be near that place just like the previous two were, he couldn't help but smile when thinking that Windsor and Jenne would probably have liked this peaceful place and wondered if they were doing fine, surely they would as Lord Cesar had promised.

He shaked his head and blocked the distracting thoughts preparing himself for battle, after a few hours he found the stairs leading to the last floor where the divine spark would be located and looked around trying to locate the guardian.

Suddenly a light flashed and the head of the red snake was cut off but it reformed instantly, Reynolds was surprised at the speed of the attack and found a metal humanoid that seemed to reflect his surroundings as a well polished metal would. He suddenly felt doubt and wondered how effective his fire based attacks would be.

The metal creature seemed taken aback that his surprise attack failed to cause damage to the invader and charged again cutting the body of the red snake again and what appeared like a regeneration ability apeared again as the body of the Ba-Serpent 'healed' without releasing a single drop of blood causing a little panic on the metallic creature.

Reynolds waited no more and the snake eyes glowed red before releasing the burning needle attack that the metallic creature tried to block with its arms without effect as the needle disappeared after making contact with its arms and started burning his soul, the Ba-Serpent charged forward as the metallic creature screamed in pain unable to move its body and soon a giant mouth closed after swallowing its prey.

Apparently the burning needle produced enough damage to incapacitate a peak saint for a while but it would require at least a couple of rounds to kill its target. The metallic creature continue to scream without regaining its ability to move but the fire inside the red Ba-Serpent seemed to cause limited damage to its body making Reynolds frown, he would need to keep the temperature for a couple of minutes just to kill this creature.

The red snake entered the tunnel and coiled itself again as if preparing to sleep, Reynolds started once again trying to increase the temperature of his flames to reach a level on which he could kill the metallic creature instantly and soon fell into contemplation. 'If temperature alone is not enough to kill this metallic creature quickly... could the density of the fire element and the impact of a weapon have a better effect?'

Reynolds wielded his staff forming a fire element spear over it and added the properties of the fire body only then he released a powerful spear thrust piercing the head of the metallic creature making a hole between its eyes and felt another saint level soul being captured. He smiled and started examining the body of the metallic creature, its arms and legs were powerful sharp blades making its body into a living war machine. He suddenly found that on its back a sword seemed to be sheathed, Reynolds took the sword on his hand marveled at how sharp and resistant it seemed to be.

His eyes shined as he had an idea making his smile grow more pronounced as he took the blade and placed it on the lower end of the staff while adding part of the metal liquid he obtained on the 9th floor to join both weapons. His flames burned at his highest temperature trying to make the three parts bond together, both the staff and the sword seemed to resist the fire without being affected but the metal liquid started to mix into the two weapons fixing them together.

Reynolds examined his new 'spear' and started dancing with it trying to get familiar with the new weapon before entering the next level. 'It seems that adding the sword as a spear head was a good decision, it is not as good as real spear artifact but it is much better that only using the staff covered by fire elements, the piercing power of my attacks should increase dramatically.

The next month Reynolds alternated between dancing with his spear, pondering on the laws of fire, drinking wine while watching Windsor, Jenne and Koral dance and sometimes the Saint Magus that should be training on the 5th floor joined as well. He was starting to feel truly restless and found himself surprised at how important his three companions had became to him. 'I should not keep thinking on this, time will not pass faster if I do it and I need to concentrate on the task at hand'. Reynolds sighed while slowly drinking wine.

A couple of days later, thinking of giving a little bit of variety to his training he turned himself into fire while using the fire elements on the atmosphere to increase the density of his fire body to the limit turning himself into a liquid red humanoid while maintaining his features and the details of his body perfectly defined.

He could feel that his power increased significantly and that, when aided by the makeshift spear, his single point attacks damage would be several times higher than the damaged produced by his current fire constructs, he then released several thin fire feathers and started teleporting while dancing with his spear creating multiple red shadows within the cloud of feathers as the cloud itself moved leisurely on the sky.