The Burning Fiend

Reynolds's divine body stayed with Yale for a couple of days to make sure he was alright, the slaughter of slaves had ended but Reynolds inspected the special killing chambers and collected the spheres filled with mist. He suspected that these were souls but his fire divine body had no affinity towards the death edicts and he would have to wait until he returned home for his saint body to see if these had any use to him.

After leaving Yale he paid a short visit to George and his mother, warning them to be careful and perhaps avoid direct contact or relation with politics or government as the future within the Yulan Continent seemed uncertain, Reynolds was sure that the Great Warlock would not be the last deity to escape the Gebados Planar Prison.

Finally he returned home and delivered the loot obtained from the battle against the Great Warlock to his saint body. He sat cross-legged within the training chamber while holding the already bounded scythe trying to get a feeling of the aspect of death that had been used to nurture this artifact, after a while his heart started racing as he finally understood that the grey mist released by the Great Warlock was used to erode the soul and it was the way that he had been using to slowly refine the souls, the effect was faster than his purple flame but less efficient, but he finally knew how to start training the edicts of death.

He took the different crystal spheres and compared the mist they contained, on one of them the mist was a mixture of golden and silver, he suspected that the mist contained on this sphere was the closest one to be fully refined as the other seven contained mist at different shades of silver and the remaining ones, that were used to collect the souls on the killing chambers, contained white mist.

He understood that the process of refinement would start with the white mist and as he eroded the sentience and memories of the different souls, the mist would start turning silver and finally when the process is completed the mist would turn golden. He smiled deciding that he would continue the refinement process as the Great Wizard did, not caring for waste as he had enough materials and what he needed was to gain entry to the edicts of death.

He did not find anything else of use within the interspatial ring besides wine and a few delicacies and he thought. 'It seems that the Great Wizard had spent thousands of years on the Gebados Planar Prison without anything remotely comparable to this wine and food, so he decided to keep some delicacies on his interspatial ring for future hard times... perhaps I should follow his example'.

For the next month his saint body will spend a few hours sitting with the scythe resting on his legs while he meditated pondering the origin and use of the grey mist he felt confident to gain understanding on it as the scythe artifact had been nurtured by this grey mist for a long time. While he had found the direction for his training on the edicts of death he neither abandoned his pondering on the edicts of life nor spending time with his three wives.

He would gain power in a more efficient rate by pondering the elemental laws of fire as the fusion of the laws seemed unobstructed and each time he advanced his advantage over Demi Gods increased, unless he found someone who was fusing laws as well. So his fire divine body would dedicate his time completely to training while leaving his saint body to deal with his daily life.

But before he started with his training he decided to pay a visit to his third brother to warn him as he had done with Yale, George and his mother. His fire avatar was floating over the Capital and found a great mansion where Linley lived with Delia and a few other people, he made his way leisurely to that place thinking on how could he tease his third brother.

He entered a garden and found a beautiful young woman who looked like the splitting image of Delia but with a mischievous aura on her, she was sitting next to a fountain playing with her hair while singing to herself in a low tune. Suddenly she found that someone was next to her and was about to respond in anger but realized that she had not noticed when this person had arrived next to her and that could only mean that he was a saint.

She remained frozen without knowing what to do while Reynolds chuckled and raised her chin with his fingers. "I thought that you were the splitting image of your mother, but I was wrong... you are more beautiful. Tell me is your father around? Can you be a good girl and go tell him that Reynolds has come to visit?"

Sasha was blushing and seemed paralyzed in a mixture of shame, anger and humiliation but before she could said anything an angry voice reached him. "Reynolds! Stay away from my daughter!" Delia was frowning and appeared next to Sasha holding her in her arms as if protecting her from danger.

Reynolds laughed and said. "Now Delia, you are making it sound like I'm trying to steal your daughter or are you angry because I told her that she was more beautiful than you? How petty of you..." Delia's anger was increasing and she seemed to been waiting for Linley to come while refusing to let go of Sasha who was extremely curious now as she knew that her mother was close to become a Demi God but she semmed scared of this mischievous young man.

"Fourth brother... really. Is it not enough to tease me? Now are you going to start pranking my wife and daughter? What did you do to them?" Linley's frustrated voice calmed Delia and made Shasa's curiosity to grow. "Nothing really, I just asked you daughter to tell you that I have come to visit you and mentioned that she was more beautiful than her mother... after that your wife went a little crazy, I think she got jealous".

Delia's face turned red and seemed to be about to start screaming but what Reynolds said did not seem wrong at least the first part, she had over reacted a bit. Reynolds's laughter made her even more uncomfortable. "Well I did not come to play and I have a few thing to say to you, but I expect you to at least ask me to drink a bit of wine." Reynolds's voice was serious surprising Linley.

"Is everything fine?" Linley asked as he took a bottle of wine from his interspatial ring and a few cups filling one for each of them after inviting him to sit down. "Well, Yale suffered misfortune and was forced by a Demi God who escaped from the Gebados Planar Prison to kill his family and use the Dawson Conglomerate for his purposes. I already killed the man and Yale is... recovering I guess". Linley's expression changed drastically as his anger was rising along with his concern for Yale.

"There is not much you can do about it now and I did not come here for that, I think you should not live within the capital. Look for a more secluded place separated from the Baruch Empire, I don't think that this would be the last time that a deity escapes from the Gebados Planar Prison since you weakened the seal, and those deities will try to obtain the luxury and p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e that they were denied during the thousands of years of imprisonment. Do you understand?" His voice carried a hint of reprimand as Linley was in some degree responsible for what had befallen to Yale, but more than complaining he was warning him to be careful.

Linley's face had a moment of realization, he was suddenly aware that he was somewhat responsible for Yale's misfortune and also that if a few Demi Gods or even Full Gods appeared they would try to take control of the most wealthy empires, and the Baruch Empire would be one of those they would try to acquire.

"Well don't be too serious, the damage is done and it cannot be changed. You only need to take measure to protect your family and yourself, I have already warned George and Yale." Reynolds's voice was gentle now as if regretting his previous tone.

Delia and Sasha seemed unable to follow the conversation but understood the implied danger, Delia looked a little guilty for the way she had greeted Reynolds when he had come to warn them while Sasha was even more curious about the man that could even reprimand her father without him talking back. After a moment of silence Linley told him about his training and that he would be reaching the Demi God realm, by fusing the slow and fast aspects of the Laws of Velocity, in 5 years.

Reynolds was surprised as he thought. 'It seems that the opportunity taht Lord Beirut gave to my idiot brother was a good one'. He smiled and say. "When you become a Demi God we will play a few rounds, it might be helpful for both of us and you will not need to find how to fight another deity in a life and death situation, don't you think?" Reynolds's seemed to be doing Linley a favor but the mischievous shine in his eyes betrayed that he just wanted to do mischief.

Linley sighed annoyed by this little brother of his and accepted, they parted ways and Reynolds returned to the training chamber while Linley summoned his most trusted people to decide where to relocate his family residence.

---

A few days later Reynolds's saint body was concentrating while holding a crystal sphere filled with white mist on his left hand while his right hand was releasing a barely visible grey mist, after hesitating for a moment he forced a little of the white mist to make contact with the grey mist. He startled as he seemed to hear the screams coming from the white mist and he focused his spiritual sense to observe, to the highest detail possible to him, what was happening with the white mist.

He found that the grey mist started eroding the white mist but the process did not seem efficient as most of the white mist was dispersing by the erosion of the grey mist, still he continued with the process trying to gain as much experience as possible with this failed refinement of souls. He did not really care about the waste of souls, he had too many of them, what was important was to understand the process and how the edicts of death could be used to erode souls. He continued as the eerie screams filled the training room and he thought. 'It was a good thing that I'm doing this away from the girls... I'm pretty sure that I would look like demon to them right now'.