The Burning Fiend

Reynolds watched curiously as he felt Temark's anger raising and how it seemed that his pride was clouding his judgement. These things were favorable to him, but he felt slightly disappointed. He was clearly above Temark in power even if only due to his artifacts. 'But luck is also part of one's power'. He thought and smirked.

Temark attacked again using his sword trying to pierce Reynolds's head, but Reynolds' spear was slightly superior to Temark's weapon and managed to parry all his attacks while maintaining a healthy distance that would allow him the best effect while wielding his spear. However, Temark was trying to get closer and with each strike of his sword Reynolds was receiving 'judgement' in the form of lightning, but the attacks were completely nullified by his half-Sovereign defensive artifacts, while every time their weapons clashed Temark could feel that the divine power curtain created by his soul defensive artifact was being slowly burned by that annoying purple flame, and he knew that it would not be long before it started to crumble. Temark trembled realizing that he did not want to experience directly a soul attack that was strong to damage his Highgod defensive artifact.

The Gods witnessing and recording the battle a few kilometers away were deeply shocked as they soon understood that both combatants had similar levels of power, but Reynolds was faring without much trouble while Temark was starting to grow restless. Many of these deities were very happy as if they were the ones battling a 7-star Fiend with a slight advantage... they shared the feeling of participating on and historical event.

Temark looked unwillingly and decided to go all out with his most powerful attack, he placed his sword in front of his face with its blade pointing to the sky while he held the hilt with both hands. A few lightning strings seemed to be discharged from the sword as it acc.u.mulated power making Reynolds a bit wary.

Suddenly the sword shinned into an intensive bright electric blue, his body seemed to disappear as if merging with the sword. A moment later the sword charged towards Reynolds almost appearing in front of him in an instant, he was prepared and used Mirage to create the image of Goonny smiling with bright eyes while he exchanged places with a fire feather construct. Temark's emotions were completely out of control the moment that he saw he was about to 'kill' his dear 'brother' and forced himself to stop the attack causing damage to his body due to the backlash but managing to stop a millimeter before the tip of his sword would have touched Goonny's forehead.

He regained his bearings immediately as anger rushed to his head, but managed to stay in control because a moment later he noticed that his soul defensive artifact was turning into pieces of scrap metal and felt that his soul started to burn forcing him to direct his divine power to protect his soul guarding him from the ferocious soul attack. "Shameless!" Temark scream made Reynolds smirk as he continued with his barrage of attacks forcing Temark to use his sword to parry and block, but this time he had to deal with a soul attack every time their weapons touched each other.

"How did you knew my brother? Tell me you bastard?" Temark's desperate screams only helped to increase Reynolds's smirk that now showed an open ridicule. As time passed the wounds on Temark's body started to increase, and he was forced to redirect part of the divine power he was using to protect his soul to heal his wounds and protect his body increasing his disadvantage.

At this moment four 6-star Fiends level Highgods wearing silver colored armor approached and with a commanding voice one of them said. "Halt! In the name of Lady Clarras, grand daughter of the Lord Prefect". His arrogant voice made Reynolds frown and ignored his command maintaining his offensive against Temark. However, he directed his voice full of cold murderous aura to the new arrivals.

"Do not interfere with my business or I would kill you. Get lost!" Temark smiled while the 4 Highgods seemed furious. "Temark! If you submit now we will help you kill this person, you should..." He did not manage to continue his speech as the four of them raised their hands trying to protect their heads while screaming in agony. They fell to the swamp but did not turn into ashes, Reynolds understood that someone was trying to use him to obtain control over Temark and felt angered. He would obtain the information he needed from those four while testing a few poisons he had being researching with Jenne. Those poisons were not manufactured by them, but bought for their study, and this four Highgods will be used one by one to see how effective they were, and he would kindly record the results so Jenne could try to gain some insights from it.

Temark's eyes were shining as he looked at the four Highgods while trying to protect himself from Reynolds's spear, he was hoping that Reynolds would go to kill Clarras and perhaps get killed in the process, he chuckled feeling that dying today might not be such a bad end.

A moment later Reynolds muttered to himself. "I guess that I am not going to gain anything more from this..." Temark's pupils contracted as Reynolds's body disappeared and his spear seemed to turn into a serpent covered in purple flames, its deadly fangs were almost touching his forehead an instant later. Temark panicked and tried to deflect the attack with his sword, but to his great horror his sword ended being repelled by the powerful advance of the fire serpent that did not change its trajectory nor did it reduce its speed.

The Gods in the distance watched with fascination as the serpent covered in purple flames pierced through Temark's forehead and continue its advance transforming into Reynolds, who was holding two divine sparks on his left hand, a couple of meters behind Temark who was already falling towards the swamp with a small hole in the center of his forehead.

Reynolds's victory smile was calm as the light of the dying afternoon seemed to cover him as halo creating a fascinating final scene for the recording orbs. Soon all the divine sparks and interspatial rings floated to Reynolds along with the four still screaming Highgods that had tried to interrupt the battle. He used his divine sense to search the castle and found nothing of use, then he took his metallic life form from his interspatial ring and departed while the various Gods observing from the distant were almost jumping from excitement. Not only did they had witnessed a fantastic battle that might even be considered an historical event, they were thinking on the hundreds of thousand inkstones they might obtain from selling the recording.

Suddenly, as if these Gods were in agreement, they attacked each other while a few of them tried to escape. They all were thinking that if they managed to have the only available recording orb... then the price would increase tremendously. Greed demanded that only one of them should make a fortune while the other would serve as sacrifices.

---

Inside the metallic life form Reynolds applied the poison to one of the Highgods while holding a recording orb to capture the scene. He decided that he only needed one of them alive to answer his questions, the others would be more useful as test subjects.

The other three Highgod were not able to move or control their divine power, but they were aware of what was happening and watched with horror at the man that sported a gentle smile while torturing them cursing their luck.

After 5 days, only one of the Highgod remained and Reynolds started his questions. "Friend, tell me about this Clarras that your friend mentioned? How powerful is she? Where is she?" The calm warm voice made the Highgod tremble and started talking.

"Lady Clarras is the grand daughter of the Lord of the Silver Prefecture, an Asura level combatant. She is only a God but she has access to the enormous wealth of the Prefecture and wanted to make Temark her bodyguard".

Reynolds smiled kindly causing sweat drops to form on his forehead. "Is she valued by the Lord Prefect? Is she allowed to go around causing trouble to 7-star Fiend combatants or is she acting on her own?" The guard trembled again but dared not to lie.

"S-She is not that important, but she is helpful to the Lord Prefect... she didn't ask permission to act as the Lord Prefect would not have allowed it". He managed to answer without stuttering much causing Reynolds to nod in appreciation and said. "Thank you for answering my questions, friend". The man had no time to process what happened as he was already turning into ashes while Reynolds was holding a glass of wine but his eyes were kept into the distance.

"It seems that there would be no trouble... at most that woman might post a 7-star fiend mission, but as long as there is no Asura level combatants I will have no trouble". He smiled and started binding the interspatial rings to search for treasures, he suspected that the reward from this task alone would be enough to buy 5 sets of defensive artifacts to his family but having more wealth would not hurt at all.

---

On a luxurious room a beautiful gray haired woman rested on a comfortable fluffy tapestry while reading some books. She had the appearance of a rich spoiled girl who have no tolerance for anyone, a frown appeared on her tender forehead when a maid entered and bowed to her waiting for permission to speak. "It better be important, speak!"

The maid trembled, causing the gray haired woman to smile with pride, and said. "Mistress, the four guards that were sent on an errant to the Silver Swamp had died". The maid remained bowing waiting from instructions while the beautiful gray haired woman started ripping the book with her hands screaming like a little girl throwing a tantrum.