The Burning Fiend

30 years had passed since the last time that they had meet bandits willing to attack them, Reynolds assumed that there must had been a witness from that battle and the news of the Burning Fiend traveling with six women had quickly become common knowledge for the bandits on the area.

It was expected that his two enemies should also know about his approximate whereabouts, so he decided to stop on grassland that extended for thousands of kilometers, and they looked for a suitable place to make camp as they would be staying in the area until he managed to upgrade his two Demigod avatars.

It took them a few weeks, but they finally found a place near a small lake that would make a good place to live. The plants on the grassland were tall enough to reach the waist of a grown man making it a place with high concentrations of life energy, even if it couldn't match the life energy found on the forest below the Jade Floating Mountains.

Soon a metallic life form on the shape of a coiled serpent was resting on the grassland while Reynolds and Rosarie worked on creating an array that would hide them from divine sense probes and unwanted eyes, this time they made it larger, so they could train and live in this place without problems.

Talia was a little depressed about interrupting their travels, but she understood that they need to become stronger to avoid dragging her father down. Thus, she spent her days pondering the laws and sparring with her mother and Catherine, she felt she was close to complete her understanding of Water Elemental Essence and it would not be long for her to have a new avatar.

Her affinity with water elemental essence was below average, but her father had being correct, and she advanced without much trouble by making comparisons against the Fire Elemental Essence and trying her assumptions as many times as necessary until she could feel she was on the right direction. She felt satisfied with her progress, still she often looked for her aunt Rosarie to ask for demonstrations on the Water Elemental Essence to compare to her own understanding and look for what she still lacked.

Reynolds observed this with a light smile and wondering if she would manage to obtain the seven d.e.s.i.r.ed avatars she wanted, Windsor, Jenne and Rosarie were focusing on their respective hobbies making progress. Koral was the only one who didn't seem to have a hobby and started to look for one, she was not interested in runes, poisons or sculptures, so she started playing with a flute to entertain herself and her skill was improving quickly.

She had told him once that her saint body was trying to practice the Elemental Laws of Wind, but her affinity was too low. Reynolds, thought that she might find entry to the mystery of 'Music' while pursuing the flute as a hobby without consciously training the laws.

Catherine usually meditated attuning herself with nature to ponder the Edicts of Life, and she also tried to ponder the Elemental Laws of Lightning, but she found that her talent was practically nonexistent and that she would depend completely on obtaining a Highgod spark for her lightning avatar to become stronger.

Soon their lives found a calm routine, and they all enjoyed each other company while resting or training. Reynolds found himself doing great progress on the Edicts of Life by studying the runes he had copied from the 'Pear of Life' and even manage to reproduce almost the same effect without using the array.

On the other hand, his progress in fusing the four laws he had already mastered was slow but without obstacles, he suspected that he would only find difficulty or even the feared bottleneck at the last step of the fusion and would require great luck or an intensive battle to manage to overcome it. Still, it would take a long time for him to reach that level and for now he had no concerns about it.

---

A red haired man, the Patriarch of the Yura Clan, was extremely annoyed as his prey had disappeared again, and he was forced to send people to all cities near the last place where the Burning Fiend was sighted along with the woman with blue electric hair. He was so irritable that all the servants tried to avoid getting close to him fearing to be hurt or even killed in one of his outburst.

He already received word that the two 7-star Fiends had accepted his invitation to kill the Burning Fiend just as expected, but the price they had demanded was painful while still on the limits of what he was willing to pay, but he suffered just by thinking that all the possessions of the Burning Fiend will be divided between his two 'friends' alone as well. The red haired man had bet too much in the hopes of capturing the elf woman.

Aruko, was as green haired woman who trained the Elemental Laws of Wind and had being able to fuse the mysteries of 'Music', 'Sound Waves', 'Wind Elemental Essence', 'Doppelganger', 'wind walking' and 'the slow aspect of wind', but rumors said that she had recently found a way to merge this 6 laws with the 'fast aspect of wind' which would propel her a step closer to the Asura realm and slightly more powerful than him, still she was currently the weakest one of the hunting group.

Onnel, was a blue haired man who trained the Elemental Laws of Earth, and had managed to fuse the mysteries of 'Earth Elemental Essence', 'World Walking', 'Strength' and 'The Throbbing Pulse of the World' making him the strongest of the group.

He grunted thinking that after a thousand years come to pass he might become the weakest of the group and felt unwilling, he trained the Elemental Laws of Fire and had managed to fuse the mysteries of 'Fire Elemental Essence', 'Flame Body', 'Heat' and 'Explosion', the two lower level mysteries and the two middle level mysteries but had found no entry to fuse any of the high level mysteries to other laws and this bothered him as he understood that he would likely spent millions of years before he could progress enough to reach the Asura level.

He destroyed the chair on which he was sitting and escaped his depressing thoughts thinking that Aruko and Onnel would arrive in 10 years, and then they would start moving in the direction where the Burning Fiend was last sighted.

Unknown to him, several agents of the Lord Prefect had also positioned themselves on every city on the area paying close attention to news of the Burning Fiend and monitoring every move made by the Yura Clan. News of the hunting group reached the Lord Prefect who smiled thinking that while it might be a difficult battle for his young friend, he should have no problem killing at least one of them and perhaps even forcing the other two to escape. Still, he decided that he would make a trip himself when the battle was close to unveil in order to avoid accidents and for the sake of the extremely concerned elf-loving granddaughter of his.

---

Another 20 years went by since Reynolds and his family had arrived to the grasslands and decided to settle down, Talia had managed to obtain a water avatar to the delight of the whole family and Reynolds smiled when she declared triumphantly that she had beaten her father. But he did allow a little pressure to build on him thinking to use it as motivation.

In reward for her efforts, Reynolds gave her a crystal orb filled with soul essence so her saint avatar could recover and continue to ponder a new elemental law system. He still has enough soul essence that he had prepared, before leaving Silver Grass City, for his life and death avatars since he had expected to reach the God realm before reaching the famous Crystal Cave City.

He was sitting on the grass, that was so tall that it covered his figure, enjoying the cold morning as he tried to attune himself to the life energy and ponder its mysteries. Reynolds was having trouble entering a trance, and he decided to emulate the function of the array he had been studying for almost a century now.

He could feel the life energy in the grassland flowing towards him and entering his body filling him with life energy, and he suddenly found that it was no longer so difficult to attune himself with the life energy in the environment. He smiled and entered a light trance as the life energy continue to flow and interacted with his body.

Reynolds had already understood techniques used for healing and nurturing but as the life energy traveled through his body, he started noticing how his body was being slightly strengthened and started pondering on this technique or aspect of the Edicts of Life. He soon lost track of time and a peaceful aura seemed to be released from his body.

Catherine who was meditating on the distance opened her eyes startled and rushed towards him only stopping a few meters behind him while paying attention the effect that the life energy was having on him, and with a jealous glare and the curious eyes of the other girls, she sat cross-legged and tried to gain emulate what Reynolds was doing, hopping to gain entry to the mystery that he was pondering.

A couple of hours passed, and she was startled by the pressure of the Elemental Laws descending, and she was forced to step back in fear... she had never experienced the repelling force that the Elemental Laws could produce for being close to someone who was about to receive their baptism.

The other girls soon were next to Catherine, and they smiled as three identical Reynolds appeared and floated over his saint body. After a moment, in which the Elemental Laws seemed to scan the divine avatars, two divine sparks floated out of two of the bodies and received their baptism and were upgraded before the Elemental Laws started to dissipate. The girls were already warned that he might suffer for a few days after his two avatars were upgraded and watched curiously as he the three divine avatars fused again with his saint body, but he remained sitting without any change.

Reynolds was experiencing again the extreme panic of losing contact with his divine avatars as they synchronized with each other, and dreaded the moment when his connection with them would be reestablished as that would be when the hellish torture will start.

It took 10 hours of wait for his body erupted in purple flames that were a shade darker than his usual flames, and he fought the impulse to scream as the pain was not much lower than experiencing his soul being torn asunder.