Chapter 1

(Five month earlier)

“What the hell is happening!!?” said Vasbokh

“Calm down Vasbokh. We need to meet the overlord he had called for us again.”

“But don’t you see what just happened! All of our lord’s effort were in vain this was my fault if only had I killed that brat!! Damn it to hell!”

“No one is blaming you for the retreat Vasbokh in fact you did the right thing. Even I would have hesitated in front of a wielder of such power so let’s go we cannot make our Overlord wait any longer”

“Alright, lets”

Once all the lords were in front of the ruler of the blighted lands he spoke

“It seems that there has been a mistake. The Ashurian still lives…” said the overlord

To this statement all the lords froze and all looked toward the woman kneeling in front of the throne.

Perzahar then spoke

“Why did you lie to us Essithia?”

“I have not told a lie my lord I would never dare lie to thee” said Essithia with fright clearly resounding within her voice.

“She did not lie…” said Lerdakh

“What do you mean? Did you not hear our Overlord? She said that the light of the Ashurian had left this world then how can you explain this contradiction!” angrily said Vasbokh

“I spoke to my deity…he said that that he had never claimed his soul…” said Lerdakh

“Such blasphemy. To speak of the ruler of death in front of our overlord I should strike you down here and now!” said Vasbokh in a threatening manner to which Lerdakh did not even register

“It was I who ordered him to do so.” Said the Overlord

“The price?” asked Perzahar.

“Grave one…”answered the Overlord. “Come forth Huodokhon.” Added the overlord to which the figure obliged.

He was a short humanoid with long sprouting horns like those of a mountain goat with one wing torn and the other in bad shape. He had a red as blood skin color and his right eye was scarred. He looked like an old man and wore chains for armor. The chains were rusted and burnt. He had rags for pants and his tail was cut. No matter what one would see he would think of the man as a slave but if they knew of the power within him they would think twice before daring to cross him after all he is too a devil lord.

“Offer your life for the Everlasting Silence to which was the price for giving us the knowledge we needed.”

“Gladly my Overlord.” Said the now kneeling Huodokhon.

Once the words were said Lerdakh moved forward and held up his scythe high up.

“Sorry old friend!” said Lerdakh

“Tis but my duty to serve my lord and if he see my death to be of need then I shall oblige without discord”

The scythe was brought down upon the devil’s head and with it the life of another devil lord had ended.

His body engulfed in flames and only the chains he was wearing remained on the floor.

The overlord then casted a spell toward the chains

Black corrosive smoke engulfed them and only ash remained that scattered soon after.

“Was there no other choice?” said Vasbokh while his voice convoyed sadness

“None. The wall was brought back before we could know from our minions if the Ashurian had truly died. However the information we gained is more crucial than we originally had thought.” Said the overlord

“The Everlasting silence took his price, he had told me that the Ashurian was not in the fallen world, he somehow ended up in the Void. So now we know that the wielder of that eye was never the one we thought him to be. This actually makes our standing even more favorable but our lord cannot open the gates again, for now that is.” Said Lerdakh

Silence permeated throughout the room until Essithia spoke

“M-my lords I never thought that he would be in that place I am sorry my lords but my ability should have detected him this is my fault if one should had been killed it should have been me…”

“No Essithia.” Said the overlord “It was in fact the rule of the Overseers. The fallen world the void and the true world cannot interfere with each other. Your ability simply could not see past this wretched prison. But be at ease this shall not be the case and we shall triumph soon enough.”

“Indeed my lord” said Perzahar “If we consider him to be in the void then that is the same as being dead. He cannot leave, not without the eye. And I think that the price was fair. If it was your life the everlasting silence would never have agreed.”

“Damn it. To sacrifice a comrade for an information is unthinkable.” Said Vasbokh

“It is indeed a grave loss but now we are certain of our victory. Vasbokh you shall take the forces of the fallen Huodokhon and add them to yours. Then go throughout the blighted lands and gather everyone under us. I will have enough strength to open the gateway in one year. Until then we need everyone under our control. Without the Ashurian we will be certain to win. We will be certain to go back to the true world. Now leave me. All of you.” Said the overlord. And to his command all complied

***

“Yuna come at me like you are truly trying if this is the extent of your ability then you will die without even reaching the second floor!” said the principal.

Both Yuna and the principal were on the arena floor sparing with each other. The arena was filled to the brim once the news of the principal was sparring with a student spread. To the onlookers this might look like bullying as the principal gave no room for Yuna to counterattack. Most of her projectiles were destroyed before they could even make contact with but the slightest of gestures and the weakest of wind spells.

Yuna began to increase the potency of her spells this time summoning her ice spirit wolves while conjuring four heaven piercing javelins. The javelins floated and the wolves began to hunt down their prey. The second the principal moved the javelins were tossed at the position she was going to be at while at the same time a giant hand of ice was summoned behind her to hinder the chance of the principal moving backwards. Entrapped by the three way attack the principal looked like she would lose this round. But to everyone’s surprise the principal did not move and received all of the attacks at once.

Feeling victorious Yuna dropped down her guard waiting for the rising cloud of dust and cold ice to clear only to be surprised at the sudden appearance of the principal behind her back holding a shard of Yuna’s own ice to her neck saying

“Dead!” then she soon pushed the still shocked Yuna on the floor.

She got closer to her and held her hand to help her rise again, but the second she pulled her up, she placed the tip of the shard on her abdomen saying once again

“Dead!” then she added “Trust no one to give you a hand. Once inside the crucible you have only yourself to rely on.”

Then they continued sparring.

This time Yuna took more precautions and began her relentless attack. She began conjuring hundreds of ice shards and coated the arena in ice while at the same time charging with two more spirit wolves toward the principal who this time disappeared from Yuna’s sight and left her at a loss. Unable to determine the exact location of the principal she forced the hanged ice to rotate around her like a vortex of deadly shard. This would be a good way to block the approach of a hard to detect foe but Yuna still failed to see another upcoming attack.

Although the principal is a master at wind magic she can also use lower tier spells of other elements.

The earth under Yuna began to crack and two huge stone walls rose from her sides and instantly began to close on each other in order to crush her.

But right before they could close Yuna shouted casting a spell…

(Five months later)

“REVERSE ICE MAIDEN!!”

The jaws of the giant beast that engulfed Yuna were torn from within by large spikes made of ice. Tearing away at it like if it was made of sand. The hidden monster screeched from pain a pain too great for even it to sustain without opening out its mouth. Blood began to poor out of the hidden worm like creature’s mouth and now hit was wriggling and squirming from pain.

The two humanoids that were near the scene looked at the event in fright and decided to take more caution. The man pulled his sword and advanced cautiously toward the ice statue that was now spat out by the giant worm.

“Hunt!”

The moment Yuna said those words although still inside the maiden four ice wolves soon appeared out of thin air and began charging at the approaching man. The man swung down his sword to take out the first wolf only to have his hand clutched tight by the jaws of another one. This one pulled the now screaming man down while the rest of the pack ravaged his body. Blood began to spill out however, Yuna was not one to show mercy to a person that attempted to kill her especially at this place.

A hand was summoned behind the unsuspecting second aggressor and managed to tighten the grip on her body. The ice made hand tightened its grip further and further until bone began to crack and the woman began to squeal. And scream from the killing pressure until Yuna finally gave her the sweet relief and embrace of death.

The hand dropped down the mangled body that now revealed its real appearance. It was that of a faceless humanoid with green skin color. It had no cloth and no gentiles making it impossible to know if it was a male or a female. The second most intriguing thing was that this creature had very long hands and was bald. It seems that they specialize in camouflage and are some sort of doppelganger that take the appearance of humans.

Yuna frowned at the disgusting figure and looked back toward the dimming light that now faded completely. She broke a sweat for a moment fearing that she could have probably failed at the first floor but was then engulfed in a blinding light.

“Congratulations on managing to kill or survive until the time was over dear contenders! You are now eligible to go to the second floor.” Said the same person whose voice boomed over the entire hall.

We were back at the same place where we began the trial but one thing was very different.

The amount of people that are at the second floor is less than even half of those who were here first.

“Hmm…I seem to have overestimated you lot. I think that if even one of you managing to reach the twenty fifth floor would be a miracle. Hahaha” mockingly said the same person.

And to this statement many men began to shout in disapproval.

“Who the hell are you? You bastard!” said one man “Show yourself and stop with the mind games I was forced to kill my own friend god damn it!”

His own friend? Did he get a different challenge? I thought to myself

And interestingly to his statement a beam of light shone upon him and a second later only ash remained.

“If any of you have an objection I think it should be wise to not say it out loud, after all you agreed yourselves to enter this place and once you are in you have no right to complain about the challenges you are given. To each his own challenge depending on their own personality. This of course applies to rare and occasional floors. I should probably explain more. This crucible is a stepping stone for any that wishes to become truly strong. If you think that the death of a friend or a close one is a grave loss in order to gain great power then this place is not for you and it is but your own fault that you entered.”

Said the same voice.

“If you wish to continue then step forward the second challenge will soon begin. And I should tell you that you only have one way to go. It is up and only up, for the cowards of you that whishes not to go on you could pick a floor that you had already cleared and live the rest of your pitiful lives in it. You only have to say that you give up. Many had done so before, and many shall do so again. Tis but the way of the world. The strong thrive and the weak cowards gets trampled.

Soon after that another gate opened. I looked around me and I saw that most of the challengers hesitated a bit. But a rare few entered without a second thought. I was one of them. I never came to this place to cower. I came to become stronger and I will do so no matter the cost. After all I lost what I held dear once. No strike that. I lost what I held dear twice…

***

“Are you sure this is the right way? Couldn’t you possibly have forgotten? I mean common you are eons of years old!” I said to the towering dragon.

“Preposterous! I never forget it must be that you are doing something wrong. This should have worked a long time ago…”

Today marks the sixth month with Drakhsis-san…and I got to know a lot about this old thing. Especially things about the true world or what he calls it Lagaris. There are dozens of different races and the population of that world is astronomically great compared to the place that he calls the fallen world.

It seems that what the old man had said is true. Somehow the devils and humans were once allies ‘hard to believe huh…’ and were the only race to dare challenge the overseers actually only a handful of them did. Due to their power these few hundred challengers demanded to fight against these so called overseers. They were said to be very strong I am talking about the humans and devils here he said they had about ten overlords and hundreds of devil lords with two everlastings from the side of mankind and a few legendary classed warriors. They somehow challenged an old god of war and managed to defeat it…I don’t think that they were talking about Ashura as there are several gods of war like the dragon had said…anyway the thing was that they believed that if they could bring down a god they could bring down an overseer and oh boy they were wrong.

The challenge was accepted and only one of the overseers descended to fight. He even claimed to be the weakest of them. The challenge took place here in the fallen world before it was a prison. And the fight broke and ended in moments. Even Drakhsis and Arvion themselves came here to witness the power of the overseers and the so called challengers to be surprised how they were easily defeated but not killed. At least not all of them. The overseer had spoken and his word was an order

Drakhsis still remembers the words he spoke them once again to me

“Now that you had fallen you and your descendants shall be imprisoned here until one of your races is the only one left. None shall leave this place as this is a punishment for your world to witness.”

But the problem was that once the words were spoken the overseers cannot go back on them. The prison rose and Drakhsis and Arvion could no longer leave this place. They both turned to the overseer demanding exit and to which he opened the Void and trapped them in it. A prison within a prison saying

“You two are very strong and I fear that if you interfere with the matters of these two races you shall destroy them to leave. I cannot permit this as I had commanded them to fight each other… you shall wait. The time you will be spending there would be but a fraction of your infinite lifespan. You are not permitted to use your power to leave this place!” said the Overseer and to this the dragons complied…

Although reluctantly they knew that even if they both fought together they would never be able to defeat this overseer so they had to wait here. Yet there was a loophole in this decree like Drakhsis had said before the overseer’s word is absolute and they cannot change it. So the moment they said that they cannot leave using their power this instantly meant that if it was by the power of another then the rules could be bent.

So back to where we are now. I was still meditating in the middle of the small patch of grass inside the mountain range where is the ‘nest’ Drakhsis.

Two things had changed over the passing of these two months. The first being the body of the ashen dragon or I should say former body if it as I had just finished the damn thing. I mean bones and all even the bones turned to energy and nothing was left. I am still amazed at how I managed to eat something that big. The second thing being that I was ordered to bring a determined quantity of the jewels embedded on the creatures of this world every now and later.

So now I have a small mountain of them. About a dozen tons of it.

It was easy to get earlier on as I only had to get to the nests of the damn beetles and get their horns. Then it became quite hard once most of the nests were destr-‘cleared out’.

Then I had to hunt massive quantities of monsters for their jewels to an objective only Drakhsis knew of.

I don’t think he cared about the eco system of this world since he does not require sustenance or so he said.

So the thing is, that there actually was something else that could help make a person stronger.

It is known that the human body has a Magoi circuit that handles both magical energy or mana and spiritual energy. This is actually a knowledge the dragon knew of however he said that it was actually lacking. There is another supplement that can be added to the equation to make it stand out more

Aura! Yes it seems that veteran warriors can use this thing unconsciously the fact that a person would cower and fear a strong man is a but an effect of this so called aura it makes a person show dominance and power by their mere presence alone. And Drakhsis had been explaining how it is supposed to function. The aura itself unlike the mana or spiritual energy dose not originate from the body. It is harnessed from the outside world through it. A person would suck the energies of the surrounding terrain and transform them into fuel. This fuel can serve different purposes whether reenergizing the body. Healing it or even transforming into mana or spiritual energy depending on the user’s choice and control over the matter. There is the matter of the surrounding being low on this so called energy to which one would burn their life force to use this aura…something I don’t want to try at least I hope that I don’t have to because like Drakhsis had said many had found this way to be the most powerful and fastest at providing power but also the deadliest. Life force can be reconstructed or regained once burnt to a certain degree but if it is all depleted one would ultimately die.

This knowledge was probably lost due to only a handful of people were imprisoned on the fallen world and probably a user of aura was not amongst them. Also Drakhsis had said that we are barely scratching the surface of true magic. Due to the entrapped humans not knowing the old words ‘the first to come here probably forgot to pass on the knowledge’ we are barely using the true potential of magic.

Oh yeah and I managed to learn how to speak the old tongue.

“Rah si khar” I said

This made the energies around me gather to create a small hue of a barely visible ‘aura’ around me. However it disappeared almost instantly.

“Again” said Drakhsis. “That was close but you need not to lose focus, the energies of the world here are very thick making it very hard to be absorbed into your body once you succeed here you will do wonders where the energies are less complex to handle.”

Hmm it seem that now I understand the jest of it.

At first I was trying hard to visualize this so called aura, and tried to replicate it like magic where it heavily needed reliance over imagination but while I was distracted thinking of other things I managed to cast it. It seems that I need to focus on something other than what I am doing at the moment.

Right after I finished the thought a green hue of energy enveloped me. This made me instantly remember the fight I had with that girl of the Verda clan. Lori was it. She was using something similar to this but my eye was unable to process it. It seems that this is the way to go.

Right after that my body tensed up for a moment and I felt huge amount of energy in turmoil within myself. It seems that my body is actively trying to reject the new ingredient.

“Don’t let it go to waste said the dragon! Circulate it around your body and through your veins.”

I did so while it was difficult at first once I kept on releasing some of my spiritual energy and the meager amount of mana I have in my body at the moment I reached equilibrium where all three elements were present at once.

“NOW!” Said Drakhsis

“Morfii Drakh!”

The second I said the old words my skin began to harden claws began to grow, and fangs sprouted. I felt my left eye’s iris change and my vision became enhanced. My skin now turned to scales and two protruding small horns grew from my temple. My back began to throb until my shoulder blades tore at my skin making a pair of leathery wings grow. They were damn huge. The color my hair turned ashen white while my scaled skin paled lightly.

Power, tremendous amounts of power swirled within my body. I then spoke

“Is this the dragon form you are talking about?”

“Yes but you should be careful. You are using massive amounts of energy to stay in this form you still have a long way to perfect it so release it. You know the words.”

“Morfii Hshto!” I said and instantly dropped down to my knees. This was damn exhausting.

“You need to control the energies within you. It is not only sufficient enough to reach equilibrium before casting the spell you need to remain in it even while using it. The problem is that your spiritual energy and magical energy are worlds apart and maintaining a constant equilibrium to both is close to impossible at your current state. That is with the addition of the energy of the world around you. However the energy of the world is easy to handle with practice you can increase the amount you can hold within you. But for the mana. Without that eye you are still too weak. Yet there is a source to mana that is quite close to you. A very strong and dangerous one.”

“What is it?” was he speaking about the crystals?

“No, not the crystals…at least not yet. It is the Devil within you.”

Euh now that he mention it…holy shit how the hell am I still alive!

I should have been dead months ago! What the hell happened? Am I not cursed anymore? I was certain that the contract clearly stated that without the sword I will die.

“You seem to be mistaken about something. Although it is true that you have been cursed. I have been through your memories and managed to see a glimpse of the time where things changed. It was the moment you were with the Ashura that the devil lord took control over your body. Luckily for you he saw that the death curse was no longer needed as he thought he got full hold of your body and released it.”

Oh it was like that… I don’t remember it though…

(Hinted at when the devil took control over Asura’s body he did something to his wrists where the curse grew and changed form. I thought that you guys would notice it, even some guy said that it was a huge plot hole…use your heads guys x) )

“Anyway what is it with the devil now?”

“Ah it is simple. We will try and tame a devil lord. Shouldn’t be that hard though.”

Oh…