Hello everyone, the writer here, trying to address your issues.

I had hoped I made it clear enough for everyone to understand, but the fact that it didn't, means I still have a lot of learn about writing, so that's my fault and I'm sorry for that.

Still, this is my first time writing a long-term story, so please bear with me.

Firstly, the issue of the power of the character and his power during the flashback:

I stated in chapter 10, when teaching the children, that to him, learning Energy was extremely hard because there wasn't something similar. I tried to explain it by comparing it to a caveman figuring out a book about molecular science: he doesn't even know how to read, so how could he begin to understand it?

The same counts for Acedia: he doesn't even know what Energy is, nor does he know how to grasp it, nor that his soul is linked with it, let alone how to truly use it.

He had to teach this himself. Now, imagine you are trying to understand how a star works, but without teachers, without professors, without books to help you along the way, just you and your mind trying to understand what a star is.

It's impossible. He could only do it because of his long life.

Now, about Emily.

She did have teachers. Two of them, in fact: mother and father.

She was raised in a society of Magic and trained in the use of Energy from a young age, which makes her understand it incredibly fast, much faster than Acedia.

Of course she isn't on his level, but she understands everything far quicker than Acedia ever could.

The battle.

He was mentally shaken, as seen by the flashback, so he didn't have time to prepare defence and was thus ambushed.

If you've read about battles involving ambushes, they never end well for the ambushed.

And, he was still worried about the children, even frantically so and since he couldn't die anyway, why not set priorities?

And when he went insane, have you ever seen a mad person fight? It looks frightening, but all they do is flail around hoping to hurt others. Compared to a calm and collected person who is hell-bent on killing things, an insane person is much easier to handle than the calm person.

Also, he didn't kill or harm Emily, Damien and Anna, because he only harms nightmares.

Nightmares laugh at him, they didn't, making him confused about what to do.

Now, I hope that explains most of your questions and reading my post again, I can definitely understand that it wasn't all that clear, seeing I needed to write this long story just to make it clear, so let me state this:

I, the writer, have this clear in my head, because I know the story in and out. The fact that this isn't clearly visible in the writings I post, means that it is entirely the fault of the writer for not making it clear enough.

I still have a lot to learn and I thank you in aiding me with this.

I will try to correct my faults in the future, but for now, I can only say that I'm sorry.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for posting feedback about what I write, it helps immensely in my writing-process and, if you have any questions, please comment and I will, hopefully, reply.

Thank you all, and have a nice weekend!