“Alright, so how do we take this thing down?” Eric asked.

“First, Elany and Aileen, come over here,” Reylor beckoned.

They approached him. “Put on your concealment rings,” he said, taking off his jacket.

Elany and Aileen looked at him strangely as he did so. He wore a simple white button-up shirt along with black pants, but this was really weird, since not even Elany had ever seen him without his jacket on.

Notwithstanding their awkward glances, he draped his jacket over the two of them.

“These constructs will not attack a Seldin unprovoked, so with the combination of your presence concealment rings and my jacket, its simple mind will not perceive you as a threat. That being said, do not attack the construct; but rely on support spells for the rest of us. I am not confident that you two are fast enough to escape its fists, and your barrier will be weaker than straw to it.” A sense of solemnity pervaded the area. Everyone knew how strong Aileen’s barrier was, yet it was nothing before this construct.

“There are nodes on its body that will shoot magical bolts, though, so Aileen’s job will be to help block some of those while the Elany uses support spells on us.

“Khes and Lucy, you will have to alternate your attacks to get by his switching magical immunity.

“Eric… Uh, do whatever. Just don’t get hit. Let’s go!”

“Hall of the saints, holy domain!” Elany created a small domain to replace Reylor’s.

“Shadow Matrix” “Shadow Matrix”

Reylor and Khes both activated the darkness movement spell.

Lucy, on the other hand… Stepped out of the domain and began to chant.

“Holders of darkness, laying claim to the depths

Keepers of molten gates, bearing witness to the flames

Stand to my right and to my left and witness

Alchemy of flame and shadow,

Elemental reversal!”

“Whoosh!” Concentrated magical energy began flowing toward her, but right as it was about to hit her, something strange happened: It changed into fire-aspected energy! Now the resulting energy was only about 20% as concentrated, but considering how much darkness energy was in the place, this did not matter.”

Her eyes once again began to glow brightly, and her hair seemed to burn with heavenly fire.

“Shildwell art: Ember matrix!”

Eric shook his head. “No wonder they once ruled an empire. Those people are amazing.”

“This way!” Reylor interrupted all the fascinated onlookers and led them to the west, at which point the massive construct came sharply into focus. Everyone looked around themselves in recognition: The construct was hidden within a barrier exactly like the concealment formation Reylor had use—except this one was about 130 times as large as the one Reylor had made.

At the sight of the construct, one could only breathe out in amazement at the sheer size of the thing. It was so bit that it felt like it could decimate an entire town just by laying down.

The construct immediately began swinging its arms around, as if trying to swat a few flys away. Additionally, bolts of different kinds of magical energy began flying out from various points on the construct’s body.

“Focus on taking an arm off. The nodes will regrow with time, so only take off as many as you need to in order to work on that arm.”

The work was tedious. Reylor had to exert his full concentration to hold back a spatial barrier. Eric focused on taking off the nodes using enchanted arrows, while Lucy and Khes took turns attacking the construct, slowly chipping away at it. And of course, Elany and Aileen provided support throughout the ordeal. At long last they heard a beautiful sound.

“Crunch” One giant arm was separated from the body and began falling to the ground.

“Vwrrr” Reylor released his grasp on the barrier and opened a portal below the arm, which fell through it.

“Break!” Reylor called out, leading a charge back to the formation he had made earlier.

“Aren’t you afraid it’ll regenerate?” Lucy asked along the way.

“Nope. The nodes will and damaged limbs will too, but constructs are not purely magical entities. That is all to say that if you cut of an entire limb it will not be able to regrow it. Now if the cut off limb is nearby, the construct can reattach it, but I teleported it to a place out of reach. That being the case, it makes sense for us to take a break, rest up, and hit it again. We don’t want to get exhausted and slip up—one hit from that will kill us instantly.”

It was late anyways, so when the got back to the area they lit a campfire, and sat around it while Elany cooked up a simple meal for them.

Everyone ate in silence. It may have sounded like a simple matter—just hit the arm section over and over with different elements, but it was incredibly taxing. Not only did the strikes need to be very powerful to leave anything more than a scratch, but they had to executed these strikes while also dodging the construct’s flailing hands and whatever elemental bolts made it past Eric and Aileen, who themselves were hard put to their tasks.

“Were going to sleep,” Elany said after she and Aileen managed to set up a tent. “Have a good night,” Eric replied, looking up from the arrows he was fletching. Reylor also waved from were he was lying on the ground next to the fire pit.

Meanwhile, Khes sat on a piece of ground just outside of Reylor’s reactivated void domain and commenced some sort of exercise using the abundant dark energy. Eric returned to replenishing his stock of arrows.

“Reylor,” Lucy said in a soft voice as she sat in front of the fire. Do you think we will have to fight that other person who is like you?”

“Probably. I’m pretty sure that he is the one who created the shade, and so our ideals will not likely align. He has defied the Seldin’s code of conduct, while also going against karma. If he exists, there will likely always be shade beasts.”

“Why do you think he is doing this?” She asked, turning to face him.

Reylor again answered. “For fun, probably. He probably got sent here the same as me, and so didn’t know what to do. The hall obviously didn’t work how it was supposed to, and so he probably gave up on the Seldin way and chose to experience the life of a villain.”

“The hall? You ‘got’ here?” She said, tilting her head inquisitively. “Could you… tell me a bit about where you came from?”

Silence

Reylor let out a sigh. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. What do you know about this world—how it began, what controls things that happen on it, and what happens when people die?”

“Umm. I never thought about that much before.” Lucy looked to the side absent-mindedly. “I guess I just thought that the gods made the world and the people in it, and then those people bore other people, so on and so forth. And when people die… They just die?” She looked back at Reylor inquisitively, like a student to their teacher, but with an extra touch of gracefulness.

“You would be right about the first part- the gods did create this particular world, and the first people in it. Also, it is true that sometimes new souls come into existence when people are born.”

“Only sometimes?” Lucy tilted her head.

“Only sometimes. When a typical person dies, that is not the end. At that time, their soul leaves their flesh and is moved to the Spatial Hall. This is where I come from.

“Growing weary of maintaining the Universe, the gods appointed caretakers, the Seldins, to work in their stead. We have been invested with the power to control all forms of matter and to manage souls. Hence when a person dies, their soul is sent to us. We look into their past and evaluate their karma. Those with high levels of karma are sent through a soul gate to reincarnate into a world which we believe would be fitting for them. Those with fairly neutral karma are also reincarnated, but less care is taken as to where they are sent. For those with negative karma, they are sent through the gate of death, and cease to exist. Seldins administer the final reward or punishment of karma.”

“Woah.” Lucy’s eyes grew big. “But then… why are you taking us with you? If you can do all that, wouldn’t we just be extra weight?”

Reylor turned from the fire to face her, looking into her eyes and smiling gently. “There are a few reasons. First off, even if I didn’t need you, I like you guys. The Spatial Hall was extremely boring. It is a stoic world. You who live in the worlds are lively and interesting.”

Lucy lightly scrunched her shoulders in embarrassment, but at the same time, she found she was unable to look away from those deep azure eyes, which simultaneously felt black as night. They were practically bewitching.

“That being said, there are other reasons.” Reylor returned his gaze to the fire, having noticed her nigh captive look.

“Our powers rely on spatial energy.” He formed a dark ball of energy into his hand, dispersing it immediately after. “In the Spatial hall, spatial energy is far denser than even the darkness energy in this place. On Aretor, there is not much, and so I cannot make full use of my abilities here, and so I can really use your help. The final reason is karma. Despite leaving the Spatial Hall, I have not abandoned my duty as a custodian of the karmic cycle. Hence, I am bound to help the mortal—I mean—inhabitants of this world.”

Lucy stifled a giggle thinking about how he had to change from looking at everyone as mortals to seeing them as peers.

Reylor was silent but groaned inside.

“So why did you come here?” Lucy asked. “I’m sure someone wouldn’t willingly leave a place they are comfortable with without reason.”

“That… That will be a topic for another time,” he said with another light smile, but she could tell this smile was only from his mouth, and not his eyes.

“Ok.” She said simply. “Good night.” She gave him a quick hug and trotted off to set up her own tent.

“Got a looker,” Eric called out after Lucy was out of earshot.

Reylor grunted as Eric unfurled a bedroll. “Me? A looker? I’m a Seldin… Are Seldins even supposed to have romantic feelings? Isn’t that forbidden for some reason or other? Argh. Let’s not think about that. I don’t I’ll even survive long enough for that to matter…”

The next two days were pretty much the same. After the morning routine, they fought the construct until they could destroy an appendage. On the third day, they even able to take off both legs, since they no longer had to worry about being crushed by the construct’s arms and fists. Also, the construct was not very quick on its feet, as fast movements would weaken its connection to the remote barrier it was supporting.

“Thud” The construct fell to the ground as its last leg was destroyed.

“Aileen, cover me!” Reylor called out, rushing to the constructs body. He was soon enveloped with a barrier, protecting him from the remaining bombardment of magical bolts.

“Aetheric Art: Awaken!”

The constuct’s body lit up as glowing lines appeared all over it.

“Aetheric Art: Spatial Corrosion!” Elany, Lucy, and Khes all let out gasps as they watched a tunnel formed in its chest, tearing through the immensely hard material to dust.

Reylor reached his hand into the hole, bringing a crystal out.

“Break!” The crystal shattered.

“Release!” The glowing lines on the construct faded away.

Reylor turned to his exhausted companions with a smile.

“We have won.”

*** *** ***

In a dark castle on an Island to the far west:

A man with fine features and black hair, wearing a black coat trimmed with gold sat on an old throne with an absent look in his eyes. Suddenly he stood up as a look of fear flitted across his eyes. He clutched his chest as he breathed heavily. He slowly released his hand as his breathing gradually became more regular. His eyes narrowed and he sat back down with a regal posture. “It would seem I am not alone…”