"Fascinating, who would have though a failed experiment would turn out to be our best success!"

Dr. Green was staring at a screen showing the female xyin proclaiming herself queen. On another screen showed the King of Ash fighting one of his generals.

With quick movements the King of Ash sliced his commander in two, grabbing his flame and absorbing it into his own. The general thought to take his position as king so as the consequence of failure him and his men were absorbed, becoming fuel for the King of Ash's flame.

If you looked closely at his flame a wisp of gold could be seen in the center of his dark red flame. The wisp of gold slowly purified the dark red flame around it slowly turning it into a brighter red.

"Does this mean he evolved?"

With the King of Ash's flame turning a shade of red his strength grew. Still no match for the darkness one on one but if he could turn his flame gold maybe he could.

No one noticed the missing ash walkers as they were quickly replaced by newborns.

"Peter, I want you to run a test, add a piece of land close to the army of ash walkers..."

Relatively close to the King of Ash's army a piece of land formed in the depths of the darkness. It was a pretty small piece of land but it was still big enough to hold most of the King of Ash's army.

• • • • •

It didn't take very long for the army of ash walkers to find the piece of land, reporting it back to their king.

The land was barren if you were being modest. The land was a piece of stone with a small layer of dirt on top. Nothing was really able to grow in the dirt because of the lack of nutrients.

”We shall stop here, generals, find out if this us a good spot to make camp!”

It the world of darkness it was hard to tell which direction you head it. The only thing that would know up from down would be the darkness itself.

It didn't take long for a camp to spring up from the ground. Piles of ash formed here and there as resting places for ash walkers. Generals and the king had their own piles but they could do more with it. Making actual tents to their liking, the king just settled on making a throne before a small fire.

After sitting down in his chair a energy pulsed out from him until stopping at the edge of the piece of land. Without knowing it when he took the piece of land for his camp he ended up binding the piece of land to his domain. He himself could no longer leave the boundaries of his domain without consequences.

The small fire he formed burst into bright red flames. Every ash walker felt their connection changing a bit, instead of directly being connected to the King of Ash they were now connected to the camp fire. And as the King of Ash controlled the flame he in turn controlled all of them.

The flame was actually very helpful to them, if they stayed and trained long enough in the vicinity of the flame their flames would grow. Giving them a chance at evolving into something greater then a ash walker.

The King of Ash was the first to experience this evolution. His flame had already reached the brink of evolution, so when he bound the land to him he broke through the wall.

The burn lines on his skin spread and their color took on a slight hint of gold. A crown of ash appeared on his head along with a clock of ash surrounding his body. His empty eye sockets formed eyes out of flames, after his transformation he gave off a noble aura that caused the other ash walkers to bend their knees.