Somewhere up the mountain, high above the ground, there was another place. Place most mortals and mages never heard of. That place was a majestic temple with high walls, making one feel, as if they are able to defend against anything. Not even an army of thousands would ever be able to make a dent, let alone tear them down. That was the place known only as Temple of Thousand Suns.

In front of the walls, stood a man, wearing a dark robe, that covered his entire body, his face hidden under a hood. Although his features couldn’t be seen, the aura he emitted felt demonic and dark in nature.

“So this is the place…” uttered the man in a voice filled with hatred. The negative emotions could be felt through his words like stabbing needles into one’s body. His whole being was engulfed in dark aura.

The man looked up the walls, where he could see a lot of armored men, looking at him back. When he looked up, the man on the wall could see under the man’s hood. They couldn’t see his face however. Under the hood was a white mask with several weird looking signs drawn on the sides, approximately where the cheeks of the man would be. There were also 2 holes for eyes on the mask and one could see his black eyes piercing right through them. The eyes looked like they could see through everything and nothing could escape their gaze.

Under the gaze, the men on the wall were visibly shaking and could feel their bodies going stiff from fear. There was something off about the man as they didn’t feel any magical energy from him, only an ominous aura and those black, almost demonic eyes staring back at them.

“W-we need to call the captain, something is wrong…” one of the men said, his voice visibly shaking from the suffocating aura.

Before they managed to even move, the hooded man slowly spread out his hands and dark energy started slowly leaking out of him. First in small amounts, then more and more until there was a huge amount of energy looking like a giant tsunami. The men couldn’t even move for several breaths of time, being paralyzed by fear and dread they felt from the demonic man. Not a single one of them thought they stood any chance were they to face him. They were powerless.

Finally, one of the men managed to snap out of the initial shock and immediately started running into the temple for reinforcements.

The tsunami started moving and it looked like a giant sea wave, that was just about to crash into the walls of the temple. But the waves were pure black instead of blue, looking like waves of ink.

The wave, after a few short moments, slammed into the walls and there were loud cracking sounds coming from them, as they couldn’t withstand such intense barrage.

More men started coming on the walls in haste. One of them looked down the wall and could see that the waves, after severely damaging the walls, were becoming bigger and bigger as if they were darkness that came to swallow them all up. Although there was another wall, serving as a second line of defense, no one thought that it would be able to withstand the waves that barraged the first wall.

The men started running from the wall to the second line of defense.

“Get on the second wall and activate the barrier!” Suddenly someone said. The one giving those orders was the man all of the soldiers knew, captain Benet, the third in command of the temple. Only a minute passed since the first wave came and now the first wall collapsed, burying all men who didn’t make it in time among the rubble and the dark energy.

Now almost all of the forces of the temple were already in their positions. Ready to spring up the barrier, to resist the massive waves of energy.

“Channel your magical energy into the second wall! The barrier will rise up and cover the entire temple! Not even this demon should be able to break through the barrier!” shouted captain Benet.

After several moments, a barrier covered the entire temple from all sides. With this amount of soldiers it could be sustained for several hours. However, serious damage brought to the barrier could be fatal to the ones channeling their magical energy into it, as it would start draining their life force after their magical energy ran out.

Some of the men informed the captain about the details regarding this whole situation when suddenly, he noticed the wave slowly reaching the second wall after it obliterated the first one. Even the captain, as a person that went through countless life and death situations, became a bit worried and could feel the dread coming from the energy in the wave. He could feel how dark and evil the energy really was, and there was a massive amount of it in the wave, that was about to crash into the barrier.

The black wave finally collided with the barrier. The barrier started violently flickering upon contact with the wave. However, in the end it managed to repel the wave and the dark energy started to lose its power and receded back to its source, the demonic man.

“Bless the Holy lord, we managed to repel it. Let’s see if that devil spawn dares to continue! Don’t stop channeling your energy into the barrier! This is still not over!”

At this point, more and more men started coming to the barrier from the inner part of the temple. Among them was the high lord along with the general. The high lord was in charge of the temple whilst the general was second in-command.

“What happened here captain Benet?” The general asked the captain in a stern voice, asking for a report on the situation.

“A demon just attacked the temple, he managed to destroy the first wall but we stopped his advance at the second wall. Seems like he isn’t capable of breaking through the barrier.” Reported the captain to the general with a salute.

“Good, do we know who the demon is or where did he come come from?”

“No, we don’t know his identity, nor his origins. Also I don’t think a demon of this strength has been seen in the past several decades!”

The general's pupils constricted. “Dammit, who is he then? He even managed to destroy the first wall…”

The high lord silently listened in on the situation, not making any comments. The general then looked respectfully at him. “Sir High lord, it seems that the main danger has been eliminated. He must’ve depleted large amounts of his magical energy, we should be able to kill the demon on our own. There is no need for you to interv-”

“No, you aren’t able to and the demon needs to be dealt with fast. An energy wave such as this is very taxing on magical energy, even I might not be able to rival such raw power. A demon capable of releasing something like this needs to be dealt with thoroughly. We mustn’t let some demonic being disturb our Holy Lord’s rest. Let’s go together and put an end to him!”

Both men didn’t dare to argue with the high lord. “Yes, sir High Lord!” said both men in unified voice and followed him.

——

The dark energy slowly came back to its source, the masked man.

The man sighed “I guess it can’t be that easy to destroy one of the temples, otherwise someone would have done it already…”

The man looked at his left and could see blood red lines “This hand will need some time to heal. However, I should be able to accomplish my goal with the remaining dark energy. I will get what I want!”

As he finished saying that, he could see several figures approaching. 3 of the figures were in the front, leading the group. Several meters from him, they stopped and one of the 3 figures walked forward and said. “Who the hell are you and why have you attacked us?!”

The masked man looked directly into the eyes of that person. When that person saw those black eyes, he involuntarily shuddered, feeling the suffocating aura around the man.

“I’m here to meet my old friend, your Holy Lord.” The masked man then gave a smile that wasn’t a smile.

The intentions of the demonic person were clear to everyone. The person leading the group then unsheathed his sword.

“Then you must be destroyed.” The leader said slowly.

——

“As I thought, there is no negotiating with this person.” said the high lord to his peers after the fiend replied. General and the captain both nodded and followed the high lord’s suite. Behind them, the several dozen of men did the same. They took only their best soldiers as they still needed to maintain the barrier to avoid any further catastrophe and regular men were more than enough to sustain the barrier for the time being.

The high lord and others charged at the the demon, closing the gap of few meters in less than a second. However, before they even managed to touch the demon he dodged backwards and moved around 20 meters away, immediately, the dark energy started coursing through him and everyone around him could feel it.

“Shit, we need to get him fast!” yelled out the captain, as he charged with others at the demon once again. But before he managed to get close, the dark energy intensely emitted out of the demonic man, and as a burst of energy it started slowly covering the group.

“Blessed be the strength of our lord!” Suddenly yelled out the high lord and pure light energy appeared all around him and his group, countering the dark one. However, it wasn’t enough to cleanse all of the dark energy. Some of the men got more and more covered by the dark energy and couldn’t get rid of it on their own. Thus several of the men were consumed by the dark energy until only their bones remained. It wasn’t like they didn’t try to disperse the dark energy on their own. They just didn’t have enough magical energy to do so.

“Shit, we lost several of our men already. What a goddamn monster!” Roared the captain.

“The amount of energy he just emitted is huge. I’m not sure if we can even fight him on equal footing. We can’t fall back either, the barrier is over hundred meters back. I don’t think we will be able to survive that. We need to keep up the pressure! There must be limits to his dark energy!”

As they all charged at the demon, they noticed that his left hand suddenly started cracking, as if it was made of stone. It started falling apart until it turned to ash.

“I suppose this was inevitable.” Sighed the demon, as he glanced at where his left hand used to be.

The others tried to get close to the demon but another wave of dark energy bursted out of him, once again covering the men in it and consuming some of them. The process was so fast that they didn’t even manage to scream.

“This is bad! We need to fall back or we will be wiped out, I’m running out of magical energy to resist the dark!” yelled out the high lord “Let’s fall back, some of us should make it back alive!”

After that, the trio and the remaining over a dozen soldiers started falling back, fleeing as fast as they could to the barrier.

“Turning your back on me?” said the demon sinisterly, as the dark energy around him started to take form of several lances without any distinct features. These then shot toward the group.

“Dammit, this is bad. General, captain, channel your energy into the shield I form!” A white translucent shield took form and all three channeled their energy into it. When the lances formed and collided with the shield it started showing signs of falling apart, nevertheless, it still held strong! They were now only a few meters from the barrier.

“We can make it!” everyone thought to themselves.

However, before they even finished that thought, a lance that had twice as much energy in it than before pierced through the shield and claimed a man’s life. He didn’t even have time to scream before he turned to black ash.

Everyone felt chills down their spines and unconsciously started running even faster than before. After that, several other lances pierced through the shield, and a lot of the soldiers died. Even the captain was grazed by one of them. However, he didn’t pay the injury any mind and continued to run.

In the end, the group managed to get into the barrier. But the losses this time were great. Most of the soldiers died and only five of the elites survived.

“Dammit..Dammit… how the hell is he so strong? If he releases that kind of energy on the barrier then even it can’t hold on for long…” cried out the general in a desperate voice. Next to him, the high lord suddenly coughed out a large amount of blood, being visibly heavily wounded.

“Are you alright sir?” asked the general in low voice. Near the general, the captain sat on the ground, carefully circulating his magical energy into his wounds to heal them. Although the wounds were not that serious, they still had to be tended to as soon as possible.

“T..The demon shouldn’t be able to keep this kind of energy usage. His left hand fell apart right before he released one of the waves of energy. Even for him, it must be very hard to produce that kind of strength…” said the high lord in a very low and weak voice.

“You are right sir. There must be limits to his powers.”

“Everyone! Keep up the barrier, another wave of dark energy will surely come soon. We must resist and defend the temple at all costs! The demon can’t keep a barrage of such power for too long!” The general instructed the men keeping up the barrier.

Although it took a toll on them, with the several hundreds of them channeling their magical energy into the barrier, they could keep it up.

——

The demon kept on barraging the barrier with his dark spells. However, despite his continuous attacks, he still couldn’t penetrate the barrier. The magical energy of the soldiers, maintaining the barrier, kept on flowing through it and resisting the dark energy.

“Seems like I will have to sacrifice more…” the demon sighed and, as he finished saying that, he started condensing his dark energy into a single spot until it looked like a dark ball. Loud cracks started resounding throughout the area, when his right hand started falling apart just like the left one did.

After that, the dark ball flew to meet the barrier. When the ball collided with the barrier it slowly eroded through it and the barrier started slowly cracking like glass.

“Goddammit! He Is breaking through. We can’t keep this up, at this rate we will lose most of our soldiers!” panicked the captain, as the demon was about to tear down the whole barrier.

Before anyone else managed to respond, the barrier shattered and most of the men, that channeled their energy into it, dropped dead one by one, due to the rebound force from the barrier shattering their magical energy and rampaging through their bodies.

A few lucky ones were left crippled, while still retaining a little bit of their own life force. But the dark energy that tore through the barrier, very swiftly reached them and started consuming them. In the end, not a single person survived except for the trio and some of the elites.

“Fall back to the temple, we will make our last stand there!” Yelled the high lord and everyone that was left started running back to the temple.

The demon slowly consumed all of the magical energy that was left from the people that powered up the barrier. “That was quite a lot of energy I got from those people. I should be able to recover some of the used energy.”

Then suddenly, both his right and left hand started forming from the dark energy around him. After a few short moments, his hands were as good as new. “Good. I recovered almost all of the energy that I used. It’s time to finally finish this.” Laughed the demon, while looking at his new hands.

Now that the temple had no barrier shielding it, the demon started attacking the temple and the dark energy started slowly consuming the whole building.

“High Lord! we need to wake up our Holy Lord. There is no way we can beat that monster with our own strength.” Said the general desperately.

“Let’s hope the Holy lord won’t be too angry with us for disturbing him. With his power he should be able to kill the demon no matter how strong he is.” Replied the high lord. As the person only second in position to the Holy lord, he was very strong but his power wasn’t even comparable to his Lord’s power. In the end, he was merely a guardian of the temple, just like everybody else.

They ran through the temple as far as they could. Despite living in this temple for so many years, none of them had actually seen their Holy Lord. He was always secluded from the rest of the world, in the deepest parts of the temple and no one was allowed to disturb him. It was an ironclad rule that everyone in the temple knew about, not even the high lord was allowed to go into the deepest parts of the temple. Thus nobody actually knew the Holy Lord's personality and how he would react to being disturbed, which made everyone even more nervous.

As they ran, the temple started slowly falling apart, the walls started to crack and some parts of the ceiling fell down, destroying the marble floor and numerous statues. The temple seemed to be on the verge of collapse.

After a few moments, they finally arrived at the entrance to the deepest parts of the temple. The entrance was locked behind massive doors, that had not been open at least for several decades, maybe even centuries.

The group slowly looked up at the doors, both in awe and fear of what is awaiting behind them. However, they didn't have time to spare and the high lord walked up to the doors, placing his palm on them. In the temple, he was the only person capable of opening the entrance to the Holy Lord’s chambers. No one else was allowed to open them.

In an instant, the door's slowly started opening with loud creaking sounds that were even louder than the collapsing temple.

The group immediately ran in, not looking back as they would be buried under rocks of the falling temple.

"Be careful, even I’m not aware of what is inside here." Said the high lord in quiet voice to the elites. Some of them started to scan the area, searching for potential dangers.

They slowly moved forward through the temple and after a while, they arrived in front of a sarcophagus. It was made of valuable materials and at a glance, one could tell that it was of very high quality. Beside the whole room looking very luxurious, there was ash on the ground, ruining the whole look of the place.

"Why is all this ash on the ground?" one of the elites murmured to himself.

One of the other elites heard him and replied "I don't know, but something seems off."

"Seems like we are here. I never thought there would actually be a sarcophagus in here. Let's open it, before the demon catches up… but something feels off, I thought that there would be some defense mechanisms. There doesn’t seem to be anything, not even traps to prevent invaders from reaching this place." Said the general in a worried voice, not sure what to make from this situation.

The high lord stepped forward. "Yea, it feels off but there is nothing we can do. Let me op-"

"No, I will open it." Benet said, as he already started slowly moving towards the sarcophagus. When everyone looked at him, they could see that the initial graze from the dark lance developed into a serious wound, seeding some dark energy inside his body to consume him from the inside. He was beyond the point of salvation, only death awaited him.

Both the high lord and General looked at him with grim faces, realizing that he won't survive.

"Alright" Said the high lord in quiet voice and stepped back. He knew that at this stage, there was nothing, that could save the captain from sure death.

Suddenly, a loud sound resounded throughout the whole temple. "I see One, that's where you are hiding." The demon said in an excited voice, as he got closer. The front part of the temple started crumbling down to the ground but the back part still held strong despite strong shaking. It was now obvious that the back part was made from much stronger material than the front, probably in order to prevent outside invasion of the sacred parts of the temple through the back.

The demon stood in front of the entrance to the inner part of the temple. He could sense strong magical energy emitting from the doors. Even he was taken aback for a moment, from how strong it was. It would require him to sacrifice his hands again, in order to tear down the barrier. And he didn’t know whether he would have enough dark energy left. His confidence disappeared and the situation had turned quite risky for him. Nevertheless, he had to finish what he already started. He couldn’t just run away now. If he didn’t kill all of the witnesses, there could be serious problems following.

Loud cracking sounds started filling the temple, as his hands started falling apart until they turned to ash. Rich dark energy formed a huge hammer that was several meters in length. When it formed, it fell on the entrance of the inner part of the temple, right where the barrier was. The barrier violently trembled but only a few cracks appeared on the barrier, it was very far from actually breaking.

The demon was stunned and started to get anxious “Dammit! How the hell is the barrier so strong?!”

The hammer also started to lose the dark energy, as the rebound force from the barrier damaged it. “Alright, let’s do it again!” Then the hammer fell on the barrier the second time and more cracks appeared but still not enough.

“Fine, I guess I need to sacrifice more. So let’s be it!.”

After a short moment, his mask started to crack until it completely fell apart and turned to dust. Despite the mask falling apart, the face of the demon was still hidden behind a layer of dark energy. “Now that the mask is gone, I don’t believe I can’t break this barrier!

The hammer started getting stronger and now it was at least twice as strong! It fell on the barrier, destroying it and finally opening the entrance for him to the inner parts of the temple.

As the group heard the loud cracking sounds, the captain had almost opened the sarcophagus. He was very nervous when he heard the sound, since it meant that the demon was closely behind them.

The captain pushed the lit of the sarcophagus away and fully opened it.

“What’s in it?” Asked the general as the captain opened it and the whole group waited, both in fear and anticipation.

“There is only a withered man. I’m not sure whether he is alive or not. Is it our Lord?” The captain said confusedly.

“What?!” said the whole group in one voice.

The high lord was shocked “Let me see.”

He then hurried to the sarcophagus to check on the withered man and couldn’t believe his own eyes. The withered man didn’t seem to be alive.

“Is that really our Lord?” Said the high lord in weak voice, filled with hopelessness and despair.

The general was the first to regain his composure. “We need to fend off the demon ourselves then.”

The whole group looked at him with desperate expressions on their faces. They knew that their chances of making it out of the temple alive were almost zero.

Then they all heard loud footsteps and turned to the entrance of the temple, where they saw the demon approaching them. The group lined up into a formation to prepare for the fight. The demon slowly walked toward them, until he came to a halt, standing right in front of the group.

“We finally meet Holy Lord of One, It’s been far too long…” The demonic man completely ignored the group and looked at the sarcophagus behind them.

Suddenly, a loud scream came from behind the group, The captain started swaying in agony and his body rapidly withered until he was only skin and bones before turning to ash, his life force coming right into the sarcophagus.

“Nine… So the rumors are true, you’ve betrayed our cause. How low have you fallen…” A firm voice reverberated across the whole room.

“Low? You are saying that as a mere puppet of someone else! We don’t know who that is, but we can clearly feel him. I will never be shackled by someone else! And if the price is to use dark energy, the price is far too low!” The demonic man said in bone chilling voice.

“A puppet? That’s the point of our existence, we serve a higher purpose, defying that purpose is… heretical! I will make sure to put you back to the place where you belong!”

The whole group listening to this started to grow anxious, realizing that their Lord might not be as merciful as they had hoped.

Right after the Holy Lord of One finished talking, the whole group suddenly started to feel an agonizing pain. Everyone was on the ground, swaying in pain. The general then managed to look up at the demon and desperately begged, “Please, save us..”

The demon turned to look at the general. “You’ve been raised for this very purpose, not even I can save you from this fate. This is your ultimate purpose. Same as all Holy Lords have theirs.”

Even deeper terror and despair colored the faces of the group, realizing, what is actually going on in this temple. They weren’t servants of a higher being, they were merely supplements for that being, raised to be eventually sacrificed. Not even the high lord was capable of resisting the drain of his life force.

In this place, none of them were capable of resisting. The whole group laid dead on the ground, slowly turning to ash, just like all the people before them.

The Holy Lord of One started regaining a lot of life force and eventually turned into a middle aged man, a vague aura of holiness covering him. However, his face looked grim, he knew that the sacrifices were far from enough, since most of them were already consumed by Nine. However, he was still far from being weak. But Nine already used a lot of his dark energy and wasn’t as strong as before.

Nine smirked, as he saw the look on Holy Lord’s face. “You don’t need to look so grim, you will join my cause soon enough.”

Holy Lord looked at the demonic youth and white specks of dust filled the air, rapidly moving to form ten spears around him. They were then released and flew towards the demon.

The demon just smiled “Child’s play, I thought you would show something better.”

A layer of dark energy started forming a wall right in front of the demon. When the spears collided with it, they all got stuck in the wall, unable to penetrate it.

The Holy Lord of One frowned. A huge amount of swords formed and they all flew towards Nine. “I will show you who is going to put who to his place!” Once the spear collided with the wall it started to crack and fall apart, then the demon dashed to avoid the incoming swords. Large amounts of dark balls formed and rapidly moved towards One.

“Good! I expected no less from the Holy Lord of Nine!”

The Holy Lord of One then formed a spear with shield and hid behind it. When he lift up the shield, a barrier sprang up and the balls bombarded it. Despite the barrier being extremely sturdy, it still had several cracks on it after the bombardment. One was untouched however.

“Dome!” the demon yelled out. A dome formed from dark energy and covered the whole chamber, leaving no way out.

“I know what you are capable of Holy Lord of One, we used to be fellow Holy Lords after all. But you don’t know what I’m capable of now. Dark energy opened my eyes and showed me what true power is!” Holy Lord of Nine laughed and as he did, a large pillar of dark energy started forming from the dome and crashed into the barrier Holy Lord of One formed. The barrier started cracking and eventually fell apart, crashing into One's body with the remaining strength, throwing him to the wall of the dome.

“Ugh…” The Holy Lord started violently coughing blood. He sustained heavy injuries from the pillar.

Before he could react, the wall of the dome started to engulf a part of his body. He couldn’t move, nor use his powers, as the wall sucked the power out. As long as the Holy Lord of Nine had enough energy, there was no escape.

A loud laugh resounded throughout the dome. “You put up a good fight, considering I consumed most of your sacrifices. There was never a chance of you beating me.”

One looked at him weakly, and saw that from Nine, only a ball of dark energy remained. He sacrificed his body to form the dome and disable the Holy Lord of One, taking permanent damage to his body and danger to his soul. “You’ve truly become a fiend. The one we all serve will kill you soon enough, since I could not, Holy Lord of Nine, Aleir…”

Aleir laughed. “I’m not the Holy Lord of Nine anymore, you can just call me Aleir, now, become a part of me!” With a touch, the body of the Holy Lord of One started to wither and the life force rapidly moved into Aleir's body. The Holy Lord didn’t scream, nor showed any expression of pain. He simply closed his eyes and awaited his fate, as there was no strength left in him to resist. Soon his body turned to nothing but ash, falling on the ground.

The Holy Lord of One was dead.