“Anyway”, said the darkness, “these nine generals I’ll give to you if you beat them all as your summons. I will also give you some things from Hell that you won’t find anywhere else.”

“I really don’t know if I can trust you on that,” I said eyeing it.

“But there is no other way but to. Also, you may have not used your other summon as you wanted to train but for now you might want to use it.”

I called Chronos out and he appeared back in his usual form right beside me.

“A timekeeper... not bad you might make this interesting then. Well enough talk! You will fight each general one at a time. When you subdue it, it becomes your new summon. After each fight, I will allow you to rest until you get ready. If you lose or die, I will turn you into one of my shadows,” it said while I imagined it sneering if it could.

“Ninth General of Hell, Galahad makes his appearance!” it shouted as it disappeared.

I heard a rumble from behind me so I looked at it. One of the shadows that was surrounding me slowly changed from just a mass of shadow into some form and the shadows disappeared.

It changed into a human covered in silver plate armor. All around him floated swords of different shapes and on his back were two large claymores. He wielded those claymores and took a stance facing the tip of the swords to me.

“Aren’t they supposed to be mages!” I shouted.

“I changed them, his magic was good but not enough. So I made him use swords instead, he had the build for it so it just made sense,” answered the voice of the darkness.

“Anyway... Begin!” it shouted as large cheers and applause rang around me.

Galahad leaped towards me and I immediately casted Assimilate and Merge on Chronos and ran away. I had barely dodged his sword swings when he got in range by dodging to the left.

I turned around and saw that Galahad was already coming towards me. I shifted Galahad’s time with my magic and my armor which allowed me to get inside Galahad’s opened defenses.

I slashed and stabbed my sword, which was like a dagger in size for now, at him but there didn’t seem to be any effect. Having his speed back, Galahad dodged while bringing one of his swords to hit my exposed back. I used one of my new spells Magic Shield to block it.

Magic Shield was a spell comprised of all the mana that I had complete control over and turning them into a spherical shield that surrounds me. It has complete defense to anything as it was built with multiple layers. The downside is that I was only able to use this spell for one second for a complete shield. The shield that I used was a manipulated Magic Shield as it only protected the area that his sword would hit, minimizing the mana that I had to use.

Having blocked the blade, Galahad was now ten meters away from me and I started casting another of my spells, Distortion Binds. The space around me started to shift as strange colored chains appeared out of nowhere and sought out Galahad. Galahad tried to run away but he was caught. The chains bound him to the ground and made his arms unable to be used.

Having been sure of my victory, I smiled but just then countless blades started pouring down at me. I had forgotten about his floating swords. I dodged and created walls out of the earth and Magic Shields as I couldn’t slow down time around me so soon.

Time and Space magic had restrictions of use, if I had used them consecutively I would have ripped the dimension apart causing something that I would not have been ready for. This knowledge was a result of my experiments with the dragons which caused the mountain to not have any more snow or fire.

Galahad was freed because of his swords that continuously attacked the chains making me have to think of another way to beat him.

He started running towards me and surrounded me with his swords. He inched closer and his floating swords also did. Then the all of the swords started glowing, then the swords started getting connected together encasing me in some kind of sword net.

It was getting disastrous and so I had to use one of my self labeled ‘Forbidden Spells’. I started gathering the mana I needed all around me as I stretched my hands out as if courting death.

The air slowly got colder and windier as I brought my hands to cross over my body. When my hands touched my body, the air got had a mixture of heat and cold and strong winds and then stillness. It was silent and quiet, I couldn’t hear any of the swords or Galahad as he got near.

When the silence was almost deafening, I spread my hands again and a massive explosion occurred with me right in the center. This was one of my ‘Forbidden Spells’, Primordial Burst. It gathered all the opposing elements and forced them to collide with each other at the final moment. This would then cause total destruction to a set area depending on the amount of opposing elements.

When the dust settled, the arena was untouched and the shadows still remained, but Galahad was nowhere in sight.

“Sad to see you kill him but they don’t die anyway so who cares! The winner of the first round is Zed Rigel!” said the voice.

Boos rang out all around me as one of their generals just lost to a five year old kid.

“Galahad is now yours to command. His true form is actually a sword, he would be much better than that sword you have right now,” said the voice as the space distorted in front of me and a crimson sword appeared that would fit me just right.

I took hold of it and I heard a deep strong voice say, “I am Galahad, the Sword of Hell, use me as you see fit master.”

I put my old sword into its sheathe and wielded Galahad. “How will you be useful in a fight?” I asked Galahad.

“I have the ability to increase the might of your spells as well as your speed, master. While wielding me, I can also create swords to act as shields or as weapons to hit targets from afar.”

I nodded thinking that my battle potential will have grown because of Galahad. “I will now give you the option to rest or continue.”

I thought about it but seeing that I haven’t had any problems and that Chronos’ assimilate and merge were still active I said, “I can continue.”

“Alright then let the Eight General, Molx, make his appearance!”

The shadow that was to the right of where Galahad had appeared from changed.

The shadow grew in height to reach almost fifty meters as it took a large muscular broad shouldered humanoid upper body with a cloudy almost wispy lower body. The head had three eyes with one eye perpendicular to the other two in the middle. Its skin was blue and it had a white bushy beard. Golden rings lined his joints as his only clothing.

“Galahad what can you tell me about Molx?” “Nothing, I have no idea master.”

Molx raised its hands and sent out blue flames to rain around me. I dodged them all but the flames did not seem to emit heat. Suddenly, a fist appeared in front of me and I was punched all the way to the edge of the arena. Luckily, Galahad’s swords appeared behind me just in time to stop me from hitting the spikes.

I stared at Molx and started running to him when it disappeared. I naturally slowed down but then I felt my whole body being burned and punched away again.

I twisted in the air to look at the Molx that appeared behind me and extinguished the fire by lowering the temperature leaving behind my momentum for Galahad to stop. Sure enough, his swords caught me and I was safe again from being impaled.

I finally figured out that Molx can teleport but sadly I had no way to battle against it just now. I casted a modified Spatial Recognition to keep on going until I stopped it just to be able to detect where Molx was. Sadly because of my modification, the freezing of space stopped working as well.

Sure enough, Molx no longer could hit me with his punches. After several punches, Molx stopped trying to punch me and instead punched the ground. Cracks started snaking from the ground that he punched leading towards me. I jumped away from the cracks and fire erupted just from where I was.

It broke the arena? Even one of my ‘Forbidden Spells’ wasn’t enough to break it, I thought.

Since the eruptions were easy to tell I was able to dodge fairly well. When nearly the whole arena was filled with these holes of fire, it stopped punching the ground and waited there unmoving.

Thinking that this was my chance, I sent a wave of swords made by Galahad towards it. I infused these swords with my own Lightning Dragons making them much stronger. It smiled and brought its fist to pound the ground and instantly a strong rumbling resounded around the stage.

In all of the holes, enormous pillars of black fire sprouted and devoured the swords that I sent towards it. These pillars then snaked down towards me and I lost a path to escape.

Seeing the dangerous situation that I was in, I frantically started casting one my ‘Emergency Only Spells’. This included spells similar to the one when I killed all of those dragons before.

I gathered Time, Water, Wind, Space, Void, Chaos, Arcane and Dark mana as I brought my right hand to look like I was about to grasp something. Within this hand small ice shards started to gather. A bright white mist started leaking out from my hands surrounding me in a cool embrace.

Right before the fire pillars reached me, I closed my right hand which then released a cool gentle breeze for me but a disastrously cold and merciless wind to my targets. I targeted the fire and Molx so they would be the only ones hit by this spell I called, “Ice Age”.

The pillars froze and broke and started disappearing. The sight of it was beautiful as the world in front of me slowly broke and revealed the smiling face of Molx as well as its slow change into fear and anger as his attack didn’t do anything to me.

The merciless wind continued and slowly, ice spikes formed from where I was standing to all directions around me. Everywhere the spikes touched, it would be coated in ice.

Molx tried to flee but he didn’t have anywhere to go. Just like his pillars of fire from before, my Ice Age would hunt him down, freeze him and break him. Soon enough the whole Arena was covered in Ice but it didn’t affect any of the other shadows. Molx had no where to run anymore and struggled to fight against the Ice Age. His body slowly turned to ice as he struggled making a very nice ice sculpture for me.

I didn’t have time to appreciate it because just as he was finally turned into an ice sculpture, he broke into tiny pieces leaving only a small brief wind and the remnants of ice that had trapped his feet.

The ice slowly melted and was absorbed by the Arena. It also got repaired back into how it was before Molx made cracks on it.

When the Arena was finally back to how it was the darkness said, “The winner is Zed Rigel!”

More boos came and some shadow orbs came flying into the arena but was prevented from coming in by some strange shield that I never noticed.

“Why do you keep on completely destroying my shadows?” asked the darkness as if it was pouting.

“Because they want to kill me.”

“Fair enough. I’ll give you a day’s rest to take a look at your new summons. That being said, you cannot leave the arena.”

As he said that the shadows disappeared, leaving me alone in the arena.

“Molx is now your new summon. Molx’s true form is a ring similar to Galahad. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I, Molx, am the Gatekeeper of Hell. Use me as you see fit master,” Molx said in a gentle tenor of a voice as a ring appeared and landed in my palms. The ring had a black diamond gem on the top while red chains in the form of a double-helix looped around it.

“Molx what is it that you can do?”

“I am able to command the spatial vectors of the world. I can make them converge and separate. This is what allowed me to break the Arena even if slightly. The flames I use are cosmic flame. By having me as a summon, I give you the ability to use pure Space mana as well as command over the cosmic flame.”

I was impressed at the ability of Molx. Molx had great potential when it comes to fighting whether in close range or far away. Since I now had two more summons, my rank would have increased but I was too tired to do so right now.

I wanted to go to sleep as I have had two fights back to back. Since I couldn’t leave the Arena, I made myself a home from the ground beneath me.

It took longer than it should to make a simple one room house as the ground was not exactly made of pure Earth mana. It was chaotic and there was some parts of it that was just bizarre and demonic.

I guessed that it was the demonic energy that exists that I have no control over and just made sure that the house I made was built out of mana only.

The house was simple enough that it only had one room and a small dining room. Since it was too small, Chronos had to stay outside. Inside, I made more of those seeds which I will now call Battle Seeds and placed them in a bowl on the table.

After exhausting my mana I felt exhausted a bit but I still had some stamina. I wondered a bit about that and thought, Is there a way for me to convert my stamina into mana? It’s the same kind of energy only stamina is like physical energy and mana is similar to mental energy.

Having no other thing to go on, I tried to convert my physical energy to mental energy. Nothing was happening as I didn’t even know what the correct flow was.

Giving up on the idea for now and thinking of asking Malakir about it when I came back, I went to go to sleep on the bed.

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