Yeah… I could probably make all those people my slaves pretty easily… and I would just have to send a few over to this guy…

Where they would be slaughtered… WHAT THE HELL AM I THINKING?!

“Rage leveled up, blood manipulation has evolved into bloodwork, James leveled up.

Huh, the fool tried to brainwash a ruler of chaos…”

The baron seemed to receive a backlash from his attempted manipulation, clutching his head as if he received a thunderclap headache. Suddenly, his skin slowly becomes ashen, as if it was burnt. Large gashes started to appear, gouts of hellfire flowing out of them. He began to grow bigger, from 4 meters to 16 meters. His armor shifted and expanded, seeming to grow along with the baron, as if it seeped from the burnt skin. His twin scimitars became blades of condensed hellfire, as if each was a separate funeral pyre ready for the body of the deceased.

“Very well, human, if that is what you wish, I will show you what happens when a worm goes against a lord”

He even used the word human as an insult…

Mazikeen charged at me, hellfire bursting from the seems in his armor. It actually acted like a rocket booster, the flames propelling him forward, and towards me. During this time, the prismatic stars have been charging up an enormous blast on top of the central mountain of towers. I had a split second plan to execute.

I began to make a portal from right in front of me to on top of the massive artificial mountain in the middle of the city. It took a short moment for the portal to form correctly, the baron bearing down on me. When he was halfway towards me, I got the portal to a quarter, when he was ¾ of the way towards me, I got the portal to ⅗ completion. Once he was ⅘ of the way, the portal was ⅚ complete. Suddenly, he accelerated out of nowhere, the tip of his sword centimeters from my chest. then he was jabbing his sword at my heart, the portal was opened, taking its position in the millimeters between the demon’s blade and my skin.

His momentum drove him through the roof, with the following blast from all of the combined sidereal stars collapsing the structure on top of him.

“There is no way it could have survived that”

As the prismatic stars scattered, I partially expected to receive a notification about unlocking some sort of resurrection spell…

The rubble seemed to explode with hellfire, the stone burning as Mazikeen rose up from the ashes. He didn't seem that much worse for wear, besides a few dents and scratches. He began to jump towards me, landing with a massive burst of hellfire that burnt away the outer layer of my mech suit. I was scared. He was nigh invulnerable, and just being around him was damaging me.

Then the prismatic stars arrived. They began to merge with my mech, combining with it and adding power to it. By the end the mech appeared completely different, if before it seemed to be made from hardened sidereal blasts, now it seemed to be made with a glossy black metallic substance, with polychromatic veins of rainbow colors dashed across it. It now stood at 15 meters tall, slightly shorter than Mazikeen.

A quick exchange later, and I find that Mazikeen is still stronger than I am, though through a combination of combat master and prognosticator I could still keep up. His armor was still impenetrable to me, forcing me to stab at the openings where hellfire was shooting out of.

The flames burned away at my blades whenever the two made contact, causing my attacks to do much less damage than they could have, while each of its blows destroyed 10s of prismatic stars forming my mech. With that, I decided to take to the skies, where I found I had quite a bit more maneuverability.

The baron followed me, jets of hellfire thrusting off the soles of his boots, the smaller jets at every joint in the armor acting to stabilize and maneuver him. I began to prepare an altered version of the sidereal blast, spending a couple extra sidereal essence to give it the ability to sense and home in on heat sources, like the gouts of hellfire that covered the knight.

This put the knight in a bit more of a pickle, forcing him to maneuver more erratically, while throwing random blasts of hellfire to draw away the blasts. I saw as it began to lose steam, its massive expenditure of hellfire taxing its demonic energy reserves. I myself was beginning to run low as well, though with all of the sidereal stars powering my mech, my expenditures were miniscule compared to the demon’s.

“Do you think you can defeat me? Do you honestly believe you can defeat me within my own lands?”

“Yeah, pretty much. You seem to be on the ropes already, and I'm not even alone”

I just received a message from James, telling me that he managed to create another avatar. It seems the limit on the number of avatars I can have increases every time James gets five more levels, meaning that at the current level 15, I had three other avatars ready to jump in and help me.

And may I remind you that I figured out how to make a portal?

So me and my three avatars floated there firing off heat seeking blasts at Mazikeen, watching as he fell to the earth. I didn't get any message telling me the battle was over, and as they say, it's not over until the experience comes in.

We kept firing, even as the rubble in the city began to cluster onto him. Even as the massive rocks and stone began to stack up on him, there wasn't a giant pile, not even when the ground under the buildings began to get sucked into him. It seemed to be condensing onto him, merging into his armor even as it kept shrinking instead of growing. By the end, he stood in a massive crater, having the size of a normal human. I remember something about human sized bosses…

“This is what happens when you stand in front of a demon noble’s plans”

Suddenly, he blasted forward, blowing through my four avatars as if they weren't there and driving its fist into my mech, unleashing a massive blast of hellfire that sent me crashing down. My mech disintegrated, all but a few of the prismatic stars that formed it being annihilated, along with my avatars. That burnt me, not physically, but I felt as if my consciousness itself was burnt. The fires around the baron becoming darker and darker, until I could feel portions of existence being destroyed, burnt away into nothingness. I was able to create matter from nothing, but this fire was able to destroy matter absolutely, and possibly not just matter.

It began to shoot down at me, like an extinction causing meteor. A part of my mind told me that this was just an avatar, but another part told me that I wouldn't survive those flames. I summoned all of the remaining blood in the area, forming it into a shield. I thought about how blood could be converted into other forms of energy. I thought about how blood could be used as fuel for ki, how ki could be used to generate magic, how magic could enhance psionic power, how psionic power could be used to convince and feed spirits, and how all of those could be used to heal. I converted the blood to every energy type I could think of, and using it to form a barrier against the baron.

“Mana shield leveled up, aura shield leveled up, psychic barrier unlocked, spirit guard unlocked, mana manipulation unlocked, ki manipulation unlocked, psionic manipulation unlocked, spirit manipulation unlocked, mana control unlocked, ki mastery unlocked, psionic dominion unlocked, spirit love unlocked. Mana shield and mana bolt consumed by mana control, aura shield consumed by ki mastery, psychic barriere consumed by psionic dominion, spirit guard consumed by spirit love. Spirit love, mana control, psionic dominion, ki mastery and bloodwork have fused into sidereal law

Medium sidereal affinity achieved, cycle of sidereal essence feat has evolved into sidereal universe”

I realized that all of them were just different sides of the same coin, or in this case it was more of a tetrahedron. This allowed me to manipulate all of them like I would manipulate any of them, being able to drain the enemy’s ki, health, magic, psionic power and spirit would certainly help quite a bit, and my ability to use sidereal essence as any of those forms of energy allowed my shield to be much more powerful, powerful enough to resist Mizakeens (hopefully) final form.

The shield in front of me turned into a collection of bright particles, joined together into a dome over me. I felt the world around me being slowly drained into my SE pool, the evil vibe I got before slowly diminishing as well.

I drained more and more of the world around me, replacing it with sidereal essence. That mushroom before was trying to fill the forest with demonic energy, making it easier for demons to use their powers. Right now I was doing the opposite, draining away demonic energy in the area and converting it to sidereal essence. About an hour of enduring Mazikeen and his constant attacks, portals began to form next to me, my avatars reappearing and assisting me with converting the area.

I don't know how long we actually stayed like that. One of us focused completely on maintaining the barrier, while the other three focused on converting the area around us. It could have been days, it could have been weeks.

Eventually I felt another, much larger portal open, a stream of multi-colored glowing particles flowing out. It appears that the main body changed is form again… it was also followed by a swarm of prismatic stars, who joined together and formed a massive prismatic black hole.

It seemed Mazikeen could sense the sudden influx of power, beginning a renewed assault on the barrier, beginning to add more and more stress to it. I could sense its power diminishing, and it seemed like it was an all or nothing assault. The dome of sidereal essence was shaking, the particles that formed it slowly being shed as they were annihilated. By the time it failed completely, Mazikeen was at half power, more than enough to finish me off.

That is, if I didn't have the mother of all sidereal blast aimed at his face…

The beam rushed him into the sky, a massive explosion visible among the stars. This is actually the first time I’ve seen the stars, since usually the sky was covered in an opaque and almost solid layer of ash and smoke.

“Wait for it…”

“Sidereal law level up x20. Level up x20, Class sidereal lord ranks up into Sidereal Emperor, Unlocked sidereal empire skill. Level up x30

Achieved demon slayer, achieved demon hunter”

Epic. my new sidereal emperor class seemed almost identical to sidereal lord, just gaining an extra 5 stat points per level and giving me the sidereal empire skill. That skill seemed to just allow me to infuse an area with sidereal essence, granting me and my allies increased power and control over the area. The demon hunter achievement granted me another bonus to luck, as well as dealing 25% more damage to demons while taking 25% less, while increasing my prestige among “good” aligned organizations.

After allocating all of my new stat points to Sidereal Quintessence, I noticed I had 300 feat points awaiting me. I immediately bought legion of one, which multiplied my base SE by 10 and multiplied my regeneration by my level.

This almost boosted my main body’s SE to 30 million, and the regeneration to over 180 per second. Not per hour, per second.

Name: Aether Cael Species: sidereal plasma Class: sidereal emperor Level: 130

SE: 29705000/29705000 [SQE*level*5*2*10]

SE regeneration: 653510/hour (181/second) [SQE*level*1.1*2]

SQE: 2285 Unused stat points: Status effects: Skills: Resistance skills: fire immunity 1, pain resistance 4, radiation resistance 8, Elemental skills: poincare restoration 5, cosmic elementalism 13, sidereal arsenal 7, cosmic power 7, dark matter cloak 7, Unique skills: James 15 (Prognosticator, combat master, ruler of chaos, sidereal egregore), sidereal starfield 2, sidereal law 20, sidereal empire 1, Production skills: alchemy 5, runic enchanting 6, Combat skills: rage 3, sneak attack 1, Feats: Beginner regeneration, monster hunter, friend of trasgu, vampire, kissed by the faerie princess, reality programmer, sidereal quintessence, medium sidereal affinity, sidereal universe, first base, Cid Campeador, dragonslayer, demon hunter, legion of one, Feat points: 100

“Obtained 2.3 million gold coins, and 12,375 miscellaneous articles of treasure, would you like to view”

Ooh, maybe later…

For now, I reveled in the fact that I was practically unkillable, since legion of one gave such an enormous bonus.

“It was originally supposed to just double your capacity for each resource, though since you combined five resources into one, of course it would give such a result”

Oh neat. I could see why it was called legion of one, since with this I could fight for hours or even days on end without actually having to drain the area.

Next I teleported back to base, while James got back to producing the sidereal nebula constructs for them to keep creating more and more sidereal stars. Given that I could now use sidereal essence to power runic inscriptions and have energy generation runes generate sidereal essence, I also had them cover every possible surface with runic enchantments. Whether for power generation, structural reinforcement, heating, or etc… I had them continuously improve the base, while I infused it with sidereal essence like I did in the demon's homeworld. I could feel a part of myself enter the world around me, and I felt my sidereal empire skill level up as my control of the area grew.

I felt strong enough to defend those who entrusted themselves to me.