The Lord of Night groggily awoke with lingering aches of pain covering his form, sensing that dawn was soon approaching by the waning moonlight, he quickly shook himself awake and shot upright in alarm.

And promptly froze up in horror at the feeling of something clamped around his divine soul, he quickly inspected the stubborn tendril of magic pointing in the direction of a faint silhouette of man, comically small next to a large mound expanding and contracting rhythmically.

The Lord of Night decided to slowly give the cursed tendril a cautious poke. And almost immediately regretted it, for his heart practically stopped for a moment when the man twitched in his sleep.

The mighty Lord of Night floated frozen for a good few seconds, before exhaling a shaky breath when the mortal showed no signs of awakening, and his heart felt that it was safe to beat again.

Resentment quickly replaced fear at the sight of the puny mortal, or whatever blurry image he could make out through the thick barrier spells. There it lay, his tormenter and the origin of all his problems. Ok maybe not all, but it did make them all ten times harder to solve.

Huffing and putting aside his fury with difficulty, the Lord of Night needed to hurry if he didn’t want to go through the process of being fried alive again - an experience he was unlikely to survive this time if he didn’t do something.

The Lord of Night examined his mana reserves, which he almost missed by how small it was. His mana had refilled during the night -which he had expected- though the trickle that was once an ocean, was such a sad sight, the Lord of Night barely held back from writhing in despair.

The only good news was that there was just enough to form a physical body to resist death-by-sunlight, though light-based attacks a tad stronger would probably kill him off but it’s not like he had much of a choice anyways.

Calming down and concentrating as hard as he could over the looming deadline (literally and figuratively) on the horizon, he gathered as much of the remaining mana around his soul, wringing them from his mana rings.

The Lord of Night forced the mana to solidify the miniscule amount of shadows within the shield, sculpting the shadow with his intent. His main focus would be a body for quick escapes and mana efficiency. Leaning towards a less stable physical body so that he could slip into shadows faster and easier, he commanded the properties into the physical substance formed from pure mana and shadow.

Now to form physical traits, he preferred a lean and flexible body to run away faster instead of the robust build of a tank would help conserve mana. Though there was little more unbefitting than a pillar running away, the Lord of Night could not afford to save face if he could not save his own life.

Every little detail was created with efficiency in mind, for if mana was currency, the Lord of Night would be dirt poor. Watching the shell weave and mold itself into his current spectral form, he then focused on the organs he would fill it up with. He mainly let his subconscious deal with it naturally, instead he decided to customise his digestive tracts and energy intake system.

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He grinned in anticipation as he experimented with increased metabolism and more diverse food intake. From previous observations of powerful monsters and experience from forming his previous physical bodies, the Lord of Night is well informed on the massive benefits of an efficient energy system.

Not just humans, but most mortals alike, were ignorant to just how far converting all they consume into mana could provide them with mana. Humans for example could only convert half a quarter of food they intake and transform it into energy for their bodies, not even enough to convert into usable mana.

It was understandable why mortals easily overlook the importance of this, and why they consume mana rich monster meat to somewhat effectively refill mana.

But what makes having a physical body better than having a spiritual form instead, was that the body is basically a walking engine: a furnace you could feed endlessly for mana and practically mends itself when it breaks - to an extent at least, but the Lord of Night’s divine soul was functionally immortal so that the main drawback of a squishy body that couldn’t repair itself for massive injuries, was rendered almost null.

While his incorporeal form on the other hand, was great for channeling any magic attacks while impervious to any physical or magical attacks - so long they are not soul or spirit based attacks, those are a double-edged sword - was not so great at recovering mana, and he would have to absorb pure mana from surroundings, which was ideal within his domain of shadow.

But he was no longer fighting within his natural habitat: the Lord of Night was reduced to a fish out of water.

The Lord of Night frowned and came down from his high spirits, as he was once again reminded that his divine soul, while uniquely powerful, was currently trapped by a mortal made shackle of all things, and was not as infallible as he had once thought.

Though he was confident that usually fatal injuries wouldn’t kill him, the death of his body would probably incur a butt ton of soul damage when it launches his soul from his corpse.

Rendering him quite defenceless if a spirit or soul mage were to be nearby, and as demonstrated, the Lord of Night’s biggest concern was not death, but rather eternal enslavement should he be captured.

That line of thought threw the Lord of Night into a foul mood once again, mortals and all their insignificant selfish plots always manage to get in his way and make themselves significantly annoying and a pain in the ass to deal with.

Cursing his lack of judgment, he had impulsively decided to roam around while weakened and practically handed himself in on a silver platter. The Lord of Night was never hindered by mortals much in the past since he could just blast away his problems, resulting in him growing too arrogant at his invincibility.

Screaming internally with hate and frustration at his captor, any and all mortals, and his own foolishness, which made him even more angry at how easily this unfortunate predicament could’ve been averted if he had minded his own business. And calling this living hell which was the present “unfortunate”, was a massive understatement.

With the Lord of Night’s frown screwing into more of a scowl, he kept cursing the stupid mortal man who summoned him, then cursing himself more for letting a stupid human get the better of him, as he angrily watched his new body form, solidify and blend with his current incorporeal form into one singular form.

The Lord of Night hated himself for this mess, and hated that he hated himself for it more than the stupid human. With nothing left to modify on his new body, he let his spell do its work and form the body’s appearance to what he would feel most natural in, as he ran out of mana for anymore customisation but nobody would recognise his preferred face anyway.

So the Lord of Night was left to brood in his nasty stew of anger alone. He couldn’t help vividly picturing the thrill of blasting this mortal to the ends of the world and cursing all nine of his generations for this transgression.

One day, human, just you wait…one day…