Jin looked around, but everything was pitch black. He tried to wave his hand in front of his face and summon his fire sword, but nothing happened. He heard footsteps and sinister laughing all around him.

“Uh… hello?” Jin hesitantly called out.

He was then knocked to the ground and felt hands pulling him in all directions. Jin tried to resist, but their grasp on him was too strong.

“What the hell?! Let go or I swear when I break free, I’ll tear you apart!” He shouted and became filled with rage.

Lightning began to strike all around him and reveal the beings who had taken hold of him. What he saw filled him with fear and confusion.

It was the spirits of all the Devils he had absorbed, they all smiled and laughed as they tried to drag him further into the darkness and away from the bolts of lightning.

Jin began to panic and fight them off, finally he broke a hand free. He clawed at the ground, using every bit of strength he had to resist the Devils.

Then a different being appeared and took his hand, it was a small Celestial made of pure blue and purple lightning. Jin looked up and the sight of the Celestial filled him with the strength to keep fighting off the Devils.

Jin struggled against the Devils for what felt like an eternity, the Celestial was trying its hardest, but Jin was slowly being pulled into the darkness by the Devils.

Then it was as if the darkness surrounding them came to life and engulfed the Devils.

Jin looked around, but all that remained was the Celestial. Without any words, the Celestial bowed to Jin and then jumped into his chest.

Jin felt an overwhelming surge of energy, he was tingling with energy.

Then he began to hear a familiar voice calling out his name.

“Shadow?” Jin opened his eyes and looked around the Void room and saw Shadow giving him a thumbs up while a group of Fallen Orcs were high-fiving each other.

‘Welcome back, you lazy bum.’ Shadow patted Jin on the shoulder.

Jin jumped out of bed. “Lazy?! I beat the Devil Elf Emperor and 3 Kings while you were off playing with Giants! Great plan by the way!”

Shadow rolled his eyes. ‘Glad to see there was no permanent damage, which your welcome by the way.’

Jin remembered bits and pieces of the strange dream he had and told Shadow about it, then Shadow explained what had happened.

“Ah sorry for shouting, thanks for not letting me get eaten alive by those bastards. Also do you have my book?”

Shadow handed Jin his notebook and they both checked their Celestial power.

Shadow was now at 92% and Jin was at 76%.

“How are you still that far ahead of me after I defeated 2 Emperors?!” Jin was shocked.

Shadow pulled up a seat beside Jin’s bed. ‘I have a theory on that actually. The God of the Void said the God of Storms was one of the strongest Gods, so your capacity fir Celestial energy is probably a lot higher than mine. Which means it’ll take you longer to unlock your full potential.”

“That’s cool, but that also sucks because at this rate I won’t ever unlock all my powers unless we beat the Devil Emperor and I wanted to be at full strength when we finally fight him.” Jin groaned.

‘Oh well, guess you’re outta luck.’ Shadow was hoping the same, but right now he’s just happy that Jin is all better.

The 2 exchanged stories about their encounters over some ramen.

“That reminds me, I wonder if I got any cool powers from the Elf Emperor and those 3 Kings.” Jin opened the notebook again.

Spirits of Mastery

The Spirit of the Elf Emperor has synchronized with the 3 Devil Kings of Devastation. The 4 were Masters of their Elemental Magic. Through the fusion of all, you now have the power of Nuclear and Atomic Magic. The culmination of their knowledge is an understanding of the elements on a molecular and atomic level.

Jin and Shadow looked at each other.

‘You are not testing this anywhere near the Fortress.’ Shadow insisted.

“Yeah, this sounds a bit destructive.” Jin laughed.

The 2 left the fortress and rode a couple war Beasts a mile away from the fortress.

“I’d stand back for now; I don’t want to accidentally blow us both up.” Jin looked behind his shoulder, but Shadow was already a good distance away and gave a thumbs up from behind a rock.

Jin looked towards the horizon, then raised his dragon arm and attempted to create an atomic energy ball like the Elf Emperor.

‘Well, are you gonna do it?’ Shadow asked while staying far away.

“Shut up, this is way harder than it looks!” Jin continued holding his arm out.

Finally, he created a small orb of white energy and launched it a couple hundred yards before it hit a tree.

The explosion started slow, but then progressed into an explosion of atomic energy that was twice the size of the Elf Emperors.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Jin and Shadow watched in a mix of concern and awe as the orb of energy disintegrated everything within it and created a Shockwave that shook the ground.

“That was awesome!” Jin was bursting with joy, if he could cast this faster then there would be no enemy that would be stronger enough to beat him.

‘That’s one word for it.’ Shadow was concerned with how dangerous and unstable this power was.

“I wonder if I can make a sword with it like my other magic?”

‘That sounds like a terrible idea.’

Jin started to form the hilt of the sword, but then he lost control of the energy, and it blew up in front of him. Jin was sent sailing through the air while slightly on fire and smoking.

He got up and coughed, his hair was singed and standing up straight.

‘I told you that was a bad idea.’ Shadow still hid behind the rock.

Jin kept coughing and put out the fire on his pants. “You’re just jealous because now I’m like a human tank.”

‘Keep telling yourself that. While you have fun blowing yourself up, I’m going to go work on sending some Fallen ahead to try and scout out the Devil Emperor’s main base.’ Shadow summoned a War Beast and left.

Jin continued to practice with his new abilities, but despite the long day of training, he made little progress. He was still only able to create the hilt of a sword with atomic energy before losing control. He did learn how to create bigger orbs of atomic energy, but they required too much time and concentration to create so this type of spellcasting was impractical for the battlefield. The other downside of this magic was that it drained him more than any of his other abilities.

Jin returned to the fortress and saw that Shadow had his hand placed on the head of a Fallen Elf Ranger that was knelt before him.

“What are you doing?” Jin asked.

‘Among my new abilities since increasing my Celestial Power, I can now peer into the minds of my Fallen and look through their memories.’ Shadow removed his hand from the Fallen and sent him out to guard the Fortress.

Jin grabbed a bottle of water from their stockpiled rations in the corner of the main lobby. “That’s not creepy at all.” Jin said sarcastically.

‘C’mere and I’ll see if it works on people too.’ Shadow began creeping towards Jin with an off-putting smile on his face.

Jin summoned his Hellfire sword in one hand and pointed it at Shadow while drinking his water in the other. “How about we not test that out on me?”

Shadow put his hands up. ‘Okay, I was just kidding.’

Jin relinquished his sword and then crushed the bottle of water and threw it into the corner.

A Fallen Orc shook his head then picked up the bottle and threw it in a nearby trash bag.

Jin watched then looked at Shadow. “Is it me or are your summons starting to have more personality.”

Shadow nodded. ‘Yeah, the God of the Void says once I get my Celestial Power to 100% that they will even be able to start communicating. Right now, they’re able to think for themselves too and I don’t really have to worry about them being destroyed completely either unless they are killed with Celestial weapon, otherwise they’ll just regenerate.’

Jin looked out the window at all the Fallen soldiers interacting with each other outside. “Damn and I thought my powers were cool, you pretty much have an immortal army.”

Some Fallen Orcs came in and brought the 2 Heroes sandwiches. Jin and Shadow accepted them and started eating.

‘I know it’s great, now they’ve become much more than mindless warriors. They can constantly learn new things and adapt to the world.’

After finishing eating, Jin started to make his way towards the exit. “As fun as it is watching these guys play house, I’m going to get some sleep and then train some more tomorrow. We should hold off on attacking the Devil Emperor until I can get a handle on my new powers.”

‘I agree, get some rest. I’m going to be up a little longer, some Fallen spotted another group of Devil Elves heading our way so I’m going to go deal with them.’

“Have fun.” Jin waved towards Shadow and left the room.

Shadow left shortly after and followed a group of Fallen to the location of the Devils.

When he could sense them nearby, he sent his Fallen back to the fortress, and then turned invisible. He watched the Devils from the shadows.

There were 6 Rangers, similar to the other group of scouts they killed a while ago. The Rangers were moving swiftly and stealthily in the direction of where Jin fought the Elf Emperor.

Shadow figured they were sent to figure out what was taking the Emperor so long to return.

Shadow took out his Void Daggers and approached the Devils. He waited until he was right behind the last Devil in the back of the group, then in one swift strike he dashed through the group and killed all 6 in that single blow.

Decapitating the first 2 and then slashing through the torsos of the other 4.

The Devils were unable to react to Shadow’s speed, while Jin could now summon bolts of lightning, he could now move as fast as lightning. Making counterattacks impossible for weaker Devils like these ones.

Shadow flicked the blood from his blades and then turned the dead Elves into Fallen. He then issued them new orders to patrol the area around their fortress.

He learned that each Fallen had the same strengths as they did in life, so these Elves were experts at performing reconnaissance while maintaining a stealthy approach, unlike the Fallen Orcs who were a lot more brutish in everything they did. He could trust the Fallen Elves to scout further from the fortress without alerting the enemy of their presence.

Shadow summoned a War Beast and began to return to the Fortress, but he was interrupted by the appearance of a strange portal. He could tell it wasn’t Jin’s and when he looked into it, he saw nothing but an endless black.

This portal was a perfect 10-foot Oval that was completely black. Shadow could sense no energy coming from it.

“Hero, allow me control before it is too late!” The God of the Void startled Jin with the urgency in his voice.

‘Too late for what?’ Shadow asked as he maintained a safe distance from the portal.

“This is the portal opened by a higher being.” The God sounded worried.

‘A higher being, like another God?’

“Champion, there are many levels to power in our universe. There are the living beings created by us, the Celestials or God’s as you started to call us. We are impermanent though, we are but the creations of the permanents in reality, the personification of what cannot be changed.”

Shadow was trying to figure out what the God meant, but he was at a loss. Who could be above the Gods?

‘I have no idea what you're talking about, we thought the Gods were the pinnacle of everything.’

“There are 2 that rule above even the Gods themselves. Life and Death.”

Shadow’s eyes grew wide. ‘Wait, so you’re telling me that this portal was created by either Life or Death itself?’

“Yes, judging from its look I’d wager that Death has summoned us.”

‘Well, what should I do? Ignoring it seems like a bad idea and going in also seems terrifying.’

“Allow me control and I shall converse with him to see why he has gone to such lengths to see us.”

Shadow was hesitant, he hated letting the God use him like a puppet, but he also didn’t want to piss off death. ‘Fine, please don’t get me killed.’

“Have faith in me, Champion. I won’t let that happen, if Death kills you, then he shall also wipe me from existence.”

‘Well that’s not comforting at all.’

Shadow allowed the God to take control of his body again. He then slowly approached the portal, took one last deep breath, and entered the Realm of Death.

The portal then closed behind Shadow.

All the Fallen sensed the absence of their Master, yet all of them remained. They decided the best course of action would be to continue following his last orders to patrol and to also protect the fortress along with Jin.