I had two more shards of glass, and while my target stood above his dying friend, glass shards in the closing wound, destroying everything that got regenerated while their leader was trying to get the shard out.

I teleported in again, and attack another of his friends, leaving one friend that manages to turn around and grab me, before I can escape.

Quickly, the bear like leader, definitively older than twelve, and his lean friend stood against me, ready to kill me for killing just about everyone in their group.

Panic began surging through me as I felt the various stop spells affect me. It was horrifying, and as they stared me down, I began eating away at the two spells holding me.

“You did quite well, but I can’t have someone like you fight me in here, too dangerous in a one on one, and definitely too aggressive to have in my party. Sorry to say, you should give up before I kill you, heard It's pretty painful.” He said, the small figure of skulk approaching in the background, a knife glinting as the two grinned towards me.

“When we get out of here, I’ll get rid of you. So why don’t you simply give up and go away from this academy?” He asks, a too familiar pride holding him back from getting rid of me.

“I’ll learn your name, I’ll kill your family, my father will make sure to get rid of it all. If you do not give up now, no one will remember you even existed.” He threatened, and that’s when my soul tentacle brushed against that beacon of light inside him, simply licking at the outermost layer, the bit of power I ripped from him startling my attacker long enough for skulk to finally bury a dagger in his throat.

“Damn, that guy was really desperate to get into the academy, how is a single guy so full of himself?” I ask his last ally, the man stumbling backwards while quivering.

“Please spare me, I will help you win, I am good at helping people, I promise.” He said, the sight of him so incredibly pathetic, I gave him a proper kick between the ribs, my undying flesh powered by magic more than proper muscles at this point, and as I simply kicked the boy until he gave up, we continued on our path.

“Why did you kill someone that offers help in exchange for being left alive?” Skulk asked, and I grinned as we proceeded down the dark tunnels.

“Because we will have many people begging for their lives, and I don’t want to have cowards as my study partners, especially not with the things living in the great between. So, I give those who fight properly a chance, and those who beg have to get out of this trial.”

He nodded, and our conversation once again turned silent as we did so. For hours, we followed the right wall, dodging traps until I had a sudden idea.

“Follow me to the best of your ability, it will be a lot of work to get you back if you lose me.” Then, I activated my unbound mutation, turning gray as the streams of space unfolded before me, the equivalent of X-ray vision quickly having me know every tunnel in this place, a large room residing in the center that I then headed towards.

The closer we got, the more we realized that others were there too, other people fighting in tunnels we avoided so we could reach the center. We had killed enough, anymore and the people in ER would probably kill us personally.

Finally, we reached a door, the first change in the surrounding environment, surrounded by multiple walls that should not be followed by the left-hand technique, as they were constantly rotating.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Before me was a sheet of steel, with a small window the size of a hand, and a lever to the right of it that we could barely see.

The hinges implied that the door would open to the outside, and a lack of a handle told us it needed to be opened with magic.

It is important to note that glass does not exist to space magic, spatium completely ignoring it and making it almost impossible to teleport the substance.

Skulk immediately did what he did best, casting connect move between himself and the lever, and then yanking his arm up.

For a few seconds, the lever remained up, and the door probably unlocked. Then, it closed again, and I tried the move open spell, certainly getting the door to rattle until the end of the spell.

“Together?” Skulk asked, and I agreed, both of us casting the spell from before again, the door swinging open immediately and against Skulks face, smashing him against the wall and knocked out. Slowly, I dragged him inside the room, the wound looking pretty uncomfortable, but not necessarily deadly.

Dragging the healing potion bottle shard across the wound quickly began repairing it, ensuring he wouldn’t suddenly die.

After that was taken care of, I looked towards the titanic stone gate in the center, many of its parts inscribed with drawings and symbols, three of which are missing, and ten of which are lying around on the floor surrounding this portal.

The first painting showed a planet, a simple round orb with continents.

Number two showed us a winged and horned creature, the bogey man of this world, and the creature all demons were attributed to.

The next picture was missing.

It continued with five radiant figures, the gods, if my suspicions were correct.

The next was once again missing, and the one after that showed the gods triumphantly stand above the corpse of their fallen foe, and the next one was missing once more.

I knew the fairy tale that everyone was told, and quickly recreated it.

The first missing picture was of mortals in shackles, the second of them showing an epic battle between the gods and the demon lord, while the last was of some people turning to demons in the great explosion of the demon lords corpse.

It was simple, but as I had suspected, it was wrong.

I ripped away the first picture, casting open, so it would fall to the floor and be revealed for the lie it was. Instead, I put a picture of a squid there.

The second, I replaced with a picture of the world breaking apart.

I felt memories reside in this place, a part of the demon lord I had absorbed helping me recollect the event as I channeled their memories.

He attacked the world out of hunger, not malice. Immediately destroying the concepts that made it whole. Five people then decided to fight it, sacrificing thousands just to weaken him and siphon his power into their own. Slowly, they tore him apart, putting a part into the center of every realm shard.

Thus, the nine realms were created, nine prisons, eight lords to make sure he would never return, and five gods who would govern the world his heart was confined in.

It was knowledge that began tearing my body apart, my soul frying as the demonic influence overwhelmed my form, and yet, I resisted, instead meditating through the pain, channeling the power to resist becoming a demon, instead feeling my unbound mutation pulse, ready to grow when I next slept. At the same time, I felt spatium settle on the same level aqua had before, my body brimming with power as I dragged my new friend through the gate that began stirring to life.

“Well, that’s quite something. We actually managed to open the gate, so I guess that’s quite some ranking.” I looked at the counter, seeing both Skulk and me rise in the ranking, points accumulating with every second, mine just two thousand higher than his. It was an all against all, but a race, and not a fight. As we exited, a group of people headed towards us, a group I remembered, and a group we did our best to distance ourselves from. They wanted our blood, and I hadn’t hungered for a soul like this in quite some time. As we reached the bathrooms, I heard his voice.

“I challenge you to a battle, man against man, only spells.” I turned around, slow spells affecting me in all three of his aspects, while a laser beam was created by him. It would have been impressive, If he didn’t break down in a sudden fit of coughs.

His friends made sure no one would enter, their backs towards us so they had a great overview, probably afraid of the state their leader wanted to leave me in.

It's just a shame that my good old seizure spell was not something time, space or light could oppose, especially with a fun ‘warp move’ and ‘Infuse potential’ When the spells finally stopped, he bounced around the room like a ping pong ball, his screams delightful, and he managed to hold on quite a while, until I decided to finish him, stunning him and embracing his head, my soul tendrils teasing his soul while my tongue went in to liquefy his brain.

It was exhilarating, especially as I didn’t stop this time, consuming every bit of his disgusting body. I had hungered for too long, and as I left the room, the boys started searching for their master. Too shocked to react. Maybe, one of them would become a worthy rival.