Emrys shattered the unstable realm and called for Aine to take him back, once returned he went into his world of darkness to rest while contemplating some things. He could feel 'The Maker's' soul trapped in there without any way of returning or dissipating to nothing, this was the reason why he had made sure to kill him inside this world and not on the outside.
Beings who are pure spiritual body manifestations were tricky to kill, the physical body presented was just a small manifestation of the soul and greatly damaging that shell beyond repair by extension could hurt the true soul as a whole thereby leading to a shattered soul occurring which then fades away to nothing meaning an absolute death, one that Necromancy at his current level could not overcome.
But the world of darkness negates this variable from occurring, whatever it contains or destroy it claims, refines and enslaves permanently unto itself be it living or an object and when used in tandem with his Necromancy which he discovered to have a high affinity with his power over darkness he has the opportunity to create something far better than what Necromancy on it's own could achieve when returning back a soul to his command.
With an idea like this in mind he also realised something else, once he was fully ready to embark on his path of building an army he had the opportunity to create two versions, not every soul collected deserves to be given unto the world of darkness, it was too special to be used like such.
Though this was just a very rough draft of an idea in his head he planned on creating something like a main army and special reserve, the names were a bit uncreative right now but he had time to truly plan the future of his army going forward, this was the first test run he had attempted with it in eight years on something other than rats, insects and other insignificant creatures, the true results of this test would only be revealed once he was back home for the tournament.
He manifested a bit of lightning mana around his fingertips and played around with it, though he had said Darkness had a strong affinity with Necromancy that wasn't the whole truth. In fact it seemingly had affinity with everything he had tested it on, it was like the most neutral and accepting element in it's natural state without interference.
It had no real ties with his Dark mana which was an entirely different thing, if his Darkness in a natural state was neutral then Dark mana was wholly violent. But one thing he learned when using Dark mana was that it seemingly manifested as a form of darkness that's supercharged only charged with destruction of the highest order, he hadn't been able to study the nuances yet but soon enough he would.
Emrys snapped his fingers and the lightning around his fingers struck like a thunderbolt inside the world of darkness brightening up the place a bit before getting absorbed by the darkness and fading away, he placed a hand on his chest and closed his eyes to feel his pulsing twin cores.
This was one of the greatest surprises for him when he discovered himself developing a second core four years ago, it was unheard of for one to develop a second core which was an entirely different thing from a creature crafting itself a secondary heart known as a mana heart after reaching a certain point.
Though in the end he had no complaints, if by accident he managed to lose a core he wouldn't be a complete cripple and though he had a feeling he could regenerate his core unlike most creatures the feeling of utter weakness he would have to experience in that timeframe of waiting until he was healed was not something he looked forward to.
But there was one especially unfair thing about having a second actual core and not a simple manufactured heart, it had opened a door to something previously never imagined to have ever been possible when it comes to the limits of a Mage's capabilities.
He sunk deep into his shared soul space to check on Irmir once again out of habit, Aine still sat close by watching the cocoon with a patient gaze and feeling nothing different he returned to let himself fall into a slumber, it mattered not how deep he slept because he would be aware of when the moment to go home arrives and that was all that mattered.
"Heh, they must be missing me quite a lot" he mused to himself right as he slowly drifted off to sleep.
Meanwhile on the outside back on their planet of rest Rozaria and the others were experiencing something entirely new-
"Velkos?" She asked, her tone sounding quite unsure.
The mask was abnormal, it was like a new shell atop the shell he already occupied and it was messing with their senses in a strange way but they knew it had to be him.
Rozaria looked to be a bit discouraged and hurt "Was what I said really that bad enough for you to take such drastic measures".
Velkos stood in silence seemingly giving her no answers but in truth he was, neither Rozaria nor even Avistro were paying attention to what he was trying to communicate to them through his mana fluctuations.
"No, he said it's not something you caused".
Most surprisingly Sarang had been the one to read his intentions through the mana fluctuations, they looked at him with confused gazes which in turn also confused him.
"What, you're not reading it?"
"Reading what" she asked.
"His mana, it's pretty easy".
Avistro caught on pretty quickly to what was going on here, even for beasts unable to harness the power of mana they had a strong affinity towards reading emotions like they were pure thoughts by instinct through a variation of small sounds or movements. He called it telepathic instinct and blessed creatures had this gift ramped up to insanity, it came easy as breathing and required no focus which was a quality even most did not possess with the gift of mana and so to Sarang right now it seemed the most natural thing in the world.
Soon enough he managed to explain the whole thing to the rest and this calmed Rozaria's mood although one question still remained, why Velkos was wearing a mask like that in the first place.
"Asura" Zirsto spoke up.
"His nature has awakened, that mask is meant to suppress it".
They looked to Sarang who confirmed through Velkos that Zirsto was indeed correct-
"How did you know that" Mavion asked.
"I share a partial relation with him, due to some personal matters I had to learn alot about many dark spirits".
"Ahh".
With all their questions answered they all just lay around in boredom, at some point Sarang suddenly jumped up and roared at the skies as he threw a few punches all just to fall flat on his back once more while having a few confused gazes thrown his way. Now that their day of return was here everyone was more impatient and giddy than usual, neither could understand why the ships hadn't arrived yet, the wait continued for another two hours and yet they sensed nothing.
Ishmael already returned to his larva bath an hour ago as did Velkos to his original spot atop the mountain peak and minutes later some were already beginning to feel extremely annoyed, that suppressed longing for home that had been bubbling up inside them since the second month of their stay was threatening to spill over to the surface in the form of rage.
They managed to suppress that feeling one more time and simply closed their eyes to sleep or at least try to but were alerted by a new movement, the mages whom had kept themselves hidden the whole time had revealed themselves before the children.
"We're going home".
Ishmael and Velkos returned almost immediately and the mages took the children belonging to each of their respective Emperors except for Emrys who was missing in this moment but a few seconds later when the great rift had appeared as the ships passed through once again he was present before they knew it.
In moments they were teleported to the ships, Emrys along with Sarang, Noctis and Shen were summoned before Captain Aaron whom they showed the necessary polite greetings towards him.
"Let us delay no longer, set course" Aaron ordered.
The ship was lit up with the familiar patterns once more as a great rift opened up before them of which they passed through in a matter of moments with the others following close by, almost immediately after they were through Emrys felt his body come alive with joy as it welcomed the all too familiar mana everywhere around him.
It was a genuine breath of fresh air, the feeling that he was no longer living in a glass house where every step, every movement he made had to be very carefully controlled so as not to shatter everything. All restrictions placed upon himself vanished as he returned to his normal state, Aaron walked over to his panel to get a view of their homeworld below them a small smile showing on his face unbeknownst to him.
He looked towards the mages around "take them home, there's half an hour of time left before it starts".
They complied and called for the kids to come with them, Emrys went with his assigned mage who took him straight to where he had already confirmed the rest of his family to be at.
After teleporting him there the mage bowed and left, Emrys looked around at where he was which was a floating manor and he could see the prepared arena far down below, the familiar presence all around him confirmed that they were indeed here.
"Raven?"
He turned around to meet the voice and smiled "Hi".
Leah rushed forward and hugged him tight, Emrys looked at her with warmth in his eyes as he too replicated the hug. It had been three years since he officially became the second tallest one in the family as his dear sister remained a good four inches shorter than him, but the feeling of having to look downwards when seeing her or anyone in his family bar Hestia still remained something he couldn't get used to no matter what and sometimes he would still look up on accident.
"I missed you".
"I know" he chuckled and flinched when he received a pinch at his sides.
"Fine fine, I missed you too Leah".
A little knock was heard "it seems the rest of us are largely irrelevant to you two huh" Rachel announced.
He looked up with a mischievous gaze to meet Rachel's eyes but soon cleared that thought out of his mind knowing it was he who would suffer in the end trying what he was thinking.
"Yup, and I missed you too sister".
Emrys broke the hug with Leah and politely bowed his head towards Hestia.
"Hello aunty".
Hestia smiled warmly at him "welcome home Emrys, I see it went well".
"Mhm, it did".
"Well, were quite short on time as I would have liked to know what interesting things you encountered".
"Ah".
Emrys suddenly remembered"aunty, where is mother".
"She's meeting with the church for something".
"Oh, I see".
Huge wails of excitement was heard from down below as the announcer began the process bringing this tournament to life which was followed by a series of exploding fireworks and magic along with heavy drums-
"It's almost time now, we should go down".
Hestia teleported them to their reserved spot in the VIP area and soon a guard came for Emrys but before he left Rachel held onto his hand-
"Promise me you'll win" she requested.
He hesitated for a moment, there was one greatly large uncertainty that existed for him in this tournament "I can only promise that the final stage would be an extremely close one".
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
This was the best answer he could give her but he then added "but know that I shall not lose, a draw will be the worst gotten out of me in the end".
He was taken and lead towards the gathering area for all the other contestants where he received a tracking spell placed on him.
In the VIP area an eyeball creature with wings project a perfect image around them making it seem like they themselves were right there with the contestants while also maintaining a birds-eyeview of the whole thing.
Hestia sent a mental command to the eye for it to focus specifically on the area Emrys occupied, this change would only be applied to her of course unless her daughters willed for the same also.
The young contestants partaking from all over the world and even from other worlds in this realm were led out onto the two kilometre wide arena where they stood patiently in wait for the special guest of this tournament to appear and soon enough he did.
Coming forward to the balcony was the Pope himself, the only figure with an authority directly equal to that of the four great Emperors combined if not above them still. Direct representative of the goddess and the strongest weilder of light in history, that was the 36th Pope Àngel Di Beorthric.
A man who looked to be almost middle-aged yet looked so vigorous and vibrant, his vertical pupils burned golden like the stars themselves, his hair and beard white as snow, the feeling of divinity radiated off him just by naturally existing.
The crowd went wild with screams, it had been three decades since the last time anyone had ever seen the Pope out in the open and normally what he was about to do is something undertaken by the priests but yet for the first time in history the Pope himself had decided to come declare blessings on this tournament.
With a raised hand the Pope commanded silence as he ran his gaze through the crowd below as if searching for something, he looked up and stretched both hands wide as he whispered something.
For a moment it was like the world turned a bit dim as a little golden orb of light floated down from the skies above and gently scattered all over the arena like snow, each of the contestants along with the crowd seated in the arena were enveloped by a faint divine glow. It was then that they saw it, the faint visage of the goddesse's motherly embrace around them and the gentle smile shown to all her children.
From the very depths of their souls the tears poured as they bowed their heads, their hearts beating a tune to the praise of her. In a few seconds the visage was gone but her presence lingered around like a phantom for a bit longer before they too could no longer feel it.
There was a few seconds of peace after as the Pope walked back to remain seated with the four Emperors, the glow around everyone's body steadily got absorbed into their hearts and fizzled out.
"AND LET THE TOURNAMENT BEGIN!!!!"
The announcer yelled out at the top of his lungs corroborated by the crowds almost deafening roar as the stage lit up and the contestants were teleported to the location for the first round, the crowd were immediately immersed in the live projection of the battlefield while able to keep track of every last contestant with the help of a protection spell cast on their minds to prevent it from experience a great strain or overload.
A score of 1 was shown above the head of every contestant in the virtual projection and three great boards were shown mid-air in the arena with the numbered names of every contestant ranging three thousand in total.
A mini announcer appeared in the battlefield and to every contestant clearing his throat before he began-
"ALRIGHT THE FIRST ROUND! Let's set the rules straight".
"Around each of your hands or....body??....neck??" one mini announcer spoke looking at one of the contestants who was of an odd race from another world.
"Ah forget it, around each and every one of your hands is a bracelet and you can already guess where I'm going with this righhht?".
"And then blah blah blah, the contestants with the least points at the end of this round get expelled and the likes".
"Oh well, may the better thief win, or is it may the best thief win" the mini announcers rubbed their chins looking deep in thought at this dilemma.
"By the way no killing in this round, incapacitation is acceptable though".
"In the eventuality that you do kill a contestant you shall be given a penalty of forty minutes where you would be unable to engage in the round but others can engage with and steal from you as they like".
"You have a time limit of two hours before the round ends".
"Ah, one more thing, you're allowed to form teams with a maximum member of four!"
"If a member is lost their individual points is shared mostly equal with the rest of the members".
"Beware still, if only one or no members were to remain from a team then you lose all points automatically which goes without saying for the latter".
"If two or more people were to join hands in killing- he coughed and then corrected himself.
"Apologies, I meant incapacitating a contestant. The point's shared if they are of the same team and if not then points shall be given wholly unto the one who contributed the most to the ambush"
"Andddd that's it! Bona fortuna"
And with that the announcer smiled as he faded away giving way for the tournament to begin, a huge dome of mana appeared high above locking down the entire battlefield and a countdown was shown in the air soon after which could be seen by everyone in the dome no matter where you were.
As the countdown began what ensued was not a hunt but a scene of most of the contestants standing relatively still as they pondered the right move to make in this situation, as the announcer had stated this round focused on thieving and so neither drawn out battles nor revealing of cards would be favorable to them for one reason.
Two hours was a lot of time to them in normal situations but the moment they slip up and let themselves get engrossed in a drawn out conflict it would end up hurting them more than anyone else.
Emrys for example had the perfect tools to deal with this problem but doing that would cause a lot of problems that he just wasn't in the mood to deal with yet.
At about five minutes into the countdown most had already made up their minds and began making their move, those lucky enough to have the means of reaching out to other contestants whom they were acquainted with did just that while the rest faced the music with their options.
First they had to try their best in avoiding the strong ones this early into the round and make sure not to even think of going anywhere near the monsters.
"Sleep".
Whispered Emrys from out of the shadows grabbing onto one isolated contestants and shutting him down, he picked up the unconscious contestant's hand and removed the bracelet which he held inside a little ball of darkness. With a small leap Emrys was high up in the air looking around the field, he could sense the locations of his peers clearly, most especially her and it seemed they had all reached a silent agreement of not teaming up with one another even if most were friends.
Emrys felt a strong urge to test out something he had learned during his stay in that realm but held back on showing off just yet and returned to the earth. He discreetly spread his darkness over a nine hunred meter radius and raised his hand displaying a magic circle.
<
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After confirming the spell had locked in on everyone within his radius he whispered-
<
<
Five magic circles appeared before him and faded away as the spells took hold and everyone in contact with his darkness was immediately paralyzed, Emrys began his harvest with haste before the spells wore off, the spell of weakness wasn't intended for his targets but for the first four spells he prepared
With every contestant he swiped a bracelet from he knocked unconscious and once he was done he flew back to his original spot to count them but he looked a bit disappointed after.
"48, combined with the first one I swiped plus mine that's 50, what a poor harvest".
He heaved a small sigh and lay down on the grass "as expected, waiting for others to do the work is the best approach".
"But first, a little search and tag".
For the next few minutes Emrys used the shadows to scout and mark targets he deemed to have potential, of course he didn't do that one by one but using area wide targeted spells to mark whomever he sensed to have potential, he wasn't interested in taking first place so he made sure not to overdo it, the top 10 or top 15 in this round would be good enough for him.
Once he was done he returned back to his original spot and lay back down, with the tracking spells he had discreetly casted on them he would be able to locate everyone of them when the time comes.
"An hour and thirty forty two minutes left, an hour and twenty minutes more should be enough time".
Emrys sat up with crossed legs in a lotus position and closed his eyes, his two cores lit up and at the back of his right hand was a single star with a thin ring floating around his wrist like stardust. Emrys absorbed mana from his surroundings and used it to repeatedly strike at his own heart, each strike producing a thundering boom and a pulse of mana that spread for three meters before dying out, this process was repeated over and over again.
In his subconscious Emrys found himself standing atop a turbulent sea with a single lone mountain before him, the waters continuously beat against it with enough force that it shook this space yet the mountain never seemed to budge one bit.
Taking in a deep breath Emrys unfurled his four majestic pitch black and almost ethereal wings, he steadily ascended into the skies with a gaze locked on to the lone mountain, the thundering clouds above got exceedingly more erratic as a huge wave of mana poured out of his body.
With a raised hand the lightning above gathered to one focused point as he uttered - "Fall".
The world turned white for a moment as a thundering roar like that of a dragon descended upon this space, the mountain was struck as was the sea around it. The torment of lightning was a continuous one transforming the waters below into a sea of utterly charged storms, with a thundering sound the mountain was finally shattered.
Emrys opened his eyes and contained the new ocean of power that was about to overflow in his body, it took every last but of will he had to contain it because he felt it wasn't the time yet, there was something he wanted to test that no other mage has ever had the thought of doing while either in their right or insane minds.
He felt heavy, so heavy beyond words, just by slightly moving his hands it felt like he was pulling the weight of the world, every last bit of him was holding in that overly dense ocean of power from rushing out and completing his ascension.
"Yeah, this should be more than enough as a handicap".
He got up and did a light skip but as soon as he stopped he was down on one knee, stamina wasn't the issue here even with the extreme weight but the movement, it was like trying jump around with a bloated body and in case an ocean of power was trapped inside his body trying to find ways to be released at every moment, the moment he lost focus or got riled up by something it was over.
"I might be overdoing the handicap a little" he chuckled to himself.
Just then he felt something and turned around to meet with one of the contestants, by instinct he could tell that he wasn't part of the weaker ones though still a non threat to him.....but that would be if his situation was indeed normal.
'Right, still forget that I'm in the middle of my one terribly unlucky day, perfect' he thought to himself with a sigh.
'And my senses must have taken a big hit if I could not feel him until he got so near, that spells bad news'.
Neither of them made any sudden movements, Emrys knew not of whom the human was but the same could not be said for the contestant who remembered quite well who he was though Emrys rarely made a public appearance.
Emrys could sense his nervousness and that gave him an idea of how to send, with his body so jumbled up and overly bloated right now with mana if he tries using a spell there was a 100% chance it ends up backfiring which would escalate the situation even further.
"You can leave now" he commanded, his tone soft but firm.
The human flinched at first but complied and began walking away, Emrys felt relieved and turned back around to continue his thoughts but suddenly to his surprise he felt a fist connect with him square in the jaw sending him flying through trees like a cannonball. He lay atop the broken tree bark staring at the sky with a look of boredom on his face, there was a very miniscule amount of power put into that punch and he suffered no pain or damage in the slightest to his body but great damage had been for sure inflicted now.
His gaze fell down to the human who was looking at him with a pleasantly surprised face while sweating buckets, Emrys had to give it to him that he was a fearless one.
"Ha- hahaha" he laughed nervously still in disbelief at what he just did.
"I knew it, there's something terribly off with you".
"It was incredibly risky but I just had to confirm it, my eyes and guts are never wrong".
"I just knew it but I still can't believe it".
He walked up to Emrys and stood before him, his heart beating so strongly with excitement, fear and disbelief, all that combined to create the greatest rush of emotions one could ever experience.
"You're weakened, for some reason you're greatly weakened and I don't know why but this...I won't let this opportunity slip from my hands".
"With so many people watching, my name would be known for decades when they see what I achieve here today".
"I might even draw the emperor's attention and receive some benefits".
Emrys watched those eyes, watched as they got clouded with madness and simply closed his in disappointment. Though he himself might be vain, blunt, admittedly narcissistic and quite mad there never was a time where he could imagine losing himself to such a poor dream, he could not comprehend that train of thought as it felt so foreign and tasteless.
The put both hands before him and gathered up quite a bit of mana, a red magic circle manifested as he called out <
A sense ball of flames that grew stronger by the second was summoned turning the surrounding area into a puddle of boiling magma prompting him to jump far back and control the heat some more focusing it only around the spell itself.
Then he released it and covered himself in a barrier almost immediately, the flames trailed like a comet striking him square on his chest and exploding in a huge dome of flames which turned all the surrounding trees in a hundred meter radius to ash in an instant and the earth had become a deep crater of magma.
Although unscathed, feeling himself in the surrounding larva Emrys recalled some memories from his first day of true sentience 'how nostalgic indeed'.
The human slowly levitated towards him and down the crater this time visibly irritated "why aren't you fighting back!".
"I know you're weakened for some reason but why aren't you at least fighting back!".
Upon staring into the eyes of Emrys his rage grew, looking at him with disappointment and boredom, that was enough to send him over the edge.
<
Caught off-guard by Emrys the spell took effect as his body slumped forward and fell down into the larva pit scalding off his flesh unprotected by mana and not strong enough to withstand it without, from the very beginning Emrys had been trying his hardest to control mana well enough to shoot off one basic spell and finally he was able to achieve it.
'Did not expect it to take so long still, I really have overdone it this time'.
Emrys forced himself to get up and dragged the human by neck out of the crater in a matter of minutes, once safely outside the area damaged by the spell he crouched down to retrieve the bracelet and called the ball of darkness over which thankfully was a self sufficient thing he needed not the aid of mana to maintain else things would be a lot more troublesome than they were now.
Eleven minutes, that was how long this little encounter had dragged out to. But now knowing the possibility of using mana wasn't an impossible task he could carry on with his original plan, Emrys left the area for another isolated spot and sat there to rest.
'I wonder if my adaptation is helping a bit, I no longer feel as heavy but it's still not viable enough for me to fight without problems'.
Though Emrys wasn't a brawler in the natural sense of it as field control suited him best, he still was quite adept in the aspect of close combat thanks to his sparring sessions with Rachel, his aunt and also his mother.
'But I still have time, can get used to it enough while supplementing with as little mana as possible when needed'.
'Alright, let's begin'.
EnD.