The gates of the Crystal Keep groaned as they opened, their golden surface glistening in the moonlight. Alden stepped forward, his boots striking the polished stone in a hurried cadence. Around him, the celebration echoed through the keep’s towering walls, a symphony of laughter, music, and the distant clink of goblets. The air carried the sweet aroma of roasted meats and spiced wines, lingering reminders of a victory well-celebrated. Yet Alden’s thoughts were far from festive.

With a flick of his wrist, he invoked his light magic, bending the soft glow of nearby lanterns to obscure his figure. The trick was subtle, a ripple in the light that rendered him nearly invisible to the untrained eye. He needed to move quickly, avoiding the endless handshakes and praise that would delay his plans.

Altiora stretched before him, a marvel of unity and ingenuity. The nonagon-shaped city was a testament to the cooperation of nine distinct races, each contributing a 100-square-mile stretch of land to form its harmonious whole. The Crystal Keep was the biggest structure located at the center point of the city and the tallest structure.

As Alden descended the steps of the keep, he headed towards his castle in Fallbrook, the human sector. Its boundary, marked by towering mythril arches, was the fastest path to reach his destination. Located there was the teleportation station, created by Tyren, to allow the citizens to travel the large city with ease. Though efficient, the circles were strategically placed at the entrances of each sector, outside the keep’s reach. This was no oversight but a deliberate choice; during the war’s early days, Tyren had convinced the heros to lockdown the city and its surrounding space, a safeguard against enemy infiltration.

As Alden weaved through the lively streets, merchants were yelling advertising their goods, children laughing as they played and drunkerds singing praises for the heros that defeated the counsil. As well as the clinking of chains that bound the slaves that were working. Normally slaves were not allowed inside the city, mainly to prevent any possibility of a revolt, but with the Council's heros dead or in hiding their spirits were broken. They no longer had the will to fight. Seeing them reminded him how easily they had won the war once Teryn had killed their strongest heroes. This thought angered him, Teryn was someone he hated to his core. He could never forget how he humiliated him during the founding of the Alliance, making him look like a fool. But recalling that he had practically committed suicide with his greater teleportation spell, his anger subsided. chuckle "With that annoying pest out of the way, I'll be able to complete my experiment in peace."

With great excitment Alden quicken his pace towards Fallbrook. As he approached the gates he dispelled his magic. Upon seeing him the guards patrolling saluted him, the citizens shouted praises at him and ladies begged for his attention. Casually waving at them and exchanging small pleasantrie he walked inside the teleportation station. The smell of liquor and meat waffed over him as he approached the special room that held the hero's personal teleportation formation. Noticing him walk by the workers shot out of their seats "Good evening sir, where would you like to go?"

"No need, I'm just returning to my castle. Don't let me distract you from the celebration."

“Alden!” a voice called out. A burly man with a barrel of alcohol was exiting the room.

” Where are you going on a lovely night like this?"

"Haverferd, I'm busy right now so I'm just heading back home"

"Come on, mr hero of light, no need to be so boring. Its time to party and drink, I'm even heading over to nightveil!"

with an annoyed expression, "Not all of us are as carefree as you, and why bother going to that place. You're a hero, you can just pick any pretty girl and have her serve you"

"Baaah, thats boring. I rather have the girls of nightveil entertain me. They sing, dance and tell the best jokes!"

Thinking to himself, Alden stared at Haverford. "Why did this guy have to be a hero, he's so annoying." Haverford Hallsworth was one of the three human heros. He was the inventor of the drunken arts, a type martial arts that granted him power the more he drank.

"Either way, I'll pass for now."

"boo you're no fun."

Ignoring Haverford, Alden entered the room and headed towards the spell circle. He channeled mana into the circle and teleported to his castle

His castle was rather modest for a man known as one of the greatest light mages of this era. He was once someone that loved surrounding himself with luxury. Enjoying the admiration and envy from others as they stared him. Until he clashed with Teryn over the right to rule the human domain. He had lost miserably and to further mock him, Teryn declined the position. He only fought to prevent anyone from having too much power. Plus he said It was a waste time and he had better things to do in the mages tower. This made the domain split in three factions. It didn't last long as the war broke out and the Alliance was formed. During the formation of the Alliance, humans should have been the defacto leaders since they had four heros. The other races only had three. Plus the strongest hero of this era was Teryn, no one would object to them taking the leading role. Except, Teryn choose to remain neutral. He stated that his research was too important and that he wanted the power structure to be balanced. He remained a neutral party and spent most of his time inside the mages tower. Rarely participating in any governing matters, unless it pertained to the opposing sides heros.

Exiting the spell circle, he opened the backdoor of his castle and walked towards the garden. He approached an empty space at the center of the garden and began channeling mana into his right hand. He then crouched down and injected it into the floor. The floor opened; he began to spread his mana inside the opening, and a faint light shone. He entered the door, and walked down towards the light. When he reached the spot where the light was shinning, he injected some mana into it and deactivated a spell circle. When it deactived a luxurious passageway made out of mythil was revealed. Using his magic he closed the door behind him and decended further down the hallway. When he reached the bottom, he pushed open a door and entered a large room that was covered in mythril. The room was filled with research equipment, spell circles covered each wall, and on the opposite side of the room a prison style gate housed two chained individuals.

Walking towards them, Alden grabbed a few needles and empty vials that were laying on the table.

"Sorry to keep you waiting."

"fuck you!"

"Do your worst, filthy human!"

With a wide smile, Alden opened the gate and approached the chained individuals. "Say what you like, I'm not the one chained up like animals."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Using his magic he illuminate the prison, an orange goblin and a female demon were revealed. They had mythril chains covering their wrist, ankles and neck. They were heros from the Council of Hysperia that were marked as dead by the Alliance. The goblin's name was gigi, a saber user, and the demon was Alandra Daegon, a hero specializing in illusion magic, as well as the daughter of the Demon Lord.

"You can say what you want but its only a matter of time before your shitty alliance crumbles. My father has already helped Githyanki Lord Kael'thor ascend, this war won't last much longer."

"You should kill us while you still can. When I get loose, I'll open your skull with my saber and eat your brain while your still alive. Gyak gyak"

Alden couldn't help smile as he said to them, "Too bad, that'll never happen since those two are dead"

The room became silent, the two captives looked at him as if he had lost his mind. They dismissed what Alden had told them, the two lords were heros that had ascended. They knew that if they could not win the fight, they could easily escape.

With a wide grin Alden stared at the pair holding in his laughter, for what he would show them next would make them understand how pathetic they were behaving.

"Don't look at me like that, if you don't believe me just take a look at this." Alden took out a dark red crystal from his spatial bag and held it up for them to see.

Alandra's breath hitched, her crimson eyes locking onto the dark red crystal as it glinted in the light. The room's chill seemed to deepen, an invisible weight pressing against her chest. Gigi's face paled as he stared at the crystal. His hands trembled slightly, his usual bravado stripped away as he couldn't look away. a mix of disbelief and anger.

"See, I told you they were dead."

Gigi turned to look at Alandra "is he using illusion magic to trick us."

Slowly turning her head side to side, she confirmed to him that it was the real deal. It was the crystal that connected the portal to the Demon Lord. It was something the Demon Lord had hidden away and even in death would never reveal its location. "How could your worthless Alliance have killed them. There is no ascended among you, while Lord Baelor and Lord Kael'thor have already ascended."

Alandra said nothing, her crimson eyes fixed on the crystal in Alden’s hand. The silence that followed felt heavier than the mythril chains binding her.

Clenching his fist tight, Alden took a deep breath to calm himself.

Phew "Its simple, Teryn ascended..."

"so what if that mage ascended thats still only one to our two..." arrgh

"Don't cut me off again less you want me to burn more of your flesh" Alden had cast a ray of light to burn Gigi's flesh.

The room became silent again. Alden continued "He gathered all the heroes and explained to us his plan. After some preperations he cast greater teleportation and he then broke the spacelock that shielded the portal and mage towers." Alden paused, savoring the disbelief on Gigi’s face. "Teryn headed towards the portal while we focused on the mage towers. We crushed four of the six towers before anyone could reach us. Sadly it was only Baelor and 18 others that showed up. Baelor put up a good fight against us while Kael'thor went towards the portal. He must have figured out something had gone wrong at the portal, since Baelor dashed off in the portals direction, giving us an opportunity to slaughtered those..."

Gigi yanked at his chains with a feral snarl, "Lies!, there is no... arrghhh!"

"What did I just say about interupting me."

Gigi’s arm, filled the air with the acrid scent of burning flesh. He hissed in pain but said nothing more. He just stared hatefully at Alden.

"We slaughtered those trash heroes first. Breaking the remaining towers was easy after that. Having severed the portal’s power source, we headed towards the portal. When we reached the protal..." with clenched fist and veins popping from his forhead. "...Teryn had already killed Kael'thor and had established a connection to the portal."

After hearing that Alandra woke up from her daze. "How could he connect to the portal, he had no crystal to establish a bond"

"How should I know that, Teryn was an ascended mage specializing in spatial and dark magic. He probably had a way to sever the connection and connect to the portal. Or maybe he looted one from Kael'thor corpse"

"Kael'thor didn't have one, and my father stored the crystal in a hidden location."

"Enough Alandra, they clearly found the crystal so lets move passed that. What happened next?"

The room became silent and with a trembling voice, laced with fear, Alden squeezed out the words "...black hole..."

Alandra and Gigi were confused as to why he was so scared to say black hole.

Alandra called out to Alden "Go on, what about black hole?"

Regaining his composure he continued "As we stood watching their battle, the air grew heavy, as though an unseen force was squeezing the life out of the atmosphere. A sharp, chilling pull was rippling through the space around us, dragging the very breath from our lungs. Then the space surrounding us started to distort." Aldor began to tremble slightly, his stomach churned as he recalled the fear he felt at that moment. "Teyrin cast a spell I had never seen before; it tore the space around Baelor and without being able to escape or resist it, he was sucked into the void along with pieces of the portal. Had that spell lasted longer it would have sucked us all in. So we named that spell Event Horizon, since it resembled a black hole."

Staring in disbelief, Alandra and Gigi couldn't believe what they were hearing. Conjuring a black hole, how could that be possible. They both knew that black holes only existed deep in the void, somewhere far beyond the stars where no one had reached yet. "How could that mage possibly create, let alone control a black hole. The mana alone needed to mimique one would've drained his body clean and still not have been enough." Gigi just couldn't understand what he was hearing.

"He is the first hero to ascended as a mage, how should I know what's possible. What he did that day, still haunts me a bit when I think about it."

Letting it all sink in, Alandra felt sorrow for the death of her father, the other heroes and for the fact that she could not seek revenge. She would be locked here till she died and even if she could escape she would not be able travel far.

"If what your saying is true and the war is over. What happened to our kin?" Gigi had resigned himself to his fate, but he couldn't help knowing what befell the rest.

smirk "Obviously we enslaved them, no way we would kill everyone. Such a useful labor force is not easy to come by"

Gigi closed his eyes, not making another sound.

"But to give you just a bit of hope, we are still hunting down a few of the remaining heros. Its only a matter of time till we find them."

Gigi still remained silent. Alandra stared at the ceiling thinking about who could possibly escape, their enemies had an ascended mage now. It was over for them now. Realizing that all hope was gone, a wave of anger washed over her. Alandra tried to at least annoy Alden, "You may have won now thanks to that mage but now that you have no enemies, its only a matter of time before your Alliance canabolises itself. No way that an ascended would share the resources evenly."

"That might be true. But if anyone is going to be that ascended, Its going to be me."

Alandra looked at him as if he sick in the head, "You humans are greed incarnate, do you really think that mage would let you ascend and contest him? Fat chance."

"The dead don't scare me"

Gigis eyes snapped open in shock and Alandra's eyes went wide with shock.

"Gyak gyak, I knew Lord Baelor woundn't go down easy. gyak gyak"

smirk "Wrong, after he finished casting his spell, he was left with almsot no mana. So we all bandded together and killed him."

Alandra and Gigi were surprise, not because the other races attacked him since he posed a threat to the power balance in the alliance. But why would the other humans want to kill him off? Their race would have been the rulers of the world having an ascended among their kind.

"Don't be so surprised, after witnessing that magic. How could anyone possibly let him live."

"How could you kill someone that can control a black hole, even if he was weakend he was still a hero that reached ascencion."

smirk "It was a lot easier than you would think. He was left so weak after casting that spell, he was basically a rag doll. So I cast my magic and pierced his shoulder and the others followed up without a moment of hesitation."

Just thinking back to that moment brought a smile to his face, "He escaped us for a while but in the end he committed suicide by tearing himself apart."

Alandra coundn't help but ask "he was an ascended no way you all walked away without suffering heavy injuries if he exploded himself."

chuckle "That's the thing, he cast greater teleportation and since his mana was certainly depleted he would have had to use life force. Do you really think someone, ascended or not, could survive that?"

Staring at Alden, they both knew that using life force to cast a high-tier spell would put immense pressure on the body since life force was not as efficient at casting spells like mana was. It would have drained his entire life force and made him explode once he appeared at the targeted location. Or at the very least his body would be torn apart.

"Just thinking about that stupid face he made as he cast that spell, I can't help but smile at his death."

They both thought to themselves as they glared at Alden, what was this mad man planning to do to them.

haaaah "That put me in a real good mood, I won't be to hard on you tonight. I'll only extract a vial each of your blood and mana"

Glaring at Alden as he approached, Alandra spat at this face. sssszzzz Before it could get near him, it was evaporated by a ray of light. "Just relax, I'm not going to kill either of you."

Alandra and Gigi glared at him, knowing that their days were numbered.

"I'm being serious here. Why would I ever get rid of the best elixir materials."

Alandra and Gigi couldn't understand what he had just said. How could he turn their blood and mana into elixirs? As he prepared the needle, Alden’s mind raced. Each vial he extracted from them brought him closer to reaching ascension. "Soon," he thought, "the power they feared in Teryn will pale in comparison to mine."

All he needed now was to repair the portal and he could make a connection to it using the crystal. But that was easier said than done, Teryn had destroyed the portal and distorted the space around it making it nearly impossible to repair. But that was something he was not too worried about, given enough time he would find a way.