When I reached the sisters, both of them were crouching on the ground, mostly due to tiredness. I put my hands on both of them.
“W…what do you think you are doing to me, you disgusting creature?!”
“Be quiet for a moment. Ariel: Healing Waters.”
A magical circle with the symbol of water appeared on my palms and I feel magic if lowing between me and the sisters. They have most of their magic drained due to all that battles. Ariel is a healing angel, with the powers of water, Healing Waters is what he uses to heal others. From myself, I allowed my flow of magic to flow towards and replenish the sisters lost magic. It felt wonderful, the soft movement of magic through the tips of your fingers, travelling through the magic circle, and filling up an empty vessel.
I can feel he powers of the sisters slowly returning as their magic slowly fills up. When I’m done, I disconnected myself from the sisters. Both of them turned their heads towards me.
“Why did you help me? Aren’t you going to hurt me when I’m weak?”
“Why should I? You are a beautiful girl, an adorable lifeform. Nothing can beats the feeling of approaching a beautiful girl and touching her. I will not hurt a girl unless she has no intention to listen, go against orders and disrupting peace. Of course, I will not even think about killing them. They are just too adorable for me to end their life. Now I think I need to clear things up. I am not hurting your sister. She is clinging onto me because of how she has always suffered from interacting with others. I’m just helping out to resolve and support her.”
“W-What? So you really h-have no intend to hurt anyone?”
“Of course not, silly girl. Have I even initiated a challenge against anyone to climb my ranks? I did not. I never wanted to hurt anyone. If you have heard my story as The Piece in the Darkness Elemental Plane, we never start a war to overthrow the other Grand Ruler of the other Elemental Planes, even though with our power and status in the Elemental realm we could easily do so. We are known to be peaceful loving creatures. We are the ones who were attacked by Light Elemental Plane first, we are only defending ourselves.”
Tears started rolling down the cheeks of Nicki.
“What is it? Don’t cry. I cannot bear to see a girl cry.”
“It’s…It’s because…wah!” She burst out crying.
“There now, nothing bad happened. No worries. Good girl.” I comforted her by patting softly on her head. Charlotte looked at me, face full of expressions but not saying anything.
“So, Innight. Do you think that is the end of the fight between the sisters?” Aquis asked.
“Definitely. I resolved the issue by giving Nicki a good impression of myself. She wouldn’t be giving us trouble now. The only catch is I think both sisters will be attracted to me, I’m afraid. One is fine, two is acceptable, but three can give a hint of trouble. I like to be surrounded by girls, but when they are in love with me it is another issue altogether. Love has to be weighted and maintained properly.”
“Three girls? Only Charlotte is in love with you, who are the other two?”
“You don’t know this, but I resolved my relationship with Time during the last night in the hotel. Of course, only her true self is attracted to me, her clones aren’t. Isn’t that right, Time?”
“Yes. My clone self now have no affection towards you. My true self though, is highly attracted to you. Though she won’t be able to see you due to the nature of our job. We have a Calling Crystal that allows her to see you from wherever she is.”
“Also, after this incident, Nicki should be able to see my as the same way as her sister, Charlotte, did. This will cause her to be attracted to me as well. That is a price that I have to pay to clean up the trouble.”
“Innight!” Two voices came from outside the room. Immediately after two figures jumped right onto me. I opened my eyes and two set of eyes, one crimson and one sea-blue stared at me.
“Nicki! Charlotte! What are you both doing here?”
“You are my lover, I’m in love with you, so of course I will look for you! We are supposed to be together for eternity!” Both of them exclaimed.
“Huh? But you both must know, you are human! You won’t be able to last as long as I do, since I live for practically Infinity!”
“We don’t care for that! As long as we live we want to be beside you!”
I sighed. I give up. Girls in love are the hardest to sway. I have more important things to do now.
“Alright, both of you, I have a few questions to ask you about your powers. Please answer for me as truthful and as accurate as you can.”
“Of course, Innight!”
“The first thing I want to know is, where did you get your Archangel Powers? Either one of you answer will do.”
“It just came to us naturally. We didn’t do anything.”
I sighed. That is a definite lie.
“Both of you need to read up more on Archangel Level magic. Not anyone is able to cast these level of spells naturally without a booster. From what I have known, and I know a great deal of things, Archangel Powers are always given, not derived naturally. Now, I ask you again, who gave you this power?”
“Really, we are not lying to you! One day when we woke up from our bed we found ourselves imbued with this power!”
“Then how did you came to know about it is Archangel level power?”
“We have a faint memory. Someone came into our dream that night and told us that he will give us great power in exchange for us working for the Light Elemental Plane. We agreed the deal and when we woke up, we are as such.”
Hm. Someone came into their dreams and delivered this power. From how the deal is proposed, it is highly likely that it is a Creature from the Light Elemental Plane. The thing is, why? They could have easily transformed their Creatures in the Light Elemental Plane into Archangels, instead of using humans. Does this have any correlation with the Creator that the Light is making? There is too little information now, I need more information to figure out the real reason behind all this.
“Alright then. The next question is, what is your current relationship with the Light Elemental Plane?”
“If you meant our position, we are currently holding the position of two of the seven Archangels. We are responsible to battle tactics and order the soldier around to carry out our plans.”
“Next question. Where are the other 5 of the Archangels? Are there in the school?”
“T-T-T-T-That is top secret! If we tell you we are going to lose our position!”
“Fine. If you cannot tell me where they are, at least reveal to me are they within the school itself. That is important as it may mean life or death for the school population.”
“They are all scattered throughout the school itself, some are teachers, and some are students. We are told to hide until a signal is given. After that we are to carry out a plan.”
“What is that plan?”
“That is top secret. We cannot tell anyone or we risk losing our power. If we lose our source of power, we might die.”
“I understand now. I need to tell both of you something, try to avoid going too near to me. I am The Piece, a dangerous Creature that currently belongs to the Darkness Elemental Plane. Since both of you are from the Light Elemental Plane, you will come to a day where you have to fight me. I know that you both love me deeply, but both you need to understand we both are from Planes in opposition. I will not hurt both of you when that happens, and I think both of you will not as well, but you will be punished from the higher-ups, while my Master is merciful.”
“We thought about that, we would rather lose our position than to hurt you.”
“Alright. This is all that I have to ask you both. I need the both of you to understand your position. Being a member of the Light Elemental Plane, you are bound to fight with us, the members of the Darkness Elemental Plane. I hope you are able to understand this. Try to avoid interacting too often with me so your higher-ups do not detect anything.”
I then sent away the sisters as I told them I will be meeting my Master in my room, they are not going to be favoured by Master Inoxion if they stayed in the room. Then I called Master Inoxion using my special black Calling Crystal.
“Hello? Yes, Innight, why did you call me?”
“Master, did you receive the message from Luthriel? I received a message from him and appearing the Light Elemental Plane has succeed in recreating the Creator.”
“No I did not. What did he send you? I know Nightius is holding onto a letter written by him for some time but I have no idea what is written on it. So you receive the letter? Is there something important there that I need to know?”
I read the letter to Master Inoxion.
“Hm… So it seems they succeed the plan of creation. From what I know, Luricerite has been planning a large scale attack against the Darkness Elemental Plane, and he has been plotting something else behind my back as well. From my last report on our 19th Lord, who is currently Lora, told us Luricerite is getting greedier and greedier. He is reported to have a map of the Elemental Realm and have made various markings on all the Planes. I suspect he is going after everything, that is, to conquer and rule over the entire Elemental Realm. However, we don’t have any prove of that yet. Just be careful. From your report he is hiding something under the hotel of the Elemental Realm, I suspect that is one of the many hiding spots of his Creator. Do you think we should raid the place to destroy it and figure out more of the plans he has?”
“No. According to Luthriel, they are hiding all in secret. They have been keeping this plan as a secret for many millennials, and if they are found out, they will destroy all evidence and we will not be able to figure out any more of his plans anymore. We have to carry out our investigation in secret as well. It will be slow, but doing so will ensure that he won’t be destroying all the evidence of him carrying out his plans.”
“Very well then. You have a job, Innight. You have to figure out who are the 7 Archangels and lock their powers before Luricerite carries out his attack, whenever that is. I have a funny feeling that the Archangels holds a special position in his plan. Disabling them should reduce the danger level of his plan.”
Suddenly an explosion took place in the school and the ground shook. I felt a wave of magic just swept past the school, and it is a very powerful one.
“What happened over there, Innight?”
“A powerful wave of magic just swept past the school itself. I do not know the source or reason, but I suspect the Archangels are behind this attack as it is a really powerful wave of magic.”
*knock knock* “It’s Nightius, Innight.”
“Come in. I’m talking to our Lord Inoxion. Try not to interrupt us.”
The door opened and Nightius walked in.
“I’m here to report that explosion. It was my student’s fault. They failed to manage their magic casting properly and caused an explosion and magic overflow.”
I and Master Inoxion breathed a sigh of relief.
“Stop scaring us like this. With all the Archangels and Creators things popping up all over the place, we are raising our security and alert level.”
“So, Innight. Your first job is to discover and find out the 7 Archangels. From my knowledge, their names are Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Camael, Zafkiel and Zadkiel.”
“I have already found two of them, they hold the powers of Zafkiel and Gabriel. I need to find out where the other 5 are. From what they have told me, the other 5 Archangels are hiding in the school itself. They are waiting for a signal from the Elemental Planes before they initiate an attack. What attack is it I have no idea, but it can’t be good. I have already neutralized the two Archangel I have discovered so they would not adhere to the plan. But for the other 5 I will need to discover them first before I can do anything.”
“Grr….. Time is what we need, but it is not what we have. We could have Chronos to manipulate the Timeline, but that will mean we will have our time sped up on another occasion of point on the Timeline, which is a hefty price to pay when every second counts now. We need more information as well, which we severely lacks.”
“Master, I have something to report as well.” Nightius said.
“Proceed.”
“Master, there is the implementation of the Ranking system which ranks students in accordance to their battle strength. However, this system was implemented by a suspect in the teachers. It is suggested by a teacher name Mr. Lament. I have always placed my suspect on him being a member of the Light Elemental Plane, since he has been teaching the students nothing but light magic. He himself is also very proficient in magic casting and I detect him having high level of magic.”
“Hmm. Innight, does that teacher teach your class?”
“Yes. Magic casting and mana control.”
“Innight, I want you to approach this Mr. Lament and try to figure out whether he is an Archangel. If he is, try to sieve out as much information as possible from him.”
“Roger that.”
“Now if you excuse me, I need to check out on the armoury.”
The call ended.
“Alright, let’s go to sleep. We cannot do anything until tomorrow. Goodnight, Nightius.”
*The next day*
“Mr. Lament. I have something to ask you about.”
I visited the staff room during my break time. I found Mr. Lament alone sitting in the staffroom, reading his spell books. His desk, as mentioned by Nightius, is covered with everything in relation with the Light Elemental Plane.
“That is rare. For someone as perfect as Innight to ask me a question, I wonder what it is.”
“Mr. Lament, are you working for the Light Elemental Plane?”
Mr. Lament turned to his book and twiddled his fingers. I can sense uneasiness is building within him. That is strange. It is natural for people to ask each other about which Elemental Planes they are working for. This means Mr. Lament is hiding something.
“Well, Innight, I’m afraid I cannot fully answer your question. I can only say that the Plane I work for is one of the greatest in power in the entire Elemental Realm.”
“I think I know who you work for, Archangel.”
I read his mind, he was shocked, but his facial expression shows nothing. He stopped twiddling his fingers at look back straight in my face.
“W-What do you mean, Innight, by Archangel?”
“Don’t lie. The power you own, your constant obsession over the Light Elemental Plane and a pair of invisible Astral Wings. You may be able to fool others, but not me. I’m more than human or a Creature of the Elemental Realm. I can see and sense things that others could not.”
He sighed and raised up both of his hands, admitting defeat.
“Alright. You got me. I am Uriel, one of the seven Archangels of the Light Elemental Plane. Why did you come to look for me, The Piece?”
“That should be my question. What are your rulers planning?”
“That is a secret. No matter how much you are to torture me I will not let it out. Why do you even want to know about our operation, The Piece?”
“That is my nature. As a member of the Darkness Elemental Plane and the Grand Ruler of the Void Elemental Plane, it is my job to oversee the peace of the Elemental Realm.”
“You won’t be able to do anything this time. You won’t be able to find out all the pieces of the puzzle before He rises again! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”
Suddenly, he wings turned visible. Blinding white flames started burning through his wings and on his entire body as well. I recognize this. This has happened all the time on the 19th Lord, where a betrayer is killed by a secret spell. We still have not figured out what causes the spell to trigger and kill the betrayer, but we have a rough idea that the spell is activated the moment some words are said. Rather than a spell, I will call it a jinx. Soon he is reduced to nothing.
Time is wasted. We didn’t have any more information than we have started. The only new information is that Luricerite intends to reawaken something. Is it the Ancient Beasts? Is it the Creator? Or is it… The Unknown? Whichever it is, it would cause a magic imbalance in the Elemental Realm, the Light Elemental Plane will gain a power creep and this will lead to them overruling the entire Elemental Realm, which is something I need to prevent.
“You killed him?!”
“No, Charlotte and Nicki. I think that all Creatures of the Light have this jinx implanted deep within them. If they say something that betrays the Light Elemental Plane, this will lead to their destruction. I will not pursue that much to both of you because of this. I need to find out the other 4 more Archangel and try to expose their plans and imprison their powers to prevent the execution of their plans.”
“Oh, one more thing, Innight. We can tell you the characteristics of each Archangels. That doesn’t violate our trust with the Light Elemental Plane.”
“Yes, that will be immensely helpful in my search of the Archangels.”
“Zadkiel, he always writes his things in rune language, he writes, read and communicates using the rune language only. Michael, he always leave behind traces of magic wherever he walks to. Raphael, he always seeks for war and fights. Camael, he has a kind heart for creatures.”
“Thank you, both of you. This information can realty help me to find them before we run out of time.”
“Now, let us go and find Raphael. Since he loves fighting, it is definite that he would be the one fighting the most in the rankings. I just need to access the system board to check who is constantly fighting and I will be able to pinpoint who it is.”
We visited the staff room and asked Nightius for access to the history record of the Ranking Board. Hearing the reason why, he immediately opened up the history record for us. I begin scanning the record to see who is frequently looking for fights. After looking over 200 pages of the record, I found two students that have relatively higher rate of looking for challenges. One is named Fulqour, another is named Raphael.
Talk about an easy job.
I tracked down the student using other part of the school system, and found him in the 2-C class. When we hurried there, he is busy fighting someone again.
*Ahem*
“Raphael. I need to talk to you for a while.”
“Be quiet! Let me focus on defeating this challenger!”
Isn’t he the challenger?
The challenge ended with Raphael winning. The entire class of his stared at me.
“So, you wanted to talk to me? Very well, but you need to defeat me in a battle first!”
“Let me give you a small warning, I’m Innight, holding the 1st place in the school itself, I have remain undefeated despite rounds of people challenging me.”
“Hah! I, Raphael, holds the 3rd place in the school itself! I always wanted to challenge you, Innight, now I have the perfect chance!”
“Time, Aquis, Charlotte and Nicki, set up a barrier, this is going be a nasty fight.”
“I hope you have prepared yourself, human, for I am an Archangel!” Raphael said as he
“That is where you are wrong, I am no human. I am the Grand Ruler of the Void Elemental Plane, named Zealus. I will let you know where you belong.”
“Ah quit the nonsense! Sigmarus: Ice Volcano!”
A crack appeared under my feet, a volcano made out of entirely ice came out from it and blew up the room. I dodged it.
“Allow me to use a cheat code. Overclock reinforced: Halt!”
A clock face appeared under the feet of Raphael and he stopped in space. I can read his mind. He can resist the power slightly, but only through his mind. At that moment, his mind screamed in rage.
“How did you stop me in time?! As an Archangel I am unrestricted by time!”
“Simple, I reinforced the spell slightly to match the ability of a Lord level. I can expand the region so that it stops everyone here so they wouldn’t even know that I have done so, but I have decided it would be better to let everyone know how pathetic you actually are when up against a person many times powerful than you do.”
I walked up to him and smashed on his badge. It broke. I unfroze him and he crumbled to the ground.
“Now, Raphael, I have something to ask you.”
“You cheated! I will not accept that as a victory!”
“Oh. So do you want this instead? Deeron: Soul Lock!”
His entire body suddenly froze, again.
“What have you done to me this time?!”
“Don’t you understand? Soul Lock. I have now control over your soul so you cannot move your body.”
“Unfreeze me! I understand now. I will answer anything!”
“Deactivate.”
He unfroze and gasped for breath.
“I need to know what is your higher-ups planning and what you are supposed to do when the signal is given.”
“We have constructed an underground laboratory under this school itself. We are creating new Creatures of Light inside there and our plan is to overrun the school itself with these new Creatures once enough of them is made. We, as the Archangels, will destroy the current school order and turn it into an educational school of Light. Now I’m doomed, I’m going to die, I-ARGH!!!!!!!!!”
As I expected, his wings turned visible and white flames set him on fire. The jinx is activated again, I still cannot figure out the cause of the spell but it is irrelevant now. I cannot save him as I don’t even have enough time to analyse the jinx and by the time I can find the starting sequence the jinx has already completed its’ job. Nor could I revive him as I cannot recall a soul from the Death’s Realm without a vessel to put it into. If the body is destroyed I cannot use revival spells to bring the dead user back to life.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Everyone looked shocked as Raphael slowly burns into nothingness. I can bet on the Infinity Cube that they definitely thought it was me who killed him.
A scream came from Nicki. I can feel her magic is overflowing and spilling out into the environment.
“Nicki! Control your magic! If you release it, with someone as powerful as yourself, it will create a world of dreams altogether! I don’t want to go through the trouble to disable it!”
“I-I’m sorry Innight! I cannot control it! AHH!!!” She continued screaming.
This again? What is the cause of this? Something is causing magic instability among the students and caused me trouble to resolve them. I need to figure out this as well with the other plans of the Light Elemental Plane. I suspect someone else is behind all this. It cannot be anyone from the Light Elemental Plane as they would never hurt their own Creatures.
The space around Nicki begin to distort and crack. The distortion and cracks begin to spread throughout everywhere.
“Everyone, don’t move from your spot! If you get separated in the dream world goodness know when you will meet each other again! Matter and magic does not work the same way as how the Real World does!”
Eventually the entire space fractured and a blinding light covered everything. I covered my eyes. When I opened my eyes, I see myself in a place which I will like to describe as “Nether”. I, Time, Charlotte and Aquis were stranded on a small island of red coloured dirt, surrounded by an ocean of lava.
“W-W-W-What exactly happened here, Innight?”
“This is what happens when someone loses control of their power, especially when the user is on Arch level. An entire world is created as a result of the power. We are trapped in this world until we can find Nicki and disable her magic. Only then the entire world will dissolve and collapse.”
“But why is the world like this? What is this place?”
“The world creates depends on the users’ magic. Nicki’s magic specialty is on Dreams, so the strongest and most troublesome form of Dream is a Nightmare. That will materialize itself into this world. The closest thing I can associate this world with is Nether, a place where our 14th Lord rules, otherwise known as the Underworld or Hell. It looks just like this, a place where fire burns for eternity, the dirt stained by blood so much that it turns red, so deep within the Physical realm so that lava flows. What I’m worried is not about the structure of this world, but what is in this world.”
“Fond them! Found them found them found them found them found them found them!”
I turned around. I see a group of robed people, with the sign of a triangle with an eye enclosed by it on their robes. That is the Eye of Providence, which is believed to be a sign of divine protection by the humans. If they are wearing robes with that sign on it…
“What are you looking for?”
“You! You you you you you you you you and the rest of your friendly fiendish desperate deprived looking friends!” The leader, who has his hood removed from his head, screamed as he scratches his head repeatedly and crazily. He has green eyes and dark green hair with strangely pale skin.
“And may I ask you why that is so?”
“We are informed, by our Great One, that you are interference to our Ordeal! We are to eliminate you here and now!” He continued screaming as he pulls his hair out.
I knew it. A cult. We appear to be the interfering them, we need to leave. Now!
“Time, Aquis, Charlotte, all of you grab tight onto me. I’m going to get us away from this gathering of cult.”
The three of them grabbed onto my clothes as tightly as they can. I cannot help but to blush a little, as I still cannot be able to withstand the wonderful feeling of a girl sticking onto you.
“Necrox: Invisibility, Nexctus: Warp!”
The three of us turned invisible and warped away. Just before I warped away I managed to catch some sentences the leader gave to his followers.
“How?! how how how how how how how how how how how how! How did they managed to get away?! Unacceptable, unapproachable, undesirable, unexplainable!” He screamed as he begins to bite his fingers so much that it started to bleed.
“Find them and kill them! Those who fails will get on the end of my Unseen Hand!”
Unseen Hand? I have never heard of that magic before. Is it a hidden form of magic? Never mind, I will rather not find that out.
We were to warped to a shore near the lava ocean. The three girls were all panting even though we did not exert any physical strength. That is a result of space warping when the users lack of sufficient magic power. The amount of magic power required for space warping is dependent on how distant the warped location is from the initial point. If even Charlotte is exhausted, it means we are of a decent distance away from the cult now. That will buy us time before they find us again.
The entire world shook. This is a bad sign. This means that the entire world is unstable and can collapse into nothingness any moment. If that happens, everyone will be swallowed by The Void that exists between worlds. I myself will be unharmed due to my immense power and ability to manipulate The Void, but the others may be swallowed by it and never be found again.
As the girls catch their breath, Charlotte asked me: “What are those exactly?”
“Those must be the creation of the nightmare itself. From what I see it appears to be a cult of some sort, I don’t know about what ‘Ordeal’ and their ‘Great One’ is but it may lead us to some clues where this place actually is and where Nicki is at. Nicki is the centre of this Nightmare and the one that is fuelling this world with her immense magic. This world will last as long as her magic supply to this world is not interrupted. We need to find her before the Time runs out.”
“Huh? But once this world collapse wouldn’t we be able to immediately return to our own Realm?”
“In the World of Dreams, normal rules don’t apply. Since this is a Dream, more specifically, a Nightmare, the Science doesn’t apply normally. In this situation, a fractured world will cause us to fall into The Void that surrounds this surreal world that only exist temporarily. Only if we managed of disconnect the source of this world, it will then dissolve and return all the Creatures trapped inside back to its’ original location.”
“Then since this world is surreal, why are we escaping from the cultist? They cannot attack us, a real object.”
“This is where you are wrong. In the World of Dreams, everything is real in this world and can interact with one another. Also, there is one very important rule in the World of Dreams, something so important that is you forget about it and it happened to you, you will be erased from Existence.”
“What is it?”
“You must not die in the World of Dreams. If you die, your very soul is trapped in the world of Dreams and it will be erased from Existence the moment the world is destroyed.”
“Scary!”
“Indeed. Any injury you incurred here will not be retrieved by your true self when you return to the normal world, but rest assured it still hurts when you injure yourself. Our highest priority is of course to find Nicki in this hellish and nightmarish world, but our secondary objective is to figure out what is the cult about. Since this world is built upon a nightmare of Nicki, this cult must have had something to do about the most dreaded fear Nicki hides among herself. I need to find it out. It may be a real issue in the real world that we have to face one day.”
“But we don’t have any threads on even where to look and what to find, how do we start looking?”
“I can use a tracking spell to find out Nicki. The problem is how we access it without any other creatures looking.”
“They are other Creatures other than the cultists?”
“Certainly. They are all nightmarish looking, so I would not go out of my way to describe how they look. You all should also keep your eye closed to ensure you all don’t get nightmares. Give me a moment while I find Nicki, don’t interrupt me when I do so. I need to concentrate really hard to do so. Artamiel: Locate!”
I begin to see the world in the view of The Void. I can see the Creatures, which I’m going to call them Infernals, everywhere around the world. I can see the cultists wandering throughout the world and searching everywhere. At the very deep and dead centre of the Nightmare, I see a huge building located and from inside I can sense a huge energy source coming from it. That must be where Nicki is located.
“Innight!”
I know! I can see that!
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! FOUND YOU! FOUND YOU FOUND YOU FOUND YOU FOUND YOU FOUND YOU!”
This is bad. I cannot use Space warp or else it might kill Time, Aquis and Charlotte. I have to fight them head on, but my magic is severely weakened and if I exceed the limit set in this world this world will collapse.
“Unseen Hand!”
I see purplish hands emitted from the back of the ruler and stretched out towards me. I dodged it, and blast it away with a fireball.
“HOW?! The power granted to me by our Great One to me, The Master of The Void, should not be visible to anyone but me! How can you see it?!”
Master of The Void? Could it be that they are the rulers of the Void Elemental Plane, which I have not seen for many eternities? If that is true, why are they group into a band of cultist? And what is their relationship with Nicki?
“How did I managed to see that is something for you to think about. If you please excuse me I will have to stop you here right now.”
“Let us see how you are capable to fight against the Master of The Void! Unseen Hand!”
More of those purplish hands sprouted from his back and stretched towards us.
“I really have to use this. Sorry in advance, Time, Aquis, Charlotte. Necrot: transquility!”
Black pillars of skulls shot up everywhere. It exploded into dark matter and entrapped the ruler and his followers in black sphere of dark matter. Even Time, Aquis and Charlotte is taken up by the spell.
“What do you think you are doing to us, Innight?!” The three of them shouted together.
“I said I’m sorry in advance! I need this spell to lock all of them down. I cannot use any high level spells to destroy them or else I risk destroying this world. At least with them locked down it buys us time to find out Nicki. This spell last for at least 1 whole hour, we can take this time to find Nicki and disable this world for good.”
I waved my hands over the bubble that traps Time, Aquis and Charlotte. The bubble dissolved and released the three of them.
“YOU! YOU ARE NOT GOING TO GET AWAY WITH THIS! UNSEEN HAND! UNSEEN HAND! WHY DOES IT NOT WORK?!”
“The transquility of Necrot restricts all usage of spells, only someone with a Creator level magic can overcome this spell. Now please stay here while we are off to search for one of our friends.”
“NO! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO! You are NOT to find our Great One!” He continued to scream as he bit his fingers and blood streaming down them.
Ignoring him, I pick up Time, Aquis and Charlotte and went off heading to the direction of the huge building that I have discovered during my search.
On the way I have to cut off a few heads of the strange Infernals as they are blocking our path of advancement. Soon we reached the huge building that I have seen in my sights. It is made of dark red bricks, with several statues of Infernals surrounding the entrance of the building. I pushed the door. It creaked but it opens steadily, slowly swinging inwards. The four of us walked in.
“Upstairs or downstairs?” Charlotte asked me.
“Give me some time to check.”
I enable The Sight again and view my surroundings. I sense the dense energy source coming from deep below the surface, and that must be where Nicki is located. I cannot see her as there appears to be something blocking my view. Whatever it is, it appears to be extremely powerful and have powers that match nearly the standard of mine. That alarms me, there is only one thing in the entire Existence that has power comparable to mine, and that is The Unknown. I have forcefully sealed that dangerous being with Infinity Magic, the highest and most powerful level of magic. The seal should not be broken even after the end of infinity of Time, how did it managed to get out?
I quickly returned to my senses and disable The Sight.
“Found her?” Charlotte pressed on me.
I’m stopped to catch my breath. I have not met someone with the same amount of power comparable to me for so long it is suffocating for me to feel it.
“Innight?” Time asked. “Are you alright? Please don’t die!”
“What do you think I am? I’m not as weak as those other humans you will find anywhere. My current magic level is on a Lord level, so I can withstand most magic. I was shocked, by the presence of something extremely powerful in the room with Nicki. Let us move now to the downstairs. She is there, but be careful, there is something there as well, extremely powerful, comparable to myself.”
We went downstairs, I have to destroy another few Infernals that blocked our way. At the end of the stairway there is a small door with purple tinted glass decorated on the top of it. I pushed it open.
Behind the door is a large room with a huge yellow sphere floating in the middle of the room. The room looks like a library, with all the bookcases and books around, I picked up some of them, they appear to be sacred texts of the Cult, to which I find the name of the cult to be named Styx Cult. Thousands of mana lines is connected to the yellow sphere. Inside is Nicki, but she is enlarged, a giantess, sitting in the sphere itself.
“Alright, Innight, this is the source of this Nightmare, kill Nicki so we can return to our world!” Aquis said.
“What are you talking about? We should not kill her. I can save her and cause this world to deactivate without killing her. First we need to wake her up, she is sleeping inside. I will do that, the rest of you watch the doors, if any Infernals wander in kill them off.”
“Understood.”
I stretched my hands out and touched the sphere, I begin reading the magic sequence of the sphere and analysing the magic imbued within the sphere.
“Nicki.” I muttered. “Wake up. To the world of reality and forth comes truth.”
Something came back and muttered these words, it doesn’t sound like Nicki, but as an Ancient voice that I have long forgotten:
Never thoughts to see you here again, Zealu’.
A long forgotten voice. That with the addition of his habit of omitting‘s’ from words that needs it and addition of it to words that does not. That must be… The Unknown. With my current strength I will not be able to battle him. What is his intention here? I need to ask him that.
Why and how are you here, Unknown?
Silence.
You will know that sooner. I shall not disturbs your job here. We will sees each other again in the near future. Adieu.
“Eh? Where am I?” A loud noise came from the sphere.
That was Nicki. She opened her eyes, her crimson eyes staring right at me.
“Good morning, Nicki. You are in the World of Dreams.”
“Huh? Why am I as such? Why am I trapped in here? Why am I so big?”
“This is because you are the source of this world. You fuel this world with your magic. You are trapped in this sphere to allow the world to restrict your movement and continue draining your magic to fuel this world. As for your size… I have no explanation why. It does not really matter because everything will be back to normal once we leave this world. Nicki, I need you to focus on draining all your energy back to this sphere. Once you have done that, alert me.”
“Why?”
“I need all your energy to be sealed properly and prevent any magic from flowing back to continue fuelling this world. Only then I can start to cause this world to collapse. A stable collapse will then lead us back to our world.”
I begin looking through the books as I wait for Nicki to retrieve all her magic. Most of them were studies about The Unknown, does this mean that the entire Cult has relation to it? Then since Nicki has an entire world created using these cultists as Nightmares, she must have some met them before. This means this Cult is likely to be real. I will need to know as much information about them as possible before we return. I continue scanning through the books.
Then I found an interesting book. It contains a record of all the cultist’s rituals, activities and information about The Unknown. This can prove to be useful. I myself don’t have much record on The Unknown either so this could help me fill in the knowledge gap that I have about it.
“I’m done, Innight.”
I slot the book into my pockets and used a solidifying spell on it to ensure it is kept intact when we exit the dream.
“Alright, now let me-“
“Innight! The Cultists are back!”
“CRAP! Lock and seal the door, try to delay them for as long as you can! I’m nearly done with the job and all I need is to slowly destabilize the existence of this world, then we can return to our own world!”
“HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU HOW DARE YOU HOW DARE YOU HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU MEET OUR GREAT ONE! WE WILL NOT LET YOU LIVE! EL DORA!” The screams came from behind the door.
I continued analysing the sphere, and found that it is a mixture of spells mashed up together. I cannot find the starting sequence of the spell, so it will be easier to treat the entire sphere as one spell and disable it all at once.
“Ganteuis!”
The entire yellow sphere begin to crack and eventually shattered. Nicki fell to the ground with a loud thud.
“Now I need to concentrate to break this world apart, do not let anyone disturb me! Lyrith: Parousia!”
I entered the state better known as Alzelea. In which in this state I can view mana flow and magic sequences. I can also interact with them to change the real world. I begin to severe the ties of the flows of the mana flow in the world. As I do so, I can feel the world begin to destabilize. Then I see the door broken down and the cultists flooding in. I cut off the mana supply to them and then they dissipated. This is likely because they are but an illusion supported by the mana and magic flow from Nicki to them. Once I cut off their supply of magic they are only sustaining their presence with their mana, if I deprive them of that then they will disappear.
The entire world begin to shake and starts shattering. I cut the final thread of mana supply and return to my senses.
“Everyone, stay together with me! If we get separated here or trapped here you will be swallowed by The Void and never be seen again!” I cried out.
Everyone crowded around me. The space begin to crack and shatter, blinding light emitted from those cracks and overwhelms us. When we opened up our eyes, we are back in the classroom again. Nicki is back at the original size as well. The students that were entangled in this matter did not return, however. I did not see them when we were transported to the World of Dreams, so they are likely to be swallowed up by The Void during the transportation process.
“That is an unforgettable experience! I do love to go on such an adventure sometime in the future.” Time said.
“Absolutely not!” Everyone else cried.
I took out my book that I retrieved from the World of Dreams and begin reading it.
“What is that, Innight?” Someone asked.
“Meet in my room. I will discuss further on what happened today there.”
The 4 of them gathered in my room later. I begin telling them my suspicions of this incident.
“First, the overflowing of magic of Nicki. Recently there has been many cases of magic spikes and overflowing of magic in the school itself. For magic overflow to happen that often, it cannot be a coincidence. This is also accompanied by the power spike the boys have, the group of boys that persistently wanted to fight me. Something, or someone, is instilling higher levels of magic onto a target and reinforcing their powers. This causes the powers to overflow and create magic instability.”
“Two, I met something in the Nightmare that Nicki has created. Something that I thought that I have sealed away forever to the end of Infinity. That something is what is known as… The Unknown. There is very little records about this Creature, but I can assure you, it is something that you will not want to face. It is incredibly powerful, matching my level of magic. It is better known as the Incarnation of Evil itself. It exists far before I can even count Time, it creates the Astral Realm, which is something that even I don’t even have access to back then. I will tell you more about this Creature when Master arrives later.”
“Third, the presence of the Cult. As I have mentioned to everyone except Nicki, the World of Dreams is shaped in such a way that the objects in the World correspond to the memory of the creator of the World of Dreams. Since the World we created is shaped like an Underworld and the creatures in there are twisted version of Creatures of the Underworld, I can verify that the Dream is a Nightmare. Nicki, you are haunted by your past with an encounter with the cult known as Styx Cult. I need you to tell us as much as possible about your encounter with them because they are very real, and they have relation to The Unknown, which makes them extremely dangerous. Not now, because my Master is about to arrive. Maybe after I have reported my findings to Master.”
A magic circle with the symbol of Darkness appeared in my room. A dark fire lit up from it and from the fire, a dark and intimidating armour stepped out of it.
“Who is this armoured person?”
“This is my Master. You all should have met him during your trip to the Darkness Elemental Plane.”
“But the Grand Ruler Lord Inoxion should be human! That is what we saw him when we visited the Darkness Elemental Plane!”
“He is NOT human. He is made of purely magic so he has no definitive shape and feature. He just tweaked his appearance to look human so he looks less intimidating and friendlier. What you are seeing now is how he looks like in true nature. He originates from this cursed armour, fuelled by Dark Matter, mana and magic. Because of so much magic is condensed in this armour, it came to live and created my Master.”
“Enough with the self-introduction. Please explain to me, Innight, about this… The Unknown. I myself don’t even know about it, means that it has been around far longer than the birth of Existence. I absolutely need to know about it, if it brings about danger to the Existence.”
“Very well.”
I took a deep breath, and begin to tell my story.
“To explain everything, I need to go back to the Creation Point, where everything, even myself, originates from. In human science’s history, they termed this Event as the Big Bang, but names does not matter now. The Creation Point occurred around 25 thousand eternities ago, which in human terms is approximately 25 Vigintillion years ago. During that time, my memory is fuzzy, but I can vaguely remember I belong to a weird black sphere, which I will term as ‘Everything’.”
“Inside the Everything is indeed everything. Mana, Magic, Planar structures, you name it. One day, without warning, this ball of Everything dissolved and everything is allowed to wander everywhere into the endless nothingness. The Void, Mana, Time, Space and Magic were the first few things that were allowed to expand infinitely and cover the entire newly born Existence. The Astral Realm is created at that very moment in time. I saw with my own eyes how the different Astral Elemental Planes are formed. After they are formed there are swallowed by The Void and disappeared, but I can still sense them somewhere within The Void.”
“That is when something appeared. I have no idea that it existed so it came as a surprise. It appeared as a Dragon, closing in towards me.”
“’What are you?’ It asked.”
“’I myself don’t even know. What are you then?’ I answered him back.”
“’I calls my’elf the Unknown, since I don’t even know whats exactly am I.’”
“’Then I will call myself…uh…Zealus!’”
“We then played around, mangling everything we can find together, eventually we learnt that we can cast magic. We have Infinity Level magic, so we can create spells and cast anything we desire. This is where the Elemental Realm is created. That was the initial creation of the Elemental Realm. So now you know, the Elemental Realm is created as a result of our mischief. At that point in time, there are no rulers within the Elemental Planes. So Master Inoxion was not present during the initial creation of the Elemental Realm.”
“We then observe the Creatures playing around the Elemental Planes, and figured we need a ruler for each of the Elemental Plane. That is when The Unknown decided that he should be the only ruler that governs everything, while I believe it is of greater good that each Elemental Planes should have their own designated ruler. Our first quarrel started over this. In the end I decided to let The Unknown rule over the Elemental Realm to see how well he is as a ruler.”
“How did it turned out?” Everyone asked.
“He was a failure. All the Planes are in a mess. I found that he casted a curse over all the Creatures of the Elemental Realm, he planted the seed of love for war, fights and bloodthirst in all the Creatures of the Elemental Realm. So now you know who was responsible for all the attacks Light brings to us. He loved to see violence, chaos and destruction. In other words, a warmonger. I decided to overthrow his position and secretly planted a Core in every Elemental Plane while he is not looking. The Core blossomed and created a Grand Ruler for every Elemental Plane. Note that Master Inoxion was not the first ruler of the Darkness Elemental Plane, someone else, whom I shall not mention here, is.”
“The Grand Rulers were peace makers. They resolved the violence and war through treaties and peace talks. When The Unknown found out there were no more wars and fights, he went furious. H immediately targeted me and tried to kill me, but I fight back.”
“’I’m the ruler of thi’ Realm! You are not ‘upposed to interrupts me! As the ruler, I now have the authority to demolish you!”
“’Too bad, The Unknown. Your authority is violated. Please rest in peace.”’
“What happened after was endless battle between me and him. We killed off many in our fights, the Elemental Realm is in a mess. Many were dragged into this battle without an outcome. He cursed every Creature of existence to have a love of battle and fights. That is a curse that even up to now I still have no idea how to remove as it is implanted deep within every Creatures of Existence. I figured out he is powered by the love of wars and battle, so by interrupting his supply, he cannot refill his magic.”
“One day I figured out this is enough. I wanted to reset the entire Existence at that point. The entire Elemental Realm is a wasteland. The Astral Realm, I detected, is in chaos as The Unknown attempted to drain magic dry from the Plane of Magic to fuel his power. That is when I created the ultimate Recreation magic: Ragnarok, to recreate and reconstruct the entire Existence back to its’ original form. I do not want to see the future as bleak as how it is if it continues the way it is so I wanted to perform Ragnarok. However I know that The Unknown will definitely stop me and even if I managed to perform it, he will cause the entire Existence to drop into chaos once again. That is when I have decided to do something to stop his actions once and for all: Sealing him.”
“Even us, Creatures of Creation, still requires sleep every once in a while. After a few eternities of fighting, we both went to sleep for a while. I woke up earlier than he did, so I prepared my seals in advance. I used the Seal of Infinity to seal him up, and to form the seal I created seven artifacts solely for this purpose, which I will call as the Infinity Artifacts. Each Artifacts were fuelled with magic to from the seal. Before I complete the seal, he woke up and found me, but it is too late for him. He cursed that evil will continue remaining in all Creatures as long as he last. Once the seal is completed, The Unknown is completely gone from Existence, sealed in a locked space and a separate bubble of Space and Time from ours. I then performed Ragnarok to recreate the entire Existence. The Infinity Artifacts later came to life, and I decided to assign them each to an Elemental Plane and crown them as the Grand Ruler of the Elemental Planes.”
“So after that is as history recorded in books. This is why when we met The Unknown in the World of Dreams I’m actually surprised. Infinity Level magic is unbreakable as only I am able to perform such powerful magic and break them. If I can hear The Unknown speaking to us in the World of Dreams, it means that the seal is coming loose. I will need to re-seal him again. That will have to take the highest priority, if he is let out there is no telling what he will do to the Existence. Also, since Luricerite, the Grand Ruler of Light is loves raging war against us, The Unknown is likely able to grow in power. Also, I have suspicions that Luricerite have got hold of news of the existence of The Unknown and is attempting to lift the seal. We are out of time.”
“I understand the situation now. Basically, you have sealed this Creature known as The Unknown, which is the one responsible for all the evil we see now. However, you have heard contact from him while you are saving this girl from the World of Dreams, and that leads to your suspicion that the seal is coming loose. You are also worried that The Unknown will collaborate with Luricerite, to fight against us.” Master Inoxion gave a summary of my story.
“Yes. As long as Luricerite is not able to kill you, Master, he will not be able to break the seal. He need to kill everyone to retrieve the Artifact as it is essential a part of them. The Infinity Artifact of Light is retrieved as Resika, the original Grand Ruler of Light, is killed by them. I need to re-seal the Infinity Seal, but I do not need those Artifacts, I will need to gain all my powers back to do so. I do not know how much Time we have before the seal is completely broken or before Luricerite puts his plans, whatever it is, into action. We have a few matters to take care of to ensure the safety of Existence.”
“Indeed. Innight, just focus on finding the rest of the 3 Archangels. You cannot take care of the seals at your current level of magic. We need to read up on this Infinity Level magic that you have used. Can you care to tell us how it is like?”
“Well I…”
“Innight, I have forgotten about something. I can contact the other Archangels.” Nicki interrupted me.
“Why did you not tell me so in the beginning…. It could have saved me so much trouble. Do it now!”
“Innight, the 3 of them is just outside our room, eavesdropping on the entire conversation we just had.”
“CRAP! This means they are likely to have known everything about The Unknown! They will then transmit this information to Luricerite! Intercept them!”
The girls immediately opened up the door. 3 body tumbled in.
“Nicki, are these the Archangels?”
“Yes.”
“Which means…I have my job done prematurely for me.”
“What do you mean, Innight?” Charlotte asked.
“Can’t you see? They are all dead. Someone assassinated them without us knowing.”
“Who and why?”
“Let me analyse the body. There should be the traces of magic used for the assassination. Be silent while I do so.”
I poured my magic into one of the dead body to feel any abnormalities. I detected, at the heart region, that there is an outflow of magic through there, and there is a trace of Old Magic of The Void at the wound. This is enough for me to verify who the killer is. I came back to reality.
“As I have suspected. Only one group of people will do this. They are a gathering of people that worships The Void and attempts to bring my true self back through any means possible, and they will not hesitate to kill anyone that interferes with their plan. They are characterized by their spells, they only cast spells of Old Magic of The Void, which are supposed have disappeared and forgotten by everyone.”
“Aren’t they dangerous?” Nicki and Charlotte asked.
“No. We only aim to awaken Zealus and hope to not injure anyone, but if they interfere with us we are then instructed to kill them.” Time answered. “However, Light has been interfering with our plans and recently they have been plotting to kill Zealus as well so we are to eliminate them.”
“How did you know all this, Time?” The two girls pressed on her.
“She is a member of the gathering of the Old Magic. She has records of them and interacts with them on a regular basis. This makes her the best ally we can find in that group of gathering.” I answered them.
“So what do we do with the dead bodies?” Someone asked.
“I will clean them up.” I replied. “I will extract their remaining powers from them onto myself. I need regain strength after breaking the World of Dreams.”
“Alright Innight. I will leave you to it. I need you to report to me any suspicious activity if you spot anything again. Now you just have to stop the invasion Luricerite is planning and regain your powers to seal The Unknown. To which we have to wait for it to happen.” Master Inoxion said.
“No, there is more. We need to find out the Styx cult, they have associations with The Unknown which makes them dangerous. They can potentially balloon into a problem that we have to face In the future. I have a book over here that I have retrieved from the World of Dreams that have more information about them and The Unknown. We need to find out this cult and eliminate them before they turn into a problem, especially with that crazy leader that they have.”
“That as well. If there is nothing else, I will take my leave.”
Saying these, Master vanished.
“Now then. Please move out of the way.” I said this to everyone while preforming a spell to destroy the bodies.
In the Light Elemental Plane, Luricerite is furiously shouting in anger.
“HOW?! HOW DID ALL MY ARCHANGELS GET ANNIHILATED?! HOW MUCH OF MY TIME IS WASTED BECAUSE OF THIS?! CURSE YOU, THE PIECE! CURSE YOU, THE EVIL ONE!”
He ruffled his hair as he continued shouting. All his servants retreated into the corners of the Throne Room to give Luricerite time to cool down.
“REMIUS! COME HERE AT ONCE!”
Remius quickly come to the front of Luricerite.
“You asked for me, The Great One?”
“REMIUS, ACTIVATE ALL THE CREATORS WE HAVE AND BEGIN OUR ATTACK! BRING DOWN THAT RIDICULOUS SCHOOL WITH ALL THE CREATURES WE HAVE!”
“Yes sir.”
“I WILL SHOW YOU, THE PIECE, HOW WEAK YOU ACTUALLY ARE IN OUR ELEMENTAL REALM! I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND DESTROY YOU COMPLETELY!”
“Do you wants my help?” A sound came into his mind.
“Who are you?” Luricerite asked.
“Who am I doe’ not matter. Do you wants to destroy Zealu’?
”You meant The Piece? Let’s hear you out.”