The power raging through the sword and bursting out its tip was becoming uncontrollable for Jude.  Circumstances were only made worse by the residue of spectral power that Jude had absorbed.  Initially, when he had made the connection to the spectral power in the atmosphere, some of that energy was transferred to Jude.  Even after casting the grand sword spell, there was still power left over inside Jude’s Modicuit.

Now that power stormed through his Modicuit creating havoc to the already damaged circuits in from casting the oversized spell.  Jude had no idea that all this would have occurred but gritted his teeth anyways.  He didn’t have time to worry about it now.  Right now he had to do his all to keep the sword from exploding and falling at the same time!

The falling part would gradually become easier as more of the sword's power was expended through the tip.  Keeping the sword stable enough that it wouldn't outright explode was another matter.

The energy released from the tip of the sword was causing a strange reaction inside the corrupted Town Stone under the ground.  The power that made up the sword had been refined in such a way to extract all of the evil and corruption out of it, so when Jude took control of that power he ended up having a very pure source of magic.  This pure source of spectral magic was blasting away the corruption.

But the stone wasn’t turning back into a Town Stone.  It was becoming something else.

After all, this magic wasn’t pure magic.  It was pure spectral magic.

***

Lerhadar, the , looked on to the grand spectral sword and knew exactly what was happening.  Just as he was about to intervene with the giant swords situation, the space around him twisted and then locked into place.  He could still see out, but he wouldn’t be able to interfere.

With a snarl he turned around and looked at the old man who created this barrier, “Feyrath, I didn’t expect you to be here.”

Lerhadar was angry on the surface, but he was terrified underneath.  Feyrath was a being from the other universe who entered this one by the legitimate path called the .  The were incredibly hard to get passed, but if one did, they would become extremely powerful in this universe.

Lerhadar had attempted the several times until he came up with another method of entering this universe.

“Oh?  I figured you would have noticed me by now.  Perhaps you are getting rusty.”  Feyrath replied with a soft smile.  “After I sent Murl here, I would have expected you to be on your guard.  But I guess your time here has made you soft.”

“You sent Murl here?”  Lerhadar was startled, but he didn’t show it.  “Then that means you sent this other little one here as well?  This Jude?”

“I did, and I did not,” Feyrath said honestly.

“Your kind always loves to give answers that do not answer,” he said with a sneer.

“And your kind always answers with half-truths.  Now let’s put the bantering aside and get to the real topic.  You being here the way you are, is cheating the .”

“Cheating the ?” Lerhadar laughed, “That’s what we demons do the best!  Do you think we would play by the rules?”

Feyrath laughed in return, “This isn’t about playing by the rules, but about death.  You and I both know that death means little to our kind.  Death is a place, not an absence of existence.  However, that only applies to our universe.  Here things are different and because you didn’t enter by the you are now subjected to the death of this universe.

“If you die here, you will cease to exist.”

Lerhadar was startled, “What? That can’t be, I’m a spirit being that created flesh to inhabit.  There is no way that I would be subject to the rules of death here.”

Feyrath sighed, it was true that his kind would always be against the demons.  But they were all brothers once and hated the thought of losing one like this.  Death was bad enough, but it was still better than not existing at all.

“The perverted process that you used to create your body already merged your soul into your flesh. By doing that you became a demi-demon, but when you ascended to , you fully integrated with the .  Do you understand what that means?  You fully integrated with the !”

“No, that’s not possible!” Lerhadar was in denial.  Anger billowed inside him.  Anger that he made a mistake and more anger that Feyrath was the one to tell him!  He billowed in rage and then lost himself to it.

"True demons should never become a ."

That was the final straw, using all his strength Lerhadar threw a punch at Feyrath.  Lerhadar was a .  He was a multi-raid level boss for level 50 characters.  Nothing in Longdale could harm him, and his strength was unimaginable.  This single punch he threw at Feyrath could annihilate the combined health pool of Jude’s entire raid in one strike.  Yet, Feyrath didn’t even bother to evade.

The punch landed on Feyrath, but he was unmovable, like a statue.  Lerhadar’s hand, however, crumpled and ruptured.  The bones broke, and his hand shattered.  The searing pain brought Lerhadar back to his right mind.

Then Lerhadar remembered that Feyrath had passed the .  Feyrath was in an entirely different league than him.

“Then why are you here?” Lerhadar snarled.  “Are you here to kill me?  I know the rules that the places on you.  Can you even kill me?”

“No I'm not going to kill you,” Feyrath replied with a sad tone.  “but because you kept subverting the system, I do have the authority.  Instead, I’m going to let him do it.”

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Lerhadar looked to were Feyrath motioned and saw Jude.

Lerhadar laughed, “Him?  He nearly killed himself doing that grand spell for just a single .  He’s burnt out his magic, and even if he were at full capacity, he wouldn’t be worthy of the dirt between my toes.”

“Hmmm, which is why I’m putting restrictions on you,” Feyrath said. “In this area, you shouldn’t be so strong.  Even your servants are a bit too powerful.  This area is supposed to be a level 10 max training zone.  Yet you and many of your demons are level 50.  Because of this, the has opened up its entire control set to me.

“I’m reducing you to a level 20 raid boss. And…”

***

A howl of rage could be heard over the defining roar of the Grand Spectral Sword stuck into the hillside.  Jude paid it little mind because of the agonizing pain he was going through to keep the sword under control.

The ground was continually rumbling now as the overwhelming power of spectral magic was flowing into the ground.  The stone mountain under the Longdale that made up the old Town Stone was turning transparent once again.  Yet this time it contained a strange glow of violet and a blue inner radiance.  There was so much power going into the stone that wisps of spectral magic could be clearly seen seeping out of the ground all over town.

Finally, the sword stabilized in its reaction.  Jude was no longer worried that it would blow up and it seemed to emit energy out its tip continuously.  The only worry that he had now as that it would fall over.

He decided to use , but the remnant spectral energy was wreaking havoc across his entire Modiciuit by this point.  In the past, he destroyed his skill, but in turn, he created another skill that was still helpful.  This time it seemed that he destroyed most of with no rewards in return.  Using was not going to be easy.

But he didn’t have a choice either.  He wouldn’t be able to hold up gigantic spectral sword much longer.  Once it fell, it would cause untold damage.  He didn’t even want to think what the beam of spectral energy would do if the sword tip left the ground.

All the inputs for were wasted, so Jude used what was left of to control part of the raging spectral power inside the Modicuit and flow it into his circuitry.  He would get only one chance.  The raw spectral energy was not suitable for this action and would most likely destroy the already damaged .  But to Jude, it was worth it.  Not only to save his own life but also save his friends and the others from Longdale.

started to materialize around the blade of the large sword where it met the ground.  Surviving demons near the sword began attacking the foundation magic.  They had been too scared to attack the sword, but the foundation was a different matter entirely.  Not only was it not lethal, in its current state it had yet to form.

Krinn had been keeping a close eye on everything that was happening and launched forward to attack the demons.  He yelled, “Charge!  Don’t let them obstruct what Jude is doing!”

The people of Heroic Retribution roared out they're assault in response as well.

Where the sword landed was quite far from where they were, so Heroic Retribution rushed up the hill into the battlefield at large.

Ellie stayed behind to protect Jude.  She pulled out a giant crossbow in the shape of an X with a tripod from her spatial bag.  This crossbow was a new creation based on the one she had made when she and Jude had fought the inside Grimwar Caves.  Now it had been vastly improved.  It now could auto load, and with her Divine Smithing skills, she enabled it to auto target and fire on enemies.

The crossbow came to life as it scanned the surroundings for a target close enough.  Ellie stood at his other side; she would be his protector during this time.

Jude was fighting a battle of his own.  He was continually struggling against the power of the spectral magic that was not his own.  While at the same time he was trying to formulate the formation of as the demons attacked it.

The voice echoed out once again; it was the , “Knights and Nobles who accepted the gift of corruption, charge forth and display your loyalty!”

Then houses and buildings across the town burst open or collapsed as new demons rushed out to confront both Jude and the people of Longdale.

Everyone had forgotten the people who had been loyal to Lord Merek and hadn’t thought to find them.  In the previous chaos, most assumed that they had fled.  But now it seemed that they had sided with the .  These traitors came out, not by themselves, but with all their servants, family, and fighters converted to demons.

Now the people of Longdale who had surrounded the and his minions were in turn surrounded themselves.

Ellie stood by as a large wall nearby collapsed revealing a small group of demons.  The automatic crossbow quickly targeted them and started thumping out crossbow bolts.

They were too near for the crossbow to take them all out by itself, so Ellie took action as well.  Frist, she cast which slammed down on the front line of demons.  Then she threw out her hammer as it expanded in size.  The hammer then bulldozed through the demons.  Yet there were still two more demons that made it past.

One demon whaled at the crossbow until it was knocked over.  The other engaged Ellie in close combat.

Ellie’s hammer reappeared in her hands instantaneously and blocked a blow by the demon who had a wicked looking sword.  However, these demons were only level 10 while she was level 20!  After blocking she swung her hammer hard.  The demon tried to block with its sword, but it was no use.  The hammer continued down onto the demon’s chest causing it to cave in, then the back side of the demon exploded out by the power of the hit.

The other demon saw his companion suddenly slain and decided to retreat.  Ellie was in no mood to let one escape, so she used once again, killing her target.

Jude was by her the entire time, yet didn’t notice a single action as he was entirely concentrated on setting up the .  If he had, he would have been quite impressed with Ellie’s fortitude.

Moments later, Jude finally completed the stabilizing the giant sword made of spectral energy.  Because they were both of the same magic and came from the same source and controller, the two merged allowing Jude better control over the sword and solidifying its position.

It was at this point that Jude finally had some time to look at his Modicuit.  The results made him sigh.  was now completely ruined.  In fact, all his Wizard skills were heavily damaged and were continuing to be destroyed.  The spectral energy that he had absorbed was still running rampant inside his Modicuit, slowly spreading to other circuits.  And it wasn’t limited to just the Wizard skills, his other skills from Warrior, Rogue and Healer were being affected as well.

It was only the Spell Analyst skills that he wasn’t sure about, after all, he couldn’t see them inside his Modicuit.  He tested out a few and found that they all seemed to work fine.  At least he still had something he could use.  However, he wasn’t sure how much it would be helpful in combat.

Seeing Jude move once again, Ellie asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll manage.  Where is everyone?”  He asked.

“They are up the hill protecting the spell you were just casting.  But now more demons have come out of hiding.  We need to regroup with Heroic Retribution.”

Jude looked up the hill and saw his people fighting off the demons.  Then higher up to the who was staring daggers down at him.

“Yeah, one last battle.  We can do it.”

“Are you sure?” Ellie asked.  “You are kind of smoking and don’t look so good.”

Jude looked at himself and realized he hadn’t just burned out his Modicuit, but perhaps his body as well.  

The gigantic sword was now stabilized, and it would take a while for the energy to dissipate through the tip.   In the meantime, there were other things to take care of.

He quickly downed a health potion and said with a wink, “Don’t worry, it’s only a .”