The arrival of the Avatar of Light, the Prophesied Savior, the Angel of Redemption, the Messiah Returned, the Harbinger of the New Dawn, et al, etcetera and so forth, could have gone better for it.

Instead of being welcomed with open arms, the City Ward had promptly been raised against the Avatar, as if he was a powerful Beast come to threaten all of Athens.

The Avatar was very much annoyed by this treatment. There were many wielders of the Light in Athens, he could feel them there, but they seemed to be protected from his influence, and the emotions that were flowing up to him were not the awe and expectation that should have been coming from them, but horror and fear.

As if he was just another rampaging Beast!

“Goddess of the Acropolis, come forth,” he intoned, keeping any hint of scorn or disdain out of his call. As if these mere mortals knew what it meant to be a god! “I am the Avatar of Light, and have come to accept your following into the forces of the Light for the battle against the Darkness to come!”

For a long moment, there was no response, a faint hint of irritation rising in the Avatar as these mere mortals dared to treat him so. They obviously did not have the faintest idea of his true power.

Perhaps a demonstration? He could display his power without harming any of them... yet. The recruitment of the Acropolis and its Healing power would be a potent weapon when the Darkness finally made its move, and bring ever more souls and believers who followed the Goddess of their organization into the fold of the Light...

He reached into the structure of the City’s Ward, a field of energy that could defy even Beast Emperors for a time. Said Emperors did not have his knowledge of magic, understanding of even more profound energies, and his reserves of energy rivaled their own. Simplistic Wards meant to defeat Beasts tied to the Elements were not going to stop the Avatar of the Lords of Light...

His power hit something, and there was a silvery spark. He had just enough time to be startled before the wildfire came for him.

His magic was torn apart like fracturing glass, exploding, ripping, and slicing apart the sky and reality about him with wild abandon, no rhythm or reason to it, impossible to command, control, or suppress. It ripped apart every protective magic upon him, layers of spells and protective mantles, and ate away at his great set of six pairs of golden Wings, tearing the three pairs of invoked ones away, and seething over the truly metallic ones in eager, snarling fury.

The Avatar was driven back a mile through the sky in a twisting ball of random exploding magic, trailing smoke, sparks, flames, nodules, webs, arcs, streaks, and explosions in all manner of illogical hues, colors, and patterns. His rebuffment could not be missed, and all the eyes of Athens were on him as he was swatted away like a troublesome fly.

When he finally regained control of his flight, he was smoking and charred, his pristine and glowing appearance ravaged, pitted, and blackened by the chaotic flames that he expelled only with great difficulty.

He stood there in midair, seething, staring at the glowing barrier of the City’s Ward in growing anger.

What... had that been? That spark of silver that had set everything off? It had even been able to act directly upon the Axiomatic power bestowed upon him by the Lords of Light themselves! No mortal of this world, tied to their paltry Elemental Spheres, should have been able to affect his magic in the slightest, or withstand the cutting force of it!

Not only had that flash of Silver torn his magic apart, it had then sent it wild! The power of Chaos itself had raged through his own disjointed magic, torn apart his Axiomatic control with pure anathemic frenzy, and assaulted him with all of his own strength!

He snapped his fingers and a wash of light spread across his form, restoring his pristine appearance and removing his physical injuries at the same time. This was merely a shell, and a shell could be fixed without the same effort as a true living body. He had no need of Healing magic to restore himself to full function and unmarred perfection.

“You can just go away,” snickered a voice in the distance, carrying directly to his ears. The Avatar narrowed his eyes and focused in on the speaker, someone who had come outside the Ward while he’d been tumbling through the skies.

A young man, who was somehow not radiating any power at all, although he was standing there a thousand feet above the ground without seeming effort.

A young man he recognized as a tool of the Lords of Darkness, the one who was meant to be his counter and opposite in the fight for the souls of the mortals on this world. “Mok Fan. It seems you have stopped hiding and bowed to the wills of your masters,” he stated grimly, staring at the young human.

“Unlike you, I don’t have any masters except my friends and family,” the other replied, his voice growing equally loud and mockingly ponderous. “Those friends and family are telling you to piss off. We don’t need your bullshit or your lies, and we certainly aren’t going to knuckle under to a slaver and snake-tongued piece of shit with a stick up its arse like you.

“Go crawl back to your hole in Rome and wait for death, asshole. Your agents in the city are already caught, so the City Ward isn’t going to go down, and it’s specifically keyed to you and your jackbooted assholes, so if you even get near, it goes up.” Mok Fan smiled cheerfully.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Do you think your paltry power can truly defy the power of the Light?” Michael asked, starting to raise his power and teach this whelp who was not even thirty years of age a lesson.

Mok Fan burst out laughing. Laughing! The thunderous sound of it was echoed by jeers and catcalls from the city below, hundreds of thousands of people out in the streets and staring up at the confrontation.

“Wow, that is some serious memory impairment from being knocked on the head, burned, and tossed about like a rag doll just a minute ago. Props to Sakura, she really is good at that,” smirked Mok Fan, completely unruffled. “And look at that, you are raising your power here, good ambassador that you are. You want to go at it? A pitiful asshole like you, relying on the power of Light to win?” His sneer was completely unfeigned, and the Avatar narrowed his eyes at the display.

“You’re a hollow piece of shit inhabited by an arch-traitor to all of humanity,” spat Mok Fan, his eyes suddenly glowing in different colors, the black and white starfield of the Void, and the tumbling kaleidoscopic of Chaos. “You think I can’t see you in there, wearing Archangel Michael’s skin like a suit, you bitch? You sold out your husband and tribes to the Lords of Light, and they send you back to finish the job?

“I know who you are and what you are, and so does the whole gods-damned world. You’re a treacherous backstabber and whore who has been caught in her lies, and fuck you and the Lords you’ve been cock-sucking. You want to start a fight with your skanky little meatsuit, you just bring it, bitch!”

Mok Fan took one step forward, and the Elements clear to the horizon trembled!

The Avatar paused in shock, feeling something echoing through the entire Manafield, the entire fundamental structure of the primary Elements making up this world doing something unprecedented.

They were resonating with one another, building upon one another like overlapping harmonic notes, uniting and rising to a higher truth! A truth of oneness, despite their disparity, something that rivaled the Axiomatic power of the Lords of Light!

Power swirled about Mok Fan, coming to him as naturally as the world itself. His power reserves might not have equaled those of the Avatar’s blessings, but all the Mana streamed to him at incredible speed, ready to pour into him and refill those reserves with incredible, appalling vitality.

The whole world was feeding him Mana, and given even a minute, he would never run out of magical energy!

The Synod had informed the Avatar that Mok Fan had lost the mighty Demon Element that would have proven such a dire threat, and even his Shadow Element was gone, both somehow given up or expended after his trip to the Netherworld. That should have utterly crippled the young Archmage, no, Sage now, and rendered him a mere mortal threat, easily overwhelmed by the blessings of the Light.

That... did not look to be the case at all! This resonance of the Seven Elements was extremely dangerous, an interwoven melody of the Elements that could catch and tear apart the singular perfection of Axiom with rhythm and change combined together!

That meant this young human, who was no longer tied to the Netherworlds and who bore not a trace of Dark Mana, was still the equal and opponent of the Avatar of Light!

This was not what had been predicted, and the Avatar, although enraged by Mok Fan’s accurate and cutting slurs that hit the truth so cleanly, was at a loss on how to assess the situation.

A mere mortal, without the backing of the Dark, was able to rise up and contend with the power of the Light? How had this happened?

“So, what’s it going to be, Evai?” sneered Mok Fan, addressing the Avatar by proper name. “You done playing at looking like a man instead of a bitch?”

The Avatar hissed. Regardless of anything else, this bastard’s power still had to be tested, and his weaknesses assessed! “Die, cur!” the Avatar snarled, and the Light seared out for Mok Fan.

------

“I would love to be out there helping him,” Goddess Sakura said softly, standing on the air, where the Cloudstepping Sandals Tats Sama had made for her, instilled with some Void energy, enabled her to fly without expending her own power.

Detonations of magic were exploding outside the city, but Mok Fan had driven the battle out over the ocean, so at least random civilians outside the City Wards weren’t being obliterated by the fallout of the struggle. Blasts of energy, elemental barriers and constructs, Sage-level spells enhanced with energies alien and transcendent were all clashing with soul-shaking power that had the inhabitants of the city and countryside all on edge.

I pointed off to the sides, and Sakura and Ruronalee glanced into the distance, where dozens of the Titans who were the single greatest historical threat to Greece, and indeed who had been its biggest motivation to achieve greatness, were visible now, watching the massive conflict of post-Sages explode across the sky. A City of Light rose to defy a Volcano erected in midair, armies of angelic creatures of Light slammed into rainbows of Elementals congealing from all the Spheres of power in apocalyptic battle, and the earth and sky rumbled and buckled with the strain of the conflict.

The Sevenfold Sage was holding his own, and without all that much trouble. Indeed, he was flexing in a way he had not been allowed to do outside the Broom Closet, where he had spent a whole lot more time over the past year while becoming the Sevenfold Sage.

It was not just the necessity of raising all his Elements to Universes, and the Broom Closet Pyramid being the absolute best place to do that. It was because Emperors, and a High Emperor in particular, were there to pit his strength against, showing him how to wield all his Elements separately with speed and power, which gave him the time to consider how to start merging them all into his Sevenfold Path of the Elements Conjoined.

The more powerful Titans were actually helping suppress some of the shockwaves from obliterating whole sections of the landscape, a task also being undertaken by the most powerful Knights of the Acropolis. The Goddess and the Fallen Angel were in reserve, ready to back up and rescue the two other Sages and five half-Sages of the Acropolis as needed, especially if the Avatar got petty and focused attention on them and their efforts.

I was here more to witness than to act. Mok Fan was playing his part to the hilt, which was exactly what we wanted.