Book 1: Chapter 25

The gentle breeze carried Cyil far away so that he could no longer see Baccaus or Kara or the crystal Cyil. When the breeze finally died down and brought him to a stop, he could hear rumbles like the sound of mad thunder off in the distance. Cyil knew another battle had begun between the crystal Cyil and Baccaus and Kara. He wasn’t foolish enough to think he could influence the battle so he clenched his fists and turned away from the sounds, walking into the darkness.

Cyil took a few steps forward and began to worry that he wouldn’t be able get out like last time, but at that moment the spacetime around him began to change and his consciousness slightly blurred. This time, Cyil was not sent hurdling towards a planet but he simply ‘woke up’ back in Nakrul. He was in a cave and could only make out the surroundings because of the eerie gray light pulsating from his physical body. He could see his physical body sitting in a cross legged position while his own soul body gave off a weightless sensation. The Cyil sitting cross legged looked a few years older than he remembered.

Before Cyil could think any further, Bacccaus’ spatial ring and the rhombus stone was spat out from thin air and dropped on the ground next to Cyil’s body with a thunk.

Cyil diligently stooped down to grab the ring but it phased right through his translucent hand. Cyil tried again but the same thing occurred. Flustered, he turned his attention to the stone and once ‘touching’ it he could feel a greedy suction pull him inwards.

*BANG*

A flash of blinding light grasped ahold of him and he manifest himself in the rhombus stone. Cyil had become the rhombus stone. Or rather, the stone was now his temporary body, propelled and controlled by his soul.

“What an odd and cool feeling,” Cyil thought offhandedly but quickly remembered that he had only 24 hours to find a new body.

Focusing once more, Cyil moved his ‘stone body’ with surprising ease. He felt like he was controlling those fancy wagons pulled by horses. He was the conductor commanding the horses to do his bidding. Quickly getting the hang of the movements, Cyil tried to pick-up Baccaus’ spatial ring.

He slowly eased the tip of the rhombus into the ring opening and once the tip was in he carefully flipped the rhombus upwards. This was just like the game he would play with his friends and similar to that game, he failed on his first try. His second try was a little better but the ring kept spinning off of the tip before it was stably in place. Regardless of his failures, Cyil kept trying. On his 9th try, Cyil decided to push the ring up towards the cave wall and use that as another ‘hand’ to help keep the ring from falling off.

He only had to try twice with the wall method for it to succeed. With the ring in place, the rhombus stone steadily floated around the dark cave until a tunnel came into sight. Following that tunnel, Cyil was thankful it wasn’t too far away from the entrance.

As Cyil exited the cave, he noticed that he couldn’t feel the wind or the cold of the dawning dew. The colors of Nakrul also seem to have dimmed by a large amount. Cyil thought it strange but when he considered that he was in a rock, it made some more sense. “Magic is really weird and interesting!”

The mouth of the cave vanished behind Cyil as he came out from it. Looking back, the entrance was now just a solid slab of mountain wall. Cyil was astonished at the scene but reminded himself to stay on task.

Cyil glanced at his surroundings, rotating the rhombus stone 360 degrees but could only make out trees among trees. “Why is it a cave again?” Sighing to himself, Cyil thought, “If only I could get higher in the air to see my surroundings then I’d have a chance to find a village.” Cyil willed for the stone to float upwards but it remained hovering at 5 feet in the air.

Helplessly he said: “I’ll just search around for now.” Cyil choose the direction directly opposite of the cave wall and floated away at a brisk pace.

….

When Baccaus sensed that the connection with his spatial ring had weaken considerably he smiled as he laid in a pool of his own blood. As long as Cyil had escaped then everything was fine. Baccaus didn’t even have enough strength to cough up any blood as he waited for death to come. They had completely lost! It wasn’t even a battle but rather a one-sided game for the crystal Cyil, who was serious this time around.

Baccaus had placed everything he owned, except for his magical defensive equipment, in the spatial ring and had given it to Cyil. That naturally included the two saint artifacts and the book of the wizened. Baccaus wasn’t hopeful about his chances of winning and he didn’t want to crystal Cyil to gain anything useful so he choose this course of action. Baccaus’ only reprise was knowing that after the effect of the forbidden Time spell wore off, the crystal Cyil would be on the brink of death.

Off to the side, the crystal Cyil had a solemn look plastered on his face. He was not happy about this outcome because he knew the repercussions of the forbidden spell he had casted. He didn’t know how long his recovery was going to take but he knew that this body would no longer be a Time Saint. Still, a Space Saint including his own Death attribute made this body still ideal so he had no plans of abandoning it; besides, he’d spent far too long searching for a body and couldn’t afford to possess another body.

Standing in front of Baccaus’ flat body, the crystal Cyil promptly turned to Kara, who had been temporarily imprisoned in a spacetime locked spell and said, “I’ll give you a choice. You can either choose to obediently serve me as my slave and I will spare your man’s life or you can choose to struggle against me and he dies.”

The crystal Cyil couldn’t kill Kara nor could he quickly seal her powers away with the small amount of time he had borrowed so he needed her to submit to him to ensure his absolute safety. While he was in the midst of conjuring up the forbidden Time spell he had already thought about all these steps when he saw the affection Baccaus and Kara showed each other. If this plan didn’t work then before the forbidden spell expired, he would simply kill Baccaus and reduce Kara to a state worse off than him. The crystal Cyil was just concerned about the recovery speed of a Life Saint and what she would do to him after recovering, knowing he had killed her beloved.

Kara still hadn’t given an answer as she stared from the walls of her cage to meet Baccaus’ eyes. Baccaus couldn’t speak because blood had already clogged his throat nor could he send out any messages via his consciousness because of the walls on Kara’s cage, but Kara could tell that his eyes screamed for her not to accept the offer. When Kara saw those eyes she smiled and mouthed the words, “It’s okay.”

Then Kara averted her gaze to the crystal Cyil and said, “Swear an oath the the elements that you will spare this man’s life and not chase after Cyil then I will become your slave.”

The crystal Cyil smiled after knowing Kara’s stance. He replied:

“You are in no condition to be bargaining. I’ll spare his life but I will still need to chase after that little boy. His soul is closely linked to the welfare of this body, after all. If his soul dies then this body is as good as dead. And should he somehow grow strong enough to wrest control of this body back then all my work would have been for naught, so no, I will chase him as soon as I heal.”

Now that Kara had shown she was giving in, the only thing nagging at the crystal Cyil’s heart was that he didn’t know where Cyil’s soul had gone. If Cyil’s soul perished then this body would in the best case scenario lose more than half of its power and in the worst case scenario would slowly degrade until it completely died. At first, the crystal Cyil wasn’t worried that Cyil could regain control of his own body so he had kept his soul in the safest place possible and where he could supervise him. He just never expected someone like Baccaus to appear out of nowhere and ruin his plans. In fact, the crystal Cyil thought it weird he never noticed Baccaus entering the darkspace.

Kara shook her head. “I know the effects of the forbidden spell you used. You said 2 minutes? Over half your time is already gone and after that you’ll return to your half-dead state and this imprisonment spell will naturally disperse. Then I can easily seal away your power so that you can never see the light of day again!” As Kara spoke her voice rose with the momentum, but when she finished what she got was not awe but laughter from the crystal Cyil.

“Do you really want to test me?” The crystal Cyil raised his arm up and swung it down on Baccaus.

Spatial Blade Slash

An invisible force slashed onto Baccaus’ abdomen. All of his organs churned and those that hadn’t ruptured yet began to do so. Baccaus’ magical defensive equipments had long since been destroyed and the only reason he wasn’t bisected straight through was because of his strong physical body and because the crystal Cyil held back.

When Kara saw Baccaus suffering once more her eyes widened and she grew angry and worried. “Stop! I’ll do it. Don’t hurt him anymore. I’ll, I’ll do it if you spare him and promise not to hurt Cyil when you find him. Don’t put Cyil back to sleep anymore.”

The crystal Cyil smirked, clearly enjoying himself. “Fine. Swear an oath to the elements and become my slave. Naturally, I will also swear an oath promising to fulfill those two conditions.”

Kara gave Baccaus another glance, but his eyes were shut closed so she grit her teeth and began to swear an oath to the elements, which in simple terms was a contract that was upheld by the elements who served as witnesses. Should either party break the terms then the elements would punish the offending party with death.

“I swear to the elements that I, Kara--”

--*BOOM*

A surge of power escaped from Baccaus’ body. It was so strong that it swept away the crystal Cyil and caused the walls of the imprisonment to tremble. Right afterwards, Baccaus stood up, a powerful aura emanating from his whole body.

Forbidden Spell: The Sins of The Weak!

This forbidden spell that Baccaus had used was even more domineering than the forbidden Time spell that the crystal Cyil had used. This forbidden spell was an attributeless one and as old and arcane as it came. This spell was not particularly hard to learn, but its existence was known to only a few so not many could use this spell. Even if people knew it they probably wouldn’t use it despite the spell’s amazing effects: capable of instantly restoring the user to their peak condition, increased physical, mental, and spiritual strength by 200%, injuries received will be healed instantly, unlimited spiritual/elemental energy, and spells casted are halved in time but triple in strength.

The reason for not using the spell was a simple and direct deterrent. Those who use this spell would die in both body and soul.