As soon as the director opened the coffin's lid, the half elf sprang out, wildly gasping for air. His expression almost screamed that he was happy to have survived.

The director on the other hand had a grim expression. Although this was an imp he was dealing with, he has underestimated the discipline of such a young devil. Although it did seem to be a close call for the imp.

If he arrived a little bit later, the imp would've died, but that in and of itself was an impressive feat from the perspective of the director. When he was younger, he trained for months to be able to survive for twelve hours with such little air to his disposal.

He never lacked patience or discipline, even when he was only sixteen, but the pain that the corpse stasis glyph brought upon the user was the crucial part of the whole process.

Since it was so painful, a common person wouldn't even hold out for a minute.

The director was convinced that the imp would never be able to hold out. After all, it was common knowledge that imps were the lowest forms of all the various forms of the devils.

Director Bavred marked a mental note to pay closer attention to the imp aside from also sighing. His chance at getting the unknown glyph from his benefactor were now truly zero.

His chances at getting the glyph before were relatively small already but now it was truly non existent.

Why he even tried with such small chances of success was simply because of greed. It may seem like a truly banal reason, but he couldn't resist the temptation of such an incredible treasure.

"Congratulations on passing the test. Now follow me." director bavred said to the imp.

The imp quickly came out of the small pit where the coffin lay.

After the director burried the coffin under the earth once again, the two left for the bureau.

When the two arrived before the bureau's door, director bavred opened the door with a key.

When both entered the room, the director hastily locked it up.

Bavred then walked up to one of the bookshelves and took out a book. Behind the book was a key hole, which he inserted a key into but nothing happened.

He then walked up to a simple looking wall while murmuring the correct password

"O dreaded safe haven, reveal your most terrific of secrets onto us."

The words "Welcome home" appeared on the wall in bright green colors.

Soon after the words disappeared once again and the wall suddenly started to move aside.

An eerie corridor was revealed before the imp. On both the sides were torches that suddenly flared up as the two made their first step into the corridor.

"The director sure is.. resourceful" was the first thing the imp thought.

The two went deeper into the dark corridor until a hall revealed itself. In the hall, numerous unwholesome cauldrons stood. The most notable thing about the hall was the magical circle in the middle that emitted a blue light, yet the most defining aspect of the circle was a noticible, blue smoke-like substance that ascended upwards in a spiral.

As the imp admired the contents of the hall, the director went up to a small box and opened it. Inside was a sky blue, transluscent gylph in the form of a vortex. At the bottom of the vortex, numerous tiny faces of souls in agony were popping into existance and popping out of it again as fast as they materialized.

The imp could feel how dark and utterly twisted this glyph was just by looking at it.

He wondered if the glyph that was before him truly only had the function of freeing him of his current soul problem.

His tyrannical heart lit up in joy just thinking about the possibility of other functions. Could he torture souls with this glyph? Tear them from their original bodies? Or even shatter them into hundreds of pieces?

The director now stood before the imp with the box. "This is the "soul absorbtion glyph", take it. It's yours." he said.

In the director's eyes, the imp could see a hint of sadness, or regret when he said that.

Of course, the young devil couldn't care less about a human's fragile feelings.

With immense greed in his eyes the imp took the glyph, though before he could place it down, the director said with a hint of panic in his voice "Wait!"

The imp looked into the director's face while raising one of his eyebrows in confusion.

"Place the glyph into the exact middle of your chest or the glyph might not work as intended"

The imp did exactly as he was told. He also sighed while doing so. He had almost ruined his one chance at getting rid of the two pests inside his body by being blinded by greed.

He placed the glyph very carefully into the middle of his chest. When the glyph touched his weak, mortal skin, he felt something atune to his very soul.

It was an indescribable feeling. He felt as if he had opened up some kind of hidden potential. It was like unlocking another sense only that he didn't know what that potential might be but he knew that it must've been something very important.

Seeing the imp placing down the glyph as instructed, the director nodded. "Now that you are ready, go into the middle of this magical circle. Only there can you get rid of your predicament.

Both happiness and ambition flared up inside his heart. Happiness because he was going to get rid of the two pests inside him and ambition because now he could study magic in peace. He was bound to overcome these mortals in every imaginable way! How can mere mortals compare to a devil like himself after all.

He stepped into the magical circle and hurriedly activated his glyph.

Both the glyph and the magical circle began to glow brightly. The circle also produced much more blue smoke, which was spiraling around the imp with a lot of speed.

In the very next moment some of the smoke began entering the imp. What was very weird for the imp was the fact that the smoke didn't enter the imp's body but directly entered the space where both his soul and the other souls were located.

The souls of the aco and the half elf shuddered as they starting to be dragged out of the body. It was an extremely painful experience for the both of them.

Although their faces were distorted through the pain, their eyes glowed with hatred and extreme determination.

The imp on the other hand was so sure of his victory that he subconciously loosened the pressure upon the two souls.

Seeing the only chance at turning the tide, the aco demon whispered for the first time to the mortal in the abyssal language "Let's cooperate. This is the only chance to defeat the devil!"

Much to the suprise to Krenas, the demon could actually talk! He thought it was a mindless beast.

Yet what was just as suprising was that Krenas actually understood the demon's odd language.

He didn't understand the words, but he somehow "felt" them.

Was it the glyph that was translating the words for him or was it the demon's doing?

He didn't understand but he nodded instantly. He didn't want the devil to succeed under any circumstances.

He didn't want to die. And just the mere thought that the devil could damn his sister's soul through a tempting pact, was more than enough motivation to try to fight against the devil.

The demon and Krenas suddenly struck with all the strength that they got left.

It didn't do much damage to the imp's soul but it distracted the imp for two measly second.

But this was damage enough, for the imp briefly lost control of the ritual, making something incredible happen.

The whole magical circle changed in an instant.

Before, the circle was just that, a simple circle. But now it suddenly changed into wavelike circle with hammers swimming in it. The circle was behaving exactly like a wave. Going up and down, up and down.

Yet that was not all. The circle and the smoke were now moving towards the half elf, pressing into him.

Though that was not all. The real spectacle was inside the ethereal space where the three souls were located.

The smoke and the substance of the circle now binding all of the three souls while pushing them towards each other.

When the three were side by side, the souls began to.. fuse with eachother! Much to the horror of all of them.

They screamed up in pain, for it was as if they were in a freezing cold river with thousands of needles that were all simultaniously piercing into them.

And as if that wasn't horrible enough, ethereal hammers suddely appeared all around them. Hammering mercilessly onto them. Shaping them into a single form. A unified form.

When fusing process was finally complete, the end result was seen.

The process fused the three souls into one being. A terrific being that defied all that was sacred and pure.

The soul was as dark as the midnight with hot flames instead of eyes that burned with the flames of hell itself.

It had the sharp horns of an imp, the tattered wings of an aco demon and a more humanoid form.

It was smaller in size than a normal sized human but a thousand times more terrifying to behold.

There was one last change. A heart could be seen. The heart itself was like two black waves crashing into each other at one moment and mixing together the next in the middle, surrounded by flaming chains and outlined by both a soothing light and a red, burning flame.

The heart represented the personality of the mixed being.

The two black waves represented the chaos of the demon, the flaming chains represented the tyranny and ambition of the devil and the light represented the good that was inside of Krenas while the red flame represented his strong drive for vengeance.

All in all, the newly formed being was quite odd.

Since the lawful and chaotic nature of the devil and the demon conflicted with eachother, it created a certain kind of neutrality.

The evil stayed the same but since neutrality was added on top of it, the being lost both the lawful nature of the devil and the chaotic nature of the demon, making it a self serving monster without regards for law of any kind but knowing law very well, allowing it to use law itself to gain what it wants. Through peaceful or tyrannical means.

Yet even though it was a self serving monster, it gained the potential of trust, love and various other positive emotions.

It had none at the moment except for Krenas's sister but it had the potential for it. Making it completely unlike any fiends of the lower realms.

Fiends couldn't feel any positive emotion except for pleasure, fun and excitement.

Love, trust and friendship were completely alien emotions for the fiends. They knew how to pretend that they felt love to seduce mortals but actually loving another being? That was completely impossible.

In the process of creating a fiend from a mortal soul, those positive emotions were stripped from them, making it impossible to feel them. Thus creating a being of hatred, strife and treachery.

Now that the souls have fused, the being inside the half elf's body moved after awhile of simply lying on the floor, seemingly unconcious.

The being looked up, and saw the director holding a glass orb.

The director took the being's hand and pressed it onto the orb.

Inside the orb the director could see the product of both the glyph's and magical circle's work.

His eyes widened in shock while thinking "So that's what the benefactor was trying to do?! Unbelievable!"