The warlock trembled in frustration, around him were burning pieces of esoteric items, all were covered in silver flames that did not just burn but disintegrated them to naught. Some of the items giving out haunting screams as they disappeared forever.

Urghut was right about the Red Tower containing artifacts of the fallen race, even he himself had several pieces of nephilic equipment in his inventories yet he looked crestfallen as they were burnt to nothingness, these lost treasures were priceless.

He sighed, the absolute soul worked as intended, those long dormant artefacts were drawn to life, sheer umbral energies poured from them, the very fabric of existence straining to contain their seething radiance, few things could surprise him but the power of the artifacts made his mythril heart to shudder.

shortly before they were destroyed by the surging flames of the Herald, even items he thought indestructible was put to the test before those flames, they all failed.

His annoyance mounted as he tried various ways to slow the flames, even using an aegis shield rune, the only nephilic artifact whose abilities could be used by sacrificing 999,999 earth attributed acolytes only delayed the inevitable for a few moments.

There were more ways to skin a dragon, he shifted his focus from metal and wood to flesh for the one trait that terrified the powers of the universe. Bio-assimilation.

killing nephilim was hard enough, but their soul were very resilient and could take over any fleshy being, it was not strange for a single Nephilim to walk into a battlefield against a million soldiers and walk out alone after dying countless times and possessing new bodies when they lost theirs...life and death were a game to them, until they were stopped by something more terrifying, something none should ever challenge.

He stared at the green burning soul with muted disappointment, the primary aim for why he purchased the absolute soul was for accessing artefacts of power not for it’s bio- regenerative properties, the herald flames were intrusive, he had gambled and lost, maybe this next experiment may bear unexpected fruits he hoped...

calling his most accomplished acolyte over,

“ Rhoda, bring me the corpse of a female of any sentient species, an egg and also a Draco-horse”.

Bowing the acolyte rushed to fulfilling his orders, summoning the soul to his palm once more being extra careful not to let it burn near his aura, for that blighted flame will use it as fuel, the warlock placed it on his workstation and rapidly prepared some tools that were to be used in the next experiments.

The acolyte came in with the corpse of a lizard woman, green skin with a willow figure, directing him he carefully placed the corpse beside the soul.. stepping back he stared with fascination as his master drew runes on the body with a series of rapid movements.

Opening the mouth of the corpse he pushed the soul into it.

A soft crack was heard inside the corpse and with a dull grating sound of breaking bones the body rapidly reconstituted.

The figure filled up, the bones softening and reshaping into a male visage, the breast deflated into wide chest, and in a short while, a handsome male reptilian lay on the work station... pale white fuzz on his head....

Rhoda was struck dumb by this, as he watched, the corpse started to twitch, little ticks that began from the extremities, the chest rose and fell as the corpse was brought back to life...

“How is this possible teacher?”

grunting the warlock said, “this is not meant for you to know”. The face of the body on the table was peaceful then it warped into fear, then pain as the mouth opened in a silent scream, smoke rose out of the mouth as the body began to bubble with heat, suddenly silver flames shot out of the eyes and mouth a disturbing moan was heard from the body before it turned to ash.

the soul left hovering in the air...

It was dim and lifeless but started gaining back a brighter hue at an observable rate before stabilising at its previous state.

He repeated the same experiment with the egg and the Draco- horse, the former lacked biomass for mass manipulation and devolved into a bloody sludge, the latter became a hulking figure fifteen feet tall. All fell into conflagration a short while later.

The acolyte spoke, “ forgive me master for my unruliness, but is this an absolute soul?”

The warlock sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose “ yes it is, millennia before the break, this soul would have been priceless during the war, but now this is worthless to me, apart from its peculiar ability to draw pure essence, but that in and of itself is useless as the essence gathering rate was relatively slow, also the stability of the soul bio-memory is astonishing but that was expected for all absolute souls, only this Herald flame is.....problematic to say the least.

The acolyte choked" the Heralds was involved, master?, this is his flames!"

Glancing at him the warlock replied “ An extremely tiny portion he left behind, I should have expected this result, Urghut would not have been allowed to trade this soul if it was not tainted”.

The warlock stood up after thinking for a while, “ I won’t make a loss in this transaction, perhaps I might just know the right person who will be very interested in this soul when we return”.

Rhoda shifted to the side and eyed the soul “This soul destroys all it touches, the Herald flame is the incarnation of change, master I don’t think this soul will be stable for long”

“it won’t, but that old dragon should have a use for this soul” The red warlock spoke as he sealed the green flaming soul.

The acolyte scoffed “the mad gatekeeper!"

Glancing at him the warlock said “ be careful with your words Rhoda, Zarathul may have lost his standing and fell into punishment, but he was once a shining beacon of our tower, even now his power still hold weight in many planes "

The acolyte looked away" if you say so master, should I hasten the pace of the journey?"

“ yes, pack up the natives, and begin the rites of transference, Any benefits I would gain from this ruin world pale in comparison to the old dragon. I will be linking a passage to the aether in a short while”.

A few moments later a grand formation was unveiled in the skies above the camp tearing apart the burning clouds for miles around, it was hexagon in shape and was seemingly painted with streaming light... various arcane symbols were imprinted inside the formation and they pulsed like a beating heart.

Already everything that could be put away and bolted down was done and the slaves were packed in sealed Chambers.... acolytes that had controls of spatial essence were on selected position as gleaming purple essence poured out of their bodies, all the essence gathered on the right hand of the red warlock who was hovering seven metres above the camp , he compressed the essence to a dot, while more streamed into his hand.

The acolytes face whitened, as their bodies shrunk... they were going to lose at least a year of life, but the benefits they would receive once returned would more than make up for their losses, as some fainted, they were rapidly replaced, spatial essence was rare, but the red tower gather disciples in hundreds of planes, rarely where there situations whereby acolytes of varying essence type was scarce, even for obscure essence like space.

when the red warlock judged he had enough essence to work with, he drew the now solidified essence to rest in both palms, and with a whoosh colorless intense neutral essence that was almost solid poured into the purplish orb, in short while the purplish orb became diluted but expanded and rose up into the air, pale arcs of purplish lightning sizzling from the essence that rose up faster and faster until it was merged into the glowing formation in the clouds.

Rhoda stood near the centre of the camp as he peered deeply into an Astronomical, one of the reasons he became the chief acolyte of the red warlock was because he had the rare spatial essence, and unlike the acolyte that were to dutifully pour out their essence every space jump, he could simply observe and get a better feel of the operation of his essence.

It was all to becoming better at manipulating space, he would need all the experience for he was going to be breaking the barrier soon to become an official warlock, and he choose the spatial category to elevate into, his master approved of this decision, and his family would have it no other way, the Aurelius family was nothing but ambitious.

The dangers associated with ascending as a spatial warlock was incredibly high, acquiring powers came with risk, and the survivability and powerful offense and defensive spells available to spatial mage were the stuff of legends.

The Astronomical made it easy for Rhoda to peer into spatial pathways, something he should be only able to do as a spatial warlock, this incredible tool was granted to him by the red warlock... his eyes watered but he hardly blinked and with a tear the skies were open and a deep void was revealed, he rapidly drew his eyes away from the Astronomical ,putting it away safely, he was far too weak to observe the void, doing so risk madness and possession.

Light sprung down from the array enveloping the entire camp. And with a resounding boom and a clap of thunder the entire camp and a few inch of soil vanished from sight, only the eerie whoosh of hot air filling up the vacuum was heard.