BOOM

Magma exploded in every direction as massive force slammed into the churning surface. Ignis Lumen had finally arrived, a distance away from of a towering fort of solid rock. He would walk the rest of the way by feet as his usual way of travel would be far too loud and flashy for his current intentions.

The magma below his feet was significantly less viscous than usual as he stepped forward in a casual stroll. A normal castle would have a road leading to it, but fort Boyard was different: It was enveloped by lava so molten that it was utterly impossible for a common soul to stand on it, much less walk through, making it a natural obstruction. The fort itself was relatively pointless and troublesome to maintain, but it was a curious sight nonetheless.

The architecture was rather uncommon too. There was no gate nor bridge leading to it, just various stone stairs leading up to the ramparts from the sides, that might seem like a horrible defence setup, but it was very unlikely anyone would have any reason to attack this chunk of stone in the first place.

There was of course a reason why Ignis Lumen was here. That reason was in fact simple: In order to end the rebellion. It was a cunning move to hide their headquarters in a place so meaningless that few even knew it existed. There was just a single thing they forgot to account for, or perhaps they just couldn't.

Count Gedon. A single name was enough to track down everything. It was a simple loophole possible because of the nature of Hell. A soul without a body was so very vulnerable to simple tracking magic and even more so to an extraordinarily intricate one. Ignis Lumen had carefully extracted that name from a certain interrogator tasked with taking care of the king's honoured ambassador. Then he needed only to look for this mastermind of the rebellion.

It did not take him too long to waltz to the fortress itself as he did not really bother with being too stealthy. Despite the fact that the structure was a fortress a stationed army was nowhere to be seen here and thus couldn't really attack him. A long period of peace precedented the rebellion and when that was combined with the difficulty of supplying the place it was no wonder that before the semi recent event there were only a small number of troops stationed here; the fort was mostly a spectacle anyway. When the rebellion started and the fort was taken over an army was never stationed here, most likely to avoid unnecessary attention and attrition.

The moment he was close enough he covered the entire fortress with his power. An alarm rang, it was a high pitched scream, reminiscent of a banshee screech. Since they were already aware of his existence there was no reason for continued stealth, now that he was already covered the place in a veil of his soul he could be certain that no one would be able to slip away. He calmly walked up the stairs, sensing groups of people gathering beyond the ramparts. He waved his hand and significant power manifested, passing through the wall and hitting the most packed group he could perceive. It was a rather weak and pointless attack, but he wanted to test the quality of the defenders.

When they were hit by the wave of power their forms began to ripple, then they scattered into countless ribbons which flew away in all directions at rapid speed, all that was left behind was a nascent soul, a sphere of pure immaculate existence. They floated for a second and then sunk, passing through the ground in their journey beneath and towards their next life.

[Killed 13 creatures; unable to obtain essence, because race=sentient soul]

Oh, he forgot to turn these off. He made a gentle nudge to the presence in the corner of his consciousness.

[Disabled all notifications while race=sentient soul]

That would spare him some annoyance, the thing was not designed with perpetual reincarnation in mind leading to bugs like these. An associated memory of his long dead uncle popped up in his head, resulting in a small spark of melancholy that was suppressed the very next moment. It was not good for him to think about what once was as it brought back too many unpleasant feelings. He lost far more than should be remembered.

Once he climbed the stairs and reached the top of the ramparts, before him appeared a curious design, the middle of the fortress was completely hollow, as if a large ellipse chunk was taken out of the of the fort’s structure. More and more souls gathered at the ramparts as the alarm rang, most of them staring at Ignis Lumen and preparing to attack. When he judged enough attention was on him he waved his hand, a visible wave of power shot for the nearest group. Just like a natural catastrophe the wave left nothing behind intact, every single one of those souls dispersed like his original victims.

Everyone stopped and became silent, stunned by his rapid obliteration of the group, whether they used to be strangers, comrades or companions of the fallen they no longer dared even move. He did not do anything more as he already achieved his desired intimidation and was currently not in a mood to indulge himself with senseless massacre. Admittedly he would never indulge himself in senseless slaughter; those he had slain all died for some reason, although often a pathetic one. As he was starting to consider what his next steps were, something curious caught his eye.

It was some sort of complex machine of unknown origin or purpose standing in the middle of the hollow ellipse. It seemed almost ordinary at first, yet when Ignis Lumen attempted to perceive it he felt it was eerie, somehow barely beyond what he could currently grasp.

That meant it was extremely dangerous.

Anything that could hide its true nature from his current form must be somehow related to something that existed before time itself. A remnant of one of the long dead aspects. For a lesser being to be in possession of such artifact was a heresy against existence itself. A heresy that must not go unpunished. Ignis Lumen turned back towards the ramparts and waved his hand again, this time fully serious as he send another wave of power. Whether they were aware of it or not, they committed one of the greatest sins imaginable.

This time they did not disperse until only a nascent soul was left, they utterly vanished, the only remaining trace of their existence was a scream of agony they left behind. For a moment the entire fort flared with a resounding choir of deafening screams as the wave spread to every crack and nook.

And then all sound ceased.

No one could truly erase a soul, but this was as close as anyone could get. Ignis Lumen turned back to the device. He did not find the so called count Gedon with his attack; that meant that after the alarm sounded the main assailant hid somewhere inside this device, most likely near whatever powered it. He was about to fly down and attempt to inspect it more closely when he realised something was amiss: The energy of the device was shifting. The change was strange and intangible, yet it was present nonetheless. The machinery was being activated.

Ignis Lumen jumped back to the very edge of the ramparts and then back down to the sea of magma, also withdrawing his power which covered the fortress. In the end he was only a soul, he did not fear anyone he might meet in Hell, but dealing with an aspect artifact was far too dangerous. Whatever the device could do, he decided to not interfere with it and instead shielded himself a decent distance away while also trying to perceive any movement that might indicate his target fleeing.

That decision was proven to be the right as vast power left the device, sending an invisible beam into the white sky, piercing enormous distance as if it was not there in the first place. Despite the majority of the energy being channeled into the beam, a portion of it dispersed through the fort. If Ignis Lumen hadn't erased everyone beforehand they would have still met that fate when this enormous energy touched them.

Ignis Lumen stood tall in front of this power, the veil of power that shielded him was constantly eroded and restored, but he didn't let even a fragment of that destruction pass through. Now that he got a clear feeling it was not difficult to judge that the origin of that power must had been Mortum, the aspect of death. Since the aspect himself died to create the cycle of reincarnation a fragment of his former self might rarely appear in any of the cycle's crossroads, such as Hell. It might had been in Hell for past hundred millennia or it might have appeared just few weeks before it was found. Either way, Ignis Lumen would not allow it to remain in existence past today. Abusing the remnants of the aspects was an unforgivable sacrilege. He would much rather destroy them than see them misused in mortal hands who could not even begin to comprehend their former greatness.

With his mind determined to erase the relic and punish the one who dared misuse it, he jumped on top of the ramparts in single motion and then flew down towards the machine. The device was still beaming with remnants of the power it just displayed, but that bit was no longer enough to stop Ignis Lumen from shredding right through. With a simple snap of his fingers the delicate machinery began to collapse, various metal gears and rods fell down to the ground and vanished instantly upon touching it. In just few moments all that was left of the gargantuan machinery was a single black box two meters deep underground. The box was a flawless cube, seemingly without any entrance or exit.

Ignis Lumen jumped down to it and touched the surface. A calm ripple spread through the material as though it was a surface of a lake, without a second thought he pushed through; there was no resistance as he passed inside. The moment he entered there was a projectile was flung his way, a sizeable disc likely meant to bisect him as the last futile bit of resistance. Ignis Lumen caught it with one hand and looked as the assailant who threw it. It was a soul with incredibly distinct features, such that they rivaled those of the greater nobles and even Inferos himself.

“Count Gedon I assume,” Ignis Lumen asked a simple question, still holding the disc.

“That is me,” The soul sighed hopelessly, trace of despair obvious in that action.

“Fine machinery this was, especially with this box as its core, mind telling me where and when you found it?” he asked, crushing the disc into dust that then vanished.

“Will you consider not erasing me if I do,” The soul asked back, although its tone clearly not very optimistic about the odds.

“Don’t worry, I will definitely not erase you,” that would not be enough to punish him for his sins. He of all people would not stand what remained of the aspects be misused.

“Good enough, I don’t have much choice either way. I always wondered why no one ever dared to start a fight with Inferos, I wouldn’t have either if I knew he had a monster like you on his side,” count Gedon spoke, aware that these might be his last words “About the box, one of my mines uncovered it some 300,000 sands ago, ever since then I spared no effort to research it, eventually discovering its fantastical power to erase souls when utilised correctly,” Ignis Lumen almost visibly cringed at the use of word ‘correctly’, “With a fair bit of tinkering I constructed the thing you just destroyed; it was basically only concentrating the thing’s power into a beam aimed at the sky, I figured that bringing down a sun might be the best use for it when advancing my own ambitions. That set up apparently backfired though since you are standing here now.”

“Are you aware of its origin.” Ignis Lumen asked another question, his voice calm, yet his eyes wildly flickering.

“Not the slightest idea, yet you apparently do. Mind giving me a hint before sending me on my way.” Gedon asked, although it was apparent from his voice that he did not really care about the answer, rather he hoped to buy himself few more seconds to enjoy existing. Such simple thing seemed so precious when he knew he would lose it very soon.

“You deserve no such thing,” Ignis Lumen shook his head “by my right as the heir to the first flame and to the aspect of light, I shall judge you for your sins against the aspects. I find you guilty of sacrilege in ignorance as well as murder of the empyrian children of Lumen. Do you admit your guilt?”

Count Gedon was wide eyed for a moment as he looked at his judge, realising who he was speaking to. His eyes no longer had any fear or despair, they belonged to a man who lost all hope and already accepted his nearing death to be inevitable. Instead he began to think. To think about the way to get just killed and not utterly erased. After few moments of consideration he fell down to his knees and looked up at Ignis Lumen.

“I will not beg for mercy as I still have a shred of my pride left. I ignorantly fought against the son of Ignis and lost, I plead guilty for my sins,” he ultimately decided that he would not attempt to flee or deny the things he did; he was caught red-handed and powerless, and dared not hope for more than death.

“Good,” Ignis Lumen said as he raised his hand, the black room around them dispersed before appearing again, albeit much smaller, on the top of his palm, it obeyed his will without resistance “for your sins I shall judge you, but I shall also admire your ability to admit guilt. For your actions I sentence you to eternal sleep in the distant beyond.”

Before he was able to react, count Geddon suddenly found his body incredibly sluggish and his mind utterly exhausted. His former thoughts were gradually suppressed as his lost ambition slowly succumbed to the bliss of slumber. As his body crumbled to the ground a sudden flash of light manifested, shrinking and moving the now unconscious soul inside the black box on top of Ignis Lumen’s palm.

Ignis Lumen reached for the empty space with his other hand and for the first time since arriving in Hell his expression became extremely serious with focus. He clawed at reality itself with and after minutes of constant surges of power in his fingertips something finally snapped.

POP

A small hole manifested itself in between his fingers. It was a simple entrance nowhere beyond reality itself, nothing that both existed and didn’t. What was lost there would never again be found, no matter how desperately one searched. He threw the box outside, the fracture in reality closing immediately after it passed through.

“May you never awaken,” Ignis Lumen said the final words to the banished count before he began to walk out of the silent fortress. There was no time to waste if his assumptions were correct.

As if to confirm his hypothesis the sky shook just as he jumped down from the ramparts of the fortress. As he looked at the shaken sky he almost wanted to curse in frustration. He already knew that this would almost certainly happen and also knew what was the most likely target, but being correct failed to make him happy this time around since it would be a major annoyance.

He looked at the white sky one more time and then stepped forward, his vision once again obstructed by an explosion of magma. Before he took another step a gap in the magma revealed a single sun.

A single falling star.