Willem immediately recoiled and pushed the woman away from himself before stepping back to gain some distance.

"Rakshalas..." From the rows of teeth a sharp pointed tongue whispered the name of the fallen god the woman worshiped.

The woman's form began to distort and bloat, like a puffer fish being blown larger to defend itself. From the woman's body, a yellow puss began to spill from her open pores.

"So you have finally shown your true form." Willem proclaimed as he saw that the red-winged wyvern was no longer anywhere to be seen.

The bloated puss spewing woman began to grow fleshy spikes all over her body as she rolled towards Willem.

As Willem looked at his own hands, he saw that they were the hands he remembered them to be. No longer trapped in his thirteen year old body, Willem manipulated his magical power to cast the Darkness Magic he learned when assaulting the Golden Dragon Inn.

Willem casted a Darkness spell that released a multitude of spikes toward the hideous beast, lodging into her skin and puncturing her as she rolled over them. From inside, Willem commanded the spikes to invade her body, stopping her joints from moving, and severing her spine.

Unable to move forward, the bloated woman cried out in anguish.

"You cannot kill me, I have no corporeal body." The woman cried out as the black spikes cut and sliced her body from the inside out.

She attempted to slip through the haze that protected her from physical harm but the blades of Darkness stopped her from turning invulnerable.

Willem continued to slice apart the woman from the inside.

"Wait, please. Wait. I can help you, I can rid you of these terrible memories." The monster seemed to be suffering from having her insides torn apart, and was prepared to bargain for her life.

"You will do nothing to me." Willem believed that he held all the cards in this exchange, and continued to pierce through her body with the spikes that he had previously inserted.

"You leave me no choice, if I am to die, I will take you down with me!" In the last moments of the nightmarish creatures life, she grappled Willem by the head and used the suction of her fingers to remove something from his mind.

As Willem awoke from the nightmare, the fog had completely dissipated, and a naked woman's dead body laid in front of him.

Willem stood up and knocked at the door to the room to indicate that he was done.

The Grand Mage opened the door and to his surprise, he saw the dead woman on the floor.

"Is that?" The Grand Mage began.

"Yes, it is the creature of the nightmare." Willem exclaimed.

"How did you kill it, it has no corporeal body!" The old man was ecstatic as he grasped the dead woman's body, looking it over.

"I barely defeated it. It took something from me." Willem admitted.

"What! Boy, what did it take from you." The Grand Mage was no longer concerned about the body and rushed over to Willem's side, grabbing his shoulders roughly.

"She took my strongest emotion, anger." Willem let a small tear slip down his face as he remembered his Mother's voice calling out to him.

In the few moments that he heard his Mother's voice, an unquenchable anger welled up from inside him, snapping him out of the illusion and allowing him to take on the hideous creature. That was the anger that was stolen from him in the last moments before the nightmare ended.

"Is this not good? Anger is a wasted emotion for us Mages." The Grand Mage looked at Willem who seemed to be suffering more than ever.

"It is the worst thing that could ever be taken from me." Willem bowed to the old man before leaving the room.

The Grand Mage bit the tip of his thumb as he looked back at the woman on the floor, every orifice on her body flowing excessive amounts of blood. He closed the door and locked it behind himself before casting a spell to seal it away completely.

On the eve of Willem's eighteenth birthday.

Four years have passed since Willem had willingly joined the Magic Academy and was under the tutelage of the Grand Mage, Archus.

During this time, many changes had occurred both within the Bastion of Hope and in the realm of Magic Beings.

The Bastion of Hope had seen many small but significant changes due to the incident involving a prominent upper class family whom had incurred the wrath of an unregistered Mage. Though the regular populace was told that they had fled and had a hand in some illegal dealings, the nobles and upper class knew the truth about the situation.

In less than a few hours, an entire family was wiped out by an unknown Mage wielding Darkness Magic. Not long after, a young boy also came forward who revealed capabilities in Darkness Magic. Though they could assume that these two people had some sort of connection, no matter how much they probed nothing came to light.

To ensure that nothing happened to Willem, "Grand Mage of the Earth" Archus had set in motion some stop gaps and publicly announced that Willem would become his apprentice. This small gesture would most assuredly be enough to stop anyone from threatening and questioning him 'unlawfully', for fear of dire repercussions.

During the past four years, Willem was bitterly training and improving his skills. His innate talent and natural curiosity gave birth to a host of new information on Darkness Magic that was previously unknown. Archus had taken almost the entirety of the four years teaching Willem about the basics of all Magic. Giving Willem a baseline of knowledge allowed him to easily figure out the power spectrum of each individual type of Magic.

Furthermore, due to his capabilities of being able to use minor Magic of each type he attended classes during the day to learn more about what he could do. Hours of each day were spent learning from the teachers, then reading in the grand library and finally doing experiments with Archus. Only when he began to truly begin studying with the "Grand Mage of Earth" did he realize what a powerful existence Archus truly was.

Some small time had passed before news was given about the situation outside regarding the coming invasion of Magical Beings. The army was on high alert and everyone at the Magic Academy was told they would be participating in the back line formation of the fight.

Soon after, news quickly spread that Magical Beings were gathering an offensive to forcefully take back the Mountains of the Northern Continent. Scouts of the human army confirmed these reports and also confirmed that some of the more barbaric Magical Beings had begun to march together towards the Mountain.

In roughly four months time, unhindered, they would be at the castle walls. The current marching force of the Magical Beings was five hundred warriors and five hundred Mages, compared to the tens of thousands of warriors and Mages of the Bastion it seemed they would be able to hold the defense.

Unfortunately, the more reports came in, the larger the magical forces became. Five hundred changed to one thousand, then two thousand and four thousand.

By the time the reports had returned about the true size of the force coming to crash down the walls, the One True King had been holding meetings and summons to try to figure out what could be done. He had no doubts that because of the different innate abilities of Magical Beings, this would be a war until the bitter end.

Once things began to again settle down, Willem was sent a summons from the council of Grand Mages. They had taken a keen interest in the research Archus had been providing, and wanted to see for themselves this miraculous youth. What none of the Grand Mages had known though was that even The One True King would be a part of this council. He had been reading over the notes and wanted to question Willem on a few things that seemed to be missing out.

The council chambers had begun to form in a distorted space within the void specifically made for such events. The walls were barren, save for a few hanging rugs. The room itself was thirty feet by thirty feet with fifteen wooden seats in a circular pattern around a circular table.

Twelve of the Mages had already appeared, including Archus and Willem. Multiple pieces of papyrus littered the table and the Grand Mages were having a lively discussion about their apprentices. It had become common practice to have friendly bouts among apprentices to show who was the superior Grand Mage in name.

The only one who did not participate in these bouts was Willem. Despite being asked, he was too focused on improving himself and he felt no desire to stand out by suppressing others. This gave a false impression from other apprentices that he was meek and spineless, and when they would pass by him in the academy they would openly mock him.

Willem was not bothered by such things, he never intended to stand out and would much rather improve himself. Though he fought when necessary, it was spars during class that were a test of knowledge. He would not even show a tenth of his strength to pass those tests. The only thing he was truly missing was real combat experience, and soon that will change. Archus had promised to take him on an expedition after this council meeting deeper into the mountains to fight some Magical Beasts.

After twenty minutes or so had passed, the final Grand Mages arrived and took their seats. One Grand Mage hid his face, and once the council was called to order, he removed his hood to reveal himself. Around the table were gasps of surprise and then looks of veneration.

"Gentleman, I welcome you to this council meeting. I was the one who called this meeting to order, to highlight the capabilities of Darkness Magic. As you know, there are currently only two people within our entire kingdom who can manipulate Darkness Magic. That young boy standing over there, and myself."

The One True King spoke softly, but every word resounded with purpose. No one in this room could ever try to replicate this feeling of strength that the King emanated.

From this statement, Willem quickly understood who was at the head of the table. Though the man was middle-aged, his proud gaze and otherworldly air was a step above the others. His grey hair was mixed with patches of Black, but was very well kept. His face had no facial hair, making him more distinct than the others.

Most older men prided themselves on their beards, it was very rare for anyone to actually willingly remove it. Furthermore, his robes were a simple grey. It had none of the usual gaudy jewelry and there was no gold inlay that usually accompanied a Grand Mages robe.

"There is a very good reason as to why I never talk about Darkness Magic, and that is because Darkness Magic is fueled by rage, anger and fear. The stronger these feelings, the stronger your magic ability is to wield. Even an elementary Darkness Mage could kill a senior Mage with enough rage as fuel. When I was first learning Darkness Magic, I was learning from the black chimera. I stalked it and watched as it hunted, and was truly surprised when it came upon its first prey. The first Magical Beast I saw it fight was a fledgling Red Dragon. Though I knew it was not strong enough to kill a Red Dragon, it still went in and fought tooth and nail fueled by rage. The more they fought, the more injuries the black chimera would incur. The worst part was that by fueling its rage, it's injuries quickly healed, it's scales regenerated and it's claws became sharper. After three hours of constant fighting, the black chimera came out victorious. This was not the worst part, the worst part was that the black chimera didn't stop to eat the Red Dragon, it continued to hack and slash until there was nothing left. It expended too much energy fighting a larger prey, and there was nothing left to consume. It ended up starving and dying a few feet from the Red Dragon."