Walking the now desolated land, the Immortal started getting tired. He did fight the whole time under the Great Sun on a burning mountain, indeed. "Hell, I'm Immortal, not the Unwearied" he said. However, he knew he couldn't stop, if he did, the Ash Eaters would have been a great trouble to him, and the Guards are used to this kind of heat, surely enough to pursue him to the top of the mountain. He had no choice but to proceed. "I can see the top, anyway, it's not like I still have a lot to walk" he said, unsure of whether to be happy he was near the top.
"My trial begins now" the Immortal said trying to look cool although there was no one listening. As if.
The Traveller was now on top of the mountain (and thinking that it was made of insects always felt strange to him) and, after he had finished saying those words, a giant (it appeared as at least ten metres tall to the Traveller) creature came out of a hole at the center of the mountain: he was Seraphin.
Seraphin is, or was, an Archangel of the Realm of Light which came into contact with the Fire Empire on an expedition a long time ago and absorbed their vital energy, the Quanta, to control the Fire Element. He's one of the few to control two Elements, giving incredible strenght to his attacks, and the Immortal will have to learn that at his expenses.
"I'm Seraphin," the giant said with an almighty voice "the Archangel whom got control over Fire, the wielder of the Divine Shield and guardian of the Shard of Bravery. What is it that you want?". The Traveller didn't hesitate to answer "it's not like you don't know, don't you?". To a polite question from Seraphin, the Immortal answered with a pretty rude answer, and Seraphin had no option but to proceed with an even more rude answer: he shot a fire ball right at the Traveller.
"Straight to the point, uh?" said the Immortal while dodging. Seraphin was clearly irritated by how his opponent dodged so easily his attack even though he had tried to keep calm, and he shot another one.
This time, instead, the Immortal ran toward the fire ball but, as soon as it was near enough, he crouched to avoid it and kept running toward Seraphin. He was almost at his feet when he saw Seraphin using his relatively little wings to get on tiptoe. A flash of light got to the Immortal's eyes and he then crashed into something. Before he could realize what happened, he had to jump back to avoid another fire ball from the Angel. Moving back he managed to catch a glimpse of what blocked him: a light sphere which, when the Immortal saw it, was already fading away and the Fire Angel already got his feet back on the ground.
"Do you really think I got here and managed to become the Emperor without fighting? I'm the Emperor because I'm the strongest here," said with arrogance the Emperor "and for that I have access to all the Quanta I need for my attacks". This was, indeed, the Immortal's disadvantage against his opponent and all of the other Emperors, given that they have almost infinite Quanta at hand to mindlessly attack the Immortal. And "mindless" is the right adjective for what was happening on the battlefield: fire balls were shot one after another and every attempt to attack was blocked by the Divine Shield. He was at a big disadvantage, and then the Immortal considered it necessary to use his Shard.
"Shard of Wisdom," he shouted, "appear and lend me your power". Saying that, a sky blue shard of glass appeared in front of him, shining and, as he bathed in that light, he slowly absorbed it. When he had absorbed back the Shard, he was shining in that same light, and he appeared way more calm than before.
From that moment on, he only did the minimum amount of movements possible to dodge a fire ball to save energy and attacked only once. Both the attack and the dodging were meant to be used to analyze the opponent's skill. And it worked.
The Shard's effect wore off, but his mind was clearer than ever. On the next dodge, the Traveller jumped as far as possible and focused a lot of energy in his hands. As he touched the ground, he crouched and touched the field with his hands. As he did that, a circle of a sparkling blue light appeared under him and, as soon as he moved from atop that, a Dragon got out of the ground. It was a beautiful majestic dragon which had the same color of the Aether of which it was made.
"What do you plan to do?" said Seraphin trying not to laugh, "you can't possibly be trying to break my divine shield, are you?". This time, the one smirking was the Immortal. On his command, the dragon shot a pure aether ball. Needless to say, Seraphin used his Divine Shield to protect himself, but what he didn't expect was a figure approaching right after he had used it. The moment it started fading away the Immortal entered the sphere and gave a couple of slashes to Seraphin without ever leaving it.
"You know why you're losing?" said the tired Immortal, "you were too greedy. You already were an Archangel, probably one of the greatest, of the Light Realm, but you still had to come here and absorb all of the Quanta this Empire had to offer. You grew attached to the Fire Quanta, ignoring most of the Light one. Your wings are Light-powered, while your main body absorbed all of the Fire; your wings grew weaker, your body grew heavier. If you had stayed in the Light Realm, you would have been a real threat to me, I'm sure.
"Your Divine Shield is from the Light Realm which is, alongisde the Aether Realm, the most precise but fragile Element. That shield is strong only when it's built perfectly: it has to have the form of a sphere and it has to have no interruptions. That's why you had to get on tiptoe to use it, if you were on the ground, either the ground itself or part of your feet would have blocked it. Sad that you're so heavy to stay like that for longer".
Seraphin got enraged for the first time in the whole battle and lost his cool. "You forgot something, though," said Seraphin, "you're not the only one with a Shard". The Immortal smiled again as a bright red Shard appeared in front of Seraphin and he absorbed it. From then, Seraphin's mindlessly-shot fire balls became mindlessly-launched attacks. "I still am a giant, you know" said looking at the Immortal smirking face.
Although his attacks were much faster, the Immortal still managed to dodge them and, as soon as he had room to breath, he jumped back once again. "You forgot something, too: I still have a dragon". Shard of Bravery's effect enhances physical strength and speed by focusing one's attention on a specific opponent and is, thus, the ideal for a one-on-one. Doing so, though, decreases the awareness of the user of the surroundings, even making him forget about something he has already seen. This was the case.
"I never thought I would have used this much Quanta to shoot an attack against myself".
"We're pretty forgetful here, aren't we? Even with Bravery I can still use Divine Shield" said while activating it. Hadn't he been that enraged, arrogant and "dulled" by Bravery, he would have tried to dodge it. But he didn't.
When the Aether Ball hit the Divine Shield and the Immortal, the Divine Shield broke and the attack went inside. Seraphin didn't even have the time to shout "what!?" that he had already died.
"I did say the Divine Shield is perfect but fragile," said the moribound Immortal, "even only getting in the range of your shield was enough to make it useless". He was energyless, almost dead on the ground, as he absorbed the Shard of Bravery that appeared out of Seraphin's body when he died. With that there was no more risk that he got eaten by the Ash Eaters nor that he got attacked by the Fire Guards.
"Let's rest a bit before continuing, shall we? the Immortal said trying to look cool although there was no one listening. And this time for real.
