Jaron Igarlan hit the ground with a grimace. He stumbled forward a few steps before quickly falling into a Gebo stance, steadying himself. His eyes needed to adjust – they were still blurry – so he didn’t bother with them. He flared his magical senses outwards instead. The Lower Aether was already working its enhancement on him. A range of 10km was made available to his senses, where 5km would have been a stretch back in the Middle Aether. Of course this range only offered a quick overview of the situation around him. He could only sense with details everything around a 1km radius. Enhancement of the Lower Aether, notwithstanding. Nothing stood out in the immediate environment. He was alone, and as yet undiscovered. Patting himself down, he noticed he was still in one piece. Journeying through the barriers this time had fairly burned him alive. Slowly, he opened his eyes. Everything still appeared blurry for a few seconds before they began to render themselves into sh

SCROLL FRAGMENT TEN My presence here seems to have done that which I hoped for. I have appeared to most of these humans in their time of greatest need, helping them fend off the demons, and they worship me for it! They have begun to call me a god, brothers! I mean to keep doing this, and soon the entirety of this layer will revere me as God! My word will be law! This way, we don’t have to worry about them growing arrogant or too powerful again to challenge our supremacy. This way we can see the fulfillment of part of the wish which led us to seek the core in the first place. The demons are the only problem I still have no solution for. They’ve always been powerful and stubborn beyond measure! The humans are still stubborn, but they’re gullible. This is not the case with the demons. They still have Transcendent Realm beings among them, and they have a longer memory. The centuries have not made them forget the world as it was before. They still believe they are of an equal footing

Shivering, Gilgal tightened his hand into a fist, directed his entire energy into it, then discharged everything at the wall. But his fist never hit the wall. His force and magic shattered on a translucent barrier inches away from the wall. He stumbled and staggered backwards from the rebound. He didn’t lose his sense of self preservation. Ducking under the grasping hands of the visitor, he spun around to face the fellow, with the open door now behind him.Even at that, though, he knew it was useless. A translucent dome of ice had appeared around them, covering just the room. He didn’t need any prior experience to recognize a domain when he saw one. He could already feel his energy growing sluggish. The rules here were for ice.“Who are you?!” he barked. Able to establish a domain meant a Dominion or Transcendent Realm expert. The fact that the world only trembled slightly made it more likely a Dominion Realm being. But at what particular level with ice affinity? Ice affinity woul

“A core is the foundation of a practitioner, boy. It is the accumulation of the magical energy within your body now. As your magic level continues to rise, it’ll get to a point where your body can no longer contain them. At that point, you’ll need to condense that energy into a core. “But here’s the difficulty: a core is not just a ball of energy within your body. It can even be said that the core doesn’t exist in the physical body, but on a separate space entirely; just reflecting here. You know the way the Aether is sundered, boy?”“The different layers of the Aether exist in the same plane, but separated by the barrier such that they do not truly overlap,” Gilgal answered automatically. Every young Purger had learnt as much. But this wasn’t public knowledge. The ordinary humans had no concept of this, and would only panic if told that they lived in the same space together with the demons trying to kill them. It was a thought to confound, certainly. Gilgal only had an idea of w

Jaron woke with a start. He felt his head. A week’s growth of stubble lined his ridged jaw. His horns had grown an inch longer, he realized. There was no discomfort at all in his body, not even a mild headache, so he’d been cared for. But memories remained, and he couldn’t – wouldn’t – forget them. He sat up on the bed, looking around. The Dread mother had tried to kill him! Then Inanna had saved him? That part of his memories were foggy, but he remembered dying. The bed he was lying on was no sick bed, but some majestic thing made for monarchs. The carvings were intricate, and they were not done on wood. The bedpost, head and sides were gold inlaid. The mattress was pink and fluffy enough to seem a cloud.Slowly, he surveyed the room itself. It was easily 50m wide, and nearly twice as long, with marble floors or tiles peeking out where rugs didn’t hide them. The walls seemed to shine, looking more like a single slab of river stones than brick, and paintings hung on them. The