Corrupt Creations

Four whole days passed while Seth made his way through the Labyrinth, trying to get to his destination. He received the complete charted labyrinth area, but even with the map, there were so many complicated paths he had to take, that it took him more than four days to approach that place. 

Seth's injuries were already healed, even the blood holes on his shoulder were closed already. The regeneration factor of a Mana realm practitioner was already high, and boosted with his powerful regeneration given by the Seed of Tyranny, he was almost at a perfect condition. 

He was being really careful, because the quantity of fire elementals around here has increased by a lot. Even the fire traps were getting more common to see. 

A fire butterfly came flying towards Seth, trying to land on top of his head. Seth instantly used his Shadow Walk to avoid the butterfly. 

Boom! 

The fire butterfly exploded, creating a loud noise and attracting some fire elementals where it had exploded. It was a trap, but Seth knew it. He used the distraction, to proceed fast towards the right direction. 

He kept walking through the labyrinth for some more minutes until he found a spinning fire vortex in an open area. 

"I finally found the entrance." He took four days to reach this place, there were so many fire walls intercepting his way, that he was starting to think that he would never arrive here. 

Seth noticed that there were no flame elementals or any traps nearby, and a feeling that something was not right dawned upon him. The same feeling he had, just before he encountered the Blackwind Panther on the Ygnolia forest. He looked up and saw a bright red start falling towards him. 

Seth didn't think twice, before executing the second stance of his Shadow Walk, vanishings from the place he was in just a second. A moment later a huge meteor landed on the area he was standing previously. 

BOOOOOOOOOOM! 

The entire area shook, the only thing left undamaged was the spinning fire vortex, because it was literally indestructible. Seth watched the scene from afar, and he finally saw what was the cause of all that destruction. 

A huge elemental that took the form of a dragon entirely made of flames, was looking at his direction. It was prepared to burn him to a crisp if he ever tried to get near the vortex. 

Seth felt an immense pressure from the aura of the elemental. Its aura was as strong as a Mana Control initial-stage realm cultivator. There was not a single chance that Seth would be able to defeat it. 

'Damn! How am I going to fight against that?' 

The fire dragon opened its mouth and a fire breath burned everything in front of it, reaching Seth's location really quick. 

Seth was not a fool to try to fight against such an entity head on. He vanished again, avoiding the sea of flames that formed around the area. He took some distance away from the elemental in order to devise a plan. 

The fire elemental felt that the human was trying to escape and took flight. It was going to chase Seth and deal with him before he could come up with any help or any strange idea. 

Seth felt that it was going to be really difficult to shake that elemental off, but he had to do so. He thought of a quick plan, but it was something that he hadn't tested before and it would be risky to try new things on a situation like this. 

But when he remembered the state Lilian was, after protecting him from that hateful prince, he decided to take the risk. The time was almost up, so he had to be quick. 

The elemental dragon speed was on another level, it reached Seth in just some seconds. Seth was standing around three kilometers away from it after using his Shadow Walk, but that distance seemed to be nonexistent for beings at that threshold of power. 

The fire dragon came towards him, spurting a huge wave of fire. 

Seth knew that there would be no chance to survive, if he were to get burned with that powerful fire. He chose once again to avoid the attack with his movement skill. Although it seemed to be a simple task for him, each time he escaped the attack, a huge quantity of his Mana was used, because he needed to move at least two or three thousand meters away from those huge area fire skills, since they would always spread after hitting the ground. Five or so more times and he would be totally spent. 

After reappearing two thousand meters away, he quickly put his plan into action. A shadowy figure emerged from his own shadow. It was a Specter of Darkness, a skill he developpe himself, while using his dark element, together with his soul power. 

A practitioner would usually acquire their skills from skillbooks, because they were already developed concepts that just needed to be used. But when a practitioner had sufficient mastery over an element, he could try creating skills on his own, however, it's easier said than done. The amount of attention, knowledge and experience one needed to have in order to develop a skill, wasn't a joke at all. 

Seth thought of this ability after trying to separate a tiny bit of his soul, to feed Meiyi his Soul Essence. What would happen if he molded a specter and gave it a bit of his soul power? He got his answer. A clone, made of pure darkness power. 

Seth was still understanding about how this new ability worked and still needed a lot of time to enhance it to perfection, but he could already use it with ease. 

"For now, it will do." Seth used his darkness to cover himself and disguise his own body just like the Specter of Darkness. After that, he left towards one side while the specter left towards the other. 

The elemental was prepared to chase after that tricky human again, when he suddenly saw that he had multiplied, running to two different directions. It stood rooted trying to decide the next course of action. This elemental had already developed a consciousness, but its intelligence was not enough to rival a human being. Those few seconds it hesitated to move, gave Seth a considerate advantage. 

After almost a minute it decided to burn everything and destroy both of them. For that, it didn't spare any effort or energy while forming the next attack. 

A terrifying amount of energy gathered towards its huge mouth, making an immense ball of fire form inside. The attack was about to blast a five-thousand-meters area to cinders. The elemental flew as high as it could while it was still forming, spitting it towards the ground just as he finished to form the skill. 

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! 

The explosion was so strong, that the previous blast caused by the red Skystone, did barely a fifth of the damage caused by this powerful attack. 

After the dust settled, there was literally nothing on the entire area. Not even the fire walls remained. Seth's figure? It had vanished along the explosion, both of them. The fire elemental felt the attack hitting both Specters of Darkness, so it was sure the human was dead now. 

A few thousand meters away Seth was standing in front of a fire vortex, the one that he needed to enter in order to find the Law of Fire. The two dark figures that were destroyed by the huge fire explosion, were merely two Specters of Darkness, while Seth's real body successfully escaped using that deceptive method. 

"Alright, no time to waste." Seth walked towards the vortex, once again being teleported to a separate dimension. This was a third-layer dimension, a place not easily found. It was even less easy to create it. The ancient gods and beasts must have paid a hefty sum of resources to come up with a place like this. 

Seth felt his body standing in a huge platform. When he looked towards the sides, he got thoroughly shocked, amazed by what he was currently seeing. There were no walls or landscape. He was standing in a platform and it was floating in the void, drifting in the endless space that was constituted of dark matter. 

In the middle of the platform, there was a really mild and common flame that kept burning since time immemorial. It was endless, eternal. 

'Is that the flame that I am supposed to understand? Seems so normal.' 

Seth approached the flame and tried to touch it. It was a strange feeling when he felt that it wasn't warm or cold. It had no temperature at all, staying at the same temperature as the environment, however, it was clearly burning. 

Seth sat on the ground and observed that flame for some minutes. With his keen vision, he saw that there was something different for sure, he just couldn't point out what it was. 

Focusing some more, he finally noticed that the fire was actually composed of tiny little letters, runes, drawings and so on. Sometimes he would discover a tiny phoenix and it would suddenly turn into a fire Qilin. A dragon would change into a human or a letter. A rune would turn into another one and so on. The combinations were endless. 

He felt that he could not understand how it worked at all. It would be a headache trying to discover a thing that not even the gods could. If it was an easy job, then the Phoenix Spirit might have already obtained this Law of Fire for itself. 

Seth was giving a hundred percent of his attention to the special flame. While concentrated on his studies, he didn't notice that the Seed of Tyranny had somehow awakened. It was acting like it was eyeing a prey, just waiting for the right time to devour it entirely.