The trio of witches studying Nathan stood just beyond a now closed golden door, one they themselves closed the second the last of them walked through it. The door itself was shut but hadn't faded out of reality, as if waiting for someone to come and open it.

In the skies above the Pulvo Mine, the young warrior who had protected the inhabitants of Tegucigalpa for the last day and a half was flying at speeds that exceeded the speed of sound. And yet despite his incredible speed, he was being physically tracked by the mysterious trio who had stepped out of the strange portal. This annoyed him, and it wasn't the only thing that annoyed him either.

The innately psychic being was attempting to scan the minds of the three women, and yet he was not able to do so. Every time he even tried it he received a notification from his iteration of the system that informed him that the women were ensorcelled and that the magic flowing through them gave them resistance to psychic abilities. And at the same time as that was occurring, they began to utilize their own magic. 

Nathan sensed the magical power flowing through them and gritted his teeth right as a trio of hurricane-force gales shot towards him. The instant that they did, the annoyed warrior responded in kind by pausing in mid-air and utilizing his immense strength and speed to clap his hands together and unleash a sonic-boom shockwave at the trio that effortlessly dispersed their winds and also caused the three women to nearly fall to the floor in both pain and surprise.

Each member of the trio of women who had launched attacks against me was a seemingly middle-aged woman who wore an array of diverse clothing. And their magic was intense, the sort of magic that I would have expected to see in a video game, not in real life. 

I was familiar with the most common schools of magic in most video games and the school of magic that was associated with forces of nature and with offensive magic was the school known as evocation. In some video games, it was called the "Destruction" school of magic. And I could tell that it was what my enemies were using. 

"Fine... If you want to fight, I can fight." I uttered, as I proceeded to promptly absorb more stat points from numerous relatively nearby corpses. As I did the witches began to recover from my attack, and slowly attempt to stand up, all while turning to glare at me. 

I sensed my points shoot over 500 in each attribute score, and smirked at the witches before me. I internally purchased a rather fascinating new power, and instinctively willed for my skin to become made up of darkness, one of many new abilities that I possessed, even as my mind filled with an instinctual knowledge of the rest of my new traits. As I began to transform into a fully formed darkness elemental, I turned my gaze fully at the trio, and began to laugh.

"What the... He's an elemental?!" One of the trio of witches asked, right before the flying figure that they had attacked began to grow wider and wider, and in doing so begin to block out some of the sun's light. 

The newly formed entity of solidified darkness began to laugh, his deep voice supernaturally reaching the trio on the ground, and the trio glared more furiously at him, unafraid, but surprised by his new form. 

"I... don't understand how an elemental could have beaten us here." One of the other women muttered, confused as she momentarily turned to look at her sisters. 

"That mystery is one we can solve if we defeat him..." Uttered another, as she planted her feet into the ground and readied herself for arcane battle.

Nathan floating high in the air above them, couldn't understand the small coven, though he could hear them. Their minds were protected from him by the powerful magic that sustained them, and this annoyed the young changeling. Their powerful enemy sighed and targeted them with another power, one that they very distinctively weren't immune to; telekinesis. 

The three witches gasped as they felt the potent psionic energy of the young changeling begin to force them to stay still, their eyes widening as they realized that somehow the mysterious elemental could freeze them in place. One of the witches, the oldest and the fastest of the group, silently cast a spell and smiled as she faded from view, not becoming invisible but instead teleporting out of the area and to a distant destination before even Nathan could react.

Nathan audibly growled when this happened, and before either of the other women could follow in their sister's footsteps, spears of darkness began to grow out of the strange, vaguely humanoid-shaped entity composed of living darkness. This caused the other two women to freeze and look meekly at the stranger, who they now sensed and recognized as a dangerous entity in his own right.

While I telekinetically bound the remaining two witches I utilized my new physiology as a darkness elemental to spread myself across the sky. I was able to do so quite easily, and in doing so gain further immunity to their evocation attacks since I could easily absorb them. And that was far from the only new ability I gained, as a new being of darkness. 

I gazed at one of the two remaining witches and began to smile, though my face was indistinguishable from the rest of my body in this form. I was a curtain of living darkness and had the powers of darkness to back me up. My new curtain-form metaphorically opened its maw and began to inhale, causing lifeforce and power to begin to seep out of the area I was preventing from getting sunlight.

As I began to drain the witches and their surroundings of lifeforce and power, I felt some of their knowledge and memories begin to seep into me. I watched their skin begin to whiten and drain of color and vitality, and even felt some of their points begin to slowly seep into me. While that was occurring I felt a tiny portion of my heart begin to darken, and began to mentally curse while the system began to speak to me.

"Acquiring slivers of power over the sins of gluttony, greed, and pride. Sin points are being spent in accordance with that." The system informed me, while I cursed my own behavior. After a few seconds of internal cursing, I externally sighed, momentarily ceasing my draining of my enemy's stats, and committed myself to finding the holy equivalent to sin points, perhaps "Virtue points", or something like that in the wake of my realization of the consequences of my actions. I then refocused and resumed draining the dozens of points that the two witches possessed.

The two witches found themselves paralyzed and watching the artificially darkened sky. All they could do was stare helplessly at the powerful being who was supping on their power, and sense their own once-mighty mysticism seeping out of them to feed some teenage wizard. 

"I... hate this guy." One of the two witches uttered, barely able to softly whisper a nearly muted message thanks to the potent psionic force that was exerting itself on their bodies. The other witch, though the dimmest sister, was also the most mystically gifted and she was not wasting her time with words. Instead, she was weaving a spell utilizing nothing but her own mental energies. 

As Nathan's mind began to unpack the memories contained within the minds of the women, the youngest member of the coven glared at him with narrowed, thin, cat-like grey eyes. She studied the strange entity and, relying on her knowledge of darkness entities, opted to believe that the creature would make a mistake that would allow her to flee from it. 

Nathan, meanwhile, was content to feast on the ancient knowledge possessed by the two members of the coven. He was, to his slight annoyance, enjoying the knowledge that he was uncovering as he unpacked the potent secrets locked away in the minds of the witches, and adding it to his own small stores of witchcraft-related wisdom. 

This process would have continued for several minutes, perhaps until the witches were completely drained of their knowledge, if not for the youngest and bravest witch in the coven. When she realized that Nathan was playing things carefully and was not needlessly approaching her, she grew impatient and mustered her remaining energy, including preparing the most potent of the arcane secrets she knew for the sake of her freedom. She was ready to lose everything to avoid being the meal of an upstart, but potent, darkness elemental and she allowed herself to sacrifice her connection to her home in exchange for her best shot at freedom. 

Right when she was to make her play ready she roared something in a language that Nathan didn't understand, but something that caused her sister to suddenly focus on her and made Nathan rear back in concern as the witch yelled in inarticuale arcane fury.

The witch howled and rose her hands at me once again, blood beginning to pour out of her nose as she did, fearlessly ready to do anything to stop me. I turned and focused on her even as my curtain-like body continued to grow in size and in potency. A split second later the witch's hands began to tremble and release azure-colored flames, right as her voice increased in volume. The fire exploded towards me, but when it reached me it couldn't burn me. I felt the flames lick my strange new form and almost laughed since it couldn't hurt me. 

Part of the reason why I almost laughed was that I didn't notice the witch's ally beginning to leap at her sister. When she did I felt her forcibly break free from my telekinesis, even sacrificing her own bones to do so, and place her hands on her sister. A half a second later the two disappeared and the arcane fire that the witch was hurtling at me disappeared along with them. I would have roared in frustration if not for the strange announcement that the system declared the instant after the pair of witches vanished, teleporting into the aether and freeing themselves from my vampire-like draining of their power. 

"Alert: Potent, omega-class artifact untethered from the soul of the witch named Alexandria Drakos. The cause for the untethering appears to have been an extremely substantial loss of power on the part of Ms. Drakos. The artifact appears to be a portal too and ownership over a gigantic, interdimensional sanctuary. Tethering said artifact to your soul." 

That made me smile, and also explained the continued existence of the strange portal at the mouth of the mine. I approached the door and took on the form of an eerie, faceless humanoid made of shadow-stuff, only a bit larger than my usual form. 

The door being tethered to one of the witches would make sense since the thing had never vanished even after the witches stepped out of it. I stared at the doorway for a few moments and then glanced down at my skin as I began to feel a strange fizzing sensation near the end of my wrist, right where a strange tattoo of a star began to burn itself into my skin. The fizzing sensation was what I felt in lieu of pain, due to the effects of the "Painkiller" mutation. 

I placed a single shadowy hand on the door and felt the thing open with startling ease. As the door opened I tentatively took a single step towards it and then peeked through the open doorway.