Glancing around at her surroundings she found herself in a dark space.

It was familiar to last time with an eerie silence, however unlike last time she was able to quickly shake off the disorientating feeling she had upon entering.

No longer ignorant about what was awaiting her she decided to take the initiative in challenging those strange creatures.

‘I know you’re there… there is no point in hiding and playing these stupid games.’ Talia shouted daringly. 

The sound of her voice echoed disturbing the silence in the room.

After a moment further of waiting Talia tried yelling out a bunch of provocations again but was all that seem to do was momentarily disturb the silence.

Instead of gaining confidence from the apparent quietness from the creatures, it only made Talia feel even tenser.

She felt herself concentrating, focusing deeply on the darkness in the room in an attempt to spot anything at all to indicate the creature's presence. 

It was a foolish attempt since she would not be able to detect anything no matter how hard she tried anyway, yet she was still staring around intently because the feeling of knowing something is there only made her more anxious.

‘You can’t be afraid can you?…’ She said trying to appear confident, but even she wasn’t convincing herself with the shaky tone in her voice never mind the creatures in the darkness.

‘Delicious fear…’ An eerie voice mumbled setting off a chorus of whispers.

’Our prey has returned…’

‘We knew she would come…’

The voices surrounding her creeped her out, however, with her target making an appearance it ignited that same defiance that enabled her to defeat the creatures before.

‘You seem to forget what happened last time.’ Talia said strongly.

She surprised herself at how daringly she challenged the creatures never mind the creatures themselves who were incredibly angered by her audacity. 

‘Ignorance. You have no idea the power we control…’ A gloomy voice said before she felt a barrage of attacks to her mind.

She felt her vision shift as she saw the ruins of multiple Kingdoms, hundreds of thousands of corrupted beings slaughtering many different races some resembling human-looking beings such as Elves, others were beast-like races all of which were beaten down and destroyed.

All the beings she saw were multitudes more powerful than her and still lost miserably, yet this was nothing new to her she saw before how strong these strange creatures were but that did not deter her.

Resisting the creature she felt herself pushing back against its will, she knew that the creature had limited influence here they could only channel their power through the orb which greatly diminished its strength whereas she can bring forth her full might.

This was a battle between souls.

However, she felt something was strange because a few minutes had passed yet the creatures did not seem to be pushing her as aggressively as she expected.

The power the creatures possessed as well was not as strong as the power of the orb should indicate.

She felt this orb held far stronger power than the previous one she entered before yet the strength difference seemed to not be that big.

Even though her power had grown since then the difference should not be this small, it only took a moment for her to realise something was amiss.

‘How can I be so stupid! The corrupted avatar is sapping the orbs strength, it must also mean that Alexander must know that I’m a threat to him!’ Talia thought realising in horror how urgent she had to deal with the strange creatures.

The creatures seemed to realise that she discovered the precarious situation she was in as mocking laughter sounded, ‘You realise your mistake… your death will soon come and we will devour your delicious soul which will not only allow us to recover this vessels strength but your contribution will speed up the destruction of your world.’

Realising she could lose her life at any second she knew that she had to do something far more aggressive than the tactic she had been previously using which was just defending against the creatures attacks whittling them down using her advantages of having the full strength of her soul.

Nonetheless, she no longer had the means or time to do that now because her life was under great threat.

She now needed to take the creatures head-on increasing the danger and difficulty many times over!

Bracing herself for the impact of the clash, she felt the resistance of the creatures increase greatly, the intense pain and strength of the creatures strange attacks were raised forcibly as she took the initiative to exterminate them from this orb.

Worried about what’s currently happening to her physical body she could only hope that Priest Omar and the rest of the templars noticed Alexander’s reaction ensuring to protect her otherwise they would likely all be doomed.

At the moment Priest Omar was trying his best to defend the pressing attacks from Alexander.

Being the most senior Templar present and the one leading this operation he felt responsible for protecting the lives of everyone present. He already felt strongly about this but his sense of duty at being the most powerful present only reinforced his guilt at seeing the lives of his comrades being taken by Alexander.

Alexander laughed as he effortless parried a strike by one of the Templars, following up by gutting the man tearing through his defences like paper.

A few Templars tried to rush towards him to deal a deadly blow whilst his sword was wedged into their fellow Templar however Alexander easily escaped the frenzied attacks of his foes, his swift speed and skill proving too much for them to handle.

Seeing the life of another enemy ended Alexander seemed to take great pleasure in his death even daringly licking the blood of the Templars which had sprayed over his blade.

A Templar maddened by the death of his comrade shouted, “Damn Demon you will suffer retribution!”

Alexander smirked not intimidated in the least by the Templar’s words as he said, “Saddened about the death that fellow? Don’t worry you’ll be joining him soon… I would hate to leave him waiting, in what is it you silly heretics call, hell? After all, there will only be one place where fools who worship fake deities go…”

Hearing their faith being mocked and questioned only seemed to anger the Templars further as their once organised battle formation became disorganised.

Priest Omar supporting the Templars with spells at the back sighed at the sight of Alexander’s strength.

Only he had the true strength to oppose him here, however, he was a Priest specialised in defensive and support spells, he amplified the strength of the Templar party to be competitive against Alexander yet in the end it was not enough. 

The powerful individual strength belonging to a person without relying on external forces was too much for them to handle, they could threaten Alexander to a certain extent yet that was only if Alexander was a fool who would rush into battle with no strategy.

However, although Alexander seemed crazy he had a perfect grasp of the battle the entire time, he never once let himself fell into a disadvantageous position despite holding the upper hand throughout the battle he did whatever he could to give himself a further advantage.

Even now he used the Templars devotion to their faith and comradeship to make them irrational with anger so they could be even easier for him to deal with.

‘Such a troublesome enemy… we are truly up against it, the mistake of bringing in such a promising, young girl, overconfidence against this threat has cost us this time, ah looks like I have truly failed Anita.’ Priest Omar lamented whilst still continuously exerting his best efforts in the battle.

He knew that even with the reinforcements they had in the vicinity they would still likely be unable to stop Alexander, he was the strongest being by far in this small town and did not expect to run into such a powerful foe even if it was involved with the mysterious taint he did not believe it could create something this strong.

‘If we survive this we need to report such a great threat to the Church… looks like those at the top needs to take it far more seriously, that girl Anita was right.’ Priest Omar thought as he saw Alexander take down another Templar.

A few more soldiers came into the room to support them yet they did nothing to stop Alexander whittling them down one by one.

Alexander could leave whenever he wanted to but he had no intention of seemingly wanting to slaughter everything in his way.

Even so, something needed to change if they wanted any chance at beating Alexander and Priest Omar even when racking his brains for a solution couldn’t find one.

That was until for the first time during this entire battle a face of complete rage appeared on Alexander’s face.

For the first time during the entire battle, he no longer had that familiar confidence showing his belief that everything was under his control, instead, a frenzied, irrational look of fury and even a hint of fear showed on his face.

“YOU DARE!” Alexander screamed bursting out of the Templars formation.

Realising Alexander’s target in time Priest Omar set up his strongest barrier to cover the unconscious body of Talia who laid defencelessly on the stone floor beneath the orb.

The barrier cracked under the blow of Alexander’s full strength yet it still carried out its purpose in protecting Talia.

“Protect the girl!” Priest Omar ordered.

The other Templar’s and reinforced soldiers were not idiots, seeing how desperate Alexander looked in attacking Talia they didn’t need much prompting to know the importance of defending her was.

Rushing to her aid, Alexander seemed to grow even more annoyed sending a soldier flying with a fierce blow as he shouted, “Annoying flies! No longer playing with you fools, I WILL SLAUGHTER YOU ALL!”

Nevertheless, even with Alexander’s threats the rushing Templars and soldiers doing all that they can to disturb Alexander still kept marching forward.

The head of a soldier went flying as Alexander decapitated the soldier with a staggering blow.

Yet even with the death of their comrade none of the Templars and soldiers present showed any fear, being part of the mission each of them was elite of the respective forces they were not afraid of dying whilst carrying out their duty!

‘Come on Talia… whatever you’re doing you need to do it fast, I’m not sure how long we can hold him.’ Mumbled Priest Omar determinedly throwing out spells.

On the other hand, Talia was now pushing the creatures greatly, even with being able to conserve more of their strength with Talia taking the initiative in being the aggressor.

Talia had made great progress since her last time meeting the creatures, she had a better understanding of the soul so was able to deal with them with further ease even with the constraints in place.

The creatures were shocked at how quickly Talia was tearing down their defences.

‘She is bypassing our defences quicker than anticipated and we have underestimated the resolve of her companions, we need to deal with her now.’ Mumbled one of the voices.

‘WE NEED TO DO THAT… she has potential but it is unrefined the energy of her soul is unique which is why she is able to challenge us like this, a normal being's soul would have eroded under our presence by now but hers is somehow unaffected, we should use the rest of our energy in that last attack I don’t believe she will defend…’ A voice said confidently. 

‘Fine, is everyone in agreement?’ Another voice said.

‘YES,’ The creatures affirmed.

Talia felt another bit of resistance by the creatures get destroyed as she progressed further, at first the attacks bothered her but with the experience from last time and her resolve they proved not troubling to her.

Yet she suddenly felt a strange feeling that something was wrong, for some reason the resistance of the creatures disappeared all together however she knew they were still present so they were not exterminated.

‘What’s going on?’ Talia was thinking they may be aiming to stall for time to allow Alexander to finish her off but she knew that Priest Omar and her companions outside must be doing something to stop him since she was still alive.

The scheming from ancient beings who held power which far outstripped Talia could not be underestimated, so she wanted to deal with them as quickly as possible and get out of this nightmare but just as she was about to do so she felt her mind went black.

Once again she drifted off in nothingness, this time she had no idea where she was going not until she reappeared in a familiar place.

“My room?” Talia said in shock the sound of her voice surprising her as she found herself looking at the familiar appearance of herself in the mirror at her desk.

“Talia honey dinner is ready!” A warm voice sounded behind her.

Turning around she saw the face of someone whom it seemed like forever since she last saw, “Mum?”