I couldn't stand to just sit and read anymore, I looked up at Soea.

She met my gaze with a smile, her eyes seemed to look nowhere else but mine. Seeing me looking at her, but not speaking, she looked confused, "My lord?"

Trying to get the words out was a little difficult, so I cleared my throat and tried again. For an understandable reason I was now a little embarrassed when faced with her, it was because of my loss of control before.

It would pass, of course, it always did.

"Soea, I will be heading over to the nearby city. Come with me." I climbed to my feet as I spoke.

Soea jumped up to follow my instructions, "Yes, my lord."

Trying to figure out my own mind was pointless, even more-so trying to figure out hers. Though I knew that I could just ask her, the thought of doing so scared me and I had no idea how I would phrase the questions.

So, I just walked towards the Throne Room door.

Soea seemed to skip as she followed along behind me.

Walking out of the Throne Room and into the main corridor, I was displeased to see the damage that the annoying insects had caused to my home.

There were holes and gouges in the wall, with stones of uneven size scattered all over the floor. They had been blown out of the solid stone walls by the battle magic, the invaders had been planning on razing my castle.

I released my aura, directing it forwards so as to not harm Soea who was behind me. Using my aura, I blew the debris out of my way.

The stone of the walls was both frozen and scorched, apparently there were some among the Paladins would could use fire and frost attributed magic.

At first I thought that my wards had been broken by Divine magic alone, but I was incorrect.

It didn't take long for Soea and I to leave the corridor and enter the main courtyard, the castle wasn't very big.

As I walked through the main gate of the castle, I looked behind myself, at Soea. She was skipping along in a cheerful manner, she seemed so much happier than before, and I definitely knew why.

It didn't take a genius to figure out the reason to this.

Her cheerfulness strangely helped me feel better. I liked that about her, even though I definitely knew otherwise, she seemed so innocent and happy.

She was like I used to be, back in the past.

I used to feel the joy of travelling with friends and companions who meant the world to me. However, the few who survived the last battle with the Demon King were deemed traitors by the Church. They were killed off by their trusted religious leaders for no reason.

One of the reasons I researched godhood was to leave all of that behind and start all over again. Though the primary reason was to wipe out that bastard, Arre.

Anyway, enough thinking about useless things.

Pulling my mind out of my past memories and daydreams, again I semi-instinctively looked over at Soea, who was running along beside me. She returned my look, as though she sensed my gaze. With a soft flutter of her wings, she grinned happily.

I knew that the distance from my base to town was quite large, so I decided to start speeding up.

From a walk, to a jog.

When I was going to speed up to a run, I noticed that Soea was almost sprinting, she was beginning to gasp for breath. In consideration for my companion, I slowed down a little, so she was still running, but no longer forced to sprint at full speed.

My capabilities were far beyond most people, even someone as powerful as a pure-blood royal Succubus. Even without using any of my enhancement magic or Divine-Power that came from a Hero's body.

 

It was late in the afternoon, the deep blue sky was beginning to darken. An orange glow flickered on the horizon, where the town was located, the warm glow of the many lit torches.

I was excited about what was coming next, I would get the chance to play with some of my magic.

Though, before I could begin to cast, I had to follow a certain rule. An unwritten rule, but a core tenet of mine. Without it, and the few others, I would become a complete monster.

The three laws, as I called them:

 

Do not kill innocents (This does not apply to soldiers or anyone who attacks you)

Do not kill children (16 years and under; if they attack you, incapacitate them, but do not kill)

Do not rape.

 

Rape is only if the other party says 'no'. So aphrodisiacs, alcohol, and other such substances do not count as rape; having sex with magically enslaved people, that isn't rape either.

In this case, I will be allowing the innocents, and children to leave the town before I cast my magic. Of course, anyone who was a soldier, or stayed back as voluntarily militia, they would die.

Normally, I wouldn't just randomly attack a town, but I needed to in this case.

I explained this reasoning, and my rules, to Soea. I guess I just wanted her input, to see if she disagreed.

But she just looked at me and smiled gently.

She didn't seem to have any disagreements with my words, or even any doubts or objections. It was a little disturbing, women usually find any reason to argue.

Well, I say any 'reason', but that word doesn't really describe women...

Turning away from Soea, I started moving again.

The town was in a small dip in the plain, there were gentle rises surrounding it, and rippling outwards in small hills.  

We stopped on the top of one of the small hill, a few hundred meters away from the city.

The soldiers who patrolled the walls could see us, I saw some of them point towards Soea and I, gesturing to each other, gathering and looking worried.

I created some Glyphs and Runes, forming them from the pure and unattributed arcane mana that floated through the atmosphere. The Runes and Glyphs glowed with a brilliant gold light, flowing all over my body, flowing over my skin as though they were made from liquid.

With a soft 'Woomph', they projected from the surface of my body and formed a sphere of golden energy.

The sphere glowed brilliantly as it rapidly expanded, seeming to float upwards, but fully encompassing Soea and I inside it.

Just because I wanted to show off a little, I allowed a portion of my true power to leak out.

My aura surged and a massive whirlwind was kicked up, raising dust and grass from the ground, spinning around me in a mini cyclone.

I could feel the fear from the guards on the wall.

But, I could also feel admiration from Soea, and a little fear.

Still emitting my aura, I walked over to Soea, who was watching me with a little fear in her eyes.

She dropped to her knees, her long black hair flowing in the magical wind.

I didn't like the fear in her eyes, I didn't want to be feared by people important to me; not again.

Kneeling in front of her, I gently embraced her.

She made a noise of contentment and burrowed into my chest, one of her arms wrapped around me in return. Her other arm was sandwiched between us, with her hand pressed to my chest, next to her face.

I leaned down, my head was just above hers. Releasing her with one arm, I gently placed a hand on her face and raised it.

"Please don't fear me."

Her body shuddered slightly.

With my arm still wrapped around her warm body, I began to stroke her hair. I released her chin with my other hand and gently grabbed the hand that she had pressed against my chest.

Her fingers twined around mine, gripping me tightly.

"I will never fear My Lord. My life, mind, soul, and body are yours. My trust in you is complete and absolute," She whispered quietly, and then giggled, "I wasn't scared, I wanted a hug."

Clever girl.

She had somehow guessed what my reaction would be.

When my hand paused in her hair, she looked up at me with puppy eyes and her lower lip quivered.

I couldn't be mad at her, even if I wanted to.

With a smile, I resumed stroking her head.

She snuggled up against me again.

I don't know how much time passed like this, but I finally pulled back and looked at her.

"Let's stop here, I have some magic to cast."

As I untangled myself from her, I felt a strange reluctance somewhere deep inside me. While she didn't fight what I was doing, she didn't move to help either.

After taking a few seconds to get control of my mind again, I stood up to continue my spell.

More and more Glyphs and Runes flowed and swirled around my body for a few seconds before joining the ever-growing sphere that surrounded us.

It only took a few more seconds before my spell was complete.

With a blindingly bright flash, the sphere dispersed, lines of Runes ran along the ground like snakes. The golden Runes were interspersed with blue Glyphs, the magic constructs snaked along the ground and surrounded the city.

When it arrived, the two types of magic split up and then ran in opposite directions around the ten meter tall stone walls.

A single rune hovered in the air, floating soundlessly in front of my face.

This Rune was a simple voice amplification Rune.

"All men and women, as well as children sixteen and under, are to vacate the town." I spoke into the Rune, my voice boomed and echoed through the city and surrounding area.

I heard a strange clattering noise from the city, which at first confused me. But then I realized that the armour that soldiers were wearing, as well as the glass in the building's windows, were vibrating.

It seems I may have amplified my voice a little too much.

At first, the soldiers had no reaction, but after the shock wore off, they began making a loud clamour.

When I infused Flame-Attributed Mana into the golden Rune chain, which both circled the city, and climbed the main gate. White flames of intense heat burned along the magic chain. When the flames met the metal reinforced gates, they were incinerated with a brilliant flash, literally carbonized in an instant.

Even the metal, which reinforced the wood, managed to hold out for just under a second before it melted into a puddle.

The White-Flame that I used was, while one of the colder flames I could use, able to melt Mithril in three to five seconds. Iron was melted in 0.01 seconds, not to mention the normal wood.

Through the open gateway, I could see shadowy forms running back and forth. Soon, a back gate was opened and small shadows began to stream out of the city.

I created a new Runic Construction, a green Runic chain appeared and branched off the primary golden Runic chain, and entered the city. It was a Spatial Warding construction, programmed to surround places that interested me, such as the Adventurer's Guild and main Library.

They had to be kept safe, so as to get the interesting things contained within.

Soea was watching my magic with interest, her eyes wide, fascination obvious on her inhumanly beautiful face.

She seemed to give off an aura of anticipation, she knew that the incineration of the gate was just the beginning of the spell.

It was then that I noticed that I felt the strange urge to show off, I wanted to impress her. So I selected the strongest spell that I could that didn't require a long time to set up or numerous and irreplaceable reagents, which all of my most powerful spells required.

After casting a quick detection spell, I made sure that all children and innocents had vacated the premise. With my magic, no one with any hostile or killing intent towards me, as long as they were older than sixteen, could escape.

It was time to begin the final part of my spell.

The spell I had chosen was a high-level forbidden spell that most people believed lost during an ancient and unnamed era. While the spell was being created, researched and improved, within the civilization that created it, an accident occurred.

The spell backfired and wiped out the entire civilization, destroying the capital and then traveling through the souls of every citizen in the satellite cities, killing them all.

This spell was also the reason that a branch of the High Human species completely ceased to exist.

 

I was using a weakened version of the spell, I didn't want to kill every human on the continent and draw the bastard god's attention.

Master had found the original and complete spell in the ruins of the civilization, in the dust and ashes of a long dead and destroyed city. The whole area was dead, there wasn't even any living organisms in the dust even after untold millennia.

Nothing would ever live or grow there again, without powerful restoration spells or divine intervention.

Taking a pitch-black gem out of my Spatial Ring, I mentally prepared myself. I didn't enjoy the next part. Even after years of using Blood Magic, I was squeamish when it came to cutting myself.

Biting the tip of my tongue, and using my magic to keep the wound open until I extracted the necessary amount of blood, I spat the thick crimson liquid onto the gem.

After repeating this action a few times, I had covered the gem in blood.

Once this uncomfortable step was completed, I released my control and the wound closed. My innate healing kicked in and the wound disappeared in under a second, not even leaving a scar.

The blood on top of the gem began to squirm and move, forming a symbol that somehow seemed inherently evil.

Upon the completion of the symbol, my blood suddenly turned a stygian black, deeper and darker than the obsidian-like gem which it covered. A toxic-looking green smoke rose into the air, congealing into a human skull that floated and moved without a breeze.

This skull demonstrated that that step of the spell was completed successfully and it was time to move to the next.

The next step was the most mana consuming part of the whole spell.

Holding the gem above my head, I began chanting in the deciphered language of the Lost Civilization of High Human variants.

Massive black Magic Circles started to form in the air in two locations, above me and above the city itself. The mystic letters, symbols and geometric shapes formed from the unleashed black mana solidified, orbiting around each other in perfectly concentric circles.

The dark sky suddenly lit up with a deep crimson glow that seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon.

Beginning softly, quietly, whispers emanated from empty air. The voices were chanting, singing, speaking profane secrets or screaming. The volume increased exponentially, until the ground itself was shaking.

The whispers sounded as though they were the very definition of evil: profane and heretical, screaming madness inducing secrets, but only to those who could speak the unknown Abyssal language.

I felt worried and looked over at Soea, I needed to know how she was reacting to this display of power, I wanted to see admiration but I feared seeing dread in her beautiful eyes.

She stood by my side and held my shirt. When I looked over, I saw that she was looking in the sky in amazement. Her tail had curled tightly around my leg, but she showed no signs of fear.

When her eyes met mine, she smiled.

The Magic Circles began to rotate rapidly, generating a strange noise that meshed in with the shrieking voices.

A black fog erupted from the Magic Circle above the city, surrounding and permeating it. New screams rose as the spell attacked the people and animals living in the city, even the buildings and walls seemed to shimmer and ripple.

Every living thing in the city was having its soul ripped out, and absorbed into to the fog.

The white and mostly transparent souls rose through the air, propelled by the fog towards the massive Magic Circle in the sky.

As the last soul was extracted, the noises stopped.

There was a flash of black light, a light that wasn't light, an eye searing illumination that flickered and strobed. The black light gave the illusion that everything became dark, the sunlight no longer visible.

This non-light was the natural byproduct of the souls impacting the Magic Circle above the city. Once the souls hit the circle, they were absorbed and transferred through a Spatial Corridor into the Magic Circle above my head.

The gem levitated out of my hands, emitting the same non-light as the Magic Circles.

When the souls emerged from the magic above me, they descended in a brilliant pillar of white light into the gem. This brilliance was the souls having been fused and converted into pure energy, the power of thousands or tens of thousands of souls.

After what seemed like an eternity, the clashing light and non-light stopped and I could see again.