Chapter 23

All sacrifices dropped and their bodies started to disintegrate into motes of honey as they fly upwards and create a golden dome above the ritual. A run rises on the east, bright white but with seemingly no purpose as it damages whoever looks at it. Then the sun wanders from the east to west, it transforms and becomes golden, it's light calming down and giving off a healing vibe. As the sun goes beyond the middle point and is about to advance…

"Holy… NO MORE! Your sun has passed, your light diminished! Long hail the darkness, the father of light! Light gone, only holy present, weaker than pure darkness! Illusion, Illusion, Light is an Illusion created in the presence of Darkness! No light without darkness, but darkness prevails above! Darkness, PREVAILS ABOVE ALL!"

The dome crashes into itself as the light motes turn into black ones. They surround the blinding half golden half white sun. No light comes out, as the holy and light try to fight off the darkness. But! The holy can't see the light as equal, while the Light sees the Holy as impurities equal to the darkness! A hopeless three-way clash becomes one where darkness dominates!

Holy and Light, close in nature, are about to ally themselves, but right at this moment, the wandering sun that never stopped, halted above Onaia's head! She was surprised about the transition but didn't say anything. She trusted that Alaric wouldn't do anything that creates loss!

"Darkness PREVAILS! Kneel, Holy and Light, affinities so close, but LESSER!" The dark sun that consumes all light on its way falls down like a puppet that lost its strings. It falls and then lands on Onaia, about to be consumed by her.

"Darkness, father of Light, Holy, Child of Light, forgetting piety, forgetting their responsibility! Light, generations before and after yours dominating. Flee, flee, run away! Come here, a child of the Demonic! An enemy of Holy and Usurper of Darkness! Once an enemy, now a friend! Follow it's wish, combine and… DOMINATE!"

The dark sun suddenly exploded as it entered Onaia's body, golden and black lights shrinking as they are absorbed by Light and Demonic respectively. A new black forming from darkness, different, squirming and oppressive, while golden becomes white once more. Demonic and Light come into a new balance… but Onaia's Soul inherently handles Demonic better, in the new battle between Light and Demonic, Light loses!

Then, suddenly, as if on cue, the Light that is starting to lose sees a glint of hope in the centre of the soul, directly next to the origin of Demonic! It runs, sprints, rushes, and arrives! Standing in front of the Inherent illusion-Affinity, it rushes and combines!

Illusion-Affinity creates distance between Darkness, no longer dependent. Mind-Affinity, the one unaffected in the trinity, suddenly gets the sole energy supply from the demonic! The demonic strengthens itself, absorbing the strength that came from Darkness. But it's too much! The excess power flows trough the bond to Mind-Affinity, which absorbs it with delight.

The clash subsides, Illusion comes back to form a trinity, but now, there is no three-way bond! No, Illusion bonds itself with its close neighbour Mind, while Mind bond with Demonic. Mind, that was previously still weaker than the two, benefits from being the bridge, and all affinities come into newfound balance that is much stronger than before.

Outside, Onaia seems to suffer great pain, Keen has to fight with all his strength to keep her from moving, restricting at least the outside from clashing. Kendrick could interfere with the inner body, with the soul, but this wasn't good. It would create a variable; it was better to just restrict the body and let Onaia guide everything on her own.

Then, as all light from before disappears, Onaia falls down from exhaustion. "Keen, give her some essence liquid." This was materialised essence that can be found in the depths of mines, where essence stones, also materialised essence but with lower purity, can be found.

Keen goes forward and gives her the liquid as Alaric looks at the eastern side. Hinny died the moment the ritual started, she barely experienced anything. Her body only exists as an anchor to her soul, as she can't move away at all. A few drops fall every few minutes, this was the rest reserves that couldn't be taken before.

Finally, Onaia stands up and looks at Alaric with admiration. She had suffered, that much was true, but her talent just heightened up by a lot. Sure, her affinities were so battle ridden and exhausted, that they formed a natural seal around themselves to not leak any energy, but she could feel it. Her talent was a lot higher than before, affinity so strong, each of them stronger than the combined force of the affinities from before.

She couldn't believe it! Her affinities were multiplied by three! Talent doubled too! Talent was decided by different factors, but just the fact that it doubled meant a lot more than what was true! She couldn't believe it; this was actually on the realm of Greater Rituals! This ritual was created in a single day?! How was that possible!

"This was a ritual at the peak of Higher. A Greater Ritual is something else, nothing I am not able to do, but time is too short. I mainly used your body, Origin and a conflicting ritual to enhance the benefits. If it was any other person, they'd have died, so, specific rituals such this might be much stronger than common Higher rituals, but they can't enter the realm of Greater Rituals just because of that, especially not since barely anyone is able to benefit from it."

Onaia nodded somewhat absent mindedly, but Alaric continued "But even so, this ritual isn't as great as you think. Your Demonic-Affinity was actually the only one that got a proper 'upgrade'. After a few stages, a three-way bond will be created once again. The newly found Light-Affinity that strengthened your Illusion-Affinity is only quasi-permanent, with no supply, it will die out and your affinity won't be able to grow its own when you become stronger. Meanwhile, your Mind-Affinity is only a third party benefitting in the first place, so it will follow Illusion and also become dependent on Demonic.

The only way to stop this is by becoming a half-light or half-dream entity. Don't think of becoming a mind-entity, it benefitted but it has no Origin of its own, Demonic is compatible with Mind, but Light creates natural Illusions, while Demonic is only oppressive and mind-destroying, the connection isn't strong enough to let Mind fully absorb it.

Not to mention, I doubt you want to let go of your demonkin lineage, so let's not speak of this anymore. The remaining affinity will strengthen it, and I think that it would be enough to keep this balance till the third stage. The fourth stage will actually be very challenging for you, since the balance will be recreated, and at the fifth stage, it will completely turn back.

But the benefits will be there. Your Illusion, Mind and Demonic affinities gain a general boost, it won't be as strong as how it is now, but I think it should be around 50%, the demonic might even go up to 60% or 70%, your talent will have been raised by 25%. For now, though, you will be able to climb smoothly and very fast at least till the third stage, and after overcoming the fourth, the fifth stage will also become easier and in no time, you'll reach the sixth stage.

This will also be when the boost is fully gone, since that's the peak of the middle stages, and I'd have to be at least in the middle stage and create a Greater Ritual to give you a boost of affinity and talent, but trust me, even ten times the amount of affinity we used wouldn't be enough.

It would be better to just make people with such affinity your subordinates in the future. Anyways, this boost will rush your early stages and help you in the middle stages as long as you overcome the fourth stage, which is the easiest of the middle stages.

At the fifth stage, you can already start overtaking the kingdom. Don't worry… you won't need to reach the sixth stage to be a queen, at least not for some time."

Onaia listened attentively after she calmed down, and what she gained was beyond what she could ask for. Clearly, the favour she owed Alaric would be extremely difficult to repay. It was the early and especially middle stages she had to worry about. If someone found out about her being a demon while she was in the early stages, then that would be a tragedy.

But she was sure she could hide at least for a few years, now, if she could rush trough the early stages and quickly become sixth stage, then the only ones capable of dealing with her wouldn't be able to leave for such a long time and distance. The fight would be too risky if the enemy party didn't at least send a seventh stage, and who on this small continent could afford sending a seventh stage towards the corner of the continent, so far away from all strong factions?

It was better to just negotiate with them and ensure they wouldn't conflict with each other. This plan would only work if she reached the sixth stage in very few years, but even with her previous talent, which was quite high, it wouldn't have been able to reach that before at least ten years passed. Now, she could do it probably in five or less! Hiding for that time would be easy! No one would think that she would reach the high stages so fast, and she would only have to show steady growth till the third stage while she was actually in the fifth stage, preparing to take over the kingdom and all of it's territory!