One Down

This time Mayton found himself in a dimly lit room with stone walls. From the ground to the roof, including the walls the whole room was covered in densely engraved symbols, making up a complicated formation.

At the center of the formation was a stone bed with its smooth surface shining under the light that came from the blue flames of the torches lined on the walls.

''Go on, you know what to do. Don't worry too much, it got prematurely awakened only by the virtue of everyone around you calling its name repeatedly*. It's far from a real threat to you. ''

The soul slave encouraged Mayton, who was looking around the room as he remembered the horrifying screams of pain let out by the owner of the tower's lover on this bed and hesitating.

''Alright.''

Mayton took a deep breath and slowly walked to the bed. When he was next to it his jaw was tightly clenched with determination. He knew the risks and pain involved in what he was going to attempt, but at least he was in control of the situation.

Despite not understanding when it was happening, after thinking about the incident, he realized that while he was back in the world of flames** his actions were heavily affected by the ancient demon's consciousness, and his only other option to keep it in check was leaving his fate in the hands of Leyzhen.

He wasn't willing to trust anyone with his life.

''Let's begin.''

Mayton sat down cross legged on the stone bed and began meditating.

As soon as he shut his eyes, the white seal placed on his soul by Leyzhen appeared in his vision. Mayton checked out the crack and the eye behind it briefly, but after a quick glance, he avoided further eye contact with it in order to not get affected by its hypnotic powers.

'First, we must get rid of the seal. It's too strong for you to handle. Just don't resist and leave it to me.'

The soul slave's voice reverberated in Mayton's mind. As soon as it finished the sentence all the symbols engraved on the room lit up with a sinister gray light indicating that the formation was now fully active.

With the activation of the formation, a huge silver razor appeared in Mayton's vision and started to slash the seal. Every hit by the razor made the seal flicker as it got weaker and weaker.

Meanwhile, the ancient demon's consciousness, which got bolstered by years of people calling its name, was attacking the seal from inside, making the tiny crack at the corner of the seal bigger.

Before long, the seal shattered and made the thing sealed inside visible to Mayton. It looked almost exactly like Mayton except for the flames covering its body and the mountain peaks in its eyes.

With a silent roar, it hurled itself toward Mayton. Mayton was expecting just that though. He made an incantation gesture and pointed at the space in front of him, still avoiding any eye contact with the ancient demon in the process. Another much smaller silver razor materialized and slashed at the location Mayton pointed at.

The silver razor made contact with something at the seemingly empty space, making a white thread connecting Mayton and his lookalike. With a snap, the connection broke as the part of Mayton's soul that was controlled by the ancient demon stiffened momentarily mid charge. Despite feeling an intense pain sweeping through his body after the connection got cut off, Mayton gritted his teeth and started to make another incantation gesture.

Before the ancient demon could charge at Mayton once more, a silver razor created by the soul slave descended, and slashed between it and Mayton, snapping another previously invisible thread. This gave Mayton enough time to attack once more. Another razor descended and another thread got cut off.

This continued on for almost an hour. The threads were connecting the part of Mayton's soul controlled by the ancient demon to the main part and they were crucial for the ancient demon's continuous survival. So it created another connection each time the thread got destroyed, using up a lot of energy in the process.

Once it was weakened enough that way, Mayton who was close to losing passing out due to pain reminded himself of the consequences of failure to clear his mind and got ready for dealing the finishing blow.

Now, he had to attack at the soul directly and remove the part that housed the core of the ancient demon's consciousness from it. Its eyes. It was extremely important not to destroy the whole soul because that meant destroying a part of his own soul.

With intense concentration, Mayton materialized another silver razor and aimed it at the right eye of the ancient demon, gouging it out with surgical precision. At the moment the eye fell off a silvery hand materialized and after grabbing the eye disappeared with it. This prompted an unprecedented reaction from the ancient demon.

Flames on its body that was beginning to die down as it got weakened roared to life once more, burning more intense than ever while its only remaining eye cleared up of flames and the lofty mountain hidden among them became fully visible.

'Hurry up. I can protect your life but you will definitely lose that part of your soul.'

Mayton heard the soul slave's anxious voice. But he already knew what the changes on the ancient demon entailed to. He saw similar reactions in his dream. It was without a doubt getting ready to self destruct in a bid to bring Mayton down with itself.

Mayton made another incantation gesture, and with a shout, sent the newly materialized razor towards the left eye of the ancient demon.

Unfortunately, Mayton who was on the verge of slipping into unconsciousness neither had enough time nor had the necessary concentration to perfectly control the razor this time and as a result, sliced off the left side of the ancient demon's head with his attack, damaging the soul body a little.

'Haha, it is done! You only lost a little bit of your soul in the process. Even the ancient demon's consciousness is intact. It's a resounding success!'

The soul slave guffawed joyously as another silvery hand appeared and grabbed the left eye of the ancient demon. After losing both of its eyes the flames on the soul body of the ancient demon extinguished completely while the soul body itself dispersed into tiny white particles and fused with Mayton's already outrageously strong soul, strengthening it further.

When Mayton opened his eyes, he saw the soul slave holding two new ornaments in its hand. They were white orbs with a red mountain engraved on them.

'With this, one of the obstacles to my freedom is taken care of...'

Mayton wiped the sweat on his forehead as he looked at the new ornaments at the hands of the soul slave with burning eyes.

This time the flames in his eyes were not there because of a foreign entities influence on him. They were the expression of his zeal. His zeal to never surrender to fate again.