142 Orcon Forest VI : Black Ash Xeron

Alex knew that each one of his spirits had a story to tell, and Xeron would not be any different. There was just something about this salamander that made his seem so tragic, Alex really couldn't understand much of it, but Xeron felt as if he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Alex kept his eyes in the horizon, past all of the death and destruction caused by black ash, watching the sunset that seem frozen to the sky. It was a beautiful sight when you to used on it alone, and Alex was sure Xeron felt the same way.

"I wasn't born a demonic, magical or even as a spirit beast. I was just a common animal, a common salamander if not a little bit weird because of the mutation or evolution that gave me the spines on my back. But none of this should even matter because before I could fully grow, or had the chance to breathe the sir of the world I died, right in my egg, but for some reason my spirit was aware. At that point there was a fearsome battle between two creatures of great magnificence, till date I have no idea what the other creature was, but the first was undoubtedly a dragon.

It's blood eased all-over my egg, reviving my dead form and giving me the ability to evolve beyond what was expected of me by nature. And so that's just what I did, by virtue of practically being the vampire for lizards, I could take on the essence of any other creature and use it to fuel my growth, and grow was just exactly what I did. But the price of evolution and power was steel, as I grew stronger, and more conscious, the need to absorb essence became more than just an animalistic instinct, I knew I needed to hunt for said essences.

And for that, across mainly centuries, I carved a path of death and desolation, my ability to control and elusive and never before seen attribute of fire and poison, made me so dangerous I could kill existences many leagues stronger than me if I could just get close enough.

Within those years I realized that even with all of my powers I was still just a simple Salamander, a freak of nature born from an accident, something that was considered impure. So my ultimate goal was to reach the Pinnacle of my evolution chain, to become a member of the prime race and be feared and respected…..dragon hood.

And it was right there, right in my grasp, but years not visiting the horror of black ash across many worlds had more than gained me my fair share of enemies, many of which were loads stronger than me. And each and every single one of them were willing to die to stop me from becoming what I was supposed to be. In their eyes I've never seen such rage, and anger and fear, so much fear. I really didn't care what they thought about me, it's a hard universe and the strong eat the weak, just as many times I was trampled on by an existence stronger than me, I too did not hesitate to trampled on the strong and weak as long as it made me strong.

Who knew fire and ashes could be so dangerous.... Practically everybody knew of course, but still, not even Ébié blood controlling ability gave Alex pause the way this did. It's not as if there's not a possibility that he might develop more sinister abilities in the future, but at the moment the power to leave the world desolate from Ash and flame, killing it from the inside made him somewhat terrified, he has always been looking for power to be able to defend himself and his family, but now that it has come to him, Alex couldn't help but wonder if too much power wouldn't be a problem.

The world seemed to care into itself and Alex found myself back within the mantle, he had a lot to think about, because he had this feeling that with great power comes great responsibility. He also knew he probably head that phrase from somewhere, but he couldn't exactly be sure, but honestly it couldn't be any more true. A screen popped in in front of him, it wasn't exactly easy getting used to this, but this interface only ever showed up within the mantle, and Nezha had told him that the Spirit world itself ran on screens like this, it made things easier to understand and keep track of, Alex though felt it was ridiculous.

SPIRIT MASKS (7)

1. FIRE SPIRIT MASK: 2 FIRE SPIRIT CONTRACTED

2. BLOOD DRAGON SPIRIT MASK: 1 BLOOD SPIRIT CONTRACTED

3. ??????

4. ??????

5. ??????

6. ??????

7. ??????

Guess this was a welcome improvement, hardly anything new who goes out searching for power ever finds it, and Alex seems to be riding on some boat of invisible luck that has taken him where he needs to be every time he needed something. Though if you begin to think about the sheer amount of danger that's connected with all of his increase in power, you couldn't help but wonder if it would not be better for Alex to just remain locked up in his house instead. But never the less this was his power now, and he would make the best of the situation that has been placed in front of him.

The world of the mantle faded away as Alex opened his eyes to the sky above, it seemed like they were in a clearing, but he had barely opened his eyes when a massive spider with spike like hair on it's sharpened to a point let's flew over his head. Alex scrambled to his feet just in time to see a spinning snow flake fly through the air to decapitate the spider, spewing green acidic blood all-over the barrier of light that was over their heads.

Alex looked around to notice that they were surrounded on all sides by a ridiculous amount of beasts, Louis was kneeling on the floor, his hands raised up, with sweat on his brow as he struggled to maintain the light barrier spell. But from what Alex could see, he was almost at his breaking point, and it was only a matter of time before he completely ran out of energy and then all of the beasts would be right on top of them. Alex noticed a terribly injured man lying down helplessly Within the barrier with them, and Anya cradling her injured right fist that was still bleeding as her Chakrams flew through the air outside the barrier, slicing monsters into well cauterized bits.

Xiao Mei was fully concentrated on also controlling five snowflakes a meter in diameter each, they were basically the primary method of attack and defense as Louis and Anya were her support. But there were running out of time, they could only remain safe for as long as Louis could hold on to his spell, and it seemed as if time was almost up. Alex scrambled up to his feet, his fire mask appearing on his face, it had changed again from what it looked like before.

The basic color of the mask was still orange, with two green bands running from the hair line, all the way down the forehead to the bridge of the nose. The mask covered much of his head as it's edges stretched backwards, jagged and hanging over Alex's head like flames, and now, there were two reddish black fang like bands running from top to bottom, starting from the top of his cheekbone, to the edge of his jaw. And this bands represented the power of Black Ash, the power bar Alex was about to unleash into the world again.