"Everyone ready?"
"Yep."
"Indeed."
"Yea!"
"Alright... let us begin."
Abaddon, Exedra, Carter, and Thea were all sitting side by side on a grassy hill with a decent view of the spirit realm.
Thea was sitting on the shoulders of her father's demonic aspect, with one very simple and meaningful job to do.
Since Thea had both the divine element and her father's cursed blood running through her veins, Exedra believed that she was capable of staving off her father's destruction.
But whether it would prove to be an ingenious plan or a waste of time was yet to be seen.
On cue, the three aspects closed their eyes and started to suck in the dense spiritual energy around them.
Carter and Exedra showed little signs of discomfort as their brows crinkled from the influx of foreign energy in their body.
The purity of the spiritual energy in the air compared to their own was like night and day.
Not only did they have to pull this extremely pure energy into their being, they had to circulate it throughout every corner of their body to ensure that their own spiritual energy was properly incorporated in their body.
After a while, a burning sensation began to occur in their bodies.
Their flesh was being born anew, forcing itself to adapt to this new power they were trying to take hold of.
But however bad the discomfort they were feeling was, it was nothing compared to what Abaddon was experiencing.
As the embodiment of Abaddon's demonic nature, he felt like his entire being was being cut up, dragged through a concoction of lemon juice and salt before being slow roasted over open hellfire.
...He found it invigorating!
'This is it... this is what it means to be alive..! More! More pain! More power!'
Thea raised her brow in surprise when she noticed that her father suddenly started to greedily absorb more energy, and she quickly had to play catch up.
Since she shared her father's blood as well as the divine element, she could give this process some much needed stability by siphoning off his excess demonic energy for a more equal cohesion between demonic and spiritual.
As long as she didn't take away too little or leave him with too much, they should be able to smoothly get passed this entire ordeal.
Nearby, Sabine and her sister Charlotte were floating in the air as they watched the progress of Abaddon's three aspects with a small amount of suspicion.
"Do you think they'll be able to achieve the success they're looking for?"
"Do not be silly. You should know better than anyone that this is a fool's errand."
Charlotte looked at the backs of the three aspects and shook her head wryly.
"I don't believe that...I think that this one may be capable of showing us something we've never seen before."
- 4 Months later.
Albert Einstein once said, 'Look deeply into nature and you will understand everything better.'
In the time that Abaddon and all three of his aspects spent cultivating, they did not simply remain idle.
All three of them were developing a supreme level understanding of what it meant to be one with the land, and in turn hidden their understanding of their own abilities.
They felt as if they watched an endless cycle go by without blinking even once.
'Day turns into night.'
'The spring gives way to summer, fall, and the winter.'
'Life flickers out and becomes death, which in turn feeds more life.'
'The winds rise and fall, just as all things must breathe in and breathe out.'
After cultivating in the spirit realm for all of these months, there was finally a change on the hill where the four of them resided.
Thea opened her eyes after what felt like a very long nap and looked down at the demonic version of her father.
His entire body was glowing with a golden light, which made this hulking demon seem almost holy in nature.
And he wasn't the only one going through this enlightenment, as both Exedra and Carter were glowing rather brightly as well.
Sensing a change, she slid down from her father's shoulders and put a short distance between them.
'Well... Their energy is stabilized and there is no longer a risk of father overloading... I wonder if it is almost over..?'
As Thea stretched her own body, she realized that she had broken her fourth seal on her weapon.
It appeared as though helping her father had unexpected benefits for her as well.
Suddenly, the wind started to blow fiercely through the hilltop, and Thea looked up into the sky at the new visitors.
Previously, the only spirits she had seen were the charming Sabine and the bubbly Charlotte.
But now... she was literally seeing hundreds if not thousands of them soaring above her head, all staring at her three glowing fathers.
"I.. don't believe it."
"Hello, Thea!"
Two familiar faces appeared directly beside the oldest princess in flashes of light.
As always, Charlotte was incredibly friendly and gentle, as she immediately pulled Thea in for a hug.
"Hello girls! What's with the welcome parade?"
"A new higher spirit is about to be born... one of the highest calibre..."
"We're about to get a new sibling!" Charlotte said excitedly.
"That is wrong, sister..." Sabine corrected shakily. "With this much spiritual energy... we are going to get a ruler."
Unlike living beings who traditionally reproduce through intercourse, elemental spirits spontaneously burst into creation at any given time.
And spirits that are already around can always sense the presence of one of their own who is about to come into being.
Typically, they do not all appear at once to welcome a new sibling like this, but this occasion was rather special for a few reasons. n0vεluSb.c0m
1. For the first time ever, a male nature spirit was about to be born.
2. Not only was one a male, but it was initially an outsider as well.
3. The amount of spiritual energy that they could feel being funneled into it's being was... bottomless.
They would have been fools not to come and see this for themselves.
"I think something's happening!"
Finally, the three iterations of Abaddon changed into pure masses of golden energy.
The energy comprising Abaddon and Exedra soon changed, swirling with one being an ominous black and the other a fiery red.
The three energies blended together and congealed into one enormous bundle of power that made even Thea's hairs stand on end.
After five minutes of melding, there was finally a change.
A body was created out of thin air.
More monster than man, it stood at a full eight feet in height and had a body packed with explosive muscles.
It's body and hair were a dull white color, with scales like only the purest of diamonds glistening off it's figure.
In the center of it's chest were thirteen gems of all different colors.
The head of this creature was that of a dragon, with blinding orange eyes and horns that seemed large for even his head.
The creature slowly stopped levitating and allowed his feet to touch the ground, causing a beautiful and vibrant field of flowers to spring up from all around him.
It seemed to be getting used to the new power within it's veins, as it opened and closed it's palms like it was unaccustomed to such strength.
It held out a clawed finger and three butterflies landed on top of it without fear of his appearance, earning a monster's version of a gentle smile.
And then... as quickly as the creature showed up, he disappeared.
Left behind in his place was a man whom seemed to take away all of the air from the atmosphere.
Abaddon had been handsome ever since he came to this world.
It seemed like with every evolution his charm had become greater and greater... until he finally reached the peak of attractiveness that even other immortal's could not reach.
Growing to a height of 6'8, his skin had gone from an irredeemable pitch black to a lighter, warmer dark grey.
The sickness he had been contending with seemed to have healed itself, as his toned and muscular figure had returned, allowing him to fill out his clothes once again.
His long white hair had to be tied up, as it came all the way to the ground beneath his feet and dragged behind him as he walked.
The horns on top of his head were significantly longer and thicker, and they now curled outwards like that of a bull.
But the most interesting thing were his eyes.
Before, Abaddon's eyes were heterochromatic, with the left one being purple and the right being red.
But now, both eyes were a bloody red until he blinked, then they changed to a neon amethyst, and finally a mesmerizing gold before they became red once again.
The tattoos on his body were constantly swirling and shifting like the sands of time, and if one looked at them for too long they could easily find themselves mesmerized.
Now that he no longer had the face of a dragon, Abaddon's smile was much more tender and captivating than before.
As he admired the butterflies crawling along his finger, he couldn't help but let his new appreciation for nature slip out of his mouth.
"How beautiful..."
Even these insects seemed to blush furiously at his complement, and one fell over entirely.
It was at this moment that Abaddon also learned he could now read the minds of animals.
He had never been hit on by bugs before, but it was a new thing he could check off his bucket list.
"What funny things you are... I believe I might like to keep you."
This time, the remaining two butterflies fell over and this earned a small chuckle from him.
"Father..?"
Abaddon looked up at his eldest daughter and his eyes became significantly warmer. "My darling daughter. Are you proud of me?"
"Always... I have never not been proud of you, father." Even though nothing particularly emotional had happened, Thea felt the urge to cry.
Her father had always been the most kind man she had ever known but now... he was like nature itself.
Warmth that was all encompassing and protecting, with an underlying cruelty reserved for those who would see to his destruction.
But just like nature, there was beauty in his every action, be they merciful or merciless.
And Thea was one of the only beings alive who could fully appreciate that, without seeking to change him in the slightest.
Just as Thea prepared to rush forward and give her father a well needed embrace, she faced a unexpected interruption.
"I-I have to have him!"
"New brother, let's do some family bonding~!"
"It's been so long since we got to have an orgy, I want him first!"
Abaddon looked up at the darkening sky overhead while retaining his small smile.
"There are quite a lot of you... where were you girls hiding before?"
The bewitching nature spirits flew at Abaddon like his hose was the only thing capable of putting out the fire in their underwear, and Thea finally remembered her duty to cut off the hands of any who tried to touch her father.
She removed her favorite longsword from her storage ring and prepared to go on an all out assault, when something miraculous happened right before her eyes.
The grass around Abaddon suddenly squirmed and took on a life of it's own, and enormous plants suddenly burst from the ground.
Vines and tree roots of over twenty feet in length swatted the girls out of the air and restrained them, causing Thea's mouth to fall open from shock.
While this was hardly something out of character or difficult for her father to do, that was just the point.
He didn't do it.
Abaddon had not used a spell, spiritual energy, or even one of his many abilities.
Beside Thea, Sabine fell to her knees on the ground.
The beautiful nature spirit was looking at Abaddon as if he was a cross between a living god and a delusion of the highest caliber.
"Sabine?? What happened??" Thea asked worriedly.
The words were so absurd that Sabine did not even want to voice them, but the princess was rather persistent so she had no choice but to spill.
"He... Has become our ruler... Nature itself now protects him of it's own volition."