Where Mydelis resided the day he was resurrected turned out to be the temple of a goddess.
It was a beautiful temple, though ruined by the stains of blood covering the walls of the temple.
Guess this was from my reawakening...
I stumbled through the dark, narrow hallways of the temple of an unknown goddess, not knowing a thing about where I'd awoken.
Oh right... my previous form, Maelis, had special powers, though I wonder if I still have any to speak of in this moment.
So I went for it. I focussed all my mind and soul into a single flame flame attack, aimed against the wall, and BOOM. The wall collapsed before my eyes, after a burst of light and heat spread through the room like a virus. This revealed something. A mural.
I scanned the mural to see what I could find, and what I found astonished me. This mural contained history before Maelis came into this world, and it showed what happened after, too. But there was something... something much more... intriguing... It was what history thought of my tale, the tale of the great Maelis.
The Mural had written:
"Maelis was a promising young boy, and had a pure heart. He was raised by the great mage Kharlis, who taught him many forms of magic. Maelis soon overtook Kharlis, and only became stronger. That's when it happened. His soul was turned evil by a dark power, and the gods soon caught the attention of this young man. As Maelis' days went by, the gods used him as a pawn, to get what they wanted. They used him for so long, he became his favourite. But that soon would change. The gods betrayed Maelis, and placed him on a pedestal, and Maelis was hammered to death my a massive, god-sized hammer, and he was known after that as Maelis the Heretic..."
As much as this entire story wasn't entirely false, it wasn't fully true though. I never had a pure heart to begin with, not once. And I was never the gods' favourite. Never have been, never will be.
I began to trail into the darkness once again, mind overthrown by the feeling of hate. That's when I decided...
Since I've been reborn, my ultimate goal is to shatter all 8 gods. I want to see them all writhe in pain, faces suffering with agony. After all, it's only fair since they made me suffer too.
So my plan is simple. Become stronger. And go to all 8 of the god's temples. In each temple resides a god, those being the god of the: earth, fire, wind, water, electricity, trickery, war, and hate.
Each temple consists of tricks and traps set by each god, and only then, once you've cleared each and every obstacle, you're free to challenge the gods. The challenge between a god and its challenger is simple. No help from the outside is allowed, and the battle wins once either one is killed.
I think the best move would be to go to the newest temple: the god of trickery. A formidable foe for sure, but nothing these hands of mine can't handle without a bit of practice.
And so the tale of the new Maelis, also known as Mydelis, was set.
3 days had passed since the day he awakened. He had ventured far enough into the temple to find monsters, though they were all low-ranked. A goblin, a few slimes and a wolf or two. The flames of Mydelis' destruction massacred them all, only their ashes left behind. Each day was the same: go out, hunt for food, get water, come back to base. It remained that way, for as long as I could remember... until...
BOOM. An explosion erupted in the temple, filling the echoing halls with a bang. From that explosion, was a giant monster, at least twice the size of me, and it spoke:
"Foolish child! You trespass in the goddess's domain! Flesh and blood will not save you from my wrath!"
The monster's voice was deep, almost robot like. It looked like a wolf, but shadows came out of that wolf's fur in all directions, spewing into the cool breeze that ran through the temple. After looping those words in my head a few times, I came to the realisation... I'm already in a god's temple, just one of the gods are actually a goddess.
"Whose temple is this?" I asked the lone wolf.
"This is the temple of the goddess of fire. You may have realised the fire all over these walls. ANYWAY! You are to remain still, or I shall kill you!"
Well well well, here's a good test subject for my new skill, hellfire ascension.
I start running toward the wolf, and I pretend to be a weak, fragile guy. After a few minutes of a solid run, though, I use it.
"HELLFIRE ASCENSION!"
From the ground, a fire rose, in a spiral motion, catching on to ever surface it could, especially the wolf. And a few good seconds of hellfire ascension later, the wolf was burnt to a crisp, with only its ashes left over.
This sequence of events only made me wonder more... what was the extent of my powers. So I tried to conjure as much fire as possible, and concentrating it on a small radius, and firing the fireball towards the wall. Clean pierce through the wall. I named it "Cinder of Ruin", since it tore straight through the wall. Next, I tried fusing the fire with some electrical power. After tossing my skill at a wall again, it made a massive crater on the wall, charred marks everywhere, and a hint of electricity crackled through the ashes of the rocks. I named this skill "Thunderflare". I continued to test some skills and came up with a few skills:
-Tempest howl
-Quake strike
-Inferno Gale
-Cinderquake
These skills were only to improve over time before reaching its final potential.
A few more days passed, and I felt ready to explore the rest of the temple. The temple was really only a temple on the outside, but once you step in, you're pretty much stuck, untill you die or beat the god/goddess. In any case, I was going to have to find the right path to the main room quickly since all the monsters and animals are starting to disappear entirely from this temple, since I've been here for a while now. From the centre of the temple, there are 3 paths: the north path, the east path and the west path. When I awakened the other day, I chose the west path. Little did I know this was going to be the most difficult of the 3 paths to survive...
I ventured down the maze-like hallways of the west path, stepping over spikes implanted onto the ground that could raise at any given moment in time, a massive boulder, ready to crush you if you're too slow, and before long, there was the hardest trap yet. When I opened the doors, and stepped through them, the doors shut behind me, leaving me and the trap.
Once I stepped forward, suddenly, keys appeared in my hand, about 15, to count. And then, water began to rise from the room's floor. I knew the gist: open the door before I drowned. So I swam furiously towards the door, without a second to waste. I fumbled some of the keys, dropping them in the process, and only watching as 5 keys fell to the floor, piercing through the water's dense insides. I hurriedly picked them back up, with out a second to waste. Slowly, through every second, my mind was going into overdrive. Every second that lingered was another second of insanity. Therefore, I had to do this quickly. Soon enough, my hands fell into overdrive too, swarming the door with key after key after key, until finally, on the 13th try, I finally made it though, though barely.
From that room and forwards, I though nothing could stop me. But oh boy, was I wrong. There were more rooms with deadly traps. One room had a tightrope that if you fell, the void would eat you alive like a predator and its prey, and a room with a floor full of spikes, where you had to step through all of them to make it through to the other side. These 2 rooms in particular were almost the end of me, though I barely made it through.
At the end of the series of traps (which might I add, came completely without warning), there stood one final room, with what looked like the mix of a dragon and a snake; draconic body, snakish head. He bore a faint emblem on his chest, heavy armour that looked impentrable, even from the strongest attack, and a massive, 5-foot sword, almost as tall as him. From the moment I saw sight of that room, I knew it would be trouble. BIG trouble. But, that wasn't gonna stop me from trying anyway. Maybe I'm reborn again after I die, Maybe I finally rest peacefully in hell. Who knows? So I have to make it out alive, no matter the cost.
"Who goes there!?" shouted the reptile fusion man.
"My name is Mydelis. I am the reincarnation of Maelis the Heretic. You must know him, right? This is a fire temple."
"I'm sorry... who are you? I have never heard your name in my 200+ years of life."
Wait what?! He doesn't know me? I brought calamity to the world via the gods, and yet, he doesn't know who I am? Did humanity rebuild that quickly? He did mention he's 200+ years old...
"Fine, sure. Know me or don't. I don't care."
"Well, if you say so. Anyway.... Time to die!"