*As time passed, the clock kept on ticking, slowly but surely reaching the darkest

hour. Selendis knew what was coming, it was beyond her comprehention what was going
to be, but it was far stronger than she was. Even with the meditation and fight in
the dark catacombs, it still wasn't enough to reach the power needed to face this
evil. Selendis moved rapidly across the main room of her house, going through most
rooms, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, backyard, frontyard, she was walking desperately
around trying to calm down. Doubtful of her motives and unsure of her final
destination, she couldn't but walk around. In her distressed search for answers a
feeling of nausea kicked in, flipping over her plans. It was about the same feeling
as a vision, but it was a lot stranger. Stronger not in the way that could help
her, but the impact it had on her psionic form was far higher than the usual,
creating disturbances and aches across her body, but no heal or space manipualtion
could fix that. She sat down, trying to pull it together and inevitabily closed her
eyes. As she rested, she entered a meditative state, her entire psionic strength
exhalting nearby, forming somewhat transparent green flames as an aura and her eyes
returned to the burning state. Her foresight activated once more as it focused on
the same sphere from the past visions too, not leaving her alone, hurting her the
more time had passed. But as she waited more, it got more detailed, more
descriptive. Details formed around the object, showing the location more
accurately. Yes, it was all becoming clear now. She had one vision, but that was
all she needed. Back in the real world the entire house was filled with a greenish
tint, upon Selendis waking up back to reality it all faded away. She regained her
compolsure and then looked around, determined. With a quick analysis of the room,
she decided there was nothing to do. In her lonliness, she even started talking to
herself.* "Time for thought is over, I must now act. The artifacts will be forged
together and the keystone will be created. There is no failure, there is not a
second chance." *Selendis said as she started scavaging through the room, looking
for her gauntlet. Gauntlet which held the most of her strength, the psionic blade.
After a few minutes of throwing the entire place in a mess, she managed to find it
in a drawer, no clue how it ended up there, but it was not important as it was
found in time. As she was prepared, Selendis focused for a few moments, going
invisible, hiding from the world, for her mission was sacred in her eyes. She knew
where the place was, where the first artifact was hidden. It was in an old place
holding a great significance to not only the history of Demonia and Azrath, but the
entire world. She was going to journey herself in the ruins of the fallen king. But
that was far away from where she was and could not wait to lose that much time, so
she decided to get down to something more unortodox. It was about the time she had
to raid some poor people, stealing a horse and head towards the castle. Said and
done, as she sneaked with ease in the vicnity of a normal Demonia's house, she
stole a horse by cutting off the rope it was attached with to a fence. She got on
it's back and kicked the road, heading at high speeds towards the ruins, now used
more as a mortal reminder to spread fear through the entire nation that anyone can
be defeated if they don't play their cards correctly, spreading some fear through
Selendis as well as she eas expecting the worst from her future, despite knowing
what will happen at random times in the future. She didn't know for sure her
future, but the least she cared. Once there, facing the ruins she decided to let go
of the horse and offer it the gift of freedom, a gift for serving a greater cause
than itself. So she decided to enter the ruins and break them, throw them out of
the way. This artifact was underground, just like the temple. After hours of
searching through the entire fortress-castle, after ruining what already was
destroyed and breaking small parts from a piece of history, Selendis managed to
find fresh ground instead of rock covered one. By looking through that specific
place, her visions instantly triggered and had shown flashes of her digging,
throwing out of her way ground, a fall and a sanctuary, sanctuary which held the
sphere artifact. Having everything seen, she thought, Selendis started igniting her
blade and dig down, dig and dig until she would reach thinner ground. It was close,
she was sure of it. As time passed so did Selendis through the ground, through the
dirt and mud that got in her way. As she was digging with faith that there is hope
for tomorrow, all of a sudden she found herself falling down in a sanctuary. Her
head was a bit injured on fall, but easily recovered after a few seconds. As the
Demonia recovered, she looked around and gazed upon the sacred place she was on,
finding herself in a room filled with 4 statues of the demon king, pillars with
inscriptions on them and in the middle, on top of stairs there was the sphere
artifact. It seemed very easy, a bit too easy even. That was for sure a trap,
something was going to happen in there. Selendis ignited her blade and focused,
looked around in every corner for hidden traps. She was expecting everything:
Pressure plates, wires, magic prisons, random rumble to start, collapse of the
tomb, anything! But even then nothing could be found. Selendis sighed in disbelief,
doubt still taking over her as she was certain there was something hidden, lurking
around there, just she couldn't feel their psionic presence. Having everything
checked up, she walked slowly yet firmly up the stairs towards the artifact. Once
up there, face to face with it, a bit hesitant, she picked it up and scoffed it in
her clothing, hiding it. Waiting about five seconds in place and looking around,
Selendis thought it was safe to go, and decided to walk away in relief that nothing
messed up was going to happen. But just as she walked down the stairs, strong and
echoing sounds of the impact between rocks struck. The noise was deafening so
Selendis covered her ears instantly. Looking around, the statues from before
started moving, slowly they activated as inscriptions from the pillars had been
forming on the statues too, bringing them to life. They moved slow, but on every
step the ground underneath shook, slowly collapsing the entire place. Alongside
their rumbling the entrance hole was also blocked and trapped Selendis in there
with them. There was no obvious solution, other than fighting them and engaging in
glorious combat. She ignited her blade and pointed towards one of them, activating
the Shadow Consumption and cause an implosion in it's area, crushing the stone it
was made of. However, even crushed it kept on moving, all that it's torso was very
dense and packed into a smaller sphere-like form. It was seemingly useless, they
didn't stop from moving. As she looked at them, it started to become visible that
they were renewing the symbols over their body every few seconds, creating
pulsation waves across their bodies. While Selendis was observing that on one of
the statues, one got close enough and stopmed the ground near her, rumbling it and
throwing selendis in the sky. She would look desperately around and blin to the
feet of a statue, seeing the wave was going to pass through them soon. She ignited
her blade and dashed forward, cutting straight through the legs and severed them
from the body. It got distressed and tried to catch Selendis, to harm her, but the
waves were interupted and what life it had was taken away since the pulsations
stopped. Her plan seemed to work. But as her first takedown was pointed, the other
statues started learning and adapted to her strategy. Selendis threw another
consumption attack and sticked two of them, stunning them for some time while she
dealt with the third. I was far faster than the first and managed to throw powerful
strikes at her from different angles, acting imprevisible. That pinned Selendis
against a wall, caught in the rumble. Rocks kept on falling upon them, but it
wasn't going to push her back from the quest. She blinked in front of it's foor,
attempting to sever it, but the statue jumped shortly and easily avoided the direct
attack, even landing right next to the woman. More destruction was created,
destruction that threw her around like a puppet at the hands of two toddlers. Her
eyes ignited with green fire as she searched in the future fo possible ends,
finding the solution to deal with this one. Now that she had a plan, it was all
simple, clear as the sky in a summer highnoon without trace of any cloud on the
horizont. She pointed her hand once more towards the statue and crushed it's legs
together, making it lose balance. At that point she vanished right in front of it
to remove it's very own head. She was quick, but that abomination was quicker. She
barely managed to cut it in half on the horizontal. The mana empowered golem was
now more cautios as it's head as in peril of breaking on it's own. But realizing
this weakness, Selendis went ahead to exploit it and kept on pressing the titan,
pressuring him with multiple strikes from the shadows. With a final vanish behind
it's own head, Selendis threw a cut and severed it's head nearly completely. She
landed and then tried tricking the golem into breaking it alone. She didn't move
and acted exhausted, of course that was the perfect timing for the golem to strike
her, but she vanished to the only remaining side of the neck and as expected, on
the instinct the golem turned around quickly and broke it's neck, severing the
head. The body then remained motionless as the waves faded away. It collapsed back
into rumble and faded out of existance. With that one being dealth with, the two
from before
were remaining. Quickly as they still were stunned, Selendis got as close as
possible to cut one of those's torso in half on the horizontal, but they woke up
when she was about 1/4 done cutting it, barely starting. She was thrown away by
that one and the other charged up, the symbols stopping in place alongside the
statue as they overloaded and shot beams of energy towards her. But out prophet
already had an escape route planned. She switched places with the clone that used
to be in front of them, now behind and jumped to the back of the initial hurt
statue, proceeding to cut it with another half before being shot by a beam. One of
them was good as dead, but so was Selendis. That strike left her vulnerable as she
put her guard down at that moment. She looked around for possibilities and realized
the shape of her clones. It was all becoming clear now. She had only four clones
left, but that was all she needed. Selendis quickly shifted to a shadow on a wall
and dashed through the statue's torso, finally severing it. However, it did not
stop and continued to move even though it's connections were interupted. It reached
out to grab her and managed to, while the other charged it's blasts. Selendis
awaited regaining her mana as she saw the blasts being fired on her. She laughed
and switched spotes with another ghost, having the entire arm of the statue get
blown off. Selendis then appeared again in the same spot of the shadow, switching
with another just to avoid the damage. She blinked in front of the shooting statue
then started a spinning move, having her blade create a huge tornado. But mid way
while doing that she switched with the clone near the ruined statue and created two
tornadoes. As they moved towards the broken statue, completely decimating it
Selendis didn't waste a second and went for the shooting golem. Without any fancy
moves or any more trial, she decided to instantly cut off it's head, dealing with
all four of them. But at what cost did she defeat them, now she was still caught in
the rumbling. But in those times of chaos, she knew what the solution was. Focusing
her power she pointed towards the collapsing celling and dragged the ground in one
sphere, having it fall a few seconds after. With that the entire place started
collapsing over her. That was exactly what she wanted. As ground fell she kept on
blinking to new ground, going up as the ground fell. Once stabilized and another
cave was created, she found the initial entrance and got out of the cave through
it. Sealing it permanently with the rumble of the castle, Selendislocked the
entrance to the borrowed altar for normal Demonias. Breathing in relief, she looked
around, glad that nobody was near to see or hear anything. Lucky for her it was
night, judging by the moon around midnight even. Fate smiled upon her as the horse
returned, rejecting the freedom as it wanted to pay back ot her and lead to her
hometown. And so with the first artifact collected, Selendis went back home
horseback to examine what it's capabilities were.*