There was so much power. So much. Far more than he had ever anticipated. The power of a God was something else – and now Claudia had been a foolish enough wench to add hers into the mix too. It was like a cooking pot of the finest meal, and soon it would be cooked, and a portion of that power was sure to be his.
He'd seen the strength of it already, as wielded by Beam, and he knew that to only be a portion of it. There was no way a mortal could manifest it all truly and completely. But Francis was sure he could – given enough time. He had more tools and knowledge at his disposal than a mere boy. Granted such a thing, he would make it his life's work to control it.
And yet… It wasn't he that was granted it. The thought sullied his smile, and brought him grimly back to reality. It was he that had been chosen to be the centre of this power, the centre of the stage that Francis himself had made… It was some boy of unknown origin.
Francis could forgive Ingolsol's interference, adding to the mix, bestowing his divine will on him. He could forgive it, because he could understand it – his Lord wanted chaos. He wanted suffering. He wanted to push the catastrophe to its natural limits. He worked within the bounds that Francis had already set, in accordance with his will, to make things ever greater.
But Claudia? She did no such thing. She worked against him. She did. Fancis could see it from the sharpness of her divine energy. Even now, away from its master, it warred against Ingolsol's, attempting to batter the darkness away from the boy, and rid him of its poison.
Francis knew it wouldn't work. He knew it was only a matter of time before it too would be stained black, and it too would join the coagulation of dark energy that he'd been collecting. But that didn't stop it from irritating him. Now, after all these years, after nearly a decade spent chasing Claudia's favour – it was now that she chose to reveal herself to him, whore that she was.
She was so close, after all that time spent chasing her, and when she came, it was in defence of another man.
To the very end, from the very start, that Goddess had stood against him. He dug his jagged fingernails so hard into his pale flesh that it drew blood, marring the skin, opening up old scars where he had done the same thing countless times before in the same fit of frustration.
"Whhhhhhhore!!!" Francis hissed, overwhelmed by the most violent of anger. It was as though he'd walked in on his beloved sleeping with another man. His anger was so violent that it surprised even him. He'd thought he hated her, he thought he was completely done with her…. But now as she showed herself so close, and she spurned him again, it angered him to such extremes that his mind went white.
A pale blue frost had gathered at his fingertips before he even knew what he was doing. A spear of ice gathered, misting up the air around it. More and more mana he put into it, without even realizing what he was doing. Denser and denser the spear became, until the translucent ie slowly went towards purple, and then towards black.
"WHHHHOREE!" He howled against it his rage, and thrust the ice lance at her, or at least, at where a portion of her energy lay, battling for control inside the body of that unconscious boy, at the bottom of that crater.
The spell moved with the speed of a thunderbolt. It was incomparable to all that he'd cast before. It was so powerful that his clones could not fully mimic it. They were charging with only a fraction of his power, owing to them only having a fraction of his mana.
He too, inside that Domain of his, was growing stronger as the result of the divine energy. Only after he'd sent such a thudding spear did he remember, for his power surprised even himself. He hadn't planned to push himself so far so early, lest he use more of his mana than he intended...
but even after he cast that spell, and he anxiously realised what he had done, and checked his reserves, he found that they were still overflowing, vast with power, and ever increasing.
He howled in delight.
His spell landed a second later, with a great boom, like a meteor falling to earth. It cast up a storm of dust, and snow, and blood from the nearby corpses that hadn't been quick enough to get out of the way.
The other three lances hit a moment later, more purple than black, but tremendously powerful in their own right. They too landed, and shattered into each other, casting a frosty mist.
It was a moment before the mist cleared, a moment in which Francis waited delightedly. He'd planned to let Ingolsol do all the work, to let him decide the limits of the body and when it was time to break free. He'd planned to include all the energy that he could from the environs that he'd collected, to pack it into the same space, and make the most efficient use of it that he could.
With Claudia interfering, however, there was no need. There was such an abundance of power now that it was almost laughable. If Francis had not already given up his sanity, he would have lost it once more there again, as he felt the overwhelming power boiling beneath him.
Such power, all at his fingertips – and this was only the beginning. This was only the barest spoonful. This was merely his Domain of Darkness – once Ingolsol granted him the power he wished for, the boundaries that he wished to be broken, they would fall like ashes in the wind. With Ingolsol's blessing, to permanently dwell at such a level of power would not be impossible.
Mad numbers were within reach. The Sixth Boundary? Why stop there? Why not brush fingers with the Seven, and the Eighth? Why not the Tenth?
They were maddening thoughts, everso maddening. So much power, so within reach. It was too perfect. Too much for him to handle.
And then the fog cleared, and his heart forgot to beat. He sucked in a breath of cold air.