Before my eyes, the figure made up of fire and light condensed to become a human body. As the last light faded a smiling old man floated before me.
"See! Have a wise old sage accompany you on your travels shouldn't be so bad, right? Now you can accept me as your companion without further problems."
"Look here, I see no advantage in taking you with me. For now we should return, the princes must be worried."
We quickly moved back to the palace and found the princes where we had left them. Prince Gideon was pacing around with a worried expression on his face while prince Amon was sitting in a chair impatiently tapping his foot.
As I entered the room with old man Sol behind me prince Amon jumped up like he'd been stung by a wasp.
"How are you still alive?"
"Now that's not a very nice thing to say, prince Amon."
"Lord Sol said he would deal with you. You cannot go against a god!"
"About that, you may be disappointed..."
Old man Sol popped his head over my shoulder and gave Amon a grandfather-like grin.
"You see Amon boy, I think me and lord Raven got off on the wrong foot. We had a talk and now it's all good between us."
Prince Amon's eyes nearly popped out of his head. He recognized Sol's voice as the voice of the god he believed in so faithfully. But to see him in the form of an old man. He really couldn't believe it.
"Lord Sol? Did you perhaps defeat the miscreants and make him your servant?"
"No my boy, quite the opposite in fact. I got defeated and am now a loyal servant to lord Raven here."
Seeing that prince Amon was still having trouble stomaching old man Sol's words I plopped down won't a chair and motioned for everybody else to take a seat as well.
"I have indeed defeated your god and he has become something comparable to a servant. Though I would like to mention that those happenings weren't entirely by my will. However, it is what it is and now we have to deal with the ensuing situation. So why don't we just talk this over and decide how things will proceed, yes?"
Prince Amon was still processing but sat down obediently. He was a muscle head but no idiot, my position was evidently the strongest in the room.
"Then do you plan to become our new main god with lord Sol as a minor god below you? The populace won't take well to such a change."
"Haha, I am no god and I don't plan to make any changes to your religious practice. At a later time, I may introduce the religion I myself am a follower of to this place but that shouldn't cause any issues. For now, Sol will remain the sole god of the solar empire. All I'm asking for is your loyalty in an upcoming fight."
"The upcoming fight? What's that about?"
"I'll be real with you here. Soon there will be a large battle throughout all the realms around here. Two ideologies represented by very powerful people will clash. You have three options. One, you join our side and well help you get through this as much as possible. Two, you remain neutral and we'll cut you off from most of your contact with other realms. Third, you try to join the other side. The last one works like number two just that you are more likely to get burnt to the ground."
"Are you threatening us?!!! We are the great Solar empire! What can a few powerful people do to us?"
That was a good question, one I was not above answering in a most over-the-top way. Before anyone could react all occupants of the room were teleported into the void between realms.
I set up some basic barriers to protect the vulnerable bodies of the princes from being torn apart by the void. They immediately clutched their throats as there was no air here and they were beginning to suffocate.
I didn't help them by providing air as we would not be here for long. I spoke into their minds since sounds didn't travel within the void.
'Let me show you what real power is. Maybe that will give you an idea of what I mean by powerful. Or maybe world ending would have been a better term to describe it.'
I sent out a flood of magic and began to create a large globe of rock. Since this was to be a demonstration of what was to come I made it as big as a planet. The space inside the void was weird so I didn't need to worry about how much room it would take up.
Then when the planet-sized rock was done I created a fireball. I fed in more magic while compressing it to a high degree and sent it flying towards the giant rock. I used a lens spell to enlargen the sight of the fireball making sure the princes could see it.
Upon impact, the fireball simply melted through the rock and went deeper inside. After it reached someplace close to the center I released the compression.
At first, all that could be seen was a slight quake over the rock's surface. Prince Amon looked unimpressed. A second later the rock began to crack as red, hot jets of molten rock pressed through it. Then the surface was blown away by a rapidly expanding fireball of terrifying proportions.
After the fireball ran out of energy and disappeared I teleported us back to the comfortable room in the palace. The princes immediately fell to the ground gasping for air while Sol looked at me with admiration.
"Near instantaneous teleportation, wards that can keep mortals alive, creating a planet, destroying it, and teleporting us all back. And worst of all you don't even look tired."
"It's not that I don't look tired. I'm not. I could do this a hundred more times and I still wouldn't break a sweat."