"Time for what?" Kellen said without getting up from his exhausted position.
"To return of course!" Said Osiris dejectedly.
"And I was having so much fun here too..."
Kellen's tired eyes brightened after hearing the old man's words.
"I'm returning to Xystenia?" He asked and exclaimed excitedly.
"Yes, but it'll be... Slightly different than you would imagine..." Muttered Osiris as he gazed around at the mind space they had spent a lot of time together in.
"Why would it be different?" Asked Kellen in a confused state.
Osiris sighed and scratched the back of his ethereal head before answering.
"Well... Let me ask you this instead... How long do you think we've been in here?" Asked Osiris in a guilty tone.
"I don't know? You said time didn't matter here so I never really thought about it much after that." Stated Kellen ignorantly.
"It's been about two thousand years that we've been in here..." Said Osiris while looking about in the mind space.
"Two thousand years! I didn't think it was that long... So how much time has passed outside?" Asked Kellen nervously.
"It's tough to say... I would guess anywhere from between three hundred to four hundred years maybe? The time in here moves at a rate of about a sixth of a second when compared to the outside." Said Osiris while scratching his chin and looking upwards.
"Three hundred years at the lowest!" Said Kellen angrily.
"Well probably... Although I can't imagine an exact number since that geezer demon ancestor of yours had you in that distorted memory loop for awhile too. That's why I said around two thousand, if considering a loss of one to two hundred years from that experience, but I'm not sure since he had me sealed inside your head there for awhile and was syphoning off my power." Osiris said with a bitter smile.
"I don't care how long I was in here! What I care about is whether or not the Romans that got transported to Xystenia with me are alive still so I can kill them myself!" Fumed Kellen as he pictured them already smiling in their snug and peaceful graves.
"Ah, I wouldn't be too worried about that considering what the old geezer told you about them being injected with some celestial blood from the blessed faction... They should still be alive and more than kicking if they continued to develop, especially considering they're the pawns of that stupid brat of a Goddess..." Said Osiris.
"Alright, time is irrelevant to me as long as I can still achieve my vengeance..." Answered Kellen but his words seemed to be more so directed to himself.
Kellen laid his lifted head back down to the ground and released a heavy exhale before asking the old man his last question.
"So... How am I getting back?" Said Kellen as he braced himself for another crazy method his sadistic mentor would reveal.
"You? We are both going! And it isn't that difficult since my blessing is the key that operates this whole place." Osiris motioned his hands in a grand circular gesture as he slowly brought his extended hands together and pointed towards Kellen's forehead while speaking.
"Huh? Why didn't you tell me this? You didn't think that this was an important piece of information you should've mentioned back in the beginning!" Complained Kellen.
"Eh... I figured you would've just used it to run away from all the training... And me..." Said Osiris with a sadistic smirk.
"You... Asshole..." Whispered Kellen under his breath.
"Whatever, it's too late to cry over now. Although it pains me to say it... Just focus on recovering your energy so we can depart from this paradise." Osiris said with a hint of sadness like a child leaving his favorite playground.
After recovering his demonic energy to the peak, Kellen noticed he could now sense the energies more clearly inside of his blood. By thinking of the energy as negative emotions, he was able to get a better feel for the turbulent and vicious cycles of energy residing in his blood and discovered it was easier for him to use.
'Seems that without a clear goal I'm unable to control the negative emotions that link me to the demonic energy in my blood... However, it's completely different now that I've let my vengeance bind my mind giving the demonic energy an outlet to release along with the negative emotions.'
Kellen stood up to his feet after taking an extended rest to restore his energy and waved towards the old man that was being attended to like a king by a bunch of Gregory dummies.
"Oh? Finally have enough juice? Perfect!" Said the old man like a spoiled child as he motioned for the Gregory next to him to stop its massaging.
Snapping his fingers, the dummies surrounding the spoiled deity disappeared as Osiris slowly floated over to Kellen.
"Looks like you were having a great time while I was over here working on our departure." Said Kellen with slight annoyance.
"Hey! A guys has to live his life to the fullest right?" Replied Osiris as he finally arrived next to Kellen.
"Says the supposed god of death..." Retorted Kellen.
"Bah! You're a real stickler ya know that. You should lighten up and relax every once in awhile too. You don't wanna get white hair from all the stress and end up looking like your geezer demon ancestor would ya?" Osiris snidely replied as he waved off the insult with the flick of his ethereal hand.
"Let's focus on getting out of here first before I have to worry about that." Said Kellen trying to urge the laid back deity.
"Fine. Fine. Then just circulate the energy to the blessing like you did before for Soul Sensing and then I can take care of the rest after I relocate to the space inside your mind again. Luckily, that old geezer is asleep to try and recover some of his power so I shouldn't run into any obstacles or traps this time." Said Osiris as he floated over to Kellen's forehead.
'I hope this works...' Thought Kellen as he began directing his demonic energy towards the blessing like he was told.
Seeing the blessing begin to activate, Osiris quickly zoomed into Kellen's mind and developed a space for himself to reside, away from Nergal sleeping in his prism like distorted space that the old demon had formed.
After making sure everything was settled in place and would not restrict Kellen or the sleeping demon beside him, Osiris poured a minute amount of his own energy into the blessing.
The mind space began to distort around Kellen and finally shrink itself away from him until it was a small dot in the distance. Kellen then closed his eyes and began dispelling his energy after hearing Osiris's annoying voice inside his head.
"Alright deactivate the blessing and stabilize your energy back to a normal resting state. After that you should simply wake up wherever you were before this."
Following the old man's directions, Kellen finished quelling his raging demonic energy and returned to a normal state before opening his eyes again.
However, when he opened his eyes he was only greeted by a familiar unending void that surrounded his suspended and slowly drifting body.
'Shit... I forgot I was still in the void...'
The deathly silent void reminded Kellen of the mind space as he rubbed his brow.
"Wow! I haven't been in here in ages!" Annoyingly said Osiris excitedly.
"Yeah Yeah. You old men sure love to reminisce don't you. Now explain how we get out of here!" Replied Kellen, who was still annoyed, as he continued to rub his creasing brow.
"I know. I know. Calm down and let me think alright."
Kellen sat upright and crisscrossed his legs while he awaited the old man's answer.
"…"
"I'm not really sure... If I had more of my power, that your asshole of an ancestor stole from me, then I would've been able to just tear this space open but unfortunately I don't... I guess we just have to wait." Said Osiris.
"Wait? My body has already been in here for over three hundred years for all we know! I don-"
His voice cut off as he noticed a strange light beginning to appear in the distance.
"Hey... Old man... What's that?"
Osiris began laughing inside his head.
"Seems like your luck isn't as shitty as we thought kid. That right there is our exit out of here! Man I can't wait to-"
Kellen ignored the rest of the old man's sentences of reminiscing and directed all of his attention to the crack of light that was slowly getting bigger as he was drawn closer to it.
'I wonder where I'll end up? I think I remember them saying something about a Demon Domain back at that stupid kingdom before I was thrown in here...'
Kellen didn't care where he would end up as long as he could escape from the never-ending void but he knew one thing.
'I Hope all of you stupid backstabbing Romans missed me...'
He thought as he excitedly waited for the light to reach him and send him towards his path of vengeance.
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The preliminary training is now officially over! I'm really excited to release the next couple of chapters and hope all of you have enjoyed the reading thus far. I'm thankful for all the support I've received up to now and want to thank you for reaching this point in the reading. The beginning was a little rough but I believe from here on out the chapters can only get better as I gain more experience and continue to develop the story. The ground work has been laid folks. If you have any suggestions for the story please leave your idea in a review or comment and I'll consider it. As always, much love guys! :)