The fire turned from yellow to blue, then it turned colorless before it turned green and finally black. The heat was so intense that even with Naamah's glyph shield, it felt like I was being scorched from the inside out.

The flames continued to burn for a few more minutes until with a sweep of her hands, it vanished. In its place was a field of scorched earth. "Well, I think we can say for sure that she wasn't there." She dusted off her hands as if a finishing touch.

"If she was there, you would've already turned her into charcoal," Naamah countered. Agrat simply shrugged.

Day 2

"Hit me," she said, suddenly.

"Excuse me?"

"It's a test, to see how well you've learned. Now give me your best shot. You can take as much time to prepare as you like."

I grinned, "I hope you don't regret that too soon."

"Oh please, little girl, a bicorne can't possibly make me worry even a little bit."

Her confidence amazed me. But then again, being one of the four Angels of Prostitution since the beginning of recorded time, she probably had already seen everything. I decided that I'll give her such a shock that she won't ever look down on me again.

With that thought driving me, I slowly channeled my powers to my right fist. Drawing power from deep within my soul, I could feel it traveling through my nerves, veins and arteries. As more power were drawn from myself and my surrounding, I could feel my senses became alive while ethereal energy danced and arced on my skin and around my body. It felt like I was back in Tartarus, still under the influence of Uriel's brew.

It felt wonderful, being able to carry this much power at my fingertips. When it started getting heavy and unwieldy, I thought that it was enough and charged at her. The ball of ethereal energy started to change and eventually turned into a globe of frigid cold air. As I ran, the tail of cold air following the frost orb in my fist left a trail of ice behind me.

I closed my fist around the orb in my hand, crushing it and spreading the icy breeze up to my elbows as I got close. I threw the punch as hard as I could at her and probably could've caused a serious injury, if she didn't block my attack at the very last moment. The impact wave threw me far back away from her. I heaved a satisfied sigh as I saw that she was pushed a step back while half her body was covered in ice. I think maybe one day, a couple of years in the future, I can become something like Milen.

"Pretty good. Don't get too comfortable though, Dinah won't give you the time to prepare," she said as she disappeared and reappeared at the same spot, causing the ice to fall and break on the hard ground.

"Way to go with breaking my mood," I grumbled.

"Oh do cheer up. Today we'll teach you how to do a proper backstabbing."

"Oh, I can back stab. I did that sometimes in high school."

"Funny, aren’t we?" she said as a formless black hand, that appeared to be made of shadow rose up from the ground in front of me holding a plain looking black dagger, "Try it if you can."

I took the dagger, holding it firmly in my right hand and ran toward her. Just as I was about to reach her, I raised my hand and blinked behind her. With a quick footwork, I turned around to attack her spine. Imagine my surprise when I felt a knife in my flank instead.

"That is the weakness of the normal blink, child," she said while pulling the knife out of my side, "you will always face the same direction when you blink." I didn’t even realize exactly when she blinked behind me.

"I just need to turn faster, that's all," I said, flinching while rubbing the stab wound on my flank.

"There is a much faster way. I'm going to teach you Vector Stab."

"The what?"

"... Some people call it Blink Strike."

"Ah."

She pointed a finger to the direction that my back faced. "Let us assume that is north. I want you to stand here and then blink into this circle," she drew a circle on the ground with her right foot, "facing north."

"That's not possible! You said it yourself!"

"No, child, I never said it was impossible. I only said that you will always blink facing the same direction."

I mumbled about how the wording made all the difference.

"You need to change your perspective. Think of everything in the world in the form of mathematical equations."

"Goodness! You're going to give me a lecture on Applied Math?"

"You're really exasperating, you know that? Just do what I tell you to do and we'll see how it goes."

I tried it once, it didn't work. I ended up facing 'south' after I blinked.

"Hard, isn't it? No matter how much you willed yourself to blink north, you will still blink facing south. Well, we don't have time to let you learn it on your own, so I'll give you the secret. Stand facing south like before."

So I stepped forward out of the circle and stood next to her.

"You are familiar with the term latitude and longitude, yes?" I nodded.

"Good, imagine yourself as a globe. Now you're standing still. So you can consider that the direction you're facing is 0 degrees longitude and 0 degrees latitude. Are you with me so far?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Good. Now, the primary principle of Vector Stab is not to magically change the direction, but to twist your body into the desired direction."

I stopped her. "Okay, I lost you there."

She bit her lower lip a little. "Okay, imagine you're standing still. In front of you, a very angry beast is preparing to strike. Now, you know you can outrun this beast, but not if you have to run backwards. So, you slowly twist your right foot so that the toes point to your right and slightly to the back. Then when the beast got distracted, you turn your whole body to the right, twist again to the right, and run away like you were chased by a horde of hungry Legions. It's the same principle here. Instead of just twisting your foot, you are twisting your entire body."

I frowned. "How do I do that?"

"By using the longitude and latitude you've established earlier. The way to do this is by focusing your perception on your initial direction - in this case, south - and almost without thinking it, turn your body to 180 degrees west by the latitude and longitude. You know what, let's do a bit of a practice. You're going to turn 45 degrees west," she said as she instructed me step by step through the process.

It was very confusing, having to focus on the direction I was no longer looking at and then snapping back into my real-time vision facing the new direction. It felt like my brain was snapped every time I did that. By the end of the day, my brain was so exhaustingly squashed that Eisheth had to heal me herself. I'll never get used to having all 24 hours to train and not a single second to sleep everyday.

Thank goodness I was able to master the technique two days later. But the road to there was terrible.

-----

Day 5

"I noticed that you have a very unique weapon there. Summon him, you need to familiarize yourself with your weapon if you are to defeat Dinah. While she's not the best fencer at any rate, she has 86 different weapons artifacts which she often use at the same time. You don't want to be subjected to her Steel Rain without a chance of fighting back."

"Weapon?" I looked at her quizzically as I was unaware that I was wielding any weapon. See, I've already returned the black dagger to her earlier today.

I almost jumped when Florian's heavily accented voice sounded in my mind. I believe she was referring to me, Ilyse.

I asked the ring, You're a weapon?

Yes, I am. A sword actually, haven't you paid attention to the vow I made when you picked me up? I am Florian the Sword, and I mean that literally.

Okaay... how do I summon you then?

I could sense that he was raising his eyebrows as he said, Just call for me to appear. You will be surprised at how many complex instructions I can process at any given time.

Okay, I decided to give it a try. "Florian, appear". I would've felt foolish if he didn't appear. Thank goodness he did.

He was a beautiful sword. If I was asked to give one word to describe him, I would probably choose 'gleaming'. Even in this shadowy world, where direct light is lacking, his gleam never fade. In fact, the more I admired him, the more gleaming it became. I wondered if it was his way of showing his pride. I noticed that the steel wire that made up the wire hilt was assembled in such a fashion as to make a pattern eerily similar to the goat head-on-a-shield coat of arms that was on some of Mom's many velvet and silk jewelery cases.

You're a rapier?

I feel insulted, Ilyse. I am a degen, specifically, a pallasch. Rapiers have thinner blades and are meant for civilian use. Degens are knight's swords and are used on the battlefield. Don't confuse degens with those fragile rapiers the French were so fond of!

Okay! Sheesh! Don't blow your tops off. I was just trying to say that you look too beautiful and thin for fighting, that's all.

I assure you that I am as sturdy as a Scottish claymore. Degens were made of the finest steel, not to mention that weapon artifacts of the lilim are always very durable.

Oh. Well, it doesn't matter, I guess. At any rate, I got my own witchblade, hehe.

I was never used by a witch, unless if you consider Sarai a witch. She sure act the role at times.

Nevermind, Flo.

"That's a nice sword you have there. You can accomplish much with him in your hands. However, a sword is only as good as the handler. If you treat it like a relic and never practice using it, it will feel as alien to you as having fishsticks as your fingers."

I looked at Florian, sighed, then looked at her. "So, what should I do?"

"I'll teach you some basic moves with a sword and we'll see how you get along with him."

After half a day's worth of 'practice', it appeared hopeless. "I can't do this, I'm as clumsy as a drunken ox. It's like I'm trying to kill a cockroach with a submachinegun."

"Relax. It has only been a day. I assure you that even those gifted fencers had to train years to become good enough."

I protested, "But this is not about practice. The sword feels wrong all over, no offense to you, Flo. See this handle? The grip is too slim, I kept feeling it slip from my hand."

I can fatten up the grip if you like. It was only slim because I was originally customized for Sarai's use. Her hands were small, because her true form was that of a 13 year old girl.

You can change yourself? Why didn't you tell me that earlier?

You didn't ask. I thought you knew.

I felt the grip fatten a bit under my fingers. I swung it a couple of times and was impressed with the difference. Much better. Can you elongate the blade too? I don't feel confident with using a blade of that length.

No problem. It's done.

I felt much better as I practiced more with my personalized rapier - oops - degen, hehehe. Anyway, by the next day, I was already proficient enough with the basic moves that Eisheth decided to teach me some shadow weapons play as well.

-----

Day 6

"You'll need Florian for this lesson, so raise him high and try talking to him," she said after healing the sores I had after being beaten again and again in mock combat yesterday.

"Umm, what should I talk about?"

"Anything you like. Your life, his former life, your dreams and other unrelated things."

I looked at Florian and feeling slightly stupid, attempted a conversation. What's your favorite food? I asked.

To which he answered, Bread

Just bread?

Garlic bread.

Okay... so you know my mom?

Straight to the point, I see. Yes, I did know Sarai.

How did you become her artifact?

Usual contract. I asked for something while I was still alive, she got me after I died.

Then I felt his mood go cloudy while the sword in my hand started to vibrate slowly at first but gradually increasing in intensity. In the end, I had to stab the point to the ground and used both hands on the handle to hold him steady.

What the hell was that, Flo? I asked after he calmed down a bit.

I don't want to talk about it. Suffice to say that she reneged on the deal.

Was that why you refused to do her bidding 50 years ago?

From his silence, I deduced that whatever Mom had done, must've been so terrible that it caused him to rebel against her. I wondered what it was that Mom did back then.

"Seems like you two will need more head to head talk, eventually. But for now, that should be enough. Will Florian work with you now?"

Florian in turn, reassured me in his heavily accented voice. Don't worry, Ilyse. My issue was with Sarai, not you. I'll aid you as best as I can.

Thanks, Flo.

"He will cooperate," was my answer to her question.

"Good, because until you learn to turn yourself into a weapon, I don't mean that literally, you will need him to perform this technique."

"What technique is that?"

"Shadow Claw."

"What does it do?"

"Imagine that your enemy is a hundred feet in front of you. You want to kill him, but between you and him, there is an uncrossable moat. Consider that flying is not an option. What do you do?"

"Use ranged weapons or spells," I answered.

"A good solution, yet what if you only have a melee weapon in hand and you don't have enough strength to throw it that far? That's when you use Shadow Claw. With Shadow Claw, you can cut anything in front of you and its power won't diminish even a bit for as long as you supply it with power. Watch what I do," she said as a rock was pushed out of the ground a hundred feet away.

She then crouched on the ground, produced a crooked black dagger from the void and stabbed it into the ground. I saw something that looked like three stripes of shadow appeared from the ground under the dagger and sped towards the jutting rock. I was amazed to see the three shadows cut three neat valleys in the rock as if it was tofu.

"When you finally turn yourself into a weapon, you will be able to do this without a weapon," she proceeded to press her five fingers to the ground and managed to achieve the same effect as before, then she continued with, "but until then, you need Florian or any similar weapon."

Then she told me everything, starting with the theories, practice, and execution. I was only able to shoot one shadow edge instead of three in the end, but it was way cool.

-----

Day 9

Earlier today, Eisheth had summoned a Wight as my sparring partner. At first glance, she looked like one of Tolkien's Hobbits, except that she was much slimmer and dark skinned. I say dark skinned loosely, because sometimes her skin changed color from deep black to slightly grey and sometimes almost silver. But one thing that never changed, was that her body was very translucent as if she was made from the shadows itself.

"Put your back into it! I feel like I'm looking at children brawling in the playground!" she yelled through the clang of swords hitting each other.

I kicked the Wight away and stumbled back for a breather. "I'm doing my best here!" I yelled back just before the Wight's sickle hit my blade. Apparently the Wight didn't need any rest.

"If that's the best you can do, I'll kill you myself right now to spare us the embarrassment of having to see you die in the first 10 seconds in a real fight!"

I knew she wasn't bluffing. If she said she will kill me, then she will most definitely kill me. I decided to avoid making gambles and just finish this quickly. So I casted Haste, the spell she taught me yesterday that was meant to improve my speed and reflex for the duration of its effect. The difference was amazing. I moved twice as fast and countered twice as efficiently but I was unable to do anything about my senses. It appeared that Haste only improves my speed and reflex, not my perception. I found that to be a disadvantage.

When I told Eisheth about it, she dismissed it as just me requiring more simulated fights. That was why she summoned one of her Wights to help train me. I must say, that even with the Wight instructed to fight at low skills, it was hard for me to keep up. She was like a phantom!

Eventually, Eisheth called for a stop and dismissed the Wight. Then she started talking about some techniques that could help in my fight after asking me the difficulties I was having with the Wight. Two techniques that drew my attention was called Amalgam Slash and Fade.

Amalgam Slash refers to a technique where the user of a weapon become one with the weapon, sharing each other's strength, mind and power. With proper execution, the damage can be increased up to tenfold, which was impressive in my opinion. The only problem was that to a newbie, it might take a long time to reach the level of synchronization needed to pull it off.

Fade was basically a variant of Blink. Though instead of popping here and there, Fade allows the user to fade out of existence and reappear anywhere the user wants, silently. Eisheth told me that it was also the only spell she know of that can overcome the warding spells put by all princes and princesses of Sheol on their own borders, specifically the warding that prevents people from Blinking in and out of their domains. The downside is that unlike Blink, that happens quickly, users of Fade will disappear gradually over a few seconds. Which means enough time for someone to drive a sword into one's heart.

We spent the next several days practicing and going over those two techniques.

There was another technique that she thought I could use, Shadowmeld. It was basically a variant of Invisibility spell, except that it wasn't a spell. Invisibility spells, while seamless, could be detected by someone with 'the sight'. Shadowmeld couldn't be detected at all. If anyone looked at a Shadowmelded person, they just see shadows. I recalled using this same technique in one of my dreams and after demonstrating it, Eisheth agreed that I needed no more lesson on that.

-----

Day 15

"When was the last time you fed?" she said suddenly after I graduated from her Shadow Whip lesson.

"Umm, a day before I come here, why?"

"You're looking too tired for just 15 days. Your last Shadow Whip couldn't even hurt the wight. Have the lessons really wear you down that much?"

"Yes, I'm very tired. Not being able to sleep made it even worse. I know you told me earlier that I don't need sleep, but I would really love a rest," I replied, rubbing the sore spots on my arms.

"Unfortunately, we don't have time for you to rest. Maybe we'll let you go out and feed after your lessons are done," then she looked thoughtful, "But we can't go on like this. If we are to continue the lessons, you need to be at your full strength."

She looked at me curiously and then gestured me to come close. "Perhaps we can use a different method to give you more strength."

"What do you mean?"

"Do not repeat this to anyone as knowledge of this technique is too powerful to be public knowledge. It is one of the forbidden techniques used by the princes and princesses of Sheol, including me, Naamah and your matriarch Lilith," she said warily.

"What is this technique?"

She bit her lips. "Okay, you are aware of the lilim needing to feed from human men and consume ethereal energies in insufficient quantities, yes?"

I nodded.

"Well, ether is only an element, but not a source of power. To exist in Assiah, you need two sources of power: Light and Darkness. Light is often referred to as 'God's gift' which gives life to all living beings on Earth, and it is the basic building block of angels. Darkness, or void, is the most basic unit of power that binds everything in the universe together. People in Assiah calls it 'zero point energy'. While light is the more powerful of the two, darkness or void is more numerous and eternal. I will teach you how to utilize this power of the void."

She looked uncertain and a bit worried, so I asked her, "That sounds great, but there's something bothering you, isn't it?"

"This... knowledge is too dangerous for a mere lili. Apart from giving you tremendous power, it will also destroy your body if your body proves insufficient to contain the power."

"But without it, I will have no chance of winning against Dinah?"

"Correct. While overfeeding will give you enough power initially, it will be drained quickly as Dinah has been storing her power in something similar to battery cells for the past 400 years. Without this technique, the only way you can win is to finish it in 10 minutes with all your strength, but that's impossible by itself. Continuous use of this technique will give you an unlimited power of which Dinah can't hope to match."

"So I really have no choice, don't I?"

She looked at me sympathetically. "You always have a choice, Ilyse."

"Then please, teach me. I shall decide if I need it or not."

She patted my head, the way that Mom used to do when I was a child. "Very well, but the training may be quite painful."

I shrugged. "It can't be that bad."

I was dead wrong. It hurt so bad when she pushed a Void Orb into my mouth. I could feel the globe split into many tiny pieces to open all my veins, arteries and nerve endings. As the void fragments burrowed into my brain, I realized that not even the torments in Ashmedan were as painful.

-----

Day 17

"Okay, remember the chants that I taught you? Good. Now I want you to try it here," she said as she disappeared and reappeared a quarter of a mile away.

She must've noticed my puzzled expression because she shouted from afar, "Don't worry. Just do as I taught you, you'll be fine."

Somehow, I wasn't feeling confident, and that annoyed me. Regardless, I formed the words in my head and chanted.

[Great Darkness of the Eternal Void, hear my voice and answer my summons. Inritus Cuspis!]

Well, suffice to say it didn't end well. I was blasted far away in many separate directions in many disjointed parts.

-----

Day 19

"Urgh! This is not going to work," she groaned, "this realm is not suitable for learning Inritus Cuspis."

"Why? What's wrong with it?" I asked, slightly tired. Since two days ago, I've been obliterated, dismembered and emboweled by the Void Point, a technique to harness the power of the vacuums of space and molecules. I wasn't a happy camper at all.

"The time difference is what's wrong. You can only gather as much power as you can in Assiah."

"I don't get you," I said while rubbing the point where my left arm was reattached after if flew away during one of my dismemberment phase.

She looked at me through the corner of her eye. "Assume that 20 days here are equal to 1 day on Earth. Assume also that in one day on Earth, you will gain 20 units of power. So when you come here, you will need 20 days to gain 20 units of power."

She groaned again. "How could I have forgotten the limitations of mortals?"

"So... training here is actually a waste of time? I can accomplish the same thing with the equivalent time on Earth?"

"No, the reason Naamah and Agrat chose this place was not to get you to gather energy, but to gain perspective. In a place like this, your mind gets extra time to think and to understand something. However, your power levels will remain the same, probably even reduced gradually because you only consume small amounts of ether each day compared to when you were in Yenne Velt."

She sighed, "The Void is unrestricted by time, but there [b]is[/b] a constant in time which is aligned to Assiah."

"So what now? Do we continue?"

"No, not this one. I've taught you the theories and the practices, but you must learn it on your own from now on. I do however have a technique which might be similar but equally or perhaps even more dangerous."

"Will it work?" I asked, not wanting to explode again.

"Oh yes, of course. You will only be using your own power, fused with the wild energies of Sheol and amplified by your own suffering."

"Amplified by my own suffering? I don't like what that implies."

"There is no other avenue. Without this technique, you have no chance of defeating Dinah."

I yelled in protest. "Why do I always have to suffer? You enjoy bringing me pain, don't you? I don't need to do this, I don't need all those painful lessons. You said I always have a choice. Fine! I choose to walk out of here. I'll apologize to Mother and everything will be just be FINE!"

She glared at me, but I couldn't help but feel like she was unconcerned with my protest. Instead, she said, "Conjure a ball of fire."

"Weren't you listening to me? I said I choose to leave."

"Pain is the strictest teacher. While you can learn some things without pain, some sacrifices must be made if you are to be good at what you do. Now, I'm not going to repeat it again, conjure a ball of fire."

I grudgingly acceded her command and snapped a finger above my left palm.

"You don't need any incantations for this technique. However, you will need a slight practice to fuse it with your soul."

"My soul? What do you mean, my soul?"

"Your soul will act as a catalyst. The ball of fire will engulf your soul and create a vacuum in your immediate surrounding that consumes fuel, in this case, ether into your body. Your soul will be the key to this vacuum, continuously turning fire into energy, much like a petroleum power plant on Earth."

I winced. "That would be very painful, I bet."

"Of course, but you need to learn it. I'll walk you through it step by step, so there wouldn't be any accidents."

"Oh joy..."

-----

Day 20

"Let's do it differently," she said after I nearly scorched myself with the fireball again.

"How much different can it be? I'll still be the one in pain, won't I?" I replied, annoyed. Since yesterday, she had been carrying me step by step through the technique. Since yesterday my body kept combusting.

"I admit, I may have used the wrong method. I've never done it myself, really. It's inspired by Agrat's retelling of how the souls she tortured in Gehenna actually gained some strength and resilience from having their souls burned."

I didn't know what to say to that. My mouth simply opened to a big 'O' as I realized that I had suffered through a technique that nobody had used before. A technique she invented out of thin air.

"I want you to gather power, just like you did on the second day you were here."

"This isn't just another made up trick, is it?"

"Saturate yourself with the energy. Get the power to flow freely in your body."

"Are you even listening to me?"

"We don't have time to listen to your ramblings. Do it now."

I was very annoyed and almost decided to leave instead, but I decided to give it one more try instead and do as she said. Closing my eyes and calming myself, I slowly and constantly pulled and sucked the ether from all around me. Through my horn, into my brain, down to my heart. From my heart, the energy flowed through my veins into other parts of my body. Sometime later, I felt myself bloated with ethereal energies as the energies seeped through my pores and arced over my skin.

I opened my eyes when she started talking. "Good, now focus all that energy onto your right palm. Recall the time when you charged at me and the energy turned into frigid air. Recall how it felt, how you reached that state. Do it now."

I tried to recall that second day. That morning when she asked me to attack her with all I got. That time when I was blinded by madness that the energy turned into ice and my body charged forward like a woman possessed. I slowly focused the energy onto my palm and slowly but surely, a whitish ball of air formed over my palm. It was cold even for me.

"Condense it. Try to change the state of the air into liquid by pure pressure alone."

"Easy for you to say!" I shouted right before the ball of condensed air exploded, encasing everything in a small radius, including me, in ice.

-----

I was only released half an hour later as Eisheth decided that I should learn how it felt to have my own power backfiring on me. She said that I needed to remember the feeling and use that knowledge to make the Soul burn work, that it was necessary for me to have a feel for my own power. I told her to stop throwing her pile of bullshit around. She didn't take that very well.

After having to fight off two of her Wights at mid skills, I caved in and told her that I surrender. It seemed like she wasn't very good at controlling her temper. I can say that for sure because even after I surrendered, she let the Wights pummel me up for awhile longer before sending them back to the shadows.

She had to heal me before the lesson could continue, though. I had numerous broken bones and some very nasty wounds that would've killed any mortal. Thank goodness I'm immortal, so it was harder for me to die. Those tiny, shy Wights can really throw a punch, though. It took them only about 10 minutes to beat me into submission. I shudder to think what a couple of Wights at high skills can do to me.

Once I was back in one piece, she instructed me to repeat the steps that I'd previously attempted before being frozen by my own power. It took awhile to gather enough power, became almost unwieldy at some point, but I did it nonetheless. Then she told me to compress it just like before.

Instead of using just one hand like before, however, I moved the frigid cold air between my two palms and tried to mentally push the orb into itself with some physical help from my palms. At some point, the flow became turbulent and it took all my concentration just to maintain its current pressure. In the end, the orb of frigid air which was initially very unwieldy and was the size of a small japanese car became a condensed white sphere the size of a soccer ball.

As the orb of frigid air started stabilizing and became almost liquidy at some places, Eisheth spoke, "Good, now try to..."

"Eisheth!" came a voice that broke my concentration and caused the high pressured cold air to explode again. I couldn't help but curse whoever that was before once again finding myself inside a block of ice.

I never thought it was possible, but it seemed like instead of muting my surrounding, being encased in ice actually made me hear things better.

Agrat Bat Mahlat, who was the culprit, asked, "Umm, what happened to her?"

"You happened to her. Did I not specifically say that I don't want any interruptions?" Eisheth scowled. Her expression distorted yet very visible through the ice. It feels so weird to be conscious while encased in ice with my eyes open.

"Well, I'm sure this news is worth your while. Lilith has moved the Yenne Velt."

"Run that through me again? This time, without your usual bull."

"You're really starting to piss me off, Eisheth."

"You mean you're only just started getting pissed off? I've been trying to accomplish that since the last millenia. My, you’re really slow."

Agrat Bat Mahlat frowned and said, "I assure you, this is confirmed. Lilith has moved the Yenne Velt. She moved it closer to us."

"It's true," came Naamah's pleasant voice, "I have confirmed it. By Agrat's estimate, due to the move we only have 93 days instead of 120 days."

"And this affects me how?"

Agrat replied, "Well, we thought that maybe you can shorten your lessons a bit, so the rest of us can get some of our own lessons in?"

"No deal. What you do with the rest of the time will be your problem. I intend to use all 40 days."

Naamah interjected. "Eisheth, please be reasonable. We all have much at stake here and we all wanted her to win. At least shave 10 days of your time..."

"Come on, sis, let us..."

"DO NOT call me 'sis'! We are not sisters and have never been sisters. Sisters don't leave the other trapped in a sealed marble statue. Sisters don't shove the other aside when they’re handing out territories. Sister's don't stab the other in the BACK!"

Naamah in her usual calm demeaner looked at the outraged Eisheth and instead of arguing, said, "Oh look at the time! Agrat, we really must leave before they finish the auction." Then Naamah took Agrat's left arm in her grip.

"What auction?" Agrat asked before they popped out of existence.

Eisheth still looked mightily outraged. I really don't want to be here right now. The problem is, I really have no choice. I'm stuck inside a block of ice, for Pete's sake!

Suddenly Eisheth's head jerked and she turned to look at me. The anger in her face had lessened and it had been replaced with a look of curiousity. Why are you still in there?

-----

Day 23

I gazed at the sphere of ice between my palms. Despite appearing solid, I knew from past experiences that it would explode if I took my mind off this blasted thing. It was very hard work trying to compress it as even the vapors needed to be contained.

“Good, now throw it somewhere far away,” she said.

“Uhh, why?” I asked.

“She’ll tell you to conjure fire next. Compressed ice doesn’t work well with fire,” Agrat interjected. She and Naamah came back early today to make sure that Eisheth didn’t overextend her allotted time.

“This is exactly why I don’t want you here, Agrat. You just can’t help running your mouth off, can’t you?”

“What, you’re going to ask her to do it anyway!”

“I don’t need you helping me, hell whore!”

“Hell whore? You want a fight, streetwhore?” she cried as she lunged at Eisheth.

Eisheth blinkstriked to Agrat’s left and tried to stab her in the flank with her signature crooked black dagger. Agrat countered with a heavy lashing from one of her black tentacles. It failed to connect as Eisheth blinked to her other side to again attempt a stab on Agrat’s flank. Almost as if it has a mind of its own, one of her tentacles intercepted Eisheth’s attempt, almost knocking the dagger out of her hand. Another tentacle pointed its tip at her and fired a luminescent beam of light at Eisheth from its tip.

“Damned hell slut!” came Eisheth’s angry voice from far to my left. Her hooded black robe was torn in so many places (more torn than usual) while her exposed left arm and half her face melted and had chunks dripping from it.

“Maybe it’s time to admit defeat, Eisheth? We really need to move along now,” Naamah said as she tried to diffuse the situation.

“Never!” Eisheth shouted as she made one, three, seven, fifteen and thirty-one solid-looking shadow copies of herself.

I was amazed at the sight of all thirty-two Eisheth Zenunims leaping towards Agrat. Each one of the Zenunims acting independently from each other as if they were not controlled by a single mind. I only managed to create one shadow copy in my last fight with the two Wights. It wasn’t because I didn’t have enough power to summon more, but more because splitting my mind to control two bodies already took too much out of me. The last time I tried, I only used it as cannon fodder to compensate from having to fight two opponents at the same time.

The many Eisheths fell upon Agrat from all directions, like a swarm of Legions. Some wielded fireballs in both hands, some carried fire in one hand and ice in the other, but all their attacks proved futile as Agrat's many tentacles opened a gaping maw at the tips and consumed all the fireballs and icebolts. The rest of them wielded black weapons of all types, shapes and sizes. Agrat fought them off by casting spells using all six tentacles, her two hands and her mouth. Even her eyes seemed like it was able to cast spells. I watched it all with great interest, wondering if I would be able to use their techniques in my own duel. I wasn’t able to catch everything as sometimes the pace was too fast and there were too many things happening at the same time.

“Both of you, grow up!” Naamah shouted after six of Eisheth’s copies were killed and one of Agrat’s tentacles was cut by a well-placed Shadow Claw.

“You mind your own business, crack whore!” chorused the Eisheths.

“Crack whore?” Naamah said, then she turned to me before asking, “What’s it mean?” Her face was full of question.

She wasn’t very pleased when I explained it to her. “The only drug I’ve taken was opium, Eisheth.”

Eisheth apparently couldn’t hear her. She was too busy avoiding Agrat’s tentacle blasts. Her copies were also trying to find an opening to get close. I realized that throughout the duel, Eisheth established herself as a kind of fighter/assassin hybrid class in D&D style with her superior speed and assassination techniques to get to point blank range before delivering direct damage. Agrat on the other hand established herself as a pure mage class using all kinds of spells that presumably can be cast by any part of her body to prevent Agrat and her copies from getting close.

“Childish!” Naamah admonished. Then she grabbed my right arm and we blinked to another place.

“We don’t have much time, so I’ll be taking over your training. I want you to conjure a ball of fire,” she said as she let go of my arm.

So I snapped my fingers and a roaring bonfire appeared on the ground before me. I noticed that all my spells were more powerful in Sheol than in Assiah, probably because of an abundance of fuel (ether) in the air.

“One of Lesser Lilith’s party spell, eh? That girl was such a delight. But I want you to conjure fire on your palm, not the ground.”

I snapped my fingers again. This time, the flames I conjured hovered about an inch above my palm.

"Now compress it, just like with the ice earlier."

"But I didn't compress the ice. I compressed the aura and it turned into ice."

"Similar method. Instead of compressing your pure aura, let the fire burn through it first before compressing it in your hands."

I tried. The first time I tried, the fire burned all my aura at the same time, making me something like The Human Torch. I learnt then that making all my aura flammable was a very stupid idea. Naamah admonished me for doing so.

"But if I didn't do that, the flame will be snuffed the moment I start compressing my power," I said.

"Of course, it will. You're naturally alligned to water. When you compress your power it will always turn into water. DON'T let that stop you!" she said as she pushed me to find out how to do it on my own.

-----

Day 32

In the end, I managed to use my previous knowledge with compressing frigid aura to compress flammable aura instead. It was pretty hard, considering that changing it too early will incinerate my body while changing it too late will snuff the fire. I found the perfect balance at my wrists, where I had to continuously change the property of my aura from frigid cold to flammable.

In the end, I managed to compress the essence of fire as well as its heat that I felt as if I was holding a miniature sun the size of a cocoa bean in my hands. Previously, whenever I made a mistake, I could always flood it with my frigidity aura. At this point though, if I make a mistake, it may well mean 'true death'. Unlike the previous times when my body exploded, making a mistake now may mean going back to Adam Kadmon, sent to the Lethe river to become a new lili or become a Legion, which would totally suck.

"Control it, girl," she said as the containment buckled. "Make it yours. You are its mistress and it cannot hope to harm you."

"You're talking as if it's alive," I said, referring to the miniature sun in my hands which felt hotter and hotter by the minute. I had to stop the flow earlier because its mass and heat had become unbearable.

"Of course it's alive. Life is not all about breathing or having blood flowing through your veins. It is about being able to feel and respond to others. For that matter, your fire is alive as it can listen to your voice, feel your emotions and respond to your commands. It can even sense your fear and control you through that fear, so never fear your own power."

"So what should I do?"

"Project your thoughts into it. Tell it what you want it to do, what you want it to be. Picture it in your mind. Concentrate and make it as vivid as if you're seeing it through its own senses."

"Umm, what should I tell it to do?"

She looked at me weirdly, "I don't know. What did Eisheth tell you to do with it?"

"She told me to fuse it with my own soul. To create a vacuum that will suck in more ether from my surrounding than usual as the fire will continue to consume the ether, causing more power to accumulate in my body through the torment of my soul."

Her mouth gaped open and she was speechless for a moment before she said, "That couldn't be what she said! That... that's absolutely preposterous!"

Then I told her everything that Eisheth told me and everything about the training.

"Foolish tramp!" she spat, "That inept shadow walker should've known better than to teach grand magics. Soulburn won't work for you as you're aligned to the element exactly opposite of fire. Forcing fire into your soul will not only fail, but also destroy you completely. Unlike fire aligned Lilim like Delilah or Beata, your body can't consume fire."

"So... what should I do with this?" I asked. My arms had started to ache from the burden of controlling the fire and my body had gotten increasingly hotter.

She gave me a look of pity then switched to glaring at the miniature sun. I noticed something that looked like a bubble start to envelope the miniature sun, until it was fully enclosed. With a blink of an eye the bubble imploded and disappeared.

"Wow, can you teach me that?"

"Unlikely, we don't have the time. You won't even be able to learn the theories in 20 days. We'll do something else."

"Aww, that looked really cool!" I pouted in reply, which she didn't seem to approve.

"I'm neither Lilith nor Lesser Lilith, child. Acting cute will not get you anywhere with me."

I straightened up, "So... what are we going to do now?"

"I'll teach you some curses and hexes that can weaken your enemies, unless they have immunities. If you live through this duel, you may encounter creatures that have resistance or even immunities from certain spells or forces. Take Agrat for example, using fire spells are useless against her since she pretty much lives in magma."

"So how do I practice these hexes and curses? Do I cast it on you?"

"No time to practice, I'm just going to give you the theories, the words of power and you'll have to do a trial and error during the duel. Eisheth told you to ask me for lessons on null field, didn't she? I predict that this will take a very long time."

"You know, I don't remember her saying thaaaattt...!!!" I cried as she grabbed my head and poured all kinds of words, images and what appeared to be redundant data.

-----

Day 52

"I shall admit that I may have been somewhat shortsighted when I stood up for you in front of Lilith last time," she said once I graduated Null Field.

"What's with the sudden regret?"

"I don't regret anything, child. Everything that happens was already foreseen. But let's look at this from my point of view."

"What are you talking about?"

She looked at me sharply. "You have no innate Lilim knowledge, no control of your own powers, no ability to perceive ethereal bonds and you have a large reservoir inside you that you can't access. Sometimes I feel like ripping it out and turn you into a wishing well."

"I assume you won't do that?"

"Of course I won't. It is in my best interest that you are in the best shape for the duel. Make no mistake though. If you lose, you better just kill yourself, because I'll rip out that power and turn you into a real wishing well. Anyway, this just means that I will just have to... improvise."

"I don't like the way you say that," I said as I felt the loss of control on my muscles. I realized that she had casted Petrify on me with just a glare.

She then stepped closer to me, left hand outstretched until finally, she placed her left palm on my face and chanted something. As her chanting became louder and louder, my head started to pound and my forehead began to burn. For the next half an hour, I just screamed until my voice was gone and still the pain became more and more unbearable. It felt like my brain was being boiled and my forehead was being drilled with a plasma torch.

I was very glad when she finally let me go. "Open the eye, girl," she said.

"But my eyes are already open!" I protested, the pain had already turned into a dull ache.

"THAT eye!" she jabbed a finger at my forehead.

I winced, expected a renewed series of pain yet the only thing I felt was a dull pain and something moving under the skin.

I gently touched the part of the forehead which she touched just now. I felt something under the skin moved as I pressed it a bit harder.

"Shit! I have a third eye!" I exclaimed as my fingers recognized and eyelid and the accompanying eyelash. There was no eyebrow though, of which I was grateful. I would look totally hideous with an eyebrow on my forehead.

"Not a third eye. MY eye. You have my third eye. It's called Wedjat and there's only one in the whole world," she said and suddenly I noticed that there was something missing in her face. I deduced that it must have been caused by the lack of the third eye.

"You gave her the All-Seeing Eye?" said a voice from my left. I turned and saw Agrat Bat Mahlat sat perched atop a jutting rock.

"Oh, you're done. Who won?" was Naamah's reply.

"Of course I won, was there ever any doubt in the first place?" said another voice from behind me, a voice I knew very well after living with her for almost 40 days.

"No you did not! Cheaters don't win, Eisheth!"

"Tactics, Agrat. People call it tactics," she countered with a smirk.

"Take your arguments somewhere else," Naamah said coolly, "You're wasting my time," then she looked at me and said, "Open your eyes, child."

I couldn't at first, as I couldn't feel the muscles of that eyelid respond. Seeing as Naamah didn't look concerned or impatient, I assumed that it was expected that I wouldn't be able to open it rightaway, so I took it slow. Naamah did appear fidgety though, she kept rubbing her forehead.

"I can't believe that you would actually give your eye to someone else. I thought you said that 'the eye' was worth more than your entire realm?" Agrat said suddenly.

"I'm not giving it to her. I'm lending it to her, to protect my, I mean, our... interests. I fully expect to get it back after this is over." Then she gave me a sharp look and said, "One way or the other."

For some reason, I believed her and shuddered as I imagined the 'other' way she meant to reclaim her eye.

"Open your eyes, child. I know the first time is always hard, but try harder."

I spent the next half an hour concentrating on the muscles on my forehead, trying to get my eyelids to open. It was a really hard work, but when I finally managed to open it, it was a truly wonderful experience. Instead of seeing the world as it is, I saw everything in grids, like the old Battletech cartoons. I could also zoom in and zoom out my point of view, either looking at the big picture or the smallest detail, the size of a particle. I could even predict how it would behave or where it would move. Looking at this, I could imagine how Naamah was able to know about everything that happened or will happen. My only complain was only that everything was in the shade of blue. I'm actually a rather red person.

Naamah conjured something on her palms. "Close that eye now," she said.

I closed that eye. It was a relief actually because the eye was starting to strain. I wasn't used to having that muscle yet. The moment I closed Wedjat, my view suddenly changed into normal. It feels good to be able to see colors again, instead of just blue lines on a black background. Now instead of a shifting blue grid thingy, I could see that Naamah was actually holding a fireball.

"Hard to discern, isn't it?" she said, referring to the fireball. "Using Wedjat has its own advantages and disadvantages, as you may have already experienced."

"Is it normal..." I paused as I rubbed the sore spot on my forehead, "to see blue grids on a black background?"

"I won't know how you see it. Wedjat functions differently for different people, depending on the way they can perceive details. For me, I saw only bright white light," she said with a shrug.

"How will you see anything if all you see is bright white light?"

"My true form was created from light, that was the way I see things originally," she said as she closed her fist, snuffing the flames in the process.

"Hey Eisheth!" she cried.

"What?!" replied Eisheth. She slighty tilted her head at Naamah, but still stood with her arms crossed.

"I need you to do the Warp Cloak."

"The what?"

"You know, the thing that you did back in Zebul? When you pulled the space around the city and hid the entire city from its master?"

Eistheth broke into a laugh and continued to laugh for a few minutes holding her tummy before she said, "That was funny. Beelzebub was like a lost puppy. He had never truly forgiven me for that prank." Then she giggled a little bit more.

"Obviously she still doesn't know that it was Beelzebub who made the prison that the Levites used to seal her," whispered Agrat as I jumped at how sudden she appeared behind me.

"So will you do it?"

"Why not? Without Wedjat, you'll never be able to understand its secrets. But don't you dare give a name to my techniques ever again!" said Eisheth as she pulled her right arm and stabbed it into the air to her left in one quick strike. To my surprise, she simply pulled back her right arm, carrying with it the fabric of reality itself. I merely watched as I saw her body disappeared as if covered by the cloak of reality.

"Wow, that's so freaky. Is she still here?" I asked Naamah.

"I don't know. Open your eyes, only you can tell for sure... AGRAT! What are you..." her words were cut off as Agrat leaped to the air and brought down a pillar of fire that fell onto the place where Eisheth was standing just now. The fire turned from yellow to blue, then it turned colorless before it turned green and finally black. The heat was so intense that even with Naamah's glyph shield, it felt like I was being scorched from the inside out.

The flames continued to burn for a few more minutes until with a sweep of her hands, it vanished. In its place was a field of scorched earth. "Well, I think we can say for sure that she wasn't there." She dusted off her hands as if a finishing touch.

"If she was there, you would've already turned her into charcoal," Naamah countered. Agrat simply shrugged.

Naamah turned to me and said, "Use the eye. Verify whether she's still there and if she's not, where did she went to."

I opened Wedjat and again was amazed again at how cool it was. Everything was in grids of blue lines and it looked as raw as a world without sharpness. Other than that, I didn't see anything.

"She's not there," I said.

"Are you sure? Have you looked at it in different spectrums?"

"Uh? What?"

"Wedjat is not your standard, mass-grown set of eyes. Wedjat is much more than just an eye, it was created before the first life was born to fine tune the creation of the universe and to ensure that no errors will appear later. It's the most perfect artifact that has ever existed."

"Yet the universe is still so fucked up..."

"Don't argue with me. Now, focus. Change your perspective, it's like squinting your eyes to improve your vision or ignoring something right in front of you to see something far away."

I pondered her words and after some thinking, understood what she meant. I attempted doing something similar to what she told me and started seeing results the moment I reopened Wedjat. Instead of the blue grids before, there now appeared slivers of blue in front of me in addition to the blue grids. The slivers of blue moved like leaves on the wind. I looked up and saw the same slivers moved rapidly in a river of blue in the red skies of Sheol.

"I saw blue rivers up there, what is that?" I turned at Naamah.

She looked up and said, "It's probably Sheol's mana flow, or it could be the 'superhighway of lost souls'. I don't know exactly what it is that you're looking at. How many spectrums have you tried?"

"Umm, just the first one and this one."

"Try with other spectrums."

I tried to change it, to modify the eye to see different 'spectrums'. It was a few spectrums later when I noticed an anomaly at the place where Eisheth previously was. "Naamah, I see something."

"What is it, child?"

"Well, the space around the place where Eisheth disappeared appears twisted, as if something pulled a blanket around itself."

"Oh, take this then," she said as she put something that felt hot onto my outstretched left palm.

"What's this?" I asked, referring to the invisible object on my palm.

"It's fire. Can't you see what you're holding?" I shook my head no. "My, you must've gone very far from the standard spectrum that you can no longer see its form. Eisheth can be very good with her stealth techniques when she actually tries."

"So what do I do with this?"

"Change the properties of this fire, so that instead of just existing in normal space, it can also exist in the space that both you and Eisheth now occupy."

"How do I do that?"

I looked at Naamah and it was freaky to notice that I could hear her voice, but I couldn't see her anymore. "Well, just use the same method as when you modified Wedjat to see other spectrums. It's the same application."

I tried it for half an hour until finally I can see an object which has its blue grids move swiftly from one form to the other.

"Throw it at her," Naamah whispered. I did as told.

The moment the fire connect, it turned into a roaring fire and spread into a large area. I saw the anomaly shift and finally disappeared. I switched back to the normal spectrum and saw Eisheth trying to snuff flames from her smoky robe while cursing at us in general.

"So that concludes your training. Your turn now, Agrat."

"Wow, you're such a speeder. Thank you for the early present." Agrat replied with a sinister giggle.

"What? But it's only..." I couldn't finish my sentence as Agrat pulled me into the void with glee.

-----

Day 92

"Well, you've only mastered arcane and ice spells, but I think that should be sufficient. Dinah's only of the earth, so you should be fine," Agrat said on the last day of my training.

"Thanks Aunt Agrat," I replied, other than drilling me the ways of magic, she also drilled me to refer to her as Aunt Agrat. "It was fun learning from you," I said. It really was fun. In a way, she reminded me of Lesser Lilith. Maybe all the magic types were really great jolly creatures like them.

"There's just one more thing."

"What's that?" I asked.

"You need to go back to Assiah and feed. You won't last 5 minutes against Dinah like this."

"But... I thought it's about time for the duel?"

"That's two more days, child. That means you'll have about one hour to waste in Assiah. We'll be waiting at Yenne Velt. Don't be late."

She had already opened a portal and was about to step through before I pulled on her sleeves. "Anything else?" she asked.

I let go of her sleeves before saying, "But you said that Mother moved Yenne Velt, how would I find it then?"

She laughed so boisterously that tears came out of her eyes. "You have no idea of the mechanics involved in navigating through Sheol, don't you girl? Well, here's a quick crash course. It doesn't matter where the place is located, as long as you know the sights, the smell and the feel, you can go there as easily as any other time. Yenne Velt is your home, so it shouldn't be a problem."

"But what if I still can't do it?" I asked, still not convinced.

"Well, in that case, take this," she said as she produced a silver bracelet from the void, "That can open a portal to my... mailbox. Just leave a message if you can't reach the Yenne Velt."

She dropped it onto my outstretched palms and stepped into the portal. The moment she left, the ground started to quake and crack and the sky unleashed great storm lightnings and thunders at the ground. Through Wedjat, I realized that space and time, the fabric of reality itself is collapsing upon this realm. I decided to split.

-----

Through Fade, I arrived at someone's backyard. Although it was midnight, the surrounding was rather bright from all the lights of Christmas. Although it was a bit distracting, it wouldn't be a hindrance to my interest. I'm going after some men, heheh. After Agrat mentioned it, I realized that I really was starving. Since I had one hour to do as I liked, I decided to get some eats.

Um um, nice smell from this house. I decided that this one would be as good as any, so I shrunk my tail, wings and horns and covered myself in my human skin again.

I was about to press the doorbell when I noticed something. I looked around me, then stepped back. There, plain as day was the thing I dreaded most. Frowning. I decided to go somewhere else for nutrition.

As I blinked away, I wondered why I appeared in Chris' backyard.

Assiah: Earth, the material world.

Thanks again to Stanman for the editing. My grammar has become worse since the last time I wrote anything. As always, comments are appreciated.

Sorry all for the very slow update. Truth is, I've been a bit busy, what with being a teacher and all. I'm afraid further Half Lilin installments may take some time as well, depending on the results of my trial. Without luck, I may end up spending time in prison. Don't worry though, it's nothing real serious.