Kai snapped his fingers to teleport everyone inside the sect to the arena. Their eyes were still black, staring at nothing.

He modified their memories so that they only remembered that Kai and Mia were having a practice match.

He then destroyed the formation covering the sect. Their eyes got back the glow and they started looking at Kai and Mia eagerly.

“Let’s begin.” Kai said and he took a sword from his pendant. He was about to hand over a sword to Mia when her eyes started glowing.

Ice appeared around her body like a throne and a glowing scepter appeared in her hand. The entire rod was dark blue and the upper part was a round circle of gold holding a huge blue crystal. A pair of blue and white-colored wing like structures were emerging from the crystal that was floating in the air, around the circle of gold.

“The scepter of the ice goddess.” Kai said and looked at it in amazement as he had seen this specter in book illustrations. The sun goddess herself had told him about this scepter and its powers to turn anything into ice on touch. Only the black flames could not be turned into ice.

Kai grinned at Mia and channeled his black flames into his own sword. The entire blade started burning with black flames rising on it.

The crowd gasped at this display but little did they know that this was just the beginning. Kai and Mia disappeared from their spots and met in the middle of the battlefield, sword against scepter.

The fire started to wrap against the scepter and the ice from it started swallowing the top of Kai’s sword.

Both of them rushed back at the same speed and the fire and ice vanished. Kai changed his stand and held the sword in a throwing style.

“Demon Sword Art, Blood Fall.”

He threw the sword, however, unlike last time, the tornado around the sword was created by black flames.

Mia threw her own specter, a swirling storm of ice surrounded the scepter. The audience was so stunned that they couldn’t even speak.

The weapons crashed midair and since Mia’s weapon was a god-grade weapon and Kai’s was just a mere imperial grade, his sword shattered.

Mia thought that her weapon would continue its pursuit, but the flames surrounding Kai’s sword engulfed the ice of the scepter.

The ice completely died down and Mia had to call the scepter back.

“How is that possible?” She said, stunned by what happened. The audience was also stunned, however, the difference was that they couldn’t move their bodies because of so much shock.

“The soul black flames will melt anything and everything, and will leave behind nothing.” Kai said, quoting someone he knew a long time ago, a certain someone who warned Kai of his powers.

Mia didn’t say anything and continued to barge him with her unmeltable ice or as the name says it. In front of him, it should be called the broken ice as he either destroyed it or dodged it.

“I am gonna end this.” He said and changed his stance, feet wide apart, shoulders bent towards Mia and a sword drawn towards her direction.

“Soul Void.” He said and moved at an impossible pace, appearing right in front of Mia. He touched the tip of the sword on her forehead and her eyes rolled back in her head.

Even though she was unconscious, she still released a large scream that echoed in the silent arena.

After that, Kai touched her forehead and her eyes flew open. She hugged him tightly, afraid of what she saw.

Every soul was in a way, balanced. Though, this balance was not like an equal balance. Some souls had more good than others and some had more evil than others. But in the end, each soul contained both good and evil.

No one could never be purely evil or purely good. And no one can have a perfect balance in their souls. The soul void forces your opponent to face his or her own soul. And it doesn’t matter that they are facing the good or evil side. The results are something that can break a person, piece by piece. This was a form of torture that was used by the divine emperor himself before Kai copied the technique.

“It’s over.” He said and teleported back to his house. The audience was left gaping, not sure that they should move or not. Forget about moving, they couldn’t even speak.

“Let’s just have a nice healthy holiday.” Kai said as he gently laid Mia on the bed before thinking of someplace she would love.

He then remembered a place he had seen when he was traveling to the Blue Moon Sect for the first time.

“Take my hand and let’s go.” He said and smiled at Mia before extending his hand. She took hold of it and both of them disappeared.

***

The place Kai had in mind was a vast clearing full of flowers. Roses in every shade you can imagine – blue, red, white, yellow, pink, and many more. Every flower ever known to mankind was here, spread out in a large area.

“It’s beautiful.” Mia said something for the first time and plucked a blue rose from the ground. She spread her ice on it and it turned into a frozen rose.

“That reminds me, I have a gift for you.” Kai said as he took out a locket from his pendant.

The locket was a combination of red and blue and it had a symbol etched on it – a half blue half red rose, frozen from the blue side and burning on the red side.

“It’s something your mother gave me to give you as a present. It’s their marriage locket that your father created for your mother.” Kai said gently as he handed Mia the locket.

She stared at it for a few minutes before dropping it on her neck. She then turned towards Kai and kissed him. Not a horny kiss or kiss asking for something. Just a plain kiss full of love.

“Promise me, promise me that when all of this is over, you will stay by my side, forever.” She looked straight into Kai’s purple eyes. He nodded slowly and hugged her. It looked as though the soul void and shook her pretty badly.

“I promise, when all of this is over, I am gonna collect my entire harem and build a paradise for us. We will then live peacefully, forever.” He said slowly against her ear.

“Forever.” She echoed. Kai gazed straight into her eyes, a small snowflake sitting on her eyebrow.

“Forever.” He said with certainty before kissing her.