Chapter 10

'Is this what death feels like?' Ash thought. The first time that Ash died he didn't feel anything. One moment he was on Earth and the next he was in the body of Ash Greycloak. Ash had no way to tell the time where he was. Wherever he was. The only thing was blackness. He didn't know if he was even seeing blackness or just couldn't see at all. All he knew was that it felt like forever.

Ash continued to exist with no purpose in this black space. After a while he started to forget things. The things that went first were things from his life on Earth. He already couldn't remember the name 'Earth' anymore. The next memories went faster. He no longer remembered his old name. All that he knew was Ash Greycloak.

After what felt like another eternity, he could not remember anything. The only thing he knew was black. A few more eternities later and he was starting to fade in and out of consciousness. It was in one of these bouts of consciousness that he suddenly saw a light. It started out as just a speck but every time he passed out and woke back up it was slightly larger.

A few thousand times of coming in and out of consciousness and there was no longer and black around. By this point even when he was conscious everything was fuzzy. All of the sudden he heard a warm soothing voice come long from the light. "What an absolutely amazing specimen!" The voice said. He didn't even know what language it was or how he could understand it but when he heard the voice he started to be drawn towards where it came from. He faded out of consciousness again.

This time when he came to, everything wasn't fuzzy. For the first time in what felt like eons he could see something other than just black or white. He attempted to look around. When the view in front of him finally came into focus he almost yelled out but he had forgotten how to talk. Everything around him was covered in black rock that looked like obsidian. The sky was an almost blood red color with some kind of celestial body in the sky that was absolutely enormous. This celestial body was darker than the sky until it was almost black but it was still red. It gave off a bone piercing chill that he felt all the way to his core. The longer he looked the colder he became.

He quickly looked away to keep himself from freezing. When he did, he saw a face in front of him suddenly. He would have jumped backwards out of fright but he then discovered he had no body. If he tried to look at himself he only saw a ball of light. "Hey there little fellow." The person who spoke was just as amazing as everything around him. It was a humanoid figure about 3 meters tall. His body looked disproportionate to his height since he was very lithe. He was as thin as he was tall. The face of the humanoid was covered in a mask that looked like a half crying and half laughing clown. Above the mask was hair that was as dark red as the celestial body in the sky and above his head say a pair of horns that grew up and then curved around into points facing the back of his head. The humanoid was wearing a long ornate robe that dragged a few feet behind him. The robe was as black as night with rotating and wandering characters on it. The robe itself gave off an aura of mystery.

A warm and soothing voice came out from behind the mask. It was deep and seemed to resonate with his being as it spoke. Energy seemed to gather around his words almost giving them power. "You are quite lucky that a found you. You had almost drifted way into the plane of despair. It is rare to see a soul as young as yours possessing twice the amount of power that it should be. An interesting specimen indeed.... hahah." Ash then knew what he was and why he didn't have a body. He didn't have any memories but instinctively knew that what the being said was correct.

All of the sudden the mysterious being waved his hand. In front of Ash appeared a lifeless body. It looked like the body of a ten year old child but at the same time very different from a human. The body was extremely pale and had ash colored eyes. The hair was almost white as well but with a small tinge of purple near the roots. The mysterious being spoke again. "This is the body of a Royal Shade. This is a bloodline that has been extinct for trillions of years. It was one of the first few bloodlines to exist here in the Underworld. This is the last of its kind only here today thanks to being sealed deep in the depths of the Pit of Destruction. Pity it isn't a bit older or I would have the body myself. Being so young just isn't in my tastes though. I suppose I can give you this body. They are an extremely talented race but it is very hard to breakthrough any future bottlenecks in cultivation." The mysterious being waved his hand again and Ash was in the dark once more. This time it didn't feel like eternity before he could open his eyes. Yes. Open his eyes. He was now in the body of the lifeless Royal Shade he had seen before. All of the sudden, memories came rushing into his head. He remembered everything from both of his past lives. That wasn't the only thing though. He had two more memories in his head he didn't have before. One was the name of this Royal Shade 'Asher Borrellian' , and the other was information containing his bloodline. Only the first but if information about his bloodline was available to him and it was an ability. This ability was called Shadow Clone. This ability used some of his energy in order to create a perfect replica of him that had an equal amount of power as the original body. The only difference between the two is that no matter how powerful the attack it took it would block it once and then be destroyed. In his memory, these clones didn't take much energy to summon and he could only summon one at a time for now. Also in the memory was where the talents of the Royal Shades lie. The had an overwhelming talent for learning mystical techniques. Mystical techniques were techniques that required one to gather spiritual energy or other types of energy to use.

By this point Ash was amazed. His previous body was talented but could never compare to the Royal Shade bloodline. The ability to summon Shadow Clones was like having a second life as well! He already knew that there was nothing like that on either of his two worlds. At least not that he knew of. At this point he remembers how he got the body in the first place and looked around to try and thank the mysterious being. Unfortunately he was nowhere in sight. Another thing he noticed was that he wasn't surrounded by black obsidian like rock anymore. Ash forgot to think for a second one he noticed he was in a crowd of people. Or at least some people. He saw many different types of beings around him. There were primarily people who looked like the mysterious being he saw previously. The next numerous type of being were these strange characters that looked to be half human and half lizard. A few of those looked even ire different with more draconic like features. A few other races existed as well including gargoyle type humanoids and even what could only be described as ghosts! The least populated of the races were humans. There where probably about 30 humans spread throughout the one thousand plus beings from other races. All of these humans that he could see had different colored eyes like his previous body. The one thing all of these races had in common though was their age. They all looked to be about 10 years old.