Gorellik was not hard to find. And when he did, Eden directly went for the offensive.
Blitzing his way into Gorellik's domain, Eden saw the giant Gnoll's eyes widen in recognition as they turned to him.
Gorellik was not capable of speech, as far as Eden could tell, but he also had somewhat of a resistance to the effects of the madness here. That probably had to do with his domain.
When Eden saw him, Gorellik was in the middle of a large melee with many other demons, so as he approached, he said, "I wish to cast Sunburst."
Something Eden had learned about Wish was that it was only capable of casting the most basic version of any spells, and not the mastered version. That meant that if used to cast Strengthened Fireball for example, other than being a waste of MP, it would only deal 60 fire damage instead of the 95 of the mastered version.
In Dungeons and Dragons terms, any 3rd, 4th or 5th Level spell would be cast as 3rd Level, 6th and 7th as 6th, and 8th and 9th level spells as 8th level spells.
Still, higher level spells often had additional effects other than the raw damage. Among all the spells Eden knew, Meteor Swarm, even in its unmastered version, could deal a shit ton of bludgeoning and fire damage to an extremely large area of effect.
The problem was that most things on this layer were demons, and were thus resistant or immune to fire damage, and more than a few were resistant to non-magical bludgeoning damage as well.
So Eden instead opted for Sunburst, which dealt radiant damage, something practically none of the beings he had seen on this layer were resistant to. If anything, some were weak to it.
A blinding light appeared in the air, in the middle of the battlefield, and bathed everything within twenty meters of it in its radiance. It looked like a miniature sun had suddenly appeared in the dark Forgotten Layer.
Not only were they burned, but many of the demons were also blinded, which is exactly when Eden decided to swoop down onto Gorellik. Unfortunately, the fallen god had been blinded, though definitely hurt by the spell, and parried his incoming fist with his axe.
The clash between the two created a shockwave, but despite his increased strength, Eden found himself overpowered and pushed away.
Eden, who had both Tasha's Otherworldly Guise and Wrath of the Dead activated preemptively, tried to use his speed against Gorellik, but the giant Gnoll was quite fast as well. Moreover, he seemed to have some ability to predict his attacks.
The reach of Gorellik's axe also helped him keep Eden at bay while maintaining his deadliness. Soon, the time limits of his boosting spells ran out, and Eden retreated, being clearly outmatched.
The second time they faced each other went even worse, as at that time Gorellik was not in a fight, and Eden was forced to face not only him but the surrounding Gnolls as well. On their own, they were far from being a threat, but when aiding Gorellik, they became a threat.
Moreover, even when he killed them, new ones would have appeared for their next confrontation. Apparently, Gorellik was able to summon Gnolls to the Abyss, which was not very surprising since it was much easier to get in than out.
The next few times did not go much better either, as while he got slightly stronger with time, there was a gap between his capabilities and Gorellik's.
That was until their 14th fight. Eden's magical studies had improved, and along with plenty of other things, he had managed to improve Wrath of the Dead into a 5th Circle Spell.
[Wrath of the Dead (5th Circle): Wreathes the user's hands with the spirits of the dead, dealing an additional 180 (240) necrotic or radiant damage with unarmed attacks, and heals the user for 40% of the necrotic damage dealt, or deals 175% the radiant damage in healing deficit for 8 seconds. Damage type must be chosen when the spell is cast. The effects last for 1 (4) minutes. Cost: 740 (185) MP.]
As a 5th Circle Spell, this meant that this spell was the equivalent of a 9th Level Spell, such as the stunted Wish, Meteor Swarm, Time Stop or True Polymorph.
To a pure wizard, it might not be very strong, since it required physical contact, but to Eden, it represented a major power-up.
Not only was the duration extended by two minutes, but with it activated, each of Eden's punches dealt the equivalent of a 4th Circle Spell in additional damage. If he used Radiant Damage, it was like adding a Blight to each of his punches.
Moreover, Radiant and Necrotic were two types of damage very few were immune or resistant to, especially radiant. This included Gorellik.
This showed in their 14th fight as while still overpowered physically by Gorellik, he not only managed to fight longer, but if he used radiant damage, then he completely overloaded Gorellik's Monstrous Regeneration if he hit him fast enough, and with necrotic damage, he could last the full four minutes of casting the spell without having to fear anything.
Still, that was only enough to barely hold on against Gorellik while it was activated.
By their 20th fight, Eden had another breakthrough, this time with his Cursed Energy, that had reached 800 in Maximum Output. This not only resulted in a good increase in his physical reinforcement, but also in his Innate Techniques.
[Dismantle (6th Rank): Launch an invisible slash with a range of 40 meters to deal 300 magical slashing damage. Output: 800 CE.]
[Cleave (6th Rank): Inspect the target and use the exact amount of Cursed Energy required to cut them apart. Must be in contact with the target, deals a max of 400 magical slashing damage. Output: 800 CE.]
With this output, it meant that every Dismantle dealt just as much damage as Disintegrate did. In reality, it was slightly less than that as all of Eden's spells dealt 10% damage, but it was close enough.
Against most monsters, a single Dismantle was pretty much just as deadly as a cast of Disintegrate. Unfortunately, that was not the case with Gorellik, since he had resistance to Magical Slashing damage as well, meaning Eden's damage was halved.
Cleave, with 400 theoretical damage, was Eden's most powerful attack. But, again, there was Gorellik's resistance in the way.
Still, reaching into 6th Rank with his output represented a milestone for Eden. Most of the strong monsters, like Balors, Nightmares, Dragons and Pit Fiends were still physically stronger than him, not to mention Gorellik, but as the gap between them narrowed, Eden's skill shone.
Against Gorellik, this manifested in Eden becoming able to not only slightly match Gorellik while his buffing spells were activated, but also becoming capable of actually defending himself against him even without them. He would get trampled whenever they ran out, but not instantly.
Their 21st fight came with a surprise, a series of five Black Flashes, allowing Eden to hold the advantage for a moment. He still fled in the end, but it was definitely satisfying to get the upper-hand for a moment.
Out of everything, it turned out to be his magic that advanced the fastest among all of his skills. The reason for that was pretty simple.
At first, he was limited by needing to fly up for ten minutes and have his Simulacrum study while he wasted his time carrying them with Wall of Force. He was forced to do so because only with this method could he take out scrolls.
But ever since he had learned all the scrolls and switched to personal innovation, he no longer needed to do that, and so, ever since then, he had simply buried his Simulacrum in a massive Corpse Castle, and let him study without pause.
Not only did that mean he was technically studying magic at all times, but that also allowed him to stop wasting time, and focus more on his slaughtering. The only pauses he ever had to do was to change his Simulacrum once in a while when it became corrupted by the madness.
It did not share his talent, since it was only a copy of his mind, but it shared his stats, perks and was naturally resistant as a construct, so it could hold on for a long time before needing to be replaced.
One of the things he had his Simulacrum focus on was studying the anatomy of various powerful beings, focusing especially on Balors and Pit Fiend. It was hard to properly a Balor because of their self-destruction when they died, but Eden managed to find a loophole by forcing one into the Puncture, breaking its mind for a time but not killing it, and thus allowing his Simulacrum to study it.
They had a few incidents involving big explosions, but by the 28th fight, Eden managed to improve another of his spells, Tasha's Otherworldly Guise, to the 5th Circle.
[Fiendish Transformation (5th Circle): Drawing onto the magic from the Lower Realms, transform the user into a powerful fiend. Increases defence by 60 (95), grants demonic wings and physical attacks become magical. Grants Fire Resistance II, Poison Resistance II (Lightning Resistance II, Cold Resistance II). The effects last for 1 (4) minutes. Cost: 740 (185) MP.]
Eden had changed a few things from the original spell. One was the name, since it was no longer Tasha's spell, but his own. He had also discarded the angelic option, not because it did not interest him, but because he had no angels to study to improve on it.
The defence boost had increased, enough to add the defence value of a powerful Rare armor all over his body. The resistances, while still within Tier II, now added Lightning and Cold.
Balors and Pit Fiends were immune to fire, but there was a limit to what Eden could replicate, and most of his effort had been in adding Lightning and Cold. That was only through mastery though. And having a total of four resistances was very strong for even a 9th level spell.
Maybe the one surprising thing was the duration, which had decreased from 5 to 4 minutes, but that had been a deliberate change on Eden's part, to merge the spell more easily with Wrath of the Dead.
Although he was far from being able to do it, Eden already knew the next steps forward for his buffing spells. According to his calculations, he would merge the two to create a 6th Circle Spell, and then figure out to switch the spirits powering the spell into souls, pushing the spell to 7th Circle, which was the starting point for Tier III.
For now though, the two 5th Circle spells were good enough. The addition of the two resistances and additional defence might not seem like much, but it allowed Eden to more easily tank blows, and thus shift the balance of their exchanges enough to actually fully match Gorellik while the two spells were active.
That was him matching a fallen god in his domain.
From there, meaningful advancement became harder to achieve, but Eden did still continue making some.
The only thing about 5th Circle spells was that since they were Tier II spells, they cost 25% more MP to be cast, since Eden was only Tier I, in the same way that Tier 0 spells cost 25% less, and Tier III spells would cost 50%.
With his 10% reduction on all spell costs, a 5th Circle spell normally costing 185 MP ended up costing Eden 208 MP.
Anyway, with Eden having his Simulacrum fully focusing on magic, it naturally advanced faster than his Cursed Energy, though he was also making some progress with it.
Cursed Energy mostly came to him through combat, and although there were no traces of him learning Reverse Cursed Technique despite the many life and deaths situations he put himself in, not only was his output increasing, but his understanding of Cursed Energy itself, barrier techniques and his Innate Technique increased.
Eden's magic still saw better results though.
By the 32nd fight, which was longer than it seemed since the gap between their fights somewhat increased ever since he started matching Gorellik, Eden created and mastered a new spell based on Wall of Force.
[Shield (1st Circle): Create a small magical barrier one centimeter across capable of absorbing 100 (175) of any damage source coming in contact with it. Lasts for 0.1 second. Cost: 100 (25) MP.]
This was the culmination of many days, weeks, months or years of research for all Eden knew. Although he did not know how long he had been in the Abyss, his magical research and fights with Gorellik proved to be a surprisingly good way to face the loneliness and general situation.
Shield was inspired by Frieren, the anime about the Elven mage. Eden's memories still worked just fine, and he remembered that in that show Frieren would only create small hexagons with her magic to defend herself.
This inspired Eden to create a similar spell, though far more extreme, and suited to himself.
By sacrificing the area of effect, Eden condensed mana to the extreme in a minuscule shield. For numbers, 100-175 was the range for normal 3rd Circle spells, yet it could be blocked by a mere 1st Circle Shield.
Of course, for that to happen, the mage would have to be able to time and place the spell perfectly to block the damage, something that Eden could only do thanks to his talent's danger sense and time dilation in the face of said danger.
Used by anyone else, this would be a useless spell.
Moreover, it was also useless against any area of effect spells.
Still, it represented a massive power up for Eden, as its base version was already powerful enough, and it was also a spell he could easily mess with since he had created it and knew everything about it.
By the 33rd fight, Eden had figured the way to up-cast it to the 4th Circle.
[Shield (4th Circle): Create a small magical barrier one centimeter across capable of absorbing 380 (495) of any damage source coming in contact with it. Lasts for 0.1 second. Cost: 480 (120) MP.]
Following the logic of Shield, a 4th Circle cast of it was enough to block 6th Circle damage, or peak Tier II damage.
This was enough to completely block any of Gorellik's attacks, and that at any moment or notice.
At first, the spell was hard to use even with Eden's talent since he needed to still chant the incantation in time, but as the fights passed, he grew used to it.
As for mana consumption, in reality, Eden rarely used Shield at 4th level, and relief on the 1st or 2nd Circle version mostly.
Although the 1st Circle version was not enough to stop Gorellik's attacks, it was enough to weaken them to the point they hardly dealt any damage to Eden, or could easily be overpowered. After all, Shield created a magical barrier away from Eden's body, so even if it was breached, the attack would still have to go through Eden himself.
This spell was especially strong against Gorellik, the only somewhat intelligent being other than Eden on that layer. Although seemingly incapable of speech, Gorellik was capable of recognizing people and patterns, which was why the time between their duels became longer as Gorellik started avoiding Eden.
In the same way, he grew wary of Eden's Shield, which affected all of his attacks. Even when Eden did not use it to block an attack, Gorellik was aware he could, and thus subconsciously did not place all of his strength in all his blows since throwing himself into an attack that missed meant creating an opening.
This was a problem the rest of the beings on this layer did not share, since they were all mad. Not that any of them ever survived more than a fight against Eden.
This 33rd fight thus marked the start of Eden's domination of their fights, as he no longer simply matched Gorellik, but actually had the advantage while his buffing spells were active. And even when they were not active, he could defend himself against Gorellik.
By the 35th fight, which took quite some time after the 34th, which itself took long after the 33rd as Gorellik avoided him on sight, Eden had grown used to using Shield, and stopped using his buffing spells against Gorellik altogether.
This resulted in Gorellik regaining the edge in their fights, but also in them lasting much longer than usual. Gorellik also started avoiding him even more as while he held the advantage, all of his Gnolls would end up dead since Eden would kill them all.