By Eden's and Gorellik's 42nd fight, Eden's Cursed Energy reached 900. It was still within 6th Rank, so Tier II, but he was getting close to the peak of Tier II. He was starting to reach Gorellik's limits in term of resistance, although he doubted he would ever see himself slash past them going by the rate at which things were going.
On their 44th fight, Eden accidentally triggered five Black Flashes in a row, nearly beating Gorellik to death and causing him to flee for the first time. Eden discovered for the first time that Gorellik was capable of teleporting. Although until now Gorellik had been avoiding Eden if he could, once they started fighting, it was Eden who would flee. This changed.
For their next fight, not only did Gorellik start running from the moment he spotted Eden, but even when they fought, he sacrificed his Gnolls to escape from Eden after only a few minutes of fighting.
By their 47th fight, Eden managed to once more improve upon Shield and use it to create platforms for himself to jump in the air, effectively making double jumps. He got the idea while perusing through his Inventory one day and finding his Boots of Pervenire.
The spell was technically still Shield, although the shield was turned big enough to step on it, sacrificing durability but that didn't matter since it was only to make double jumps.
Their 50th fight was a landmark, being a round number and half of 100. To celebrate, Eden improved upon Superior Fireball and Mists of the Underworld, his two favorite spells, improving them to 4th Circle.
[Supreme Fireball (4th Circle): Fire a streak of flames up to a distance of 80 (100) meters, making it explode at will or on impact into an explosion of flames, dealing 180 (240) fire damage to everything within 10 (15) meters. Cost: 480 (120) MP.]
[Fog of the Underworld (4th Circle): Conjure a sphere of darkness with a radius of 10 (15) meters that blinds and lowers all attributes by 12 (20) for those standing in it. Lasts for 2 (10) minute. Cost: 480 (120) MP.]
Nothing much changed for the two spells, they essentially just did everything they could already do, but better.
The two spells were functionally useless, since most demons were immune to fire damage, Gorellik resistant to it, and Fog of the Underworld, being still only a Tier I spell, could hardly affect these monsters.
As for the darkness part of it, they were already engulfed in darkness, one far more pervasive than the one created by the spell.
But Eden did not make them because they would be useful, they were a treat to himself.
Though that certainly did not stop him from using them for their 50th fight, and he even managed to fire a Supreme Fireball into Gorellik's mouth, which was harder… well, just as hard as it sounded.
From then on, Gorellik become even harder to find, almost like he was hiding, but surely a fallen god would not hide from him, right?
Anyway, with the 57th fight, Eden improved upon Wall of Force, and recreated Forcecage.
[Force Cage (4th Circle): Create an invisible cage of force, blocking both the physical and ethereal plane, stopping all physical matter and energy. Immune to damage up to Tier II except for force damage, and anti-magic. Makes any form of teleportation harder to perform. Lasts for 10 (60) minutes. Cost: 480 (120) MP.]
Forcecage could be a bit tricky to pull off on a moving target because if there was something within the bounds of the cage when it was cast, it would fail to form, Eden perfected the art of catching demons, monsters and Gorelliks into his Forcecage by the 58th fight.
Being unable to deal force damage, Gorellik was unable to destroy the cage, and was forced to use his teleportation to get out. This was important, as Eden learned that the reason Gorellik had only ever used it to flee away from him was because Gorellik was apparently capable of using it only once in a while.
Forcing him to use teleportation to flee from the cage meant that he could not use it to flee form Eden. That was not to say he could not run away, but it became significantly harder.
For their 64th fight, Eden finally managed to merge Fiendish Transformation and Wrath of the Dead into one, making for his second 6th Circle Spell.
[Avatar of Wrath (6th Circle): Use the power of the spirits of the dead to transform yourself into the Avatar of Wrath. Increase defence by 60 (95), Fire Resistance II, Poison Resistance II, Lightning Resistance II, Cold Resistance II, grants wings, all physical attacks become magical and deal an additional 180 (240) necrotic or radiant damage while unarmed. Heals the user for 40% of the necrotic damage dealt, or deals 175% the radiant damage in healing deficit for 8 seconds. Damage types must be chosen when the spell is cast. The effects last for 1 (4) minutes. Cost 990 (250) MP.]
The spell essentially only combined the two spells, not giving their effects any boosts, but instead of costing him 416 MP to cast, they only cost him 250, or 281 since it was Tier II. That was quite the discount, and where the power of the spell came from. From there, Eden would have to figure out how to power the spell with souls instead of spirits to improve it any further.
Unlike his past progress with spells, this did not change anything to Eden's fights with Gorellik, since he had long stopped using his buffing spells against him, but against someone worth using them against, this new spell would allow him to last longer in a fight.
If he did not use any other spell, with his current mana pool, Eden could cast the spell three times, or last for 12 minutes, and still have some MP left.
Unfortunately, as fun as his fights with Gorellik were, all things had to end.
By their 65th fight, Eden's first white hair appeared.
Tracking his age had been hard, with how slow it was moving and with no reference since he had no pictures or anything of the sort. However, white hair was a definite milestone.
White hair started appearing at different ages for everyone, but it undoubtedly meant that a long time had passed, years, decades.
And as fun as fighting Gorellik could be, Eden wasted some time on him, time he could have spent slaughtering demons.
By the 65th fight, and however many years had passed, Eden had already accepted the fact that his only likely way out of the Abyss, as crazy as it might sound, was to kill every single demon present in the Forgotten Layer.
That may be tens of millions of demons, and would take decades, centuries even, but there was a shot at finishing them before his main mission. And that meant getting a shot at revenge.
So, for their 65th fight, Eden went for the kill.
He looked for him for a while, and despite the large numbers of monsters, he managed to find him thanks to his divine domain, which made him quite conspicuous.
The moment Eden flew into his domain, Gorellik spotted, and though it took him a second to recognize Eden, probably because he had grown used to Eden using his normal form to fight him, and his Avatar of Wrath was a brand new one, but once he did recognize Eden, his eyes widened as he immediately started running, sending his Gnolls to stall Eden.
Eden's Avatar of Wrath had a rather similar description to his past two skills, but his apparent was a little different. When he used it, although his body did take on a fiendish appearance, the spirits of the dead would also be spread all over his body, making him look like he had the souls of the damned dancing around him.
Faced with the Gnolls, Eden moved faster than they could follow, exploding the body of one as he flew straight through it.
Eden had grown used to fighting powerful Tier II beings with attributes vastly outstripping his own, but Gnolls were low Tier I at best, and most were only Tier 0. In front of him, they might as well be ants.
He completely ignored them, and reached Gorellik's side in an instant, swinging his fist at him. Although Gorellik did his best to flee, he knew better than try to tank his attacks with his back, so he turned around and parried his blow with uncanny precision despite not seeing the attack coming.
As the two of them clashed, Eden's fist was overpowered for a moment, but then his Cursed Energy struck a moment later, forcing Gorellik's axe back, and right into his flesh. The axe was not magical, so it dealt him no damage, but he was still overpowered.
Although Eden had not yet grasped the more advanced concepts of sorcery like Reverse Cursed Technique or Domain Expansion, that was because these were things that were meant to be mastered in the face of adversity, and it had been a while since Eden had last faced that.
Still, these years of fighting not only allowed him to improve his output, but also his general use of Cursed Energy.
Just now, Eden had used some Cursed Energy to protect his fist, as a naked confrontation between his fist and the axe would have ended badly, and used a second portion of Cursed Energy to use Divergent Fist.
Hence, Eden absorbed the power behind the axe swing with his fist and a minor portion of Cursed Energy, and overpowered it with a secondary blast.
Ignoring what had happened to his axe, Gorellik attempted to bite Eden, since his fangs were even better weapons than his axe, but Eden sent a flying knee strike infused with radiant energy right into his chin, completely stunning him.
"I cast Forcecage."
The moment Gorellik regained his spirits, he found himself inside Eden's Forcecage. The first time that had happened he had tried to destroy it, but with his experience, the fallen god instantly teleported out of it, appearing at the edge of his domain.
"I cast Dimension Door."
Gorellik barely teleported that Eden was next to him, and smashed an elbow into the side of his right knee.
Buckling over, Gorellik roared in pain, and tried to force Eden back, but before his arm could gain any momentum, found a small magical shield blocking him. He smashed through it with his overwhelming strength, but another appeared, while Eden repeatedly smashed his fists into him.
However, the element that never failed to mess with Eden quickly entered into play, as other demons picked up on the fight, and started joining in.
During their first confrontations, Eden had used them to escape from Gorellik, and once he started overpowering him, Gorellik started using them to do the same.
Although Eden and Gorellik were both stronger than most other demons and monsters present on this layer, it was not to the point where they were invincible and could ignore them like Eden had done with the Gnolls.
Still, even as more demons joined in, Eden, who used his full power for the first time in a while, kept close to Gorellik, using the mobility his wings offered him to track him. Even when other monsters attacked, he would place himself just right to block Gorellik's escape route.
After four minutes, Eden's Avatar of Wrath ran out, and Gorellik looked at him like he had won, only for Eden to re-cast the spell instantly. That left him with little mana left, but four more minutes was more than enough.
But then, Gorellik did something unexpected.
As Eden wrestled with a particularly annoying Flesh Colossus, Gorellik stopped trying to flee, but threw himself at an injured Balor instead. At first, Eden expected him to be trying to use the explosion at its death to make a diversion, but instead he impaled himself willingly onto the Balor's Lightning Sword.
Grinning, Gorellik bite at the Balor's throat, and though a part of Eden was tempted to still try to finish him off, Eden knew better and teleported away with a silent Dimension door, closely dodging the explosion that followed the Balor's death.
Appearing some distance away from the explosion, which took the lives of quite a few of the demons present, Eden did not look happy in the slightest.
Although his goal was to kill demons, if they were not killed by him, they would inevitably be revived by this place. This meant that Gorellik had effectively escaped.
Though annoyed, Eden retreated to recover, before heading back to the slaughter.
By the 66th fight, Eden understood that this had not been a fluke, but genuinely Gorellik's new strategy. Somehow he understood that getting killed by Eden would be a permanent thing.
By the 68th altercation, Eden had a breakthrough. Not with Gorellik though, but with his magic. His teleportation magic, to be precise.
Although he had managed to make improvements upon the combat forms of magic, his true aim with studying magic had always been to improve upon his spatial magic and use it to teleport out of this layer.
He had a good foundation in it too as he had already mastered Misty Step, Dimension Door and Teleport, which were 2nd, 3rd and 4th Circle spells on the matter. In his time in the Abyss, Eden also learned and mastered Far Step, which was essentially an enhanced version of Misty Step that did not require to go through the Ethereal Plane but allowed proper teleportation.
He also learned Arcane Gate, which essentially worked like Doctor Strange's portals but only within sight, and Planar Shift, which he had already tried to cast through Wish. Unfortunately, even when mastered, Planar Shift did not allow Eden to leave the Abyss.
That was not the breakthrough though, he had already mastered it for a while. The breakthrough was a new spell, a 5th Circle Teleportation spell.
[Gate (5th Circle): Conjure a portal for up to 30 (60) seconds leading to a precise location in another plane of existence the user knows of. Alternatively, the name of a creature may be spoken, and if they are in a different plane, will be teleported to a location the user can see and within 10 (20) meters. Cost: 740 (185) MP.]
This was the single most powerful teleportation spell within Dungeons and Dragons.
"I cast Gate."
Of course it failed. Not that Eden was necessarily surprised, it might be a beefed up version of Plane Shift, but it was only a Tier II spell, and a beginner one at that.
However, the second part of the spell was interesting, and more likely to work, since it was easier to draw things in than out. He first tried to use it to forcefully summon the Dead Three. It did not work, but unlike when he tried to escape and it just failed, Eden did feel a connection get created, but it was snuffed out before it could drag them in.
That did not discourage him though as he tried on one last target.
"I cast Gate on Vlaakith CLVII."
Unfortunately, even that was resisted. He was closer to succeeding, but she was a competent enough spell-caster to resist it. Shame.
Still, with that spell mastered, even though he could not use it effectively in this place, his understanding of spatial magic surged, which allowed him to master yet another spell rather quickly.
Before their 69th fight, Eden mastered Demiplane, another 5th Circle Spell.
[Demiplane (5th Circle): Forms a two meters by one door on a flat surface within 20 meters of the user. Opening this door leads to a pocket dimension, either of the user's making, or another if they have access to it. If the user creates one, it has a space up to 1000 (8000) cubic meters. The door lasts for up to an hour, unless dismissed. Cost: 740 (185) MP.]