Back to the present, Hou woke up, the real him not just his body. He had been thinking and he decided it was the best decision Yue and Araxis made. He can't be wasting time like he has been, instead he needed to become strong enough where he can give a safe life to his people despite anyone else.
He needed to surpass everybody and be one the strongest! He had said it before but he was not willing to have sacrifices, he wanted to have the cake and eat it too.
He wanted to grow stronger and have a group of people to protect at the same time. He needed to focus on purely becoming stronger, having people to protect would only distract him.
Hou felt his soul had strengthened, it produces wills in much higher amounts than before. Now when Araxis was normally thinking, there was enough spare wills for another person to think at the same time.
Hou used up his wills and thought and talked to Araxis,
"I've looked through the memories, let me do this. I've made my mind, I'm going to only focus on getting stronger!"
"Then prove it." Araxis gave up main control of Hou's body giving it back to Hou.
Swiftly, Hou retook control and moved his body. He moved it around a bit, getting used to the feeling of controlling his body again.
He then started to prove he was ready to take on Nelzahar, the evil wizard. If they let him grow any stronger, they couldn't catch up.
Hou recalled the feeling of resonance Araxis used and showed off his fighting. He used simultaneous physical movements, while also using magic and spirit wills to attack.
He created a powerful killer move, it used the mountain spirit will to draw power from the earth, like mountains do. Additionally he used the two new spirit wills Yue had gotten him.
The first was flying spirit which let Hou move through the air faster than ever before of his own power. The second spirit was a spirit will that created cracks. These cracks can both by physical or conceptual.
In the move Hou was using, he gained strength from the earth and drew it into his body. He gained strength from the heavens with the flying spirit and magic, drawing it into his strength. Finally the cracking ability was the ability that tied it together.
Hou teleported to the surface, facing a mountain. He punched and the whole mountain cracked. He drew power from heaven and earth to have the strength to shatter the mountain, and the shatter spirit will made him break the space.
The space broke apert and the shards of the mountain flew into the cracks in space. They entered the astral world and disrupted the laws around them, making the land before Hou morph.
The law shook and merged, the laws being unnaturally shaken. Hou then used his next move, a spirit will which gained extreme speed. He activated the will and used magic to convert the speed laws into pure force. Instead of speeding up an invisible force started to grow next to Hou, he pushed it down and it exploded.
The ground opened up, a ravine forming from the extraordinary amounts of energy let out.
"Am I ready?"
"...Yes, do it and if you need I can take over."
Araxis gave the nod of approval and Hou activated the plan he saw in his memories. Araxis worked with Yue to create a move which scanned the full lands for any magical activity. It used various filters to detect the difference between spirits and magic. Essentially they did the same thing but it could be detected which it is with formations.
Hou activated it and he gained an intuitive understanding of the whole lands. In it he noticed one large area of magical activity.
'That must be where he is'
Using the understanding he's gained, he activated his gateway magic. He stepped through and beheld his sights.
A massive mountain sized chimera formed of thousands of men and animals. It had a large body with 6 main large arms made of conjoined flesh.
Nelzahar had focused on physical growth. To compensate on his relatively weak magic, he used his dark magic specialty to graft bodies together. Using this technique, he had become a hulking monster.
In order to maximise his range of activity, therefore increasing easily created suffering, Nelzahar had decided to become large and capable of large disasters. Natural disasters created massive suffering, like that he became a man made cataclysm.
To experience the fastest growth in anticipation of Hou, Nelzahar had accumulated bodies, regardless if their origin. He had become a giant chimera made it any animal he found. He combined their form, creating a large monstrosity he could exponentially grow stronger.
Hou teleported to Nelzahar, floating in the sky above him. Nelzahar saw this and activated his magic, compressing his body. He compressed turning into a small but powerful form.
Nelzahar turned small and faced Hou, starting to stance up. He started activating a magic, using both his natural magic, resonance and sacrifice. Using the tens of thousands of bodies within his own, he can sacrifice small parts of body to activate his dark magic.
Sacrificing some of his body, Nelzahar activate this magic and attacked Hou. He used a special dark magic which sacrificed a few animal lives in exchange for law manipulation, the air turned to fire around Hou.
However, Nelzahar was also facing his tribulation, the world had been rejecting him using resonance. The sky was bubbling, storm clouds forming. As lightning was striking, he stopped resonance and diverted the lightning.
He used magic and diverted the tribulation, special lightning started to move towards Hou as he was trapped in an orb of fire.
However, Hou had not been sitting still, he took have been activating his magic. A counterattack he had started as soon as he teleported above Nelzahar's collasal body, a modified attack made by Araxis.