Haden's instincts warned him of the impending doom, and suddenly a quake rippled through the earth.

The ominous circle glowed in brilliance, its glow painting both of the cracked domains into purple. Suddenly, a blinding light twinkled under the Remnant. Purple hands, chains and tentacles shot out of the ground.

All of it happened within a bare moment. Haden, who was entirely dependent on his reservoir of aura, had already used most of it, and now, he didn't even have enough aura to instant step out of the circle.

Still unwilling to give up, he plunged his spear into the ground and sent waves of his remaining aura crashing into the ground, but it proved ineffective.

He fought desperately as the purple hands grasped his legs, tentacles slithered around his hands and waist, and the chains twisted around his shoulders and neck.

The flames didn't burn him — instead, he felt as if shackles were being placed on his very existence. His thoughts slowed down, his vision became blurry, and the metallic taste of blood enveloped him as it seeped out from his nose and eyes, but he continued to writhe around in hope of freeing himself.

Seeing his desperate act, a chuckle escaped The Remnant, and he stated in amusement, "Aura is nought but will made manifest.

To unmake it, one needs only twist it.

This flame twists and devours all that I desire."

Haden's eyes flared with dreading fury; he glared at The Remnant with every ounce of hate he could muster, and his enraged roar travelled throughout, shuddering the sky.

A displeased expression took hold of The Remnant's face. He snapped his fingers, and one of the tentacles began to wrap around Haden's mouth.

The circle constricted around him, and the purple hands, tentacles and chains began to pull him inside the glowing quagmire.

The Remnant watched in silence, and a few moments later, Haden was gone. Devoured by the ominous, dark circle that was no longer bright.

Jura, who was about to shoot another volley of his arrows at The Remnant, froze. The bow loosened from his grip, and he mumbled in a voice heavy with disbelief and terror, "Haden... lost...?"

Even though he was the one saying the words, he still couldn't believe them.

He took one final glance at the dark circle. "Thou art burdened by thy own virtue, and it shall be thy undoing."

Haden was strong, yes, but he was too passionate about his role as a guardian and the Sovereign of Dhaevrak, and that passion became his apparent weakness.

Even during the battle, most of Haden's aura was spent to keep the damage so all the Remnant needed to do was to pull the strings correctly, and everything went the way he wanted it to be.

"Thou wert a worthy foe, Half-God of War, Haden," he declared.

His eyes shifted towards his final destination; unlike Haden, his gaze couldn't pierce through the physical objects, so all he could do was sense the ripples that Rion was making at the main battlefield.

"It's time. Everything will soon end..."

Stepping forward, he began to make his way towards Rion.

—

The main battlefield was as chaotic as before, if not more.

Rion's aura technique had slain more than a few hundred humanoid monsters, but there were still thousands of them, though most were one-lined monsters to three-lined.

He had dealt with all layers of the four-lined and his next goal was the five-lined, so at the moment he was battling.... or dancing through the horde of five-lined monsters to study their core, and as well as refill some of his aura — he had used nearly half of it for Serpent's Endless Greed.

All of the five-lined monsters had stopped advancing, and they were only focusing on the strongest being present there but Rion didn't want to kill them, not before he finished looking at everything at least.

As he played with them, Rion realised a few things.

His eyes flickered sideways, he studied them and thought, 'That flame has a better control on higher-ranked than on lower-ranked...'

He ducked down, and something whistled past where his neck used to be. He dodged the swing of the monster with blade-like hands and threw an aura-clad punch at its abdomen while spitting in irritation, "Stop annoying me, knockoff cruelblade!"

The punch landed square on its abdomen, its flesh exploded, and a gaping hole appeared at the spot of impact. Rion, carefree of everything happening around him, plunged his hand into the monster's chest, his grasp tightened around the core, and he pulled it out.

He dodged the incoming attacks like he was in some sort of ballet performance and mumbled while studying the core, "This one has strings sticking out of its crystal, but unlike mine, these are darker."

He stored the crystal in his inventory, went over everything he had learned till now and concluded, "These crystals must be the receiver of the commands given by the trapped souls. With each rank, the crystal becomes bigger, and the control gets better."

He grabbed the tentacle of one of the monsters and pulled at it; the monster was thrown over to him.

Aura poured out of him and formed a dome around the two of them.

He plunged his hand into the monster's chest and tore apart the flesh that was blocking him from seeing the core. He then placed his hand above the core and muttered while covering it with his aura and constantly punching its side with his other hand.

"Be free."

Just as those words left his lips, the marks of wings unfurled, and the core began to tremble violently.

The other five-lined monsters crashed into the aura dome and slammed their horrid limbs onto it.

He ignored them and stared at the core, eyes narrowing in curiosity and anxiety of failure.

The authority of Absolute Will tried to force Rion's command onto the core, but the Corrupted Abysmal Flame fought back, and cracks appeared on the glassy surface of the core.

His expressions darkened, and dread gripped his heart as the failure seemed close.

A stifled hiss escaped from the trembling null core.

The core stopped, Rion frowned and mumbled, "Did it—" the core burst in an unexpectedly devastating explosion.

The aura dome fell apart, the earth trembled, the sky burst into flames, and Rion was sent flying.

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