The Remnant observed Rion with a calm gaze and spoke in an amused tone, "Thou trustest thine own conclusion more than the truth the world would show thee."

Rion shook his head, the corners of his lips lifted upwards, and he said, "I am simply aware of your deceitful self."

The Remnant sighed, stepped forward, and clenched his fist. Pure demonic energy swirled in his hand and moulded itself into a dark katana.

Hair at the back of Rion's head stood up at the chilling power seeping out of the katana. He kept his expression calm and thought, 'We cannot fight here... It will lead to many deaths.'

That was precisely why The Remnant wanted to continue the battle there. Haden was the one who had moved him last time, but now, there was no one else who could do the same.

As his slow and steady steps continued towards Rion, an amused — nearly delighted — sheen crossed his flaming purple eyes, and he mumbled, "Hast thou truly the leisure to think?"

Rion's jaw tightened, and as if hell-bent on breaking his calm, The Remnant proclaimed, "Kill them."

Humanoid monsters that were standing like unholy statues moved and began their carnage once again.

Warriors whose weapons had slipped out of their grip were slain within a moment, their blood staining the dark creatures like the marks of victory.

Rion's expression darkened but he didn't move.

'I can't fight here,' he remarked inwardly, his mind blank from any strategy and tactic that he could use to take The Remnant away from there.

Suddenly, a slow rumble spread through the mountains and The Remnant stopped in his tracks.

He tore his gaze to the west, disbelief spreading across his face like cracks in a calm mirror. "How?!"

He waited for a few moments, expecting the arrival of Haden, but nothing happened after the rumble. He sighed inwardly. "...Heh. Strive as thou wilt, War. That seal is not one thou canst shatter by might alone."

He turned back toward Rion, only to find that he was gone.

The Remnant scanned the surroundings, his eyes settling on monsters and warriors locked in desperate combat, yet Rion was nowhere in sight.

He clenched his free hand and activated his Zone to search for him. The Remnant's Zone was much smaller than Haden's purely because The Remnant wasn't using his own will to create it; instead, he was borrowing the will of the trapped souls.

The Remnant had no will. He was simply a thought bound to a duty. He had neither good nor evil; his whole existence was to get revenge for the Mother, and for him, what mattered most was efficiency.

As the Zone unfolded, he finally found Rion, he shifted his gaze back at the west, and he whispered, "Dost thou intend to free him first?"

It was a reasonable approach, but if breaking the seal were that simple, why would he have endured everything up to now? To think a son was trying to break the seal of his father, oh, how laughable it was.

"Truly ironic..." The Remnant mumbled, his gaze shifted towards Varok, and his lips moved, but no voice came out of them.

Varok tore open the chest of the six-lined, long-limbed monster. He then crushed its core and glared at The Remnant as if about to leap at him, his fangs ready to tear him apart.

The Remnant's gaze stayed on him for a few moments before he turned around, purple flames and pure demonic energy swirled around his body, and he dashed towards the west, his katana already brimming with unimaginable power.

—

A golden blur shot towards Haden's seal.

'I hope he keeps himself busy in his feeling of triumph,' Rion prayed inwardly. The Remnant could neither kill nor control him alive, so his victory was guaranteed from the start but he didn't want any more warriors to die, so his best bet was to get Haden back on the board.

"I just have to check what he has done to Father and help me break free!" He muttered, eyes burning in determination.

Suddenly, he felt a heavy pressure from behind, but before he could even turn his head, an enormous purple flame crescent passed by him and crashed onto the ground.

Dust clouds and tremors rose throughout as the ground, the trees and Rion were cleaved into two.

Rion's world shifted for a moment before golden threads shot outwards and the two halves of his body were stitched back together.

"Huff... huff..." His steps faltered as he dragged a hand across his abdomen and muttered, sweat streaming down his brow, "Blasted hell! That was scary..."

He took a deep breath, circulated more aura in his legs and ran as fast as he could.

Ground cried out, cracks spiderwebbing beneath his pounding steps as he bolted forward. But The Remnant's perception was simply faster than Rion's.

The Remnant was left surprised by how Rion's body stitched itself together, an add glimmer went past his eyes, and he mumbled, "Nature and soul..."

He tightened his grasp on the hilt of his dark katana and swung it three times. The resulting slashes, forming the shape of a six-pointed star, ripped through the air toward Rion.

Rion felt the incoming attack; layers of aura surrounded his body in a thick armour.

The slashes struck him from behind. In an instant, the fragile layers of aura groaned under the strain, cracks spreading across them until they shattered one after another.

As the aura collapsed, the slashes passed through him, severing his arms, his head, his torso, and his legs.

His body was scattered like a marionette with its strings cut. Still no scream left him, it was not that he was incapable of feeling pain or was already adapted to this level of it... the pain was simply too much for his body to even register it.

His head, which was the last to fall, rolled onto the ground and fell into a pit. Golden threads spread out of all of his severed parts and stitched themselves back together.

Now whole, Rion found himself kneeling at the large crater where Haden was sealed, his eyes blank until a soul-gruelling scream left him.

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