"The hope… you remember having recovered it the last time. The humiliation of being stepped on once again tears your soul apart — but that demon, standing before you, is the one who gives you the strength to keep fighting. Not because he's a friend, but because of the way he crushed the monster… that's what brings back the hope of also becoming a demon. And because of that, more than anything now, you only desire to keep fighting."
— I smiled… when he threw the capsule… the same way I smiled when he crushed Yegrande. Shit… I CAN'T FALL BEHIND. I CAN'T DEPEND ON THAT FUCKER.
Mana brimmed with fury and determination; that so-called "hope" now overflowed as an inevitable murderous instinct, a desire throbbing like venom in her veins.
"Destroy this whole fucking world…" she whispered, almost unconsciously.
Standing alongside such a horrid demon fed her own soul — and her dark fantasy in that instant. That was what mattered: killing. And taking back what she believed, with visceral certainty, belonged to her.
The little pure soul had left purity behind, sacrificed for what she most longed for. It wasn't her essence… but neither was she far from Igyris or Yegrande, after all. Even without understanding why Igyris, the demon, had joined her cause… THAT FILLED HER WITH THE ULTIMATE WILL TO DESTROY THE WORLD.
— HAHAHAHAHAHAH! YOU DARE APPROACH ME LIKE THAT, MONKEY? PATHETIC. SANCTBLOOD-VANISH CARMEN.
As he chanted the release, the blood of any SanctBlood user burned with something nearly noble. God's chosen, blessed with sacred blood, their genetic mark of power.
The man's back split open, as if being devoured; his spine burst out, gushing crimson blood that twisted into storming tentacles, forming whirlwinds of runes that danced infernally.
— Father. BREAK THE PETTY SOUL OF THIS HERETIC.
The man screamed in suffocating pain; it was clear to see: that power devouring his flesh was draining his breath. From his stained robes he pulled a glass amulet, throbbing in bright crimson. His voice was no longer understandable. Strange chants poured out.
— The fuck… he's singing the runes, that means… SHIT!!! HE'S ENCHANTING HIS SANCTBLOOD'S SPECIAL SPELL!!!
— VANESH KARMA!!!
A hailstorm erupted from those blood-tornado tentacles, shooting wildly: boiling, scorching projectiles, spikes of blood that exploded in spirals upon impact.
The attacks multiplied more and more, impossible to defend against.
Mana panicked; with quick agile movements she tried to dodge, leaping onto precise spots where the shots seemed to miss.
PLAHS PLAHS PLASH PLASH!!!
An infernal symphony from the spiraling explosions of blood.
A scream.
— ARRRRGHHHH!!!!
Mana screamed in pain, writhing on the ground. She clutched her left arm tightly; it burned like lava. Smoke seeped from the wound.
— Ho… HOHOHOHOHO MAGNIFICENT, THE SOUL AND THE POWER OF GOD'S SCIENCE!!!! It's been… so long since I last used my SanctBlood, I'd forgotten… forgotten the anguish it causes weak targets… especially those without Arcane. Hah… science, experimenting is how we discover… hah… HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
The man, once serious and devout, now raved like a lunatic as he crushed another. Such was the elite, the elite of this rotten world — despising any difference, keeping their absolute status by trampling the weak. After all… power and violence were the strongest things in this world. But someone there, in that place, hated this more than anything… someone within the Sect of Glass-Crimsons despised that ignorant nobility more than anything. The man fighting right there beside him, Camelius Lothin, had no idea… So as his laughter rose — "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" — his shots grew ever more aggressive. Chaos consumed everything; the sect members' vision of victory collapsed. The place seemed filled only with fighters, but soon the members themselves were swallowed by chaos. That noble chaos disgusted someone's heart. That one aimed at the wielder of ShadowStorm…
FLISH!!!
Drops of blood dripped endlessly. Camelius Lothin froze in shock; a fear beyond words seized him. Amid his joyous laughter at practicing his science, a blue gleam — the cut of a blade — slashed his face with chilling coldness, even from meters away. Blood slid down his cheek; his gaze, paralyzed. And then he saw, trembling: the cursed Igyris, crushed on the ground among rubble, body shredded with fatal wounds, utterly destroyed. And there, standing, watching him with a dreadful shadow in his eyes, was the one who cut him: Khaelis de Kaiwen. He looked at him as just another repulsive rat. The shadow in Khaelis's gaze pierced Camelius's soul with absolute terror. Stepping on Igyris's defeated body, gripping ShadowStorm in his right hand, his assassin's coldness spoke:
— Lothin… I do not tolerate such deviations… if you position yourself like an animal, then like an animal you shall be executed. If once more you show that repulsive face, my next cut will take your head.
FEAR. That was what now coursed through Lothin's veins. He understood: Khaelis could shred his body before the life left his eyes. Intolerable.
— Argh… You… you bastard… WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TO STAND AGAINST AN AUTHORI—
Khaelis pressed hard on Igyris's broken body, tightened his grip on ShadowStorm; he would decapitate that filthy pig holding such high rank. He prepared — but before he could…
— TCHAUNN!!!
A shot, burning, swift, cold, sharply calculated. Just before Khaelis could strike. And when Camelius realized, the small space between his neck and shoulder had been obliterated. Blood poured like volcanic lava; a burn spread around the wound. A scream of despair accompanied the pain.
— ARRRRGHHHHH!!!
And against the scream came a demonic laugh from that "pure little soul" on the ground. Perhaps her purity truly was gone, for as he looked at Mana he saw not innocence, but a cunning, wicked demon.
— HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! PATHETIC, YOU REALLY FELL FOR THAT, YOU FUCKING LOSER???
A fear like never before gripped Camelius; he stared at the girl. Now he saw her differently: a demon who had wounded him so brutally he could barely stay conscious. Staggering, bleeding, he saw that demonic smile carved into her face. True fear, never before known.
— Wh-what the… fuck is happening…
His words tangled, collapsing. Mana advanced toward him, and then he realized: she hadn't been hit by his projectiles even once. Just a bluff, dismantled with surgical precision. He fell to his knees, seeing that demon almost intact. Khaelis only watched, unmoving.
— Hah, look at you now… so tame… like a little dog… and I fucking hate dogs…
Mana's eyes cut him with razor-sharp contempt, her words wrapping Camelius like barbed wire tearing his flesh.
— Y-you… you're Mana Reixys, right? The youngest daughter of House Reixys, noble family of the Arcane elite, Argh…
Camelius tried to speak, but his body crumbled under the overwhelming pain.
— And so what if you know who I am? Don't think that means you won't die. Just hearing the name of those bastards already gives me reasons to torture you first…
Her eyes brimmed with hatred, bloodlust, fury; she wanted to be worse, to equal Igyris now, to be just like him: a true demon of immense potential.
— Cough, cough… how could a member of the six great Arcane families fall so low… to the point of becoming a terrorist… this is so…
A kick.
CRACK!!!
— What, you bastard? So what???
Mana's powerful kick shattered his face, blood and teeth spilling in humiliation. Khaelis still stood, just watching.
— Arghh… Arghh…
Camelius groaned, wretched and broken.
— Seems like Kaiwen there won't help you… he doesn't like you, does he? Obvious after the lovely mark he left on your face…
Mana rose and kicked him again, this time in the abdomen.
— Fa-arghhh!!!
His words cut off in agony.
— Well… doesn't matter if he likes you or not, 'cause we'll have to finish him too… he wrecked Igyris completely; guess that bastard isn't so badass after all.
Another kick.
— ARRRRGHHH!!!
— Or maybe… Kaiwen's just too much for now… doesn't matter, you're all going to hell.
The kicks went on; Lothin's blood spread like petals in the wind. His screams faded, leaving only groans, like faint sobs, as if chanting something.
— Oh… are you crying? You people really are pathetic… I was always right to hate every one of you, tearing your bloated egos apart… it feeds my soul…
She stepped on the "defeated" man; it was her turn to put on a "show."
— Bet you're surprised by our tech, huh? My arsenal can produce an Arcane-like copy energy, as if radiating something similar; it scans and mimics complex Arcane patterns, altering itself to camouflage… that's why your shitty attack failed miserably…
As already said, after so much oppression, a pure soul is washed by the world's horror, becoming something similar to that horror, replicating, mirroring perfectly.
— Hah… fuck, this feels so fucking good… even when I was in House Reixys… you bastards trampled me all my life… my personal revenge always felt so far away, even after so many attacks… avenging Naxes always seemed so out of reach. Me and Naxel were just worthless ants… we barely had the power to deal with Yegrande… or bigger shit like Arcann-El, LiGodght… all the selective filth ruling this world… we were nothing compared to that…
Mana Reixys was now the perfect sample of what this world offered. A broken soul, but not empty; her selfish desire filled her, drinking this world's poison as water. She became the perfect mirror for pain: to trample, so she wouldn't be trampled.
— That was until… that guy… until Igyris showed up; he… gave me a glimpse of hope when I saw the most horrible, grotesque product this world could create… Hah… a street vagrant, worthless, not even a memory of his life, his past… nothing… yet in that heart, in that essence, there's what's needed to reach it.
The mirror of cruelty is cruel, and worse than cruelty is being forced to evolve in it: to look at a greater demon, mirror him, romanticize that profane and cursed idea, take it as a selfish ideal of pure vengeance.
— Naxes would hate this… but when I saw Igyris that way, when he shredded Yegrande's carcass so demonically, so horribly, I felt the purest admiration… I would've joined him if roles were reversed… but I still don't understand why he joined us in the end… though I have a suspicion. When I told him… that I'd destroy the world, I saw something change in those empty eyes, like… it made sense in his heart… he too wants to destroy the world, for some reason he doesn't even know… so for now, he just follows us irrationally, like instinct drives him… like deep down he's just like us… trampled by this fucking world… and now he wants to trample back… which is funny, hah… because he doesn't even know who he is…
In the end… no one knows; emptiness fills the hearts of those who seek brutal, irrational vengeance. Mana was consumed by an insatiable thirst for bloody justice, and joining a demon like Igyris, a madman like Naxel, made no difference.
But what set them apart from the other side? The world — their enemies at that moment might hold an answer. Khaelis, hunting a phantom, a crusade bordering on the unethical, what would he sacrifice to find it? Meanwhile, Camelius Lothin, in pursuit of divine science, to study and adapt — that was all that mattered; ironically, he was the only one not empty: he knew exactly who he was, never lost, never second-guessing, never irrational. He was what he was, complete. And Mana's greatest mistake was not comparing that simple scholar, the one she was unleashing her fury on, with how she saw Igyris. If she had, she'd have realized: that was not a man who cried when defeated.
— So… dear worthless Glass-Crimson member… what was it you were saying?…
Mana pressed his skull hard against the floor.
— Wh-what leads…
— Hm? Go on…
— What leads one born in such elevation to lower himself so pathetically that… he wastes his life to die in such a cruel, disgraceful way… that deserves a study…
Mana's heart…
THUMP THUMP THUMP.
Filled once more with raw, genuine despair.
— What the… FUCK!!!
Failing to measure what her enemy was capable of, underestimating his complexity, seeing only herself in the fight — after all, he was more than one type of product.
Too late she realized: the mark on her abdomen burned unbearably, spreading like embers. A mistake; she'd mistaken a full-release SanctBlood enchantment for mere sobbing — a fatal error. And when she came to, a crimson light shone divinely from the man; she was violently hurled back. She blinked, and saw his wounds filling with flesh that gleamed like glass; the same substance dripped from his mouth and eyes.
— Let's conduct… a little study, little traitor Reixys… and it will… take its time…
SANCTBLOOD — UNLIMITED BODY-MANIPULATION TYPE. FULL RELEASE: BLOOD OF THE ANGEL.
Wings of reflective blood began to sprout; they grew and grew, tearing open his back. But this time, he showed no pain. Now he bore a beautiful, angelic, divine form, and he knew it.
— Kaiwen… watch closely, once we're done with these intruders, you and I have unfinished business…
Khaelis heard, unfazed, but nodded.
— As you wish… Lothin.
He turned toward the broken Igyris, aiming ShadowStorm; intending to perform a seal before a final execution. But before that…
— HAH, IT'S NOT OVER YET.
Khaelis swiftly raised his guard; that demon still stirred, even after such wounds. He prepared his attack. Translucent blades circled the sides.
— RAIN OF THE LIGHT FALL.
He roared, guiding his blade against Igyris's blazing flames as he assumed his true demonic form. Both were hurled, sinking deeper into ruin.
Meanwhile Mana watched the transformation before her; anxiety devoured her. The battle was already won… Her dream — her life — was now this. That angel of flesh stood as the only obstacle before her goals; ironically, the same stood guarding the great research seal where the EdelGear was held… the only thing barring her from being like Igyris, from destroying the world, from avenging Naxes… though deep down, she knew it wasn't for Naxes; it was for herself…
And for that selfishness, it was time to keep fighting. Her suit, clinging like a parasite since Igyris had thrown it at her, tried to assimilate that Arcane, that beautiful, angelic SanctBlood; but Mana realized something was horribly wrong.
— Wh-what the fuck is going on…
She drew quickly; concentrated shots fired the moment her weapons were raised.
VASH! VASH!
The plasma's boiling echoes roared, but before the shots hit — or even dispersed — a simple drop was heard.
GLUB… PLIM!
And as if blinking, Mana's vision fell into darkness, an indescribable void; gone were the walls of the vast Glass-Crimson sanctuary research hall, gone the floor beneath her — everything consumed by infinite black. And then, a voice echoed in that space, like a lonely resonance.
— Welcome, little Reixys; this is my private laboratory of research and experiments. In this place I am… UNTOUCHABLE. Here I live without risk of being touched or harmed by any guest… here I once conducted magnificent brain experiments on such curious specimens… just like you; I'd love to resume this practice… don't be afraid… some enemies of science call this "torture," but I dislike that term — it diminishes my work. Let us say instead we'll work with your mind… get to know you better… travel and see what you hide inside, what made you such an… interesting product…
"Each word resonates in your mind… you don't hear anymore… heavy sleep, letting yourself sink into darkness… it's time to go home."
The void swallowed her completely.
"Deeper… deeper still… I don't remember anything… who was that guy again? What was he doing here… what was I doing here… where am I… shit… I'm gonna be late… I had to get there early today. I feel myself sinking deeper and deeper… remember when my father gave me that surprise… back then I didn't know what to say… and I still don't… you'd be so disappointed, wouldn't you?… Naxes."