I stepped forward a bit toward him and said with a smile, "I wasn't wrong at all. It was you all along, True Spirit of Destruction, Mariyan."
Mariyan closed his eyes and smiled a bit. Then he opened his eyes back at me and said, "Tell me, Mister Aizis, am I wrong?"
I didn't reply back for some moments. Ignoring his question, I spoke up with a pretty serious tone as my voice appeared a bit hostile, "Mariyan, you know what a pathetic piece of mortal you are. No matter what, it was never your thing to let the others smile. You are a selfish trash who does everything just for your own happiness."
"So tell me, Mariyan, how in the world will I support your ideal?" I added as my voice sounded even more hostile.
Mariyan didn't reply anything, didn't express anything even for a moment. After keeping the silence for a few seconds, Mariyan spoke up casually, "I'm afraid stupid mortals can never understand his words. Lord Arfanez failed to teach them the righteous path."
"Lord Arfanez, you say, huh? What kind of ideal have you scattered throughout the entire story, Arfanez?" I thought to myself as my heart was beating a bit faster than usual, out of some certain wonder and fear.
I smiled toward Mariyan and said, "It seems like you refuse to follow our ideals, huh? If so, then it's simple and clear. It will be our strength that will determine the destiny of the story.
"It will be the clash between Selfishness and the ones who want to believe in selflessness. Our paths are similar, but yet different, don't you think so, Mariyan?"
"Unfortunate for you, the world will never redeem; they'll rebel, but just for their own self, just like I want to be, with everything I have." Mariyan replied calmly as his voice appeared hostile, unlike earlier.
While Raizel kept himself silent all the time, he flew toward Mariyan with a sky-blue colored sword and swung it at Mariyan's neck. Mariyan narrowly looked toward Raizel's sword and smiled fearlessly. Suddenly, a vampire appeared in front of Raizel's sword and threw a punch at his sword, shattering it like a piece of paper.
Then the vampire tried to kick at Raizel's face, but Raizel jumped back to us. He glared toward the vampire and Mariyan and thought to himself, "They're extremely fast and nearly impossible to take head-on. I wonder how Aizis managed to blitz them."
Mariyan stepped forward multiple steps toward us and spoke up with a casual smile on his face, "Soul, physical existence, magic, and miracle. They are indeed the root of all things in the world. What if we combine them and create some interesting creature?"
I frowned my eyebrows and glared deeply at Mariyan. Without spending further moments, I threw questions straight forward, "What are you trying to say? How are you supposed to combine the power of the true spirits?"
"Well, that's a good question, as expected from you." Mariyan replied quickly. Mariyan tilted his head slightly. A faint smile appeared on his lips. His fingers lay down lightly upon his chin and he spoke up once again, "A deductive person such as yourself should have figured out the things I've done, right?"
I replied without changing my expression from earlier, "Don't tell me… you took over their authority?"
As I spoke, my fellows appeared to be surprised and shocked, not only from surprise but fear as well. Mariyan laughed loudly as he raised his voice pretty loudly afterward, "Indeed, you've nearly got me. Not only did I take over their authority, but I've also removed their symbolism and existence itself from the layout of every single possible layer."
"Just as I thought. Mariyan actually did this." I thought to myself.
"I had absolutely no other way than murdering them. Tell me, if they don't help me in my amusement, then why would I let them survive?" Mariyan added afterward as his tone of voice appeared to be pretty simple, judging the subject. While I'm not so familiar with Mariyan, I've seen beings like him. So his nature didn't really surprise me; I can say the same about Raizel. Throughout our journey along with countless types of existences, it's no longer surprising for us. Everything appears blank and casual to us.
While I was falling into the depth of my thoughts, Mariyan drew a magic circle pretty far above us. The magic circle began to rotate and slowly increase in size. After rotating for a few seconds, the magic circle paused its rotation and turned into a circle as huge as an entire realm. Following the huge circle above us, Mariyan began to float toward the circle and stopped right beside it.
"I won't be surprised if this one can't finish off every single piece of you, but let's play a little game in the beginning." Mariyan said with a smile as he blinked his right eye afterward.
The magic circle began to rotate once again as brimming flame magic covered the entire circle. The air all around there began to run wild as the entire world was trembling out of such an incredible presence.
Slowly, the magic circle revealed a huge magic spell from inside it and released a storm of flames toward us, toward the world itself.
Without thinking further, I covered us with a purple visible barrier magic. It was a huge box that put us inside it and completely isolated us from anything outside.
The storm of flames landed on the ground of the Spiritual world. All we could see was the presence of piercing flames that were consuming everything around the world, and the world itself. The strong and mighty vampires appeared to be nothing more than pieces of mist to the flames.
A minute passed since then. The flames that were destroying everything have finally disappeared from our sight. However, it was a terrifying message for us, leaving a sight of Mariyan's strength.
As the sight of flames disappeared, we saw Mariyan standing in front of us as he created a huge diamond floor to stand on in the open space. The size of the diamond floor was so vast that I could barely see the end. As I canceled out the magic box, we set our foot on the diamond floor. The diamond floor was amplified with pure magic power belonging to Mariyan. I scanned the floor to ensure the floor's survival during our clash.
"That was some excellent spell, Mariyan Rizo." Raizel spoke up suddenly. His voice sounded pretty clear and fresh. I felt like he finally managed to break the cage filled with countless questions and finally found the answer he was looking for.
Raizel stepped ahead to Mariyan and drew a magic circle. A crimson red magic sword came out from the circle as Raizel grabbed it with his left hand. It was the sword of emptiness, Nytherion.
Raizel flew toward Mariyan and directly struck his sword at the top of Mariyan's head. But it wasn't really hard for Mariyan to dodge it.
As he easily dodged it, Mariyan jumped away behind a bit and threw a kick to Raizel's chest, easily kicking him away like nothing. Raizel was slammed further away from there. Mariyan drew a magic circle behind him and sent multiple pieces of golden swords toward Raizel, aiming to pin him down there. However, Raizel managed to get back control of himself and jump away from there to avoid the sword strikes.
"It's impossible to outclass him in raw power. I can never do it alone but…." Raizel thought to himself, narrowly looking at us, "If we all strike at once, then this might be our victory."
"So you are thinking about striking at once, huh? This can be your final and the only useful card to play, but it's not going to work against me." Mariyan said pretty loudly as he lifted both of his hands in different directions. Covering us, Mariyan created multiple magic circles. The magic circles began to rotate and instantly trapped us inside a magic box. Somehow, Maria managed to jump out from the area and escape the magic box spell.
I knew about the things going to happen, but I decided to keep myself silent. I can say the same about Marco. We wanted to witness something right there. Instead of helping them out, we wanted to see what they could do. Raizel hit the barrier with Nytherion and tried to force it as much as he could. However, the box barrier was way too strong for him to break. After trying multiple times, Raizel gave up the attempt and stood back to think of a further way to break it.
Elesia drew multiple magic circles inside the box and tried to undo the barrier magic, but it was a useless effort.
While outside of the barrier, Maria kept dodging the flame slashes coming from Mariyan's golden flame sword. While dodging the strikes, she was keeping her gaze on us and trying her best to figure out a way to bring us out from there.
As I was witnessing that, I smiled a bit at Maria and shouted, "We're leaving this to you, Maria. You have to do this all by yourself."
Maria smiled brightly toward ahead as Mariyan was coming toward her. She kicked Mariyan's chest extremely forcefully and struck him far away from there. Just like Raizel, Mariyan was totally slammed into the diamond floor.
While keeping her bright smile on her face, she replied to me loudly, "That's it. I'm doing this all by myself. Just for you guys, useless bastards."
"That's Maria for me; go and show us what you are really capable of." I said loudly.
Everyone smiled brightly, smiled with the hope of victory, betting everything on Maria's words and her strength.