The woman vanished at the last second—her body twisting unnaturally midair, her back bleeding as she skidded away.
Still, she continued clawing at her own face, now half-shredded.
"She's… broken," Ethan muttered, twirling his spear. "Something's inside her head."
Seth gritted his teeth. "I don't care. She was about to slaughter a whole damn factory."
Then came the scream.
Louder than before.
The earth cracked. The metal ruins behind them trembled. Windows shattered into sand. Birds scattered for miles. Even the light dimmed.
But the trio didn't budge.
Rael's eyes narrowed. "Aight… Round two."
They moved as one.
Rael blinked out of sight and reappeared inches from the remnant. His fist cocked back—heat glowing in his arm. He struck—
—but the woman twisted like smoke, her body bending at inhuman angles.
Seth was already charging in.
He spun, dragging his titanic hammer with both hands, smashing it like a wrecking ball. The shockwave blasted rubble in every direction.
The woman landed behind him, but Ethan was already there—
Veins of dark myre shot from his palms like tree roots, shielding Seth.
Then his spear surged, spinning in his hand like a silver ribbon before slicing through the air. It moved with such grace it barely made a sound.
The woman danced through the onslaught. She clawed at them with slashes that sparkled like diamond razors. Sparks flew. Seth's jacket was sliced. Ethan's cheek was nicked. Rael was bruised.
Still—they advanced.
Her hand caught Seth's hammer again—
CRACK!
It shattered—again.
But as the pieces fell, they reformed midair, even larger than before.
Seth laughed. "Yeah. Try that again."
She did. Over and over.
Every swing, every grab, every slice—she tried to disarm them.
But the trio's rhythm was like a storm in sync.
Ethan blinked behind her—
His spear came forward—fast—too fast—
She tried to catch it like before—
But the blade sliced clean through her forearm.
Her scream ripped through the battlefield. But she didn't get time to breathe.
Rael blinked in—his full body now hardened in bright molten red.
He grabbed her ruined arm—
RRRRIP!
He tore it off, muscle, bone, and all.
The woman collapsed to one knee—
But Seth was already in the air.
His hammer now the size of a leviathan, glowing with frozen blue light that painted the clouds.
"Here's your damn revenge—!"
Rael grabbed Ethan's wrist. They vanished from the impact zone.
KRAAAAAK!
The hammer landed like the wrath of gods.
Blue energy flooded the battlefield, vaporizing the ground beneath. The explosion thundered through the ruins and left a crater ten meters wide.
Smoke and dust curled.
When it cleared—
She was still standing.
Barely.
Her torso had cracked. Her jaw dislocated. Both arms were gone.
She was a dying shadow of her former self.
Ethan's eyes sharpened. "No… her core. Still intact."
Rael stepped forward, his right fist trembling—not from fear, but with energy. The heat of his Myre burned even brighter now.
His arm glowed crimson.
But now, at the center of the light, sparks of white flared—unstable, sharp, raw.
The ground beneath his feet sizzled as he walked.
He stopped before her.
"Let's finish this."
Rael raised his fist. His body steaming.
"SUPER—COOL—PUNCH!!!"
KABOOOOOOM!!!
The blow landed square in her chest.
It was as if a second sun had exploded on earth.
A shockwave of red and white light ripped through the ruins. The trees outside bent. A truck several blocks away flipped over from the pressure.
When the dust settled—
A hole had been blasted through the remnant's chest. Her core was obliterated—atomized.
She fell to her knees. Then slumped. Still breathing. But barely.
Seth blinked. "I was gonna say cool… but what the hell was that name?"
Ethan rubbed his forehead. "Yeah. Rael, Lame."
Rael, however, was laughing—genuinely. Like a kid who just crushed a video game boss with his favorite move.
"C'mon! It was cool!"
But then the mood softened.
The woman still breathed—barely. Her face no longer furious. Just… empty. Her body trembling. Her mind distant.
Rael's laughter faded.
Ethan exhaled. "She can't regenerate anymore."
"Then let's end it properly. You should do the last hit—send her soul to rest. After a hundred years… she deserves peace."
Rael nodded silently.
He looked at the woman—still conscious, barely holding on, sitting in silence with the wind brushing her bloodied hair.
He stepped forward slowly, his footsteps soft this time. He knelt beside her, one hand hovering—then gently placed it on her shoulder.
And suddenly—
A vision.
His world blurred.
And then sharpened into her memory.
A dim, gray room. Like an old room. A lamp.
And in front of her—
A man. Middle-aged. Dressed in 1800's suit. His expression cold. Disgusted.
Rael realized it was the Remnants memory.
The middle-aged man looked at the girl in disgust and said, "Useless. No wonder your parents abandoned you. You're not only weak and frail, but ugly. Tssk. I can't even sell you to the brothels."
Elise was just three years old when her father abandoned her and her mother. Her mother treated her like her greatest mistake. She ordered her around rather than let her play with other kids her age. Elise would stare out the window, watching the children laugh and run freely, while she was locked in her room.
There was only one sentence echoing in her mind:
"I want to play too."
When Elise was six, her mother left her in the care of her aunties. They treated her like a maid, always commanding her, using her, ignoring her cries. Once again, she was locked in a dark room. Once again, she watched other children laugh and play outside. And once again, she whispered in her heart:
"I want to play too."
Until one day, her uncle looked at her and called her,
"Useless."
Elise was fourteen. For eight years, she had been passed from one family to another. Each one saying the same thing:
"We don't need her."
"Ugly girl."
At fifteen, she was sold to a rich man and worked in his mansion as a maid—more like a slave. She saw the rich girls around her age, laughing, wearing beautiful dresses, walking with grace and pride.
In her heart, she said,
"I wanted that dress too."
At nineteen, a guest at the mansion called her face disgusting. The rich man, embarrassed by her appearance, sold her off to another middle-aged man. He looked at her with the same disgust.
"Why did I waste money on you?" he sneered.
"You're useless. I can't even sell you to a brothel with that ugly face."
Elise looked at a couple nearby—around her age. They were holding hands, smiling, whispering to each other.
And she thought,
"I wanted to experience that too…"
She was sold to a brothel.
Not as one of the women to sell—but to clean, to assist, to serve the ones who were beautiful.
And then she saw her—the number one woman in the brothel.
She was beautiful. Radiant. Kind.
Elise was mesmerized.
And whispered deep inside,
"I want to be pretty like you…"
At twenty-one, the most popular woman in the brothel grew ill. Her beauty faded, her body weakening day by day. Elise took care of her in secret—fed her, cleaned her, comforted her. But the owner wanted her gone.
"She's no use to me anymore," he spat.
One night, Elise sat beside the dying woman, feeding her gently. The woman, once adored for her looks, smiled bitterly.
"Unfair, isn't it?" Elise asked quietly.
The woman laughed, hoarse and broken.
"You know what makes a person's life truly unfair?" she whispered.
"It's not because you were born ugly…
Not because you were born a woman…
But because…
You were born poor."
Those were her final words before she died.
At twenty-two, Elise served food to a group of drunk men in the brothel.
One of them—the same kind as always—looked at her and scoffed,
"Who is this ugly woman?"
They all laughed.
"You disgust me, you roach," he slurred, and then—threw the food in her face.
"You know what the best thing an ugly woman like you can do?"
He leaned in.
"Die."
And then he stabbed her—in the neck.
Elise collapsed to the floor, bleeding, choking, gasping. The man didn't even flinch.
As her blood spread, she saw her whole life flash before her.
"Unfair… unfair…"
"I just wanted to play."
"I just wanted to wear a beautiful dress."
"I just wanted to experience love."
"I just wanted to be pretty…"
"Unfair…"
"Unfair…"
And then she remembered what the dying woman once told her.
"It's because you were born poor."
And in her mind, Elise cried out,
"Yeah… why was I born poor?"
"It's all because Father abandoned us…"
"It's all because of Uncle who called me useless…"
"It's because of that man who called me ugly…"
"It's because of the man who stabbed me…"
"I just wanted a life…
Why?"
She wept in silence, alone…
And died.
—
Rael was yanked back to the present like he'd been struck by lightning.
The memory vanished, but the weight of it crushed his chest.
He looked at the remnant woman—
But it wasn't her monstrous, twisted face that he saw.
It was her innocent face.
A young woman…
Who just wanted a normal life.
Rael knelt quietly beside her fading body. He reached out with trembling fingers and gently touched her shoulder.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
Her body shimmered. Glowing dust began to rise from her limbs, gently carried by the wind.
Rael kept his eyes on her.
"May you have the life you wanted… in your next one, Elise."
The woman's lips curled faintly.
And in the softest voice, almost too low to hear, she said—
"Thank you."
And then… she vanished completely.
The wind blew gently through the ruins.
Seth suddenly shouted, "WOOHOO! Now that's what I'm talkin' about! Black-level is cleared!"
Ethan rubbed his stomach and grinned. "Let's eat lunch. I'm starving. Rael, let's go!"
Rael blinked, slowly rising to his feet.
He turned away from where Elise had disappeared and followed his friends, silent for a moment.
But in his heart, he understood something new.
Harbringers didn't just kill remnants to protect the living…
They helped send the forgotten ones to rest.