Jason was unable to move or do anything to rescue Scorpio, who was bearing the terrific pain without issuing a single noise.

Artemis was screaming out in fright and desperation, knowing what Scorpio, her rival, but also her family, was doing.

She wanted to help him out, support Scorpio, prevent him from being forced to endure everything alone, and protect both Jason and Scorpio! 

However, Jason had already sealed his entire soul world with gritted teeth.

His eyes were filled with tears as Scorpio's exoskeleton that had turned golden began to show the first signs of cracking.

"Nooo…."

He was not sure what to do, and his train of thoughts had become a whole mess.

Nothing Jason thought of seemed to be helpful and he could barely take out a few high-grade potions from his spatial ring as he wanted to pour them into Scorpio's mouth.

Yet, before he was even able to open the vials, the potions' content had already evaporated.

Not even tears streamed down his cheeks as he began to stare at Scorpio who released his happiness as he had always done.

"How can you be happy right now???" Jason shouted as he felt a heatwave streaming through the tiny openings, Scorpio couldn't cover.

Not even Jason's his resistance to heat was able to endure the sheer might of several tens of thousand overclocked Creato flames that imploded.

Jason felt that his skin was burning as if it was melting.

But that didn't matter to him as he noticed that the cracks on Scorpio's exoskeleton deepened.

The explosion didn't even last half a minute before it dissipated, but Jason's entire body had been burned. 

Yet, at the same time, his Celestia aura that had enveloped him, protected Jason from most major injuries.

Nevertheless, despite the unbearable pain he felt as his burned skin that adhered at the molten stones around him was torn apart, Jason could only think about one thing.

'Please be alive!!'

Jason could only see Scorpio's front and he was not sure how the majority of his body was looking like.

However, what Jason was seeing in front of him was already more than enough for him to be frightened.

Only a few moments after the explosions had stopped, the gravitational force pulled Scorpio from the ceiling as he fell to the ground.

When Jason saw this, he didn't care about his own safety as he jumped after his dear soulbond.

Solaris, who barely noticed this had to enter Jason's mana core to manifest tiny wings with the last traces of strength it had left.

The wings barely slowed down Jason's speed, but he was still faster than Scorpio as he grasped his pincer.

With a loud scream, Jason utilized every last trace of mana, his Celestia aura, and the stigma as the wings out of blacks wings enlarged to a wingspan of several dozen meters for a short moment.

This decelerated their falling speed and they landed gently on the ground before Solaris' wings disappeared.

Artemis was still screaming in fright and the soul world's seal had subconsciously been lifted as she had already emerged next to Jason and Scorpio.

In the beginning, Jason had been unable to see how Scorpio's backside looked like, however, the moment when he saw finally saw it, he was barely able to contain himself as tears streamed down his burned cheeks.

His entire being looked extremely hideous right now because almost everything about Jason had been burned, yet, Scorpio looked even worse.

While Jason had still a little bit of unscathed skin left in some areas, his spatial ring and other extremely high-grade objects were seemingly unscathed.

However, was that really what mattered to Jason, who saw that Scorpio's entire backside had been obliterated?

There was barely his small head and frontside left!

His legs began to shiver and Jason could barely take a step towards Scorpio as he touched his little soulbond's head that was already limp.

He caressed him gently and said under tears

"Why did you do that? My little Scorpio...we...would have...survived….somehow. You shouldn't have sacrificed yourself like that...WHYYY???"

Jason was unable to accept Scorpio's death and Artemis, who had never lost anyone close to her, was the same.

She tried to lift Scorpio's limp head, trying to support him to stand up, to regain his vigor, but everything Artemis tried was for naught.

Time passed slowly and Artemis was slowly starting to digest what had happened when she looked at Jason, who was still caressing Scorpio.

He was crying and trying to find a solution on how everyone of them could have survived.

However, in the end, there was not a single path that could have been taken differently, except listening to his gut feeling and not participating in the Yaslörn caves' ambush! It was his fault for...

"You've rescued all of us…..good job my little one! I'm p-...proud of you!"

Jason knew that Scorpio was unable to hear him, but he felt like he had to tell his loved soulbond that he had done well.

If possible Jason would have done everything to prevent Scorpio's death, but there was nothing he could do to change what had passed.

He began to curse himself for not trusting his gut feeling, for following the others inside the Yaslörn cave, for not treating Scorpio as he had deserved, for being too weak to protect those he wanted to protect...

Scorpio, with the lowest potential, had to protect him with his life so that Jason could survive.

Gritting his teeth, his Celestia aura erupted as faint traces of a blood-red color intertwined with it.

Yet, before anything else happened. Jason stood up without lifting his gaze from Scorpio as he heard the reminiscence of Scorpio's last thoughts lingering in his head.

'Was I finally useful for master?'

This caused all emotions that were about to be suppressed into Jason to resurface and he began to cry bitterly, with Artemis doing the same next to him.

Solaris, who felt emotions like sadness and frustration for the first time in its life, was unable to cry. However, its revelation of anguish was different as it released the torment emotions it had accumulated.

**

It was unknown how much time flew by when Jason's tears had ceased that determination could be seen in his teary eyes.

"Never...NEVER will I allow a soulbond of mine to sacrifice their life to save mine!!" 

Nobody knew how the future would fare, but Jason would give his utmost efforts to become stronger, as fast as possible in order to prevent anyone from being able to save him because he would protect himself now!

During the time that had passed, the Celestia aura that had faint traces of a blood-red color within them had reverted to the familiar golden-silverish color as it enveloped Jason, soothing his wounds and the pain caused by the burned skin.

Suddenly, Jason's stigma and that of his soulbonds began to ignite, while Scorpio's stigma ignited one last time.

At that time, Jason felt that the injury Scorpio's death had caused to the soul world was healing at a rapid pace.

Somehow, unaware of the reason for this sensation, Jason could also instinctively tell that he had to do something else.

'The….soul world core wants... Scorpio?'

His entire being was still filled with agony, but it was slowly substituted by the thought of the culprit that deceived them.

"Ifrytor!!"  The Ifrytor race had tricked them, and fled!

Not only did they enter Canir to use it as training grounds for their soldiers to earn experience, but they had also sacrificed 200,000 Ifry to ambush him.

This was the main cause for Scorpio's death and when Jason began to understand this, wrath began to devour him.

The only thing that calmed himself down was the thought of his soul world core merging with Scorpio, whose stigma was slowly diminishing.

Within a moment, he had calmed down as Jason instinctively lifted his hand to touch Scorpio's stigma.

He caressed it, while lamenting about his stupidity for trusting others' opinions about the dangers of the Yaslörn caves more than his gut feeling.

This was something he shouldn't have done.

Jason was already missing Scorpio and the pain in his heart began to widen. 

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