"That was really... weird. Why did they both kill themselves?" Rachel asked as she walked back towards the outsider manor while she held Swind's hand.

"Mr Immortus-ss claimed that it was one of the most popular love stories-ss on Earth. Perhaps-ss he was-ss wrong?" Swind replied with just as much confusion in his voice as was in Rachel's.

"Still," Rachel wore a satisfied smile and said, "I had a great day, Swind. It was really fun watching those magical beasts acting like people. It was a bit odd at first, but Cecil really is a profession summoner, isn't he? Thank you for taking me out on this date."

"I'm glad," Swind said with some relief in his tone.

"Glad?" Rachel cocked her head.

The pair entered the outsider manor, and since it was still mid-day, they decided to head to the back courtyard to relax and practice their skills.

"Yes-ss. I was-ss worried that you hadn't enjoyed yourself because of the peculiar play." Swind would have hated it if his first romantic outing with Rachel had been spoilt by something so trivial.

"I would enjoy anything so long as I was with you..." Rachel mumbled under her breathe as her cheeks turned rosy-red.

"Pardon? I couldn't hear you, Rachel," Swind said as he walked through the archway and into the courtyard.

Lone was cross-legged on the garden and blue runes were shining all over his body, a telltale sign that he was meditating. Eolande was lazing about on a tree with a book in her hands while Breena was on one of the many benches with the infant Kyuubi in her arms. She was humming a lullaby as the baby slept.

Fep was by himself on one of the other benches with a sandwich in his hands. He noticed Swind and Rachel first so he waved at them. "Have fun?" he asked.

"Yes-ss, Mr Fep, thank you. Please, let me know whenever you need ss-some help in the future. I'll do everything in my power to be of assistance," Swind claimed with a small bow of his head.

"You're exaggerating it, Swind." Fep laughed as he shook his hand dismissively.

"Hmm?" Rachel tilted her head to the side and she looked puzzled.

Seeing this, Swind took it upon himself to explain. "Mr Fep was-ss kind enough to take my ss-share of our herb gathering today ss-so I could have the time to go out on our date."

"Ah!" Rachel, now understanding, stepped forward and bowed her own head. "T-Thank you, Fep!"

"The two of you... You're putting me in a tough spot. Really, it was nothing. Considering how much Swind has helped me the last few months, It'd be rude of me to accept a favour. It's a shame that Swind is oddly insistent." Fep sighed and shook his head with a wry grin on his blue lips.

"That's what makes him so great though, isn't it?" Lone said as he stood up and cracked his neck.

From the tree, Eolande's voice rang out. "Finished consolidating your levels?"

"Yup. Now I just need to reach S-rank," Lone replied with an easy-going tone in his voice.

"You sound oddly relaxed, Lone. Enlightenment isn't so easy," From the other side of the courtyard, the Demon Princess scoffed.

"Good, you're here. I was going to get Soph to teleport you anyway," Lone smiled.

"What?" The Demon Princess had no idea what Lone was talking about.

She had just decided to get some fresh air and train her sword a little bit in the courtyard only to find it full of these fools. The Demon Princess turned around and was intent on leaving, but she was caught by her heels at Lone's next words.

"Now that Soph's back," he said as he looked at Eko and Sophie who had just entered the courtyard, "Why don't all of you come at me seriously?"

Telepathically, he sent Sophie a message. 'Whatever happens next, just trust me and don't help them unless it's extremely one-sided, okay?'

Sophie didn't know what was going on, but she nodded. 'Okay.'

"I'm not sure what your goal is, Lone, but you don't need to ask me twice." The Demon Princess immediately grabbed her legendary sword from her back and charged at Lone.

Her sword slammed against his armour sleeve as he easily redirected the impact. "I said seriously, and I also said all of you. If you don't come to me, I'll come to you."

Lone waved his hand and unsummoned Kyuubi. After doing that, he took his alterion swordspear out from his Dimensional Storage and created an arch of lightning which he sent flying towards Eolande.

After that, he deflected another attack from the Demon Princess and dashed towards Sophie before he used Pierce on his weapon and his tails which he tried to stab her and Eko with.

Sophie blocked with a hastily created barrier that was instantly crushed after absorbing the impact of Lone's attack, while Eko failed to evade all of the tails and got lightly stabbed in the chest.

A few moments of silence passed. Everyone was shocked. Why was Lone attacking them? Why did he want them to battle him all at once and with serious intentions? They didn't understand.

"Letty, I know you're watching. Sorry if I destroy your garden," Lone said as he glared at everyone.

"No worries. I can fix it with a bit of magic. A cheap price to pay for front row tickets for this show of yours. Nehehehe," the sweet voice of the overweight Fairy echoed out in the courtyard.

"This is the last warning," Lone claimed before he unleashed his Aura of Dominance at full force. "If you don't all come at me seriously, you are definitely going to get badly hurt."

Everyone was having varying thoughts: 'Is this the true Lone?' 'Has he been consumed by Darkness?' 'Is someone mind-controlling him?'

Regardless of the answers, the only thing they could do right now was to suppress Lone and find out what was wrong later.

Fep, Eko, the Demon Princess, Eolande, and Rachel all found it impossible to move under the insurmountable pressure that was Lone's Aura of Dominance.

Suddenly, everyone could feel something strange. They all looked at Swind only to see him slowly drawing his mythic sword. A serious look was on his face as he took a stance and looked at Lone. "I'm not ss-sure what's-ss going on, Mr immortus-ss, but I ss-shall fulfil your request."

"That's the first one," Lone mumbled as he noticed Swind's trying his best to walk towards him despite the thick aura surrounding the garden.

He immediately broke through the G-rank barrier and successfully became a G-ranker. Swind could feel the weight on his body lessening slightly, so he leapt towards Lone and swing his sword.

With nary a thought, Lone batted away the incredible weapon that he had created. "Congratulations on your breakthrough, but it'll take much more than that to defeat me, Swind. It doesn't matter how powerful your weapon is if you don't know how to use it."

"Yes-ss, Mr Immortus-ss. Thankfully, I never intended to hit you with Redemption," Swind claimed as the scales on his face moved to form a smile. It was very rare for him to show so much emotion.

Swind's mechanical tail moved faster than Lone could react and the tip of it was already pointed at his chin. Within a millisecond, several needles flew out of the tail and pierced Lone right through his jaw.

Lone flew back and gained some distance. He was lucky that his brain hasn't been hit by any of the needles thanks to his skilled manoeuvering. Lone smirked as he pulled the sharp metal rods out from his face. "As expected of something I created myself. You've mastered it far faster than I thought you would, Swind."

"I'm undeserving of your praise, Mr Immortus-ss," Swind replied as he watched the steam roll off his tail pensively. "I'm coming again."

With quicker and slightly more practised moves, Swind swung his sword once more.

Lone frowned. "The same moves won't work on me twice, Swind."

"I'm aware." Swind shockingly let go of his sword mid-swing and activated one his mechanical arm's abilities.

Steam poured out of the rings that held the arm together and blinded Lone. A mere fraction of a second later, he felt his gut being split in two. Amazingly, Swind had grabbed Redemption as it was falling and slashed Lone horizontally, breaking through his flesh and bones.

Lone used two of his tails to stop the sword from advancing any further into his body, and, once more, jumped away from the Lemurian. "Impressive. Truly impressive. You've been hiding your capabilities in our spars?"

"As-ss much as-ss you have been, Mr Immortus-ss," Swind responded as sweat rolled down his brow. He was nearing his limit. After all, Swind was formerly only an H-ranker, now a G-ranker, so against someone like Lone, he could barely last a few exchanges without collapsing.

"Your sword as well, you named it Redemption, huh? A good name. Well, If no one's going to stop being a coward, this will, unfortunately, be the end for you today, Swind." Lone's voice held no remorse nor regret as he healed his body and stepped towards the trembling and physically exhausted Lemurian.

'The end?' Rachel's mind was swimming frantically. 'L-Lone's being serious? There's no way...'

Walking up to Swind slowly, Lone evaded his feeble attempts to resist before stabbing him in the chest with his swordspear. Leaning down and embracing the collapsed Lemurian, Lone appeared to say something into his ear before throwing Swind's seemingly lifeless body over the manor, out of everyone's sight.

"This is pathetic. Not a single one of you can move in my Aura? Not even Eolande? I knew you were weak for an X-ranker, but this is a fucking joke-"

Lone's words were interrupted by a massive pure-mana fireball heading in his direction and a pair of hands grabbing his ankles from within his shadow.

"Breena and Rachel, huh?" Lone mumbled as he covered his body in his Bone Armour, almost cutting off Breena's fingers, forcing her to let go of him.

With that done, Lone placed his swordspear in front of himself vertically and slammed down onto one end of it to make it spin like a propeller. The fireball's force was dissipated and all that was left was the smoke rising from Lone's weapon.

"You... You..." Rachel was angry. She was very angry. "You killed him!" Tears rolled out of her eyes as she flew into the sky and created fifteen pure-mana fireballs.

Obviously, she wasn't in a clear state of mind and she didn't care if she accidentally killed everyone present. At the same time, Breena flickered through the shadows and began assaulting Lone with several alterion throwing daggers.

"This is a bit troublesome," Lone mumbled as he completely ignored Breena by deflecting her knives with his tails and he focused entirely on the fireballs that were quickly approaching him. "No other choice, huh?"

Lone lifted his hand and slowly closed his palm into a fist. As he did that, every single one of the pure-mana fireballs was extinguished completely. "You'll have to do better than just fire, Rachel."

"What... That... That's impossible!" Rachel screamed as she poured more of her mana points into her magic and created several more pure-mana fireballs which were all extinguished just like the ones from before.

"Why...?" Rachel was panicked beyond belief.

"Simple. Your inherent talent isn't a unique skill. It took some time to learn it, but I finally did. Fire is useless against me now. Like I said, you'll have to do better than that if you want to avenge Swind," Lone shrugged.

Suddenly, he lowered his body to dodge a poison-covered dagger that was aiming for his head.

Breena silently merged with the shadow beneath Lone's feet once more after failing her attack, but Lone had been expecting her. With swift movements, Lone plunged his hand into his own shadow and ripped Breena out of it.

He held her by her hair and punched her in the ribs before he tossed her aside. Breena coughed up a mouthful of blood, and shock was written all over her face.

"Why are you so surprised? Did you forget who taught you how to master that skill in the first place?" Lone sighed heavily. "If no one else is going to join in, I'll be removing these two."

A shaky laugh filled the air. Lone looked at Eolande, the laugh's owner, and he grinned. "Are you finally ready to join in?"

Holding her new wand and quivering like a leaf as she resisted Lone's aura with all of her might, Eolande smiled. "You've become a real bastard after ranking up this time, huh, Husband?"

Rachel landed and helped Breena back onto her feet. The trio of girls all glared at Lone dangerously except for Breena whose face was a picture of passiveness, that was if you could ignore the pain she was trying to hide from Lone's earlier punch to the chest.

"Good. Three of you might prove to be somewhat of a challenge," Lone taunted arrogantly.

As this was all happening, Sophie had been standing still. In fact, she could easily resist Lone's Aura of Dominance.

Sophie had a fairly good idea of what Lone was trying to do now after watching his fight with Swind, and she knew it didn't involve her yet, so she was entirely committed to not participating until everyone else was doing what Lone wanted them to do.

'You're too cruel, Lone, but I guess this is your style,' Sophie noted mentally. She wanted to help everyone immediately, but she knew that she would tip the balance too early, so she merely had to continue waiting and watching.