Spirit and body become one.

A miraculous phenomenon, the manifestation of a person’s inner strength.

Such union grants an extraordinary power, one that knows no bounds: the Spirit Mode.

In order to quickly awaken the Spirit Mode, Lied together with Zaccharias joined a cluster of dead people seeking reincarnation by passing Mictlan’s trials.

Could Lied solve the mystery behind the second trial?

“Does it have anything to do with the blood itself…?” Eduardus used his cop intuition.

“I hope there’s still time” Zaccharias said.

“For Lied?” Hector asked.

“…You haven’t forgotten about the time limit to reincarnate, have you? I’m afraid you don’t have much left” the talking crow reminded him.

Lied let his guard down as some jaguars took him back to the depths of the bloody river.

“At this rate…” Luna murmured.

“It’s fine. My husband didn’t want to accept the fact that I couldn’t have children and left me. I lived and died alone. A weak spirit like mine isn’t worthy of reincarnating” Liana bared her soul to them crestfallen.

No one there could berate her, everyone went through similarly difficult situations.

“Same here. My son passed away relatively early in an accident. I always put work first and spent very little time together with my family. Ironic because it was while working that I kicked the bucket. So, it’s okay… if it ends like this” Hector said.

The human returned to the surface as corpses huddled floating in the water.

“Damn it! What am I missing?” Lied thought.

That was when the boy saw a body fading away and, in its place, a new jaguar materialized right off the bat.

“Looks like he noticed” the crow said.

“Eh?” the spirits said simultaneously.

“Stay as far away from me as possible!” Lied shouted.

Bewildered, Luna and the rest simply complied with his command.

“I don’t know if it will work, but I’ll follow my instinct!” Lied thought.

The young man clenched his fists and wriggled his body as if he were summoning all his strength. The concentration of spiritual power made the whole chamber quake. Zaccharias created a barrier around them with just his paw so as not to get hit by the squall breaking out from the river.

“W-What is he trying to do?!” Eduardus asked.

After charging up energy for about a minute and a half, he released it.

“This is… the answer!” Lied exclaimed.

An immense, sudden brief burst of bright light swallowed everything while the entrance gate to the final trial moved by itself. The aztecs reopened their eyes – both the river and the jaguars were completely gone. The teenager stood alone in the center of the chamber, blood soaking his shirt.

“Splendid” Zaccharias smiled slightly.

“I see…” Eduardus came to realize what happened.

“As long as there was blood, the jaguars wouldn’t die for good” the talking crow started explaining in a plain manner.

“Then in order to put a halt to them…” Luna followed his reasoning.

“Yes, he needed to expunge the river, their source of life. However, there was only one way to wipe out such a large area at once” the crow said.

“A huge explosion” Eduardus said.

“He gathered all of his spiritual energy with the Expandability property to boil the water away” Zaccharias brought the explanation to a conclusion.

“He’s not even a user and yet… Your spirit is really something” the talking crow gazed at Lied.

Liana and Hector were emotionally stirred. That overflowing light was also a ray of hope that pierced through the heart and illuminated the soul.

“Save the tears for when we reincarnate” the aztec police officer put his hand on Liana’s shoulder, the latter on the verge of tears.

“We must hurry, Lied” the crow got his student’s attention.

“Yeah!” the human nodded.

Only five minutes remained…

Lied’s current SSL: 20%

[END OF CHAPTER]