A loud chuckle echoed beyond the field of red poppies.

Rem and Central were not joining the laugh. Central's rainbow hair ignited, burning hotter than all the time Rem had known her.

"I can't believe an asshat like you think you have a chance!" The white-hair newcomer spoke. He appeared as a grown-up version of Rem in a pure white business suit and platinum silk shirt. Both his shoes and necktie were the colors sparkling golden sun while the pair of silver eyes glinted with all-consuming lunacy.

The man beamed, and Rem grimaced.

"No matter what age it is, you are still as preachy as Captian Planet," Rem commented. "So the little kid who often complain about how much humanity suck is gone. Huzzah all around, but as expected, he got an equally whiney replacement."

The man cackled for a full minute. Then the laughter erupted into a furious raving.

"You still treat me like a kid!" The man's face twisted with anger. "You never change, do you!? Do you think you can still punt me around like a ten-year-old?"

Rem decided to answer the question with brutal honesty.

"Yes," Rem rolled his eyes. "Look at yourself! You got yourself a suit, a necktie, and new shoes. Great! What is the point? The only thing you accomplish is overcompensating like dear old dad. Can you name anyone more insecure than our old man?"

Silence

"Yeah, I guess not," Rem continued. "The suit, the trash talk, the nihilism, everything tell the story of a man who is overcompensating. I know you love Dr. No, but I am not James Bond, and you are too lame to be Blofeld.”

"SHUT UP!"

The white-hair man's eyes bulged in rage.

"You think you are above me-"

"Yes," Rem cut the sentence in half. "Because I do not monologue."

"Fine!" The white-hair man said. "But don't expect to win like last time. I am now the agent of Center Force you fated to become. I. AM. REM."

Central groaned.

"Central, tell Satholia to update the Center Force's naming convention," Rem raised his eyebrow. "So REM, what is your new gimmick? Infinite Mana? Seven lives? Bullshit overpower cheat code from another world's god?"

"Got none of those," REM smirked. "Instead, I have this."

A familiar short-sword appeared in REM's hand, and with a swipe, he unleashed the desert storm.

To call the blast large was an understatement; it was downright lethal. The funnel of destruction sliced through the air. Red bolts of lightning accompanying the bellow of the desert sundered apart the field of poppies, desiccating everything it touched into sands.

Rem finally realized he screwed up big-time.

"Fuck."

The funnel of a sandstorm--towering over three-storied building--engulfed him. The wind shredded his skin down to the muscle, spraying his blood, mangling his flesh into mush as it carried him away. The blast also destroyed half his face, including his left eye, as a final insult.

Finally, after a kilometer of hell, the storm dissipated and sent the bloodied Rem skipping across the field of crimson poppies. He came to a stop in a bloody wreck of skin and muscle.

But his hearing still worked fine

[Stop it already,] said the voice of Central. [What do you gain from doing this?]

"Do you even pay an iota of attention when we talk?' REM replied with annoyance. 'We have zero goodwill between us. Seriously, it is annoying to listen to the crap he spoused. Superman? That is just a fictional character for children, you moron."

Unable to find any counterpoint, Central could only avert her eyes.

Rem's body refused to move. He knew a half-cook steak looked livelier alive than him right now. The light of consciousness started to dissipate like water on a hotplate.

What a pathetic ending.

REM, growing impatient, personally started to sand away Rem's morale.

"You know this world is riddled with problems and self-righteous assholes!" REM said to the dying corpse. "Your hero never exists. Even if they do, they are always lairs. You should start separating dreams from realities and accept the truth. What the world needs is a good wipe and a hard reset!"

REM spat angrily.

"You should listen to that old liberal broke on TV a bit more. Give up and let it burns. The world doesn't deserve saving. There is no sky daddy to save humanity, and nothing matters. Get up with time, loser."

Now at death's door, Rem had to admit that the white-hair bastard had a point. Real-world examples were flawed. People were natural-born babies scared to death of pain--the sin of comparison. People would rather chug down bleach than accept that thier righteousness could be an illusion that bred misery.

The world was a cycle of prosperity, arrogance, and reset.

Why should he even hope when karma will reset everything anyway?

In the misty doubt, Rem felt something strange about that argument. REM was wrong. Humanity never accepted reality.

After all, they were creatures who told a story about Leprechaun's gold despite knowing there was nothing at the end of the rainbow.

Wait a minute, Rem's dying fingers twitched. There was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: the optical theory of light refraction. It was the discovery that eventually shaped the telescope and microscope.

Humanity built the stars and antibiotic from fantasy duct-taped to curiosity.

That fantasy was not worthless. It was a cornerstone of human achievement.

In Rem's heart, he was snickering at an idiot singing snake-oil. It was so funny it almost made him cried.

Rem got it now. REM was the worst aspect of himself pumped up by the Center Force's programing to reset civilization once it got too evil. As an entity who believed in the cycle of fate, it was utterly incompatible with him. REM was a cynic who believed the repeat of the past was inevitable, while he was the optimist who fought for the future free from fate.

It was hilarious how they existed in one body-- guess this must be what it meant to be multifaceted.

"And what is your solution?" Rem summoned his strength and fought past his pain. "Accept the world is trash before applying to become a glorified garbage collector?"

"Stop with the hero talk," The cynic dusted his hand in disdain. "Changing the world? What a joke! Are you going to shove your garbage down people's throat and demand they accept it? Look at the result and tell me!"

Rem punched the ground to lift himself off the floor.

"Berlin Wall," Rem looked up, his missing skin and left eye didn't dampen his resolve one bit. "Gorbachev did change the world."

"Gorbachev got booted!" REM argued furiously. "And you seriously using motherfucking Russia as an example for mankind?"

"East and West Germany did unite." Rem got up on his foot and grimaced. Only his right leg was functional. The left was a mass of shattered bones held together by shredded tissues. "Germany survived its fall and communism lose."

"A fluke!" REM replied as familiar short-sword reappeared in his hand.

"2016 election."

"OH FUCK NO!" REM yelled like he saw hell itself. "YOU WILL NOT TALK ABOUT 2016. WE WILL NOT TALK ABOUT THAT MAN! FUCK YOU! FUCK THAT ENTIRE YEAR! AND FUCK THE MOTHERFUCKING 4CHAN FOR MAKING IT HAPPENED."

"Your tears are delicious," Rem smirked. The God-Emperor never disappointed. Poppies petal gathered at his injury in the last-ditch effort to keep to him standing. "Even now, he still cast a huge specter over you."

"WIPE THAT SMIRK OF YOUR FACE!"

"Brexit."

"WHAT DID I TELL ABOUT 2016!?"

"2020."

"Please don't," REM begged. "I don't want to remember that year."

Rem sighed.

"Do you know what criticizing without raising a solution is?" Rem replied. "It's called complaining. If you cannot counter my message, then don't act like a smart ass and devalue the messenger. Come on! Fight back at me! What is so mighty about talking down on dream? Would it benefit anyone? Would the world run on self-defeating nihilism helps any sentient life? Come on! Don't run away from the question and answer me?!"

"Mothe--"

"Ad-hominem?" Rem sneered, standing up taller than his opponent. "Are you that desperate? Keep this in mind: who is the bigger fool? The fool who makes a pathetic argument or a fool who can't counter said argument."

REM mirthlessly blasted Rem with another storm of sand. The white-hair man's face scrunched up in rage. His skin glowed with flaring light as he unleashed the might of [Desolator Blade].

However, after facing that attack once, Rem was ready. He charged up his muscle and lept away.

"Any help, Central!?" Rem cried out, narrowly dodging a threatening torrent of sands.

[Can't do it!] Central cried out, ducking under a rock to hide away from the carnage. [The Center Force cannot act against itself unless it on our queen's direction.]

REM ignored her and ran after the fleeing Rem with murder in his eyes. A crash of sand sent Rem sprawling as he struggled to dodge one more attack.

"You think you can beat me!?" REM screamed, unleashing a wall of sandstorms which formed a tornado tall enough to touch the sky. "I have unlimited power supplies from Center Force. Unlike you, I don't have a stack of nerfs. All my weapon's function is unlocked. I have the most powerful True Magic in the world at its maximum potential while you only have a lite version. Do you think you still have a chance?"

Rem scrambled away, gritting his teeth as he soldiered past the pain from his injured legs. The magical poppies were the only thing holding his body together.

"Yeah," Rem replied, getting up on his knee and summoned a similar weapon to his opponent. "Then why only uses [Desolator Blade]? If you have with all its arsenal, why don't you pull a weapon that turned the entire area into lava? Why is a man missing an eye and half his muscle mass have enough stamina to dodge your attack and talk shit back at you?"

"ENOUGH!!!!!" REM swung his sword and sent the desiccative jet of sand at Rem.

The blast dried the poppies and dug the trench of destruction in its path toward Rem. With a wave of [Desolator Blade], Rem conjured up a wall of sand with all his power. But despite his best effort, his meager defense barely disrupted the attack.

Rem rolled across the ground. His hair and face coated with blood. The stench of iron kicked up his nose, but he still endured and got up. His legs never gave in, and he continued talking.

"I guess it all makes sense since this is in my head. I can't die here, and even if I do, you are coming right along with me for a ride."

Rem straightened himself and wiped the blood from his lip.

"You can't kill me. That's why you resort to breaking me with those half-ass speech a cockroach won't swallow. You are the one at my whim here. That is the reason you can only use [Desolater Blade], isn't it? You can only use the weapon I had used. How does it feel to dog the heel of the man you hate?"

REM gritted his teeth, screamed, and flicked another massive funnel of sandstorms at Rem. It took Rem everything ounce of focus to dodge, but his opponent's reaction gave him all the confirmations he needed.

"Enough!" REM screeched. "We might have the same kit, but let me show you how out-gunned you are. Let me show you a real Anti-army attack."

REM raised his blade. Sand swirled up from the ground and gathered at the short-sword. Wind and dust grew into a storming twister that reached the cloud. A sword of desert extended toward the sky like a knife of a god.

"This is true power!" REM declared, his white hair fluttered in the wind, and his eyes widened in madness. "Behold [All-Creation]! I hold half of the greatest True Magic in my hand. With it, I wield authority over divinity and concept. Do you realize how pathetic you are? The greatest True Magic in the multiverse is only a glorified reality filler in your hand."

Rem looked grimly.

Reality filler.

At least that explained how he couldn't use it as projectiles. He grimaced. Insulting someone's ability because they lost the argument was downright petty.

But, if world-view created the foundation for True Magic, could it be possible that REM's cynical mindset misunderstood [All-Creation]. An extremist often lacked patience. REM would likely jump to the conclusion rather than optimize each component of the question.

Now, how to best use this power?

Against the tower of sand higher than the sky, Rem reached deep within himself to find an answer. He thought back about his source of hope. Doing the right thing was hard, and the symbol of good need power to inspire. Rem had the ideal, but now he needed that power.

At that moment, facing against an inevitable, a slapdash idea suddenly flashed to his mind. Rem gave a wry hopeful look at the sky. He was going to get sued by DC comic for this. But what did they say again? Imitation was the sincerest form of flattery.

REM finally finished charging his attack and brought it down.

"Take this!" The mad-man screamed. "[Desolation]!"

The all-consuming pillar slashed down to the ground. The area underneath the falling sandstorm was worn down by the abrasive sand. Such horrific wearing reduced the solid white surface into a kilometer meters deep ravine. Moisture around the blast range vanished, reducing the poppy to dust and turning the wind arid. The devastation transformed the area ten kilometers in length and four kilometers in width into an inhospitable desert.

Rem's True Magic diffused throughout his body. It was a do or die moment. The attack was too massive to evade. He had no other choice left except blocking with every drop of strength he had.

With that thought in mind, Rem dumped all his effort into this endeavor. It was the only shot to deploy the best defenses in his arsenal. Globe of sandstorm surrounded him in as a barrier and received the brunt of the force strong enough to wipe out a city.

Invincible will VS overwhelming power?

There was no contest.

[Desolation] trumped Rem's defenses easily. The blade of sand scattered the sandstorm barrier by untame power and hammered Rem into the ground. His blood dried up as the sand reduced his body into a thin dried husk. The sandstorm sword severed his only functioning arms. Battered and defeated, the remains of his body couldn't be called a corpse.

With a mighty roared, REM buried the mummified body into the newly created ravine with the full weight of the city-killing blade.

All that remained of Rem Breaker was a mummified arm so withered it didn't even bleed.

Central dropped on her knees, horrified.

REM froze for solid three seconds, barely believing in his victory.

He smiled and laughed madly.

"Ideal!? Is this the power of hope and dream? Utterly pathetic! Accept reality, kid! It is a real-life logic that no half-baked barrier can block a nuke. You might not die, but how do you expect to get out of this. Learn your place, imbecile! Where is your retort? Oh right! You couldn't talk, aren't you punk!"

The only thing answering him was the cold and shallow wind.