It was early in the morning and the sun was barely peeking from the horizon. In the Fortress, where a bloody battle was fought only few hours ago, a a group of humans were still alive. They were surrounded by blood and corpses everywhere. The entire place smelled like death.

In the battle, five heroes and twenty three soldiers died. Eleven heroes and four guards were hurt pretty badly. The rest escaped only with minor injuries.

As for Echo, he was sitting near the wall of the Citadel and looked at the others running around, to help anyone they could. He himself only got a few cuts, that were healing themselves currently. The reason he was still here, was because he was waiting for his mana pool to refill itself, so he could teleport back to the city.

He looked at the scene in front of him and sighed, while leaning back his head. He stared at the cloudless sky and thought about what happened a few hours ago...

"I am Ira, The Demon Lord of Wrath."said the beautiful woman, as she stared at Echo. Echo looked back at her and his hand was slowly moving towards his dagger, which he had sheathed on his back waist.

He maintains eye contact the entire time, while moving his hand towards the dagger, under his cloak.

"What? You won't introduce yourself?"Ira asks him.

"Echo, a Mercenary."he introduces himself like that. She looks at him and then she notices the mark on Echos face.

"I see....Nox has chosen you."Ira says to one in a loud voice. She also has the Mark of Nox om her body, showing that she serves the Dark Goddess.

"Also stop trying to draw your dagger. It won't work."Ira tells him and so he stops, because she knew about his plan, even though he tried to do it, while unnoticed by her.

"Why are you here?"Echo asks her in a cold tone and she replies in a casual one"First I thought I will come and kill everyone here, but then I changed my mind and decided to observe. The first part of your plan was pretty good. The second part was good too, but it went to shit, after the bell was rang by a traitor."

"Traitor?"he asks"So you're telling that one of us killed David and the other guard and then he rang the bell?"

"Yes."she answers"But I was a little disappointed in my commander. Giving up information so easily. But making the room look like you failed to capture him, was interesting to look."

"Are you mad that I killed him?"Echo asks and she replies"Yes. I'm mad because you killed him and not me."

"Huh."Echo lets out, without knowing how to reply.

"But lets get to the point."Ira says"Like you could see, I have freezed time and besides me, only you can currently move here."

"Okay."Echo says.

"Now then..I have a question....Will you sacrifice one of the heroes, to save the others from the demons?"She asks him in a cold tone, expecting him to hesitate, but instead of doing that....He replies immediately"Yes. I don't care about them, so I have no problem with one of them dying, to get this shit over."

Iras face changes into a surprised one first time in ages. She stares at him, before starting to laugh like a maniac.

Echo looks at her, laughing, with a confused face for a while, until Ira says"Good good. Now choose who you will sacrifice. Walk up to the person and tap his forehead."

Echo sighs and walks up to Mathew, the Controller and taps his forehead. It isn't something personal, but he knows that Mathew would be corrupted by his powers in the future and it would be easier to deal with him now than in the future.

"You chose him..Why?"she asks him in a curious tone, to which she replies"Because he is most likely to turn evil out of all of the heroes."

"And you aren't?"she asks him.

"I'm already evil. I can't turn into something anymore, If I am that already."Echo replies to Ira, who laughs a little and then says."Good. You truly are interesting. When you find Acedia and get stronger, I want to fight you. But until then, survive."

She is about to leave, but Echo yells after her"Wait!"

She turns around, after hearing him and asks"What?"

"Could you tell me, where Acedia is?"

"No."She answers immediately"Any more questions?"

"Why is your sin Wrath, If you seem so calm?"Echo asks her.

She blinks a few times with a dumbfounded face, before giggling a little and replying"You are the first person to ever ask a Demon Lord about his sin. Hahaha. Okay....I will answer you, once you defeat me... Until then."

She snaps her finger and disappears into a thin air. As for the surrounding, it turns back to normal. Everyone looks around with a confused voice, before all of the demons suddenly start to look older and older, until they turn into bones and those bones then disappear too. Same happened to Mathew, who disappeared shortly after the demons. Aa for the demons, that were already dead, they stayed the way they were.

Echo and the others looked around with a confused face.

'She aged them so far, that they turned into nothing. Fucking over powered.'

Echo sighed and just sat down. He leaned against a wall and just stared.

Back to present, Echos mana pool was almost filled enough to teleport away from here. So he got up and walked around. While he did that, Walther called out to him, to talk.

"So..What do you think what happened?"Walther asked him and to which he replied"I don't know."

"I see."he says in a sad tone"But what about the commander?"

"Had to be killed. He was impossible to capture alive."Echo lies to him.

"I see. So what are you gonna do now?"Walther asks and Echo replies"Well my job is done, so I'll go back."

"Job?"asks Chris in a low voice"It's just a job for you!"

Echo after hearing him, looks at Chris, who seems very pissed, because of the fact, that for Echo, this here was only a job. He doesn't care about all of the dead comrades that died here. He only cares about the pay.

"What's your problem asshole?"Echo asks Chris and turns to him.

"My problem is that, that you only care about the money. You don't care about anyone else, but yourself. Instead of caring a little about the dead, you are thinking of going back to your elf slut."

Without a word, Echo hits Chris in the face, with all of his strength and with his left arm, which is armored. He breaks Chris's jaw completely and cracks his skull. Chris falls down onto the ground and then is kicked in the stomach, by Echo, who sends him flying into the wall. Chris's body drops onto the ground and Echo says"I'm a Mercenary. I don't give a fuck about you, until the mission says I have to...As long as I care, you could die right here...You weak human being....You are a sorry excuse of a hero."

He then turns around and walks away.

As for Evelyn, she runs over to Chris to heal him. While she is doing that, she turns to look at Echo, only to see him gone.

"That bastard."she mutters.

As for Echo, he is on top of the belltower and looking at the scene. A dead body of David, a dead demon, wearing the knight armor and a set of armor, completely rusted.

'There is a demon wearing the kingdoms knight armor. There is another set of armor, that is rusted. Rust shows signs of aging....An alive demon was wearing this armor and when Ira aged them, the armor must have aged with the body... Because of that, only the empty rusty armor is left....The betrayer was in the platoon. If our platoon was infiltrated, does that mean the army has been too.'

"Well that isn't my problem. Not my people, not my problem."Echo says suddenly, after thinking a while.

He then takes out his card and teleports away.

The next moment, he appears at Ninas store, surprising Nina, who was at the counter. She looks at him and he looks at her back.

"I'm back."

"Welcome back Echo."