Sturdy sword? Check.

Dark, shady hooded cloak? Check.

Resolving myself to attempt this very fucking stupid idea? Check.

Now, I was ready.

Standing atop a building right outside the governor's mansion, I took a deep breath. "This'd better work, other me."

I closed my eyes to better concentrate on the memories. However, all I could felt was the wind brushing against my face. Frowning, I cut all of my senses away. No hearing, no taste, no touch, no sight, no smell, not even Mana sense. Only then could the memory appear clearly in my mind.

The other me was standing atop something akin to a raised wooden platform. Behind him was a blurry figure of someone who was hung by the neck with a rope; her corpse, which was stained with rotten tomatoes and eggs, swayed in the breeze that was unfitting for such a gruesome and humiliating sight. Beneath the platform, and consequently, him, were thousands of soldiers and white-robed priests. He stared at them with cold eyes, his face portrayed no emotion, yet I could feel the rage bubbling inside of him like a raging storm.

He placed his right hand on his sword's sheath—Distorias—and his right one on the sword's handle.

Although I was blinded, I could still vaguely tell where my own sword was in the real world and thus, I copied his movements.

"Citizens of the Empire," he said, with his signature cold voice, "for what reason did you hang your own ᛒᚱᛁᚾᚴᛁᛋᛋ?"

Weirdly enough, the last part of his speech was incomprehensible to me. However, it seemed that he was speaking normally in this memory, as the people below answered almost immediately.

"Because of you, fiend! You corrupted our ᛒᚱᛁᚾᚴᛁᛋᛋ! We were right to make Gabriel our ruler!"

"I see," the other me muttered, musing over the answer. In the end, he decided on what to do. Tightening his grip on the scabbard and the handle of the sword, he shouted authoritatively, "leave, and you may live. Right now, I just want to bury my beloved. Don't get closer; don't waste your lives for nothing. I'm barely holding back the urge to kill right now."

But of course, no one listened to him. They all seemed more than eager to rush toward their own death. The other me saw this and sighed wearily. "Sorry ᛅᛏᛁᛚ, but it looks like more bloodshed will happen even after your death."

"The fourth movement of [V - World splitter]," he said, solemnly. "The fourth movement of [V - World splitter]," I mirrored his chant.

[[Absolute split]]

A thick streak of ocean blue exploded out of his scabbard, tracing the slash of his sword. It extended out as far as the eye could see, leaving a sea of blood in its wake.

However, he didn't stop there. Quickly stabbing his sword back into the scabbard again, he unsheathed it.

[[Absolute split]]

Again,

[[Absolute split]]

and again,

[[Absolute split]]

and again,

[[Absolute split]]

until nothing but severed corpses were left before him.

Sheathing his sword for the final time, he squinted his eyes and looked in the distance. There, he could see a man with short blonde hair and ruby-red eyes staring at him with absolute fear. Around him, there were several dozens of corpses; it was clear that whoever they were, they were trying to shield the man.

It took a while, but the other me managed to recognize him.

"Ah, prince Gabriel."

Due to the uncanny quietness of the area, where not even a heartbeat could be heard, prince Gabriel could hear him loud and clear.

The other me stepped off the platform and fell to the ground. However, he disappeared before he hit the ground, and reappeared right in front of Gabriel.

"Welcome, my prince," he said in a mocking tone, "for what reason did you decide to grace me with your presence?"

The prince panicked for several seconds before finally managing a stammer. "Y-you crazy bastard! How could you kill that many people without an ounce of guilt?"

In response, the other me merely chuckled and punched Gabriel in the face, knocking him down to the ground. Stepping on the side of Gabriel's face with his right foot, he flashed a dangerous smile.

"I'm the one asking questions here. How could you?!"

"H-how could I what?"

"She had already renounced her position!" His voice trembled with rage. "WHY?! WHY DID YOU DO THIS? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO KILL HER?"

Pressing his feet even harder against Gabriel's face, he continued, "why? Why must you kill my beloved?"

"..."

"Even if you hated me that much, how could you kill your own sis—"

Abruptly, I was pulled out of the memory. I gasped desperately for air, clutching my chest in pain as a mixture of rage from the other me and the mana deficiency I was experiencing clashed with each other. With shaky hands, I fell down to the ground on my butt and hastily reached for the Mana potions that I prepared beforehand, and then gulped them down in one go.

"That's a lot of Platinums gone," I muttered as I wiped the Mana juice off my lips, feeling the pain subsiding just a little.

I took deep breaths and calmed myself down. What I did there was simple—destroying one of the locations that housed one of the Void ritual circles to distract the city guards and slow the ritual down. To stop it completely, however, I'd need to erase every circles within a day of each other—which was most likely impossible—or kill the performer of the ritual—[Despair]—whose location I found out right on the first day I returned to this city.

Then, I slowly stood up and looked at the results. Tracing the large gashes that originated from right in front of me, I could see that the governor's mansion was no more than a pile of rubbles right now. Not just that, several blocks of buildings behind and in front of the mansion was also destroyed. Several children must have died in that, but it was the falling rubbles that finished them off, not me, so I was fine... I think.

'Well, at least my urge to throw up right now isn't because of the dead children.'

Rather, it was the side effect of using Mana as recklessly as I did. Without even checking my Status, I could tell that my power reverted back to . And it wasn't a temporary thing either. Now, I needed to get stronger again...

But worrying about it was useless right now. What was done had been done, and I needed to get out of here as soon as possible. Just from tracing the gashes, I was sure that even a toddler could figure out where I—the attacker—was at.

I ran on the rooftops, setting fire to many buildings as I did so, but careful enough to not make a trail that could lead to me. Eventually, I arrived at my destination—Evelyn's old mansion.

"As always, this place feels ominous..."

Instead of one, I could feel the presence of two Void lords inside the mansion right now.

"Looks like [Jealousy] wasn't at the governor's mansion."

I wasn't going to lie, I was a bit disappointed. Though, I was sure that the Void lords couldn't have possible died from my earlier attack. Taking a deep breath to calm myself down, I sneaked over the mansion's iron fences. I scaled the side of the building, breaking a window and entering it.

As soon as I did so, two streaks of pitch black were shot toward me. I hurriedly dodged the first one, but I was in no position to evade the other. As such, it hit me right on the face. The ribbon that I had tied on my right hand broke as soon as the attack hit me, meaning that whatever that was, it was fatal.

Then, from the shadow, out crawled a small squirrel. However, it didn't stay as a squirrel for long, as it shifted through several forms, before eventually settling on a form that looked exactly like me, hooded cloak and all.

"Stupid," I said with a grin, "you've just hastened your doom."

"What do you mean?" [Jealousy] tilted its head in confusion. "All I did was prove that one [Void bolt] hit is all I need to take you out."

Although it was a bit weird seeing and hearing something that looked and sounded exactly like me, I still stood up arrogantly and dusted my clothes. "You'll see."

Similarly arrogant, the Void lord didn't try to attack me and instead, waited with its arms crossed.

'What an idiot, that arrogance will be the death of you.'

However...a few minutes passed, and the guy that was supposed to be summoned still wasn't here.

'What? Does the ribbon has such a long delay time. No, more importantly, who is it that the ribbon was supposed to summon?'

As I was scratching the back of my head in confusion, something suddenly clicked. 'Of course, it's Weizer!'

Then, I recalled the confusion that I was feeling earlier. Coupled with the fact that no one were summoned, I could only come to a conclusion.

'That bastard used his Skill, didn't he? Fuck...who knew that it could trick even this artifact? Why did he even used it in the first place? What dogshit timing.'

"So," the Void lord suddenly spoke up after very courteously waiting for me, "when is it going to happen?"

"Oh, you know," I chuckled as I discreetly moved my hand toward the handle of my sword, "just a few more minutes a—"

[Lightning spear]

Suddenly, a very familiar spell manifested right in front of the Void lord and was shot toward me. I didn't have time to do anything other than pulling my sword out and slashing at the spear of Lightning; splitting it in half and suffered no paralysis, much to my surprise.

"My patience has run out," the Void lord claimed after very dishonorably attacking me while I was talking, "you must die now, for you are an obstacle to Apel's plans."

I got into an offensive stance and spoke with all my sense heightened. "Let's think about this, [Jealousy]. Is completing [Despair]'s plans really worth it?"

"...What do you mean?"

"He's going to turn thousands of people into Void fiends, isn't he? Setting aside the fact that none of them want to turn into...something like you, they will all die when the Empire inevitably dispatch troops here."

"..."

"Not just that, [Despair]'s one despicable bastard. Knowing him, I wouldn't even be surprised if he tortured you to get more power after all of this is done."

Seeing the Void lord's body tensing up, I calmly directed Mana to my feet, ready to move at any moment.

"So, tell me, Void lord. Do you really want to follow [Despair]—the vile liar and backstabber?"

The Void lord stood in complete silence for a few seconds before bursting out laughing. "You know, all of this would've been much more convincing if it didn't come from you. You do realize that I have a very good grasp of your personality now that I can morph into you, right?"

'Ah, of course.'

"Well, I tried," I shrugged, before I moved so fast that I disappeared from my spot, cracking the floor beneath me, and reappearing right in behind the Void lord. With Lightning mana condensed to and impossibly high degree in my hand, I muttered,

[Pulverize]

***

Unlike the streams flood of people who were evacuating, Evelyn made her way deeper into the nobles ring.

'I can't believe I'm doing this,' she thought, 'now, where is he?'

Theodore, the one who opened Evelyn's eyes to her own hypocrisy despite being a bit of a hypocrite himself. It would be shame for him to die for a city that didn't even concern him. As such, Evelyn rushed to help him as soon as she made sure that Primel and the kids exited the city safely.

Only problem was, he didn't tell anyone the details of his plans, so she could only guess where he was right now.

'Since he's stopping the Void fiends, he's most likely at my old house, not the destroyed governor's mansion.'

As if confirming her guess, a violent streak of bright red Lightning shot up diagonally from the direction of her old mansion, piercing the dome of the city and letting the natural sunlight flood in for the first time in decades. The light that contrasted with the dark and gloomy city full of chaos looked almost...angelic and holy; the way it was reflect off the dust was just picturesque. However, she didn't have time to appreciate the beauty right now.

'That red Lightning, it's definitely him!'

A few seconds after Evelyn saw the Lightning, she could hear a low, yet loud rumble. It shook her to the bone, and broke every windows nearby. The people around her covered their ears in pain, some even bled from their ears. If it wasn't for her strength, Evelyn would've been rolling on the ground, screaming like the people around here.

'I-Is that the mere thunder of that Lightning spell?'

If so, then it looked like Theodore didn't need her help that much. However, that raised another question. What was Theodore facing that forced him to use such a destructive spell, one that definitely had more than enough power to mortally wound a ranker? As such, Evelyn continued making her way toward where Theodore was, hoping that she wasn't too late.

...

As she arrived at the mansion, she didn't waste time climbing over the fences and just kicked them down. She craned her neck up, looked straight at the hole that the previous Lightning spell most likely came out of, and climbed into it. As soon as she entered the mansion, she was met with the sight of...two Theodores, both bloodied and bruised, engaging in a fistfight. Around them, there were crushed rubbles, broken bits of blades, and a whole lot of soot.

One Theodore delivered a jab to the face of the other's, stepped back a few feet, and shot a [Lighting spear]. The other countered with a [Lighting spear] of his own, and an explosion occurred in the space between them.

As the dust settled, Evelyn saw that they were back to punching each other. This time, however, one of them noticed her and shouted, "Evelyn! I don't know why you're here but help me!"

The other Theodore briefly glanced at Evelyn before shouting, "don't listen to that thing! It's a fake!"

"No, you're the fake!"

"Evelyn, trust me, I'm the real Theodore."

"No, I'm the real Theodore."

"You're not. Fuck you!"

"Fuck you too!"

Evelyn stared at them shouting and beating the shit out of each other, not knowing who to trust. One thing she did know for sure though, was that whoever she decided to help out would win, as they looked evenly matched.

As the shouting intensified, Evelyn felt the pressure to make a decision increasing exponentially. Eventually, she caved into the pressure and made a choice.

"I—