"What do you mean you don't know? Haven't you always knew the potential behind the elemental crossbows? How can you not know?"

Amelia looked at the Sterope, the blue crossbow, and Asterope, the white crossbow. Both were made of pure flame, condensed into a form similar to each other.

Not only were they both different color, but Sterope was slightly smaller than her 'sister' Asterope.

Both were emanating such heat that anything around Orion felt like being under the sun in the middle of the Parsmata Desert. The only ones unaffected were his wielder, Orion, and Amelia.

"The only thing I understand clearly is that I should never bring them together."

"Why?"

Orion brought Sterope closer to Asterope. The flames began to touch, creating very small spheres of plasma that were even hotter than the crossbows.

The more the weapons approached each other, the worse it got. Orion's arm began to tremble, and sweat poured from his forehead to the ground.

"A single weapon is way to powerful, even for me. I have the horrible feeling that the day it will happen, if I'm not ready enough, both my arms will be ripped off of my body, and I'll be devoured by the hottest flames capable to exist."

"Does that make sense to you?"

With an audible gulp, Amelia stared at him.

"Don't try, alright?"

"I don't plan to. Though, that doesn't change the fact that besides that, I'm confused about these weapons. Your elements was too powerful to create his favorite shape, so instead, I've divides its power in roughly two third for this one..."

He lifted Asterope.

"and one third for this one."

Then Sterope.

With gleaming eyes in front of the power of her own element, Amelia asked.

"What would be the name of the complete crossbow?"

Orion answered without hesitation.

"It's Asterope. Both are the same entity, it's just control like... your daggers I guess?"

"When I use two different daggers you mean?"

Confirming with a nod, Orion aimed with Asterope.

"Show me what two third of the best element can do. Amelia, go back outsi-"

*Click*

Asterope fired by itself, and release a thin flaming arrow that traveled the whole forest, hitting the other side of the barrier.

'Huh?'

A very bad feeling shook his arm, and his mind instantly froze, as he realized the moment the white arrow had left the groove that even if it was two third of the original Asterope, it was still way too powerful for him to control.

"Hurry!"

Orion, showing traces of fear in his eyes, his shout making it clear that something was about to go horribly wrong.

Successfully moving out of the barrier, Amelia watched Orion's back from the entrance.

*BOOM*

From ten kilometers away, where the arrow impacted on the other side of the barrier, an explosion that shook the domain entirely began to destroyed everything on its path while traveling at a very high speed toward Orion.

A scorching wind blew past him, caressing Amelia and Karteira's cheeks, as it melted the snow around them slowly.

The white wave of flames quickly caught up to the entrance, burning the trees on its way, erasing the corruption from the land itself.

Even worse, the space, which had been created by a Remnant, was showing signs of breaking down to pieces.

Karteira noticed cracks coming from all sides moments before they joined the broken entrance. In about a minute, the space would shatter, destroying everything inside.

"Orion, get out! Get out now!"

She shouted as loud as possible, so Orion would hear her voice. Amelia jumped at her sudden cries, but soon noticed the problem too.

"If you don't get out now, I don't know what will happen to you! Come back here."

But Orion remained still, as if he wasn't able to hear her voice.

In fact, he was unable to hear anything other than the fire approaching him, the sound of trees falling down, and the echo of something shattering. But since he was under the tallest and thickest trees, he couldn't see the barrier shatter.

'This feeling... it sure felt good.'

He looked at Asterope and Sterope, before looking at the white flames approaching him.

The wave continued toward Orion, until it engulfed him. Until everyone noticed that the white flames avoided him completely in a five meters radius around him.

*Crrr*

After hearing a long cracking noise, Orion returned to his senses, and realized where he was, and what the sound was.

In front of him, a sea of white fire, broken trees, burning earth, and particles of magic filled his view.

'That's one sight no one will ever see besides me. Is that also something 'beautiful'?'

In his eyes, this scene was beautiful. The chaos itself was beautiful, but not in a twisted way. It simply looked incredible.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"What am I thinking?! I need to get out!"

He turned around and ran toward the entrance.

"Fuck, I have Amelia's magic in my hands! I had forgotten!"

One rule of Orion's warping ability was that nothing else other than his own body could go through. It wasn't the same as a portal.

To rapidly summarize, a portal was able to appear at places Orion decided to mark only. A warp was when he traveled a short distance in his line of sight without going through a portal.

There had been only one exception, but Orion wasn't able to recreate it since then. Ivan's lightning spear going through the warp before impaling him and Kamala was that only exception.

"Faster! What are you doing?!"

Amelia began to panic when the domain began to broke down, and the entrance showed a strange warping effect. The more pieces broke, the more unstable it became, making it dangerous for Orion's life.

And at last, the largest crack echoed. The space shattered, and the whole domain vanished as if it had never happened before, destroying everything that was inside.

*Vrrrr*

A body flew past Amelia, Karteira and the arachnea and rolled in the snow for a few seconds, before stopping completely.

Orion made a thumbs up above the snow.

"I'm fine."

"What did you do, you moron! You scared me back there!"

Karteira went to him and grabbed him by the collar of his coat.

"Haha~ Sorry. I guess I was having fun."

Orion scratched the back of his head with an apologetic expression. The two crossbow merged back into one sphere of orange fire, before it returned inside Amelia discreetly.

"Having fun?! That was way too close!"

She shook him multiple time, until he broke free.

"Having the aspects of a Remnant in my body is hard to control. I can't do much about it until I get used to it."

"Well... that's..."

Amelia walked next to Karteira.

"How did you manage to get out of that place before it broke down?"

-

A minute before.

'I won't make it! I'm exhausted, and I don't think I can warp out of this.'

Orion saw the entrance distort rapidly, until he couldn't see neither Amelia nor Karteira's faces.

'This is it? No!'

He turned around in the middle of his run, and aimed Sterope at his feet.

"See if you can kill me!"

Firing the blue crossbow, the arrow flew straight down, and exploded. The moment it touched the ground, Orion leaped backward, and used the resulting explosion to launch himself through the entrance a second before it closed forever.

-

"But I'm exhausted, there's not a single drop of magic in my body right now."

Orion laid on the cold snow, enjoying something he wouldn't have cared for before.

"Your personality is changing because of that Remnant, is it not?"

He closed his eyes, and thought on Amelia's words.

"I don't think so. I already knew about the beauty of this world, while I live with two stunning ladies. Maybe it simply erased the little anxiety I've been living with recently."

Karteira and Amelia sat in front of him in the snow.

"Why are you keeping everything to yourself all the time? We know you well, but we aren't living in your head. If you don't talk to us, we can't help you release that anxiety."

He also sat down.

"Because that has nothing to do with any of you. You may be my friends, you may be my lovers, I don't care. You have your own problems, isn't it?"

"But you can still share your-"

Orion shook his head.

"If I can live another day while seeing you two smile, then being anxious is a small price to pay."

Bringing his hands above their heads, he began to caress the cerulean and blonde hair heads together.

"We've also got a little girl that has been traumatized, we can't have her depressed over our burdens."

Maybe it became easier because of the 'Honor' aspect, but he openly shared his feelings to them, and even though greatly perplexed by his words, they were both very happy to finally be able to hear his real thoughts.

"Alright, let's return home for now. We have to find a perfect place for the arachnea to live in."

He stood up and offered his hands for them to grab on.

"Sure, let's do that."

"I'm still not forgiving you for doing something that crazy, but yes. I'm tired too."

They touched his hands and stood up. That was how the rescue of the arachnea went.

~

The few days were full of things to do.

First, Orion had to find a place for arachnea to live in. From what he learned, they would rather live in a forest again than anywhere else, so, Orion asked Tiohr-nam to create a very large forest.

She did just as asked, though reluctantly, since Orion refused to speak about what had happened with Silka to her. The reason was that he wanted a long moment with her to tell everything.

The arachnea obtained their right to live in Horizon just like the siren, as they wanted to help and thank everyone for saving them.

North-east of the Elemental Shrine, and south of Horizon's Tree of Life, the Arachnid Woodlands appeared thanks to Tiohr-nam's power over the life of the plants.

A few hundred meters of tightly packed trees became the new house for the arachnea. In exchange, they began to cultivate fruits and vegetables in the forest.

It would take time, but with Tiohr-nam's help, it would require eighty percent (80%) less time to grow them.

Though, a new problem arised, which took Orion a few days to resolve. The arachnea's food, which was based on meat and insects. The moment they arrived in Horizon, they would be doomed to disappear without a good supply of rations.

Orion went and bought a lot of animal meat for them, before he went to catch some animals that live in forests.

Horizon began to show signs of activity a few days after that. Balance was a fickle things to work with, as he couldn't bring only the herbivores. He also had to bring some more dangerous species too, like bears.

The regulation of the population began there. Birds were thrown in Horizon, herbivores were brought in large numbers, and a small amount of carnivores were beaten and taken alive.

In the end, everyone settled rather easily, maybe because of the space itself, or because of Tiohr-nam. The arachnea would deal with the carnivores, while Orion kept the herbivores in check in the long run.

That was their plan, though it would take maybe a month to see the first results. Counting on the tablet to notice any important changes, everything was settled.

After that, Orion explained everything to Tiohr-nam, took a day off for Stella, and managed to avoid Amelia and Karteira for a few days before they had enough.

It would require a few days still before the aspects of Silka are fully settled in his body, so until then, his life would remain in chaos until he get used to it.

And just like that, two weeks went by.

~

"Haaa~"

Orion breathed a long sighed of anxiety.

"Are you alright?"

The three of them were standing in the middle of nowhere in Triazils. There was a lot of greenery, as it was somewhere close to Lahro. The Talviera Mountain Range was on his right, the Frigoria Plains' border to his left, and Eogis straight ahead.

"Not really."

He looked at the hourglass in his hand.

There was only five grains of sand remaining, which were very slowly falling down. The remaining number on it?

-1-

His tension was visible on his face.

"We're here with you, don't worry. We'll support you as much as possible."

Karteira tapped on his shoulder lightly.

"Thank you. Let's hope this is not the end of our story."

He nodded silently.

"Though, we haven't been able to end all of the Apostles so far. Such a shame."

"But they should not be able to interfere anymore. We still have three powerful friends on our side."

Amelia added, though, Orion couldn't count on them.

"They can't fight with us. That would mean the continent would return to its previous state if they were to die."

She looked slightly annoyed by this, but still, she understood.

"So, it's only us?"

"Only us. I don't want anyone else to get mixed into this."

"..."

They looked at him with a very sad gaze.

*CRAAAAAAAAAASH*

The last grain of sand fell into the bottom of the hourglass, and with it, a eardrum shattering sound of glass breaking echoed in the whole continent.

Orion, Amelia, Karteira, and the whole world trembled in fear at the massive release of magic that followed it.

A pillar of ominous and disgusting dark purple color shoot out in the sky from Eogis.

Everyone on the continent saw it, just like the gold and silver pillar Orion came from twenty-three years ago.

For two minutes, that pillar remained visible for everyone to see, instilling for the first time what 'doom' felt to Triazils residents.

Orion's eyes remained glued to the pillar until it vanished, terror in his eyes.

'And I'm supposed to fight... that.'

"Ha-Hahaha... Yes. Now I understand."

He laughed, dispirited. Hiding his eyes with his left hand, he tried to stop his feelings from spiraling into chaos.

"O-O-Orion. Let's fl-"

"Never."

Amelia turned to Orion with tears in her eyes. She tried to ask him to flee, but he refused.

After removing his hand from his face, his gaze showed nothing else but determination.

"I won't flee. This is my fate. The path I chose. Whatever Elliott is, I will bring him down one way or another."

His mind settled, Orion moved forward in silence, his hands clenched.

The fight against the strongest monster in this world was about to go down.