Enzo Soriano was an unfamiliar name to the masses, but he personally believed that his life had been pretty successful.

He had started with nothing, his parents throwing him in a garbage bin during the Second Spanish Revolution of 2053. For three days he wailed, but no one came. He later learned that his parents were drug addicts and lived among similar low lives, none of whom wanted anything to do with an abandoned kid.

But after three days, something happened. The Revolution was coming to an end as the Royal Family was either taken into custody or went into hiding into other countries, and anyone allied with them was forced to go into hiding if they didn’t want to be lynched to death.

And as fate would have it, a member of the Spanish Special Forces, the MOE, found Enzo as he went into hiding. The man, Alexandro Soriano, made a decision Enzo still could not understand to this day.

Alexandro adopted Enzo, and raised him. And having been raised by the man, Enzo knew his father was a logical and pragmatic person, and so it made no sense for him to take Enzo. It only increased the chances of him being found as he had to provide for Enzo.

Still, in the end, things somehow worked out. They went through stuff, to say the least, but Enzo managed to reach the majority with all his limbs and only a couple of scars.

Alexandro was not much of an academic man, nor was Enzo as he instead learned everything he could learn from his father, and came to become a colleague of his.

His old man had to provide for them one way or another, and he had decided to put his strongest skills to use as he became a mercenary. Enzo became a mercenary himself when he was 20, and he was good.

Actually, he was not simply good, but he was getting better with every mission he went through, at a faster rate than most. His mastery of firearms had been printed into him through his childhood, but where he really excelled was CQC, Close Quarter Combat.

Alexandro hadn’t taught Enzo martial arts. Instead, he had taught him how to be violent, and how to control it.

Enzo wasn’t necessarily proud of what he did, but he did it better than most, and hurting others was about the only thing he was really capable of doing.

However, things didn’t just go happily. Enzo would always love him, but his father had been harmed by his experience, and time. His mind more than his body.

For as far as Enzo could remember, his father had had short episodes of confusion where he would lose his mind, but as he aged, they worsened.

Until one day, Alexandro seemingly lost all reason as he did something that would haunt Enzo for the rest of his life. They were running away from the police after a ‘clean up’ job, and Alexandro was driving.

At first, everything was fine, until they were forced to pass next to a school by the police’s chase. They usually avoided passing by densely populated areas, not only to avoid unnecessary collateral damage, but also because they would be slowed down.

But it was supposed to be fine, the police would hardly be able to catch up to them, and they had several nearby stash houses.

Yet, Alexandro suddenly veered toward the school. To some it may have looked like an accident, of Alexandro losing control of the car, but Enzo was in there, and he saw it.

He saw the madness take over his father’s mind as he purposefully drove his car into the school. And the only reason no one was killed was because Enzo had grabbed the wheel at the last moment, pulling the hand brake with the other hand as they crashed into one of the walls of the school, flipping the car upside down as they narrowly dodged the children.

But unlike before, this wasn’t enough to break Alexandro out of it, as he crawled out of the car, assault rifle in hand, fully intent on unleashing his inner beast on the crowd.

And so, Enzo did the only thing he knew to do. He shot his father in the back of the head.

After that, everything was a bit of a blur, but Enzo managed to hide away. This left a scar in him though, and he decided to stop taking contracts to harm others.

And that is how he came into service of the Errom Family. It only started as a job to protect the young head of the family, Sebastian Errom, after his parents were murdered by a rival.

Then, one thing led to another, and as the Errom Family rose to power once again, Enzo stayed behind, and became Sebastian's children's guardian.

Finally, all these events led to the release of Epoch. Enzo was already in his late thirties, and Edward and Anna had both grown into adults. His duty was over, but Epoch happened to be the best excuse to remain, and so he continued protecting them in the game.

That is when Enzo started feeling something. Since he started playing, there was always something bugging him, something at the back of his mind, and it only got stronger with time. Something he did not understand.

But today, as he stood beside Odin, facing what felt like certain death, Enzo felt a long lost excitement.

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As he did though, his mind automatically tried to suppress it as he remembered the content of his Quest. The moment the Gate opened, Enzo knew this was his cue, and he crushed a small item he had been given by Earl Eric, that would alert him that he had found the Gate and of his position.

With Earl Eric’s strength, it should only take a short while for him to arrive. Enzo felt a small part of himself sigh in relief as it meant they only had to delay the demon and Andre for long enough for Earl Eric to arrive.

Now all he needed to do was tell Odin, so that he would know that they weren’t powerless…

But as he turned to look at Odin, the latter had already leapt toward the demon, a wild, excited grin on his face, stunning Enzo.

"Get out of my way, ant."

The demon, Yusax, swept his claws towards Odin, who suddenly rooted his feet to the ground and blocked the area in front of him with his spear, before being suddenly forced back.

Enzo hadn’t even seen the attack, but he was too in shock to care. In shock with himself.

The moment he saw Felix’s smile, he realized how ludicrous he had been.

Reeling in shock before a strong opponent, aiming for nothing but to stall for someone stronger to arrive… when had he turned into a shadow of himself?

---

Ignorant of the internal crisis Drakon was going through, Felix was forced back next to him because of Yusax’s attack. Sending him a brief glance, Felix asked, "If I can hold Yusax back, how long would it take you to kill Andre?"

Drakon was brought out of his shock as he stammered, "A-Andre? I can help with Yusax…"

Felix heard doubt in Drakon’s voice, which did surprise him, but he said nothing about it as he instead reasoned, "I’m not killing Yusax on my own. We don’t stand much of a chance together either, actually. But it’s better than nothing."

Drakon wanted to argue, to prove his worth, not to Felix, but to himself. He wanted to tell Felix that Earl Eric would be coming, that all they had to do was stall.

But he said nothing. Instead, he took a deep breath, placed his large sword to the side, and rushed towards Andre, who had turned old.

As the old man muttered something under his breath, most certainly the incantation for a Curse, Enzo reasoned, the ex-mercenary activated his Innate Skill, Divine Charge, stopping in place.

Not on Andre though, but rather on the ground. From the earlier clash between Odin and Yusax, several cracks had been made into the ground, and Drakon was aiming at one of them.

Andre, who had been preparing his attack, was finished as a pair of wolves made of darkness appeared by his sides. One stayed next to him, while the other pounced toward Enzo.

But right as it was about to bite into Enzo’s throat, his body suddenly bent down, as he threw himself towards the ground, tackling it.

It looked strange and stupid, but the moment Enzo made contact with the ground, the whole cavern shook. Felix, who had entered intense melee combat with Yusax, was unaffected by the shaking as he was in mid air, and managed to use the opportunity to damage Yusax.

As for Andre, he was the most heavily affected by the sudden tremor as his old age seemed to have taken a good toll on his body.

Enzo had already estimated his physical stats to be even below Odin’s when he was healthy, so now that he had been turned into an old man, Andre’s knees buckled as he fell the ground with a miserable scream.

Ignoring the shadow wolf that had jumped over him, Enzo, whose momentum had been completely transferred to the ground through his Innate Skill, pushed himself with his hands to make a roll forward, directly arriving in front of the fallen Andre and his shadow wolf.

"Nine layers of Hell, bring forth your devilish might!"

The shadow wolf suddenly enlarged as the red hue of its eyes intensified.

‘Heavy Strike’

Grabbing his sword’s handle with both hands, Enzo struck down at the shadow wolf, his Mana following his body’s movement as it added even more strength to his attack.

The shadow wolf, who had been about to leap, made a sudden step back, dodging the sword as it went for the ground instead, and Enzo’s defense was wide opened. Behind him, the other shadow wolf was also prepared to attack.

The two wolves jumped at the same time, and Andre was already looking at the other intruder, who was fighting Yusax.

But seeing the attack of the two, Enzo showed a savage smirk as the force his body exerted suddenly shifted. Enzo felt the muscles in his arms tear open and his bones rattle, but his grin only intensified as the sword, which was about to hit the ground, moved up just as fast.

‘Force Shift!’

Force Shift was a Martial Technique that was not recognized by the System, as it was a Skill that did not use Mana. All it relied on was one’s control over their body.

The wolf in front was cleaved in half from the strength of the blow, and the one behind managed to latch on Enzo’s back, sinking its teeth into his shoulder. As it did, Enzo felt a small wave of weakness spread through him, but he ignored it as he reached over his shoulder, grabbing the shadow wolf by the nape as he brutally forced it off his back, tearing some of his flesh away in the process.

The pain only seemed to pump more into him though as he slammed the shadow wolf against the ground, and crushed its head with his metallic boot.

In front of him, Andre’s eyes had grown wide, and he yelled in a loud voice, "Lord Father, He who bore our pain and suffering, grant your mercy to this heathen!"

Andre’s curse landed on Enzo as he felt like he had swallowed poison and each of his cells was slowly being eaten away by acid.

The pain brought by the Curse would have paralyzed about anyone, but a throaty laugh came out of Enzo as he stomped his way towards Andre.

The Deacon used another Scripture as several large tendrils of darkness manifested around him and tried to stop Enzo, but he had turned into an unstoppable machine of death as he completely ignored the tendrils piercing into his body, and swung his sword at Andre.

Andre, whose Vitality had fallen below 20 following the summoning of the Dark Gate, knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop this strike, and were he not to do anything, he would die to it, without a doubt.

"I rejoice, Lord Father, for I join you in darkness!"

Enzo’s sword cleaved through Andre’s waist, cutting him in half. The deacon clenched his teeth at the pain, but he forced himself to remain silent as his upper body fell to the ground.

His vital signs all got infinitely close to zero as Andre used a fake-death Skill.

This skill wasn’t made useless by the System either as it actually sent a false prompt to the attacker, while putting his body in a state of pseudo-death. This skill had grave consequences, including severe loss of Stats, among other things, but it was better than dying.

But as Andre was inwardly lamenting about how his rank would probably be lowered to Elite and he would never be able to reach Tier 1, Drakon’s sword once again struck.

As the large sword sunk into his skull, Andre’s last thoughts were of confusion, as he did not understand how Drakon could have known he wasn’t dead.

Enzo had no idea.