Sahro watched the Priest opening one of the kid-sized fabric bags, shivering when he looked at the bone-white longsword. There was something about this weapon that was...unnatural, as if it didn't belong in this world. Something shot out from the bag and wrapped itself around the bone sword, the Priest laughing with satisfaction as it happened. The Black Heir felt his whole body tensing up as adrenaline shot in his veins, his every sense firing up to warn him of the threat.

Fear. The same fear a prey would feel once a predator would look at it, wondering what taste said prey would have.

And Sahro was feeling like a prey currently.

He shouted desperately as he swung his sword with red lightning at the priest, who sneered and deflected it effortlessly, the electricity dying off on the floor.

"Wow, what are you attacking me for? I thought you were with me, man?" The Priest exclaimed, frowning with displeasure. Glenn watched from afar and gritted his teeth. There was something very very wrong. He stumbled forward, digging in his last strength as walked over the corpses. He wouldn't use Gravity Manipulation, he had to spare Mana. He wouldn't use Nelg's Awakened form either.

No, this...A Carbon Blade could do it. Yes, it probably could. That guy looked human. But then, he was in Hell seconds ago and didn't seem that bothered with it, while Glenn was completely exhausted from just a short passage.

'This doesn't smell good at all. Shit, shit, I might have helped the wrong guy there!' Glenn realized, horrified. More skin shot out of the bag, wrapping around the bone longsword ominously. Organs, skin, flesh, all of it shot out of the bags and joined the longsword, wrapping around it in a bloody spectacle. The Priest laughed loudly, holding the sword high above his head.

"HAHAHAHA, who would have thought the Devil's Hand himself would help me steal a Relic from Hell? HAHAHAHA!!!" He kept on laughing, unable to believe the irony of the situation. The Church of Onnea's forces finished off the last knight, before rushing toward the Priest. One of them, a gray-haired paladin shouted his orders, before turning toward Glenn with a face red with anger.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?" He screamed, more out of despair than anger. Glenn shook his head and rushed past him, dragging his longsword on the ground. He'll have to take care of them later, right now, the priority was getting rid of the Priest, or whatever he was creating with the bags of skin and organs and this horrible bone longsword.

"KILL HIM!! KILL LAURANCE!!" The paladin leader ordered, before rushing forward with his greatsword gleaming with a golden holy glow. The priests that had managed to survive preyed toward the sky, casting holy lights over the paladins, but ignoring all the others, namely Glenn and his team. An arrow charged with a dark Aura flew and pierced the Priest—no, the man named Laurance in the tight, but the latter didn't seem to notice, too busy enjoying the sight of his longsword transforming into something...different.

"Try what you want, you fucking peasants!" Laurance shouted ecstatically, "...I won't die now, and I won't die ever! Hahaha, you can't kill me!"

Glenn rushed forward, intending to prove Laurance's words wrong, but the paladins did so before him. All at once, they cut him to pieces, the Priest not even bothering to defend himself. He fell to the ground, carved into bits and strips of flesh, the longsword falling on the ground while continuing to absorb the skin from the bags. Sahro roared and planted his crimson-lighting-covered longsword in one of the bags, burning it down, but the ashes flew off and joined the longsword nonetheless.

The paladins cursed and backed out, before kneeling and preying to the sky.

"Oh, Onnea, Dame of Harmony, may you bless us with the capabilities to stop this evil..."

"Mother of Eternal Balance, allow us to protect the equity of good and evil, and stop this seed of chaos..."

The priests soon followed, and a whole chorus of prayers echoed in the theater/summoning Room. Glenn kept on running and arrived in front of what could only be a cursed sword. The weapon kept on pulling in stacks of skin and organs toward it, shaping itself into something that was everything but human, a pure product of nightmares, a bloody mess that shouldn't exist.

Glenn steeled himself, and thrusted his left palm toward the sword, sending a Nitrogen Wave to try and freeze the sword, but it failed miserably. A mouth appeared on the mangled mess of flesh, laughing wickedly at Glenn's pitiful attempts.

"Don't bother, you're just wasting Mana. Hahaha, it sure feels great to break through the Wall!" Laurance's voice, disformed, came out of the nascent monster. Glenn's eyes widened and he took a step back. He glanced at Sahro, who was as much at a loss as him, then at the Paladins, who were earnestly praying for their god's help. But Glenn knew, from how his "radar" arm wasn't responding, that this didn't warrant any response from Onnea. Whatever Laurance was creating, it was no Seed of Darkness, nor anything linked to the Nameless God that birthed them.

The young man spat blood to the side, before breathing in deeply. He prepared an Infernal Blackhole, hoping it would burn and obliterate Laurance, alongside the filthy bags of skin and organs. His Mana was a little lacking, but if he used Overload—

'NO! Find another way, because if you use Overload again, you're going to die, Glenn!' Diamanes huffed angrily, Nelg echoing the entity's words.

"Yeah! I don't know, just stick me in the whole mess, and maybe it'll do something, or, or, I don't know, send a cost-efficient meteorite up this monster's ass! Either way, don't fucking use Overload!"

Glenn grunted and let go of the spell, trying to find a way to eliminate this threat. A meteorite? Could he just collapse the ceiling on the monster? But, what about the other people?

'Fuck them! You have to survive, or Nelg and I are fucking dead, Glenn!' Diamanes protested passionately. Nelg didn't add anything, conflicted. The young man gritted his teeth and looked at the ceiling, Laurance continuing his metamorphosis into...something with many legs and arms.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Finally..." Laurance muttered, "...I finally reached the Newborn stage...Hah..." He sighed deeply as the bags stopped providing skin and flesh, empty. Instead, the corpses of the knights Sahro and the others had killed were pulled toward him, joining the macabre transformation. Something in the storm of blood and flesh turned toward Glenn and looked down at him.

"Do you know how long I have waited for this? How many friends I've made, and how many have died?" Laurance shook his head, or what seemed like a head, and sneered. "Of course, you don't. You're just a powerful True Initiate; you're not even a Magi. Heh, impressive stuff for someone so under-leveled, I'll be honest. You even managed to stall a Hell Knight for a few seconds. That's incredible. You should be proud..."

The thing seemed to frown and shrugged. "...Well, you're going to die either way, so, you know, tomato, tomahto, buddy."

'...Tomato, tomahto? He said that in English?'

The young man's eyes widened and he opened his mouth to reply, but another question came out, as he was already sure, just from these few words, that Laurance was from Earth, exactly like him. Another Earthling, and a fucking sick one at that.

"What about the kids? Weren't you the one to save them? Why?"

Laurance tilted his head to the side, a molten mess of flesh and blood before a grin of a hundred teeth appeared on it.

"Who talked about saving them? I carved a small souvenir on their chest, then acted as their savior," He reminisced, chuckling as if he thought of some good old times. Glenn felt his heart stop, but he kept on asking questions.

"Why...Why would you do that? They're kids!" He shouted, his anger and hate somehow succeeding in pulling more Mana from his reserves, the shadow of something sinister appearing above his head. Laurance laughed and shrugged dismissively.

"Well, for fun, obviously!" He said, before frowning deeply, "...These nasty little shits, refusing to help me trick the Hell knight, fucking bastards..." Laurance trailed off angrily as his features defined themselves further. He was standing on eight spider legs, with an upper body of a human and a face that had yet to take on its final shape. He had four arms, all ending with hands of ten fingers, crooked, and with sharp nails that could almost qualify as claws.

Glenn tried to swallow down his hatred, concentrating on getting as much information as he could out of the bastard.

"You fucking Thorn's Cult's bastard, what did you need Redan for?!?"

Laurance looked down at the collapsed old man and extended his arm toward him.

"Him? Oh, that was to distract the Hell Knight, dragon blood seemed to anger him most of all things. Strangely, he didn't kill the old man, but surely I can resolve that—" A flash of red lightning grabbed Redan and disappeared to the back. Sahro gasped with ragged breathing, his Ice Wolf slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Laurance looked at the Black absent-mindedly, before adding something.

"Oh, and I used the Thorn's Church sigil, but I'm not with these idiots; all bark, no bite. No, it was just in case someone would track me down, at least these dumb fucks would take the blame, and not my people, you know? Anyway, it was nice answering all your questions and all, but..."

Laurance, a mismatched patchwork of skin of different colors and taints, alongside organs of all different sources, stretched, his face finally taking on its final shape, the same face Laurance had before...turning into whatever this was. The only difference was that the scar splitting his face in two had become much more than just a scar, and was now an actual separation between the two parts of his face, oozing with yellowish pus.

"It's time to wrap this over." He coldly stated, before raising one of his arms toward Glenn. The young man felt his blood freeze in his veins as something squeezed on his neck, extinguishing the life out of him. He struggled to try and get out, but he couldn't do or say anything. He looked around for someone to help him, but everyone was frozen in fear, unable to move an inch.

"FUCK!! I TAKE BACK WHAT I SAID, USE OVERLOAD AND GET RID OF HIM!!!" Nelg shouted in Glenn's ears, terrified. Diamanes grunted but didn't add anything.

Glenn's sight blurred, but then, he felt something fall in his palm.

A pebble. The young man thought of the only spell he could use in this situation that might help. He channeled as much Mana as he possibly could into Gravity Manipulation, preparing the pebble to fly off with as much speed as it possibly could. The air around his right hand seemed to become thick as if it was a space of its own, and a small, jade-colored pebble floated above his palm.

With one last thought, Glenn infused the pebble with Sun's Touch, before finalizing the cast of his Shooting Star. The pebble shot out like a flaming bullet, tracing a burning line in the air seeking to meet Laurance's forehead. The creature watched, amused, and blocked with his hand the attack. The pebble pierced straight through the inhumane hand, putting a frown on Laurance's monstrous face.

"...What the fuck is this...?" Laurance muttered as Mana moved around him, stopping the pebble and deflecting him to the side. The hold over Glenn's neck disappeared, allowing him to breathe again. Laurance looked at the fiery hole in his hand healing with each passing second before shrugging dismissively.

"Interesting. How old are you, fucker?" Laurance asked, curious. Glenn grabbed at his throat, forcing himself to breathe through the pain, before looking up at the creature with a mocking grin and flipping him off.

"Surely I'm younger than you, you piece of shit!"

Laurance glanced down at him with an air of haughtiness, before shrugging it off.

"No doubt, no doubt. After all, it's been what, five hundred years I lost myself in Limbo? Who knows, I stopped counting after the first hundred."

Glenn shivered, struggling to imagine how someone could live for so long. But then, he remembered that higher Circles meant longer lifespans. And Laurance said he was a Newborn Ruler, which is, if he remembered correctly, a Seventh Circle.

Oh, that wasn't good. Oh, that wasn't good at all. Laurance seemed to lose his interest and extended his arm once again, crushing Glenn's throat mightily.

"This was very interesting meeting you people, but I've got a world to go back to, so, let me just kill you all..." He muttered, squeezing as he snuffed out the life of everyone in the theater.

"Bye, bye, morons—"

A loud crash interrupted Laurance as a man-sized gate opened right behind him, fracturing Reality. A thick gauntlet of dark steel, gleaming with dark flames shot out from it, grabbing Laurance violently. The creature squealed painfully as the black flames licked his skin, in a scream that was half human and half monstrous.

"ARGHH!!! FUCK!!!

The pressure restraining Glenn and the others disappeared, letting them breathe desperately. Laurance roared beastly as he turned toward the metal gauntlet and the gate, his monstrous eyes bulging out madly.

"NO, FUCK YOU!!!" He screamed as his whole body projected Aura around him. The whole theater looked like he was going to collapse under Laurance's pressure, and every survivor crashed on the ground, crushed under the monster's might. The steel gauntlet, in comparison, was entirely unaffected, pulling without stopping at the creature, dragging it into the Gate inch by inch. Laurance screamed and struggled the best he could, but a few seconds later he was gone, the shimmering Gate trembling into reality.

Glenn, his team, and the force of the Church of Onnea, all stared at the Gate wondering what could have possibly been strong enough to drag Laurance down like that. Glenn did have a guess, that dark-steel gauntlet was very similar to the one the Hell Knight wore, but still...

"Fuck, we're still alive..." Someone blurted out in disbelief, the sound of his voice echoing in the almost-destroyed theater/summoning room.

Glenn sighed as he lay down on the ground, his head resting on the cold stone floor.

"...What a day," he whispered, before chuckling, bewildered.

"What a day..."