Reinhold’s heart was beating, each thump was audible. Seeing this giant reptilian monster before him made him want to run away. However, he couldn’t.

“Reminds me of something terrible. Hah…”

Memories of the mansion flashed through Reinhold’s mind. The only difference was instead of running away, he was forced to meet it head-on.

Truly a twist of fate.

Reinhold conjured up more metal balls of pure annihilation. His newly made Eminence that was etched on his palm was starting to fade away, a sign that he was using it too much without replenishing its power source. Reinhold couldn’t reinforce his newly made Eminence since he didn’t dare to, not because of the dangers in front of him but because of the cost.

This Eminence was based on the basic one-time-use scrolls that he bought. It was already a miracle on being able to use it multiple times.

Lastly, the cost was far too much for him to bear. What was he using to power up these metal balls of annihilation?

These symbols took the laws from within the magical paper and used it as the fuel source, even taking in some parts of the laws within the God’s Domain to serve as the catalyst. However, Reinhold had no laws within himself to serve as fuel.

His life was worth nothing, the vitality left within his broken body was barely anything. He was mentally and physically exhausted, he was bearing the pain with clenched teeth.

There was only one thing left, his core Eminence, his own talent. He was burning away his talent to conjure these situational attacks. The moment the Eminence in his palm fades away is the moment Reinhold loses his talent. He didn’t even know what his Eminence did since it was beyond his scope of understanding but now he was going to lose it.

Reinhold’s reaction to this was simple. He didn’t care. He wouldn’t die if his talent was burned away. He could always research ways to bring his Eminence back through the Path of Unity. The only problem was that if he needed Eminence to walk the Path of Unity in the first place.

Everyone had an in-born Eminence, everyone was without exception born with an Eminence. These give the user traits that could either be affinity towards different laws or lets them bend reality accordingly. The application of Eminence was too wide and varied.

This normally wouldn’t have been a problem, but Reinhold’s case was too unique, he was sacrificing a part of himself. He was using his own core Eminence to fuel his attacks. This method was extremely inefficient since laws could serve as a better fuel source and is much less detrimental to the user. Except for the extremely rare cases where someone’s Eminence acted as an infinite power source, Reinhold’s method was extremely cruel to himself and was led upon by desperation.

Reinhold held the metal ball in his hand and threw it at Yio. This metal ball ignored gravity as it went by in a straight line, unimpeded by any object that wasn’t protected by laws.

Yio, finally clear-minded, could finally wield his sword properly. His human hands turned into webbed claws but the familiarity of the blade was still burning brightly within his mind. He drew his sword and horizontally slashed at the metal ball that Reinhold threw, cutting it in half.

Yio smirked at the sight of this only to realize something was wrong, there were now two different projectiles hurling right at him. Caught off guard, he dodged the one aiming for his throat, letting the one aiming for his thigh through.

Yio’s scaly skin did not prevent the lower half of the metal ball Reinhold threw from completely deleting flesh and bone from his thigh from existence. There were now two different holes in his body, one fist-sized hole in his stomach and another one in his thigh that was half the size of the one in his stomach.

Even though the projectile that Reinhold threw was split in half, its unstable property was still there.

Reinhold relaxed a bit more but was still tense, his Eminence had faded even more as conjured another metal ball in his hand.

Yio narrowed his eyes as he immediately ran to the side, maintaining his distance from Reinhold but constantly looking out for an opportunity to rush in.

It was Reinhold’s turn to be in danger. His bad leg was set in place as he twisted and turned his waist to keep up with Yio’s movements. He tried his best to keep Yio within his sights but eventually, his eyes lost focus for a brief moment.

“This is it!” Yio thought to himself as he dashed in straight for the kill. His strengthened legs broke the ground beneath his feet as he came in directly toward Reinhold.

Reinhold noticed too late, he realized that he didn’t have enough time to look for Yio so he jumped forward, using some force on his bad leg to increase the force. As expected, Yio appeared where Reinhold was standing in earlier, a 3-meter-long sword was piercing where Reinhold stood.

Reinhold glanced behind him while conjuring a metal ball in his hand, directly throwing it at Yio’s perfectly fine leg. Yio saw Reinhold conjure up another lethal attack so he decided he would be faster and tried to strike down Reinhold first.

It seemed as if Yio was going to take Reinhold’s arm before he could throw it out.

A while ago in the Land of Science, Sein.

A casual-looking youth came forward into the darkest recesses of an unknown historical site. He grabbed his ordinary-looking sword and slashed at the chain in front of him.

“The first Chain of Fate, broken. Eight to go.”

A calm energy sprouted out as this chain broke. It was initially connected to an extremely delicate-looking eye. This chain served as the only thing keeping this eye from rising. With this youth’s strike, the eye started to open, when it saw the youth, the eye started to squirm and tried to escape.

“Easier than I thought,” the casual youth took out his sword and slashed the eye. It seemed as if he only slashed once but multiple marks eye left on the eye, it eventually turned into minced meat.

A golden light escaped from the eye but the casual youth caught it in his hands.

It was time for the youth to leave.

Coming back from where he came from, he exited the broken wall he made. There was a wooden altar in the middle of the room, this altar was nothing special, it depicted a blindfolded woman hugging herself. The candles all around her were candles lit with Holy Fire, a tier higher than what Reinhold managed to create.

Oddly enough, the wooden statue was unaffected by the heat. The youth ignored them and walked past them, going outside.

All around the altar were corpses, outside the room was filled with even more corpses, and the hallways were filled with corpses. On the outskirts of this dilapidated castle, there were even more corpses. Outside this obscure castle that was overgrown with vines and plants, were even more corpses.

These corpses were piled one layer after another, creating literally mountains of corpses.

This was a land of death. There were no other living beings other than this casual youth which meant one thing. He managed to slaughter an entire army by himself, and he didn’t even look troubled. The wisp of laws that were left behind obviously showed extremely high mastery and comprehension. There was even an extremely terrifying-looking black puddle, it kept on expanding as it consumed the corpses to grow, not even the soil underneath it was safe. It seemed as if it could consume anything, yet the casual youth just walked over it obviously not bothered since he already dealt with its much more terrifying version.

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Finally, in the middle of this barren battlefield filled with corpses and mystical beasts from the Land of Evolution, the casual youth had his blue eyes turn crimson, he immediately brought out the golden light out and clenched.

As if it was the coming of a deity, the clouds above gave way as the golden light ceased to exist. More and more clouds parted as numerous gods came by. Their combined pressure was beyond any mortal could handle, even one god’s incarnation managed to put so many people to their knees yet the youth was completely unbothered by the incarnations of these gods.

The casual youth’s eyes turned back to blue.

“Why did… don’t tell me I already made a mistake?!” the casual youth’s expression turned extremely serious, his heart was thumping, his thoughts raced, and his actions hastened. Too much was at risk, he couldn’t afford a single mistake.

The casual youth completely ignored the raging incarnations. These multiple gods mustered all the power that their incarnations could use and directed all their rage unto the casual youth.

There was a god that caused the very ground under the youth to turn blood-red as numerous blood-red plants sprouted from it. These plants had extremely sharp leaves and tough vines they started to restrict the youth but they couldn’t.

Another summoned an illusionary cloud that followed behind the casual youth, it started to slowly form into the casual youth but as it mimic a hundredth of the youth it exploded into mist.

Another caused the air to escape the casual youth’s lungs but he merely took in a breath and the god’s control was taken away from him.

Countless methods were used to try to harm the youth but none of them worked.

The casual youth unsheathed his sword and casually swiped the skies, every single incarnation disappeared into dust.

“The weakest gods using their weakest incarnations, annoying.”

The golden light in the midst of all of this finally turned into mist as it spread throughout the nine lands.

The path of fate started to slightly crumble.

Back in Green City, the city of ashes.

Reinhold stopped moving his arm forward as he flicked his hand instead. Using the momentum from his fingers to move forward while preventing Yio from slashing his arm.

Reinhold rolled away as Yio was now suffering the same troubles as himself. His right thigh was pierced through, blood was seeping out while his left ankle was blown through, arguably doing much worse than Reinhold.

Reinhold tried to run away, despite his bad leg piling on more stress. The further he ran and the more pressure he put on his leg, the worse his leg’s condition became until Reinhold heard an audible crack causing him to tumble down.

Yio was laying belly down on the ground as he ragefully glared at Reinhold in similar straits as him. He was completely maddened by the fact that he was getting led by the nose by this cripple.

The God of Trials and God of Fire were both silent, it was as if they received drastic news. They disappeared from the skies as if the entertainment below them was of no worth. Yio saw his god leave him be and felt unbearable shame and anger, if it weren’t for the red-eyed man in front of him causing all of this he wouldn’t have had to suffer.

Seeing the gods leave, both armies started to rush in. If gods were involved it must mean something of great importance happened. Gerald had an extremely solemn look as he decided to head first, Dvar nodded in agreement. They needed to get a hold of the situation to be able to respond properly. Unfortunately, the other side also chose to do the same.

Yio gripped the floor under him as he took out a slab and threw it at Reinhold. Reinhold couldn’t use his Eminence to block an attack that had such a massive area, or rather it wasn’t worth it. Even if the metal ball pierced this slab of rock, it would only carve out a fist-sized hole, not enough to completely protect Reinhold.

Gritting his teeth in pain, Reinhold used his good leg and forced himself away as the thrown piece of rock crumbled at where he just laid.

Yio kept getting angrier and angrier, nothing was going his way. Worst of it all was that he was currently bleeding from his stomach, thigh, and ankle, at this point, it seemed as if he wasn’t going to make it due to blood loss.

Completely frustrated he ignored the pain and decided to stand up. He couldn’t retain his balance but he still managed to stand up. Reinhold saw that Yio could still muster enough strength to get to him.

Unwillingness and despair set in Reinhold’s eyes, his Eminence was barely visible anymore.

“One more use. I guess we’re dying together, huh?” Reinhold started to tear up, he didn’t want to die like this.

Yio took his sword and came closer to Reinhold, he stumbled a few times but still made progress. Reinhold couldn’t go back anymore, his body was tired, his mind was tired, and his soul was tired.

“Goddess Uyioh, let the troubles that lay before me be as ephemeral as the nightmares at bay,” Reinhold closed his eyes as he muttered a prayer under his breath.

Yio started to feel dizzy as the blood loss was getting to him. He realized he wouldn’t make it to personally end the red-eyed man’s life so he decided to just throw his sword right at Reinhold, killing him.

Reinhold saw Yio take his stance so he did as well. He conjured the last use of his Eminence, from now on his core Eminence was non-existent, not that it mattered.

As Yio threw his sword, similar to a spear, Reinhold threw his ball, with exhaustion. Both projectiles didn’t follow the same path but both held the same purpose, to kill their enemy.

“This is the end….” Reinhold closed his eyes, extremely familiar with something that happened to him before.

And as happened to him before, the sword was blocked once more. Reinhold didn’t know who it was.

“Houston’s unconscious… the Fanged Lioness is dead… Hannah doesn’t have enough strength to stop it. Maybe… Gerald?” Reinhold slowly opened his eyes.

Gerald was the only plausible person who could’ve possibly stopped it. Due to the Trial of Time, Yio essentially gave reinforcements enough time to get here.

After Reinhold’s eyes focused on his savior he felt extremely uncomfortable. The person who saved him wasn’t Gerald but it was someone he didn’t expect at all. It was Aya.

“Rei, are you ok?” Luke screamed from the distance, he was running at full speed.

Aya hit the blunt side of the sword, something she learned from Houston. She got here fast enough because of Shadow Step, using the same concept with her own law, also something she learned from Houston.

She was extremely unnerved by the current situation, a hulking reptilian mass of pure flesh and destruction was at its last legs as it fought with Reinhold. Reinhold’s last attack pierced through its chest, evaporating its meat and causing even more blood loss. It was bleeding out as she observed it.

She knew that if she tried to face it alone, she would’ve died without a single way to fight back, even after awakening her own law. She couldn’t believe that a cripple could actually face against this kind of monstrosity and kill it.

Instead of gratitude, Reinhold replied with, “You shouldn’t have come back…”

“We know,” Luke and Aya both replied.

Reinhold couldn’t keep his consciousness but still managed to order them one more time, “Get Houston, Hannah, and me to where sir Heinster is at. Keep us away from the reinforcements.” Saying this, Reinhold closed his eyes.

They both followed his orders, questions can be saved for later but right now they needed to escape.

Luke investigated Yio and saw the 3-meter-long sword laying down beside it. Taking the risk, he took the sword with him. The weight of the sword was extremely heavy, it took him all his strength to raise it up. Weirdly enough, after he fully raised it, the sword felt weightless.

Hannah was kneeling down as she felt an extremely uncomfortable icky feeling in her chest. She did light up the effigy as Reinhold told her but she couldn’t help him against Yio. There was a period when the gods left and Reinhold was running away from Yio, she stayed where she was and didn’t help him out due to fear, this was killing her consciousness. Unmeasurable guilt started to build up within her.

She saw Aya and Luke going in her direction and she absently followed bringing the unconscious Houston along. They quickly left the vicinity leaving the remaining mercenaries in confusion. Eventually, they left the scene.

A short amount of time passed as Gerald and two other people came to. A city that was burnt to ashes, city walls that had two massive gaping holes in them, and the surrounding forest was nothing but charcoal, it was a very brutal scene.

Gerald looked at the other two people and bared his long sword, it was extremely sleek and clean in its form. Straight and narrow but pierces true.

The other two men conjured up their own laws. They were both followers of the God of Trails so their laws have been both converted into the Law of Trials. Their own interpretations went a notch above Higher Deacon Raxor’s.

One person had his laws condensed into a hammer and nail while the other person had a field around him that gathered similarly-natured laws in the surroundings. Both were obviously very skilled in their own application of their laws.

Gerald merely smiled and started to wave his sword in an elegant manner, flowers started to appear in the battlefield. Whether it was an illusion or not, the fact remains that this was part of Gerald’s law.

Both sides looked at each other aggressively, a fight was definitely going to happen, the only question was when will it start. Will it start the very next moment or will it begin when both their armies finally arrive?

Meanwhile, the citizens of the city were running away in the direction of the next city. They didn’t even bring a single article of clothing nor did they bring any food or water, they were on their own, some mercenaries came by to support them but the others left on their own.

Reinhold and the others were staying in an unknown cave.