Simon spread his arm like he was presenting her something great.

“Three hundred years ago, an ancestor of ours made this. We never had any use for this. until we have you. It took years, but we finally finished it and just in time for you. Do you know why we have to kill your father.” He smirked. “It’s because one of the things needed for this to work is the body and rentom of the person’s kin. In your case your father.”

For a second the words did not register on Pretty’s head. “W-what?” she managed to say. She looked around her trying to find something, what it was she did not know.

She was stunned for a moment, her mind whirling with so many thoughts. A tear fell from her eyes, then it started to fell in torrents. She looked at Simon with so much hurt, disbelief and hatred. She could feel her numb body trembling inside. “Y-you. You! Y-you monster!” she cried, her voice breaking. “How could you do that? You’re crazy! How could you kill him for that?!” She bellowed to him but her shouts turned to sob. “No, no, no.” Angry tears kept falling from her eyes as her voice faded repeating those words as if it could take away the pain inside her.

It was all her fault. It was all her fault. It never registered to her how true that word was.

Simon ignored Pretty’s emotional breakdown and took some spherical metals from the tray and he inserted them inside the compartment holes the walls of the throne had.

Simon turned to the man beside him and ordered him something Pretty couldn’t hear. The man walked away and Simon continued fitting those metals in their slots.

While he was doing it, he continued talking to Pretty. “This whole room is a whole Rentom… mechanism?” he knocked his head to the side trying to find a better word, “A device? A machine?” he shrugged, not caring the words he used. “Anyway, it’s made to do one thing. To take the rentom of a person.”

He inserted the last metal and looked at her. “It was never you we wanted, it’s your Rentom and ability. This Moriadmo,” he gestured to the platform,”was designed to take someone’s rentom and merge it to someone — getting their abilities.”

A joyful smile appeared in his eyes as he stared at Pretty, “You actually surprised me Pretty. You have the ability to make yourself invisible to the eyes. Which is a rare and very useful ability. Anyone in this world will die to have it. But teleportation? Dimensional swapping… or is it storing? Even weaving an illusion. Just how many times have you visited the Repository for you to have this much ability? Impressive, just impressive.” Simon clapped, greed evident in his eyes. “I initially only wanted your invisibility and Rentom. But having all this ability and what others you are keeping to us makes it all worth it. If I have to kill all of the people I loved, then I will.”

Pretty was still grieving inside when Simon pulled a red colored stone in his neck fastened to a chain. He entered it to the last hole in the throne, right at the center. Nothing happens for a moment and then the throne suddenly glowed with white light growing brighter by the seconds.

Pretty suddenly felt a gut wrenching pain, much more painful than what she just had experienced back at the medhall, coursed through her body and rentom. It felt like her rentom was being crushed and torn apart. She couldn’t help releasing a guttering screech.

“Stop it Dad!”

A sudden shout sounded in the hall. Norde, who had followed them when they went below the stairs, got out of where he was hiding. His eyes were bloodshot as he looked at his father with anger.

Simon just looked at him, unsurprised. “You’re too late, Norde.”

“Why are you doing this?!” Norde asked furiously, running towards the them. “First Celine — Then Uncle Fredrin and now Pretty? Is there any familial affection in your heart? If you wanted to kill all your family, why don’t you just kill me too?”

Norde sprinted towards the Moriadmo platform not caring if he toppled everything in his way. Simon just let him and he even moved to the side, still watching his son. But before Norde could go near the platform, he slammed into a spherical shield who suddenly coalesced in front of him. It flickered into view, forming a giant sphere of shield covering the whole Moriadmo. He backed off, then the shield suddenly vanished as if it was not there in the first place.

Norde took another step towards the Moriadmo but just as he passed the same area where the shield was just before, the sphere shield appeared, preventing him to passed. He slammed his body on it multiple times but the shield remained unperturbed. It felt like a renisas but much stronger than he had ever seen before. No matter how much he tried to get past it, he would just be repelled.

Norde looked at the random thing scattered around and started shooting everything, hoping that it would disrupt the Moriadmo. He toppled some structures and broke a lot of materials but it did not do anything.

“There is nothing you can do Norde.” Simon says calmly, just letting Norde destroy things around without interrupting.

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Norde turned to his direction and lunged at him . He attempted to grab him by his lapel but Simon just swept him with his arms and he fell heavily to the floor.

Norde stood up, took his gun and pointed it at Simon. Not a second later, he shouted with frustration and started shooting everywhere. A vase broke as a bullet pass it and some wooden structures found themselves full of hole from the torrent of bullets he shot. Seeing that there was no effect, he turned to the invisible barrier instead and started shooting it. This time, the shield did not appear and the bullet passed, hitting the Moriadmo. He thought the barrier was gone and tried passing it but like his previous attempts the barrier appeared, repelling him.

Norde looked at the gun he was holding and figured out that only inanimate things could enter the barrier. He then proceeded to empty his gun, shooting the platform but the bullets couldn’t even make a scratch to the diamond throne.

He picked up an empty aquarium beside him and threw it to the diamond platform but it only broke above the still screaming Pretty, showering tiny glass shards towards her. He tried to throw other things, but it did not do anything.

With his last idea, he tried passing the barrier again but with a plastic table covering in front of him, hoping it would let him pass together with the table. It’s a long shot but he had to try.

He sprinted to the barrier with much force. The table successfully passed through it but when his hands made contact with the invisible barrier, it appeared and he slammed face first into it with so much force he rebounded to the floor, his hands numb from the impact.

Simon shaked his head at him, “No matter how much you try, any person with a rentom can’t get inside the barrier. It is a rentom extractor designed for one person, no one is allowed inside.” Simon explained to him in a placid face, as if he did not care much about his son.

Pretty, despite the pain, witnessed everything that happened. She was still in a lot of pain but she tried her best to look at Norde and requested one thing from him. “K-kill m-mee N-Norde! S-shoot m-me!” she said between her screams.

The red-headed man shaked his head, looking at Pretty with his blue bloodshot eyes “No,” Norde croaked. “NO! I’m sorry Pretty, but — I can’t.” He kicked a random box beside him in frustration and it flew for a few meters. He did it to other materials around him, bellowing curses everytime.

He stopped kicking things up and stood there. He slowly sat down at the floor, and helplessly pulled his head between his knees and shook his head.

“Pl-le-ease!” Pretty begged. “Pl-lease — N-norde.”

He id not respond to her and continued shaking his head, but Pretty continued begging him. He looked at the gun beside him and with shaking hands, he picked it up and slowly aimed it at Pretty. He positioned his index finger on the trigger but he couldn’t press it. Frustrated, he aimed the gun to the diamond throne and shot it but no bullets came out, it already ran out of bullets a while ago.

Simon just stood there at the side quietly watching the two.

Then out of nowhere, Josh came out from behind the door of the hall. His face was morphed into frustration and with a grunt, he aimed his gun towards Pretty’s direction and pressed the trigger.

The bullet went out from the gun and passed through the sphere barrier unhindered and expertly pushed through Pretty’s head. Pretty breathed one last time, and she slumped to the diamond platform, her body lifeless.

Josh was struck dumb from where he was standing. He couldn’t believe he pushed the trigger like that. His grip loosened and the gun fell to the floor, echoing a clanging sound into the now silent dome. The guttering screech from Pretty that echoed just before was now gone. He just killed Pretty.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Josh cursed, feeling oddly terrible inside. He did not know why he was reacting like this. Was he regretting what he just did? Though he was still a young officer in the Summit, he had killed someone before.

He did not want to pull the trigger, but he just found his finger moving when Pretty begged. Killing Pretty was out of mercy, even if he did not like her, he did not want anyone to undergo what she was experiencing. Seeing her suffering in the throne with Norde hesitating, just made him push the trigger. He knew Norde could never do it. But why did he feel shitty about what he did? It was the best thing he could do in that situation. But why did it feel like he just lost something?

Josh was confused and when he saw Simon standing there unaffected, something within him erupted. He had heard what he had done. He may be loyal to the Summit but he couldn’t forgive someone like him who could easily kill their own family for his own benefit. He sprinted towards him, lunging at him to give him a punch in the face.

Simon easily dodged his punch. He grabbed the arm passing on his face and punched Josh in the gut. He slid his right foot below Josh’s feet and Josh found himself lying on his face on the floor beside Norde, who was still staring dumbfounded at Pretty’s body.

Josh got up and took the gun from Norde’s hand. He took a magazine from his pocket and loaded it. He pointed it at Simon as if he wanted to shoot him but when he tried to press the trigger, he couldn’t. He gritted his teeth and tried pressing the trigger again but in the last second, he steered the gun away and instead shot the wooden statue a few meters away from Simon. He couldn’t shoot his uncle.

Frustrated, Josh kneeled, punched the gun into the floor, and shouted in frustration.

Simon did not even blinked from Josh's attempt to shoot him. He was still staring intently at the platform, eyes focused on the dead body of Pretty, when suddenly he released a quiet laugh.

The two young men looked at Simon at the same time, confused. They glanced toward the platform where Simon was staring and only saw the unmoving body of Pretty. But with sudden realization, they injected renisas to their eyes and saw the transparent rentom of Pretty appeared in front of them. It was floating above her body, intact and not broken, as if it was separating from her body.

They had never seen anything like this before. Usually when a person dies, their rentom will also be destroyed and only their soul will remain which will then go to the River of Souls. A soul was usually in the form of white blobs, but rentoms were shaped like the person’s physical attributes. What they were seeing right now was Pretty’s intact rentom, not a blob of soul, and it was forcibly separating from Pretty’s body.

They had thought that killing her would mean that they also destroyed her rentom. That’s why they tried to kill her, preventing whatever abomination Simon planned. All along Simon never worried about them killing her. As Simon said to them, they were already too late.