“You want to take over? Then go ahead. This is the least I can do for you, Master Kon.”

With those words, the surge of overwhelming mental pressure subsided, and the memories of Master Kon settled down. Carpy drew in a deep breath, his own emotions also finding their equilibrium.

While he was scared of having his body taken over, if it was Master Kon the one who took over, then he wouldn’t mind so much.

He focused his thoughts internally and realized that the emotional turbulence and the influence of Ord had not been entirely detrimental. Instead, he sensed a growth in the consciousness of Master Kon dwelling within him.

An epiphany dawned on Carpy. 'Perfect Me' was employing a technique akin to the resurrection methods of Ultimate Class Demons. They implanted their consciousness like seeds within their killers, gradually exerting control by overwhelming the host's mind, ultimately leading to a complete takeover.

This realization kindled a spark of hope within Carpy. Profound happiness suffused him as he understood the implications.

Yet, he pondered the correlation between his emotional temper and its potential benefits—a connection perhaps mirrored in the choice of victims for cocoon-like rebirth by Ultimate Class Demons.

Was emulating Master Kon's behavior an essential element in facilitating this rebirth? After all, demons executed their takeovers by insidiously molding the actions and mental landscapes of their hosts.

For a fleeting moment, Carpy's thoughts ventured toward the fate that awaited him if Master Kon succeeded in taking over his body? But the answer was simple, and the sacrifice didn’t matter when compared to what he would get in return.

***

The young man with green hair sat atop a snowy boulder on the mountain. Uriel tried to gauge the newcomers' strength, but something odd happened – it felt like he was looking at very clear water and couldn’t see anything. If he couldn’t sense the ‘container’ he would have assumed that the young man couldn’t even use Ord.

"Who are you?" questioned the one-eyed woman, her eye narrowing. "We are the Dream Lords,” when the man didn’t have any reaction to her words, her mouth formed a thin line. “First the dragon and now some other nobody-"

Her words were cut off abruptly as her head disappeared. The eyes in her hands darted around in panic, and she reached for where her head used to be. That was when her body realized — she was dead. Standing behind her was the green-haired young man holding her head.

He dropped the head to the ground and used his golden staff to crush it like a watermelon.

"C'mon now, let's all be polite," the green-haired man chimed up. "I might be here to kill you all. But I see no reason we have to disrespect each other. So let's all kill each other in a respectable manner!"

The others lunged at him without hesitation, except Uriel, who stood back.

Over two millennia old and seasoned in countless battles, he felt an instinctual warning – stay away from that man!

"Creatures of Avalon! Answer my call!" yelled the old man, sending out an Ord signal that gathered the False Gods – peculiar-looking abominations, failed experiments of Babylon Gardens' attempts to create their own gods.

But in the end, heads rolled, limbs flew, and special abilities erupted, leaving just a mountain of bodies in their wake.

The green-haired man turned to Uriel, a friendly smile on his face. In the blink of an eye, he vanished, leaving Uriel with a searing pain in his side. Glancing down, he saw a massive chunk of his midsection missing, organs exposed, and his guts almost spilled out. Normally, a wound like this would have already begun healing, but this time, nothing changed.

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Was he affected by an ability that stopped regeneration?

Clutching his bleeding side, Uriel knelt. Amidst the agony, he was more astonished by what he witnessed. The green-haired youth with golden eyes sunk his teeth into the arm of the one-eyed woman, eating it as if it was an after-meal snack.

With each bite, his Ord grew in size, and then he aimed his hand at Uriel, the sole survivor of the Dream Lords. The skin bubbled in his palm and an eye grew out of his hand.

The world around Uriel turned dark like he was caught in a mist. A sweet scent filled the air, trapping him within his own mind's maze.

This was the Thousand Maze of Damnation, a special ability of the one-eyed woman!

Chills ran down Uriel's spine, yet he persisted. He'd faced this ability's effects before and fought through them.

He wasn't going to die in this place!

As Uriel navigated the familiar passages of the mental maze, he hit an unexpected section. His mouth hung open in disbelief as the 'walls' shifted and transformed.

Changing the maze already? It had taken the original user centuries to develop such power. This guy had already achieved it effortlessly!

Back in the day, Uriel had encountered special abilities that allowed one to copy or even steal special powers. But despite their power, stealing special abilities wasn't that special. After all, special abilities were very personal. If one didn't have the emotions, mindset, and personality behind that special ability, then it would never work as well for the thief as it did for the ability's original owner.

Yet somehow, this guy was challenging that kind of logic. He was already using a stolen ability at the same level as the original owner!

Just as despair threatened to take hold, the mist lifted, returning Uriel to reality. The green-haired man stared, a smile playing on his lips. “So that’s how you turn it off? That’s a nice special ability. Though to be honest, all of your special abilities are kind of excellent.”

"Who are you?" Uriel asked, trying to mask his fear of the enigmatic young man who'd appeared from nowhere.

With a wave of a golden staff, resembling intertwined serpents, a tuxedo materialized around his previously naked form. The man placed his hand over his heart and offered a slight bow. "I'm Scatty, child of Perenelle and Nicholas Flamel, born through the sacrifice of my mother's eternal life and my father's genius. And yes, I know my name sounds like a dog's name, so don’t be an asshole about it.”

His casual tone made the situation even creepier, as he talked as if they were old pals.

"Why did you come after us?" Uriel pressed, aware that his demise was imminent. Still, bound by a contract, his consciousness would journey to Avalon Island. Any information could be crucial in case the man attacked the island itself. Also, it would serve as revenge against his killer.

“Well, you did cause my mother plenty of trouble. Though to be honest it was more because you had powerful special abilities and a lot of Ord I could feed myself with after my not-so-easy birth,” he shrugged, then started walking off.

Despite the guy's answer, Uriel ended up with more questions. Why hadn't the boy killed him?

Still, he wasn't letting this chance slip away and quickly bolted away from the freak.

While Uriel was on his way, he turned to glance back. Dust swirled up from the ground, gathering into a small tornado. Slowly, the dirt, dust, and rocks shaped into bricks, building houses. By the time Uriel moved far enough to just barely see the new structure forming, it hit him: the young guy was re-building the Gardens of Babylon.

But Uriel wasn't about to get tangled in this mess. This dude seemed way too strong, like that dragon he'd been yapping about.

Uriel clenched his fist when he thought about all the Dream Lords. He didn't care about any of them, since they were generally horrible people or creatures before even accepting the contract. But they were still hard to gather, and this meant a lot of work if he wanted to form another group like that.

Still, seeing them wiped out so easily... was it even worth forming a new crew like that?

The creatures like the dragon and this green-haired kid reminded Uriel of the monsters from two thousand years ago. The Golden Age of Exorcism, when Gods walked the Earth and did all sorts of miracles. Back then, Uriel was no big shot, just a regular demon slayer.

Uriel realized he had made the mistake of thinking that he was actually powerful. He wasn't powerful, he was just someone who had lived long enough that the monsters he couldn't compare to, were already dead.

So what's the game plan now? Hide like he'd always done? Uriel pondered.

Hiding and running, truth be told, had been a smart move. Kept him alive all these years.

He reached a cave atop a lonely mountain. The place seemed ordinary, especially on this island. But he stepped in, and gazed at his own hand, remembering his life. "Once again, I survive, and continue to live the life of a nobody."

Despite having lived over two thousand years, there was no moment in his life where he could be proud of. There was not even a time when he risked his life to save someone important to him.

Even when the demons started attacking humanity, pushing them back to a corner of the world. Uriel was one of the first demon slayers to turn tail.

When one lived long enough, they saw things the way not many did.

What was an eternal life worth, when it was just filled with nothing but mediocrity?

For the first time in two thousand years, Uriel opened his eyes and saw where his cowardly choices had brought him.

Then he shook his head and stopped thinking about such things. He wasn't a teenage girl on the road of self-discovery. No, he was a two-thousand-year-old man who had seen the worst this world had to offer.

As he walked deeper into the cave, the air got heavier. Even in the darkness of the cave, there were some strange crystals embedded in the walls that released a weak glow, allowing some visibility.

The deeper he went, the more of those crystals were around which meant that the further he walked into the cave, the brighter it got.

With both the dragon and the strange young man who killed all the Dream Lords. Uriel knew that eventually, those two were going to come to a clash. He needed to take his own countermeasures and make sure that the island itself didn't get destroyed.