*BOOM!*

Several explosions rang throughout the city as three souls battled it out to their best capacities. Each and every building that was unfortunate to be in the vicinity of the greatly raging spiritual energies found themselves crumbling into nothing but dust.

A streak of red light shot through the skies in a certain direction, however a golden circle suddenly appeared mid-air and forced it to a complete stop.

The golden circle's caster snapped his right fingers once, commanding the circle to circulate at a high speed. Glowing lights filled a portion of the sky as the red streak was absorbed and shot back at an even greater strength and speed.

A loud explosion could be heard as the now golden streak of light made an impact with a few buildings and turned them to utter nothingness.

"Tch", a red-eyed girl cursed inwardly. "He's so goddamn annoying."

Ati touched the overheating cannon on her right arm and took a few steps back. Both she and her Old man had been fighting Edem for what seemed like an eternity. Maybe they shouldn't have sent all the other spirit warriors after that shadow soul in the first place.

Edem casually walked on thin air, humming a strange tune to himself.

The veins on Ati's forehead popped as fury began to engulf her. She was about to activate her cannon and fire a few other rounds at the bare chested bastard until someone's hand gently lowered her cannon.

"Huh?", she looked at the cannon and then up. "Old man Bob"

The intimidating middle-aged looking man made a few simple hand gestures and his spirit energy began to flare up in response. Cracks appeared in the ground and soon, an incredibly large clay structure burst out from the ground beneath Edem.

The clay structure took the form of some kind of snake and immediately opened up its maw, swallowing its target whole.

"That spell doesn't just devour its opponent", Old man Bob began. "It'll rip your soulshell to shreds once you find yourself in it. Even with a portion of your powers awakened, you could never come out of that in one piece."

Ati stared in surprise at the massive scope of her master's spell.

[Clay spell: Life-sucking nether snake]

There was a brief silence as the two intently watched the large clay snake solidify. Had they actually done it?

"Heh", Ati smirked. "To think we actually beat circle Edem"

Just then, the expression on Old man Bob's face instantly soured; something felt greatly amiss.

The golden circles that hovered in the air around them began to vibrate intensely as a larger circle boomed out from within the belly of the enormous clay snake. An unexplainable force blasted from the insides of the creature, blowing the dried snake to smithereens.

An individual was revealed amidst the chaos. Strange, unreadable runic symbols glowed on his skin and the unmoving smirk on his face instantly sent shivers down both Ati and Old man Bob's spines.

"I- Impossible", he staggered slightly. "His soul shell should've-"

"I'll admit, we've spent a long time together, Bob", Edem began, raising his left hand. "However, there are still too many things about me that you do not know."

Everything seemed to stop as the middle-aged man saw the runic symbol on his opponent's palm. It was the only symbol he could discern from the countless others on his body.

The style, the patterns. It was an eye bound by two crescent moons.

"Forbidden energy", Old man Bob muttered. "Since when did you-"

"Explaining everything now would waste too much of my time", Edem interrupted. "I'm going to take the offensive now."

There was an ominous gleam in his heterochromatic eyes as he lightly landed on the ground. At the moment of his landing, an extensive golden circle spread out from the tip of his feet.

Strange, other-worldly tunes could be heard emanating from the circle as his spirit energy took a highly complex motion within his soul core.

[Soul Requiem; second note]

Ati and Old man Bob both froze in place and their spirit energy began to flair out of control. Both souls shrieked in pain as they felt their own spirit energy tear them from their insides out.

Edem watched as the intensity of his spell increased. No amount of pain and wails from his opponents would move him as he mercilessly stared at the burning bodies of his former comrades.

It was then that he wondered to himself

Both of them… Ati and Bob… they both agreed to never join hands with the Spirit Warrior corps.

Sure, the previous tragedy that was caused by the previous shadow soul had a part to play in their decision.

However, what truly deterred them was much much deeper than that

So why?

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Why were they helping them again?

Edem sighed and then facepalmed, "I'm not a really bad person though,"

He then snapped his fingers and almost immediately, the large circle that emanated the strange tunes dissipated.

The shock from both Ati and Old man Bob's spirit energy was so high however. Both souls fell to the ground unconscious, fumes erupting from their scorched bodies.

"I've wasted quite some time", Edem muttered to himself as he stared at the bodies of his former comrades. "I should be getting to the tran-"

*BOOM!!*

An incredibly powerful shockwave swept throughout the city from the spiral building far ahead. Flames could be seen raging at the site of the explosion.

The look in Edem's eyes intensified as his vision travelled several feet ahead.

An entity was flung out of the smoke and was left crashing onto the roofs of the surrounding buildings. This entity was donned in a blue black trench coat that had certain portions of it ripped apart; the right sleeve was completely torn off and blood could be seen flowing down from the wounds on the entity's arm and head.

"Zanetor", Edem uttered and immediately, one of his golden circles appeared around him. "Tch, dammit! I need to hurry!"

At the site surrounding the burning spiral building, the Shadow soul greatly staggered as he tried to find footing.

However, a strong gust of wind blew from within the smoke and slammed onto his body. He felt his whole self lift off the ground and fall a few metres back, crashing into the ground and rolling back uncontrollably.

The wind was so strong that he could feel his ribs begin to rapture.

Zanetor coughed large volumes of blood as he struggled to stand, "F- Fuck."

Just then, a familiar person zoomed out from within the building with Leticia in his arms. His clothes weren't badly tattered, but he did suffer significant wounds.

Kekeli wiped the blood off his lips as he looked down at the unconscious Leticia in his arms. Concern began to emerge in his scarlet eyes.

"This is going to end up being her sixty-sixth win against me", he lightly smirked and then chuckled. "Heh heh, we're in trouble."

The smoke was blown away as the winds made way for its manipulator to pass through.

Xoese gently walked towards them while in mid-air, her aura radiating great strength. She was ready to completely pulverise her foes.

Zanetor on the other hand was beginning to feel conflicted. His tendency to think up various possible ways of getting out of the situation had completely died and nothing he did caused that silver-haired demoness to budge!

He felt completely useless

Utterly powerless

Of course, somewhere within him, he knew for a fact that his abilities were probably nothing compared to the vast number of experienced souls that wanted his soul core reduced to nothingness.

He was beginning to feel something that he had vowed to keep at bay as much as possible; fear.

Surface fear was something he knew was completely normal

But this one… this was more akin to a primordial fear.

A kind of fear that guaranteed your weakness

How was he ever going to rescue his mother's soul if he could barely do anything?

He needed to see his mother.

The fact that she was safe in that hospital was what was enough to keep him barely sane, but now he was clearly losing it

He was losing it

He was losing it

HE WAS LOSING IT!

He needed to rage

He needed to let it all out

And at that point… he had only one thing to do

A disfigured smirk cracked up on the shadow soul's face as he stood firmly on both feet.

The air shimmered in response to something sinister leaking from him.

Kekeli felt this oddity and turned to his right. Jackie hid behind him as fear engulfed it.

'This is the same feeling I had the first time I met him', the flame warrior thought as he lunged at a safe distance away. He held Leticia firmly in his hands. 'What's coming doesn't look like it's gonna be good.'

"I've come too far", Zanetor muttered. "Way too far to back out now. I'll break it down…"

An unbelievable amount of spirit energy boomed from within the shadow soul. His spirit energy was so bountiful and murky that it literally engulfed the area. It was almost as if the city was being washed by a tsunami.

Xoese took a step back.

This was highly unnatural. It was something she had never seen or felt before. It normally took years for a shadow soul's energy to grow to such levels. Didn't this particular one appear only weeks ago!?

"I'll break it, I'll break it…"

Dark murmurs could be heard coming from the centre of the energy pool.

Edem finally appeared at the scene and was taken aback. He then spotted Kekeli and Leticia and then proceeded to make his way towards them.

"From the looks of things, you're currently on our side?", he quickly asked.

Kekeli nodded.

"Good, now what the heck happened?", he continued.

"Our little shadow soul here seemed to have given in to the negative energy within him", Kekeli answered. "Seems like another calamity is about to strike."

Edem turned to face Zanetor and then looked up to see the silver-haired spirit warrior. A mix of expressions appeared on the man's face at that point. They were expressions of relief and slight terror almost at the same time.

"I see", he uttered. "Zanetor won't lose himself."

"Huh?", kekeli raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

Edem slammed his palms together, "Cuz I'll stop it before that can happen."

Meanwhile, in the heat of the tensions rising between Zanetor and Xoese, everything around them began to crumble away as their spirit energy began to clash.

Relentless waves and rising tempest

Both souls disappeared from the spot and immediately transitioned into a heated battle.

[Wind Spell: Wind Bullet]

A violently spinning wind drill formed out of the air and charged at the shadow soul.

Zanetor simply swiped his arm and the wind dissipated. He then aimed his torrent blazer at his opponent and pulled the trigger.

An enormous wave of water shot out from within the pistol and rose high above Xoese's body.

She immediately responded by raising both her palms and commanding the wind to spin into a great vortex.

The impacts caused the surrounding area to keep reducing under the immense pressure. The Great Eye city's levitationary balance was tipped so much that the entire city crashed to the rocky plains beneath it.

Edem and Kekeli were slightly thrown off balance, but Edem's golden circles helped to keep them at bay.

"Tsk, that idiot's over doing it", the runes on Edem's body glowed. "Increasing energy and scope…"

A golden circle began to expand from beneath his feet, however it was slower than normal.

Kekeli's eyes widened, "Incredible, that shadow soul and Xoese's energies are completely interrupting the spell."

*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Continuous barrages of attack flew all over the place as the battle raged on. Xoese didn't show any signs of giving up and neither did Zanetor.

"I'll break it, the obstacle"

Zanetor's body began to blur as a volume of water gathered at his lower torso and moved his body closer to his target at high speeds.

"I'll break ALL OF IT!"

His body was instantly engulfed in a highly extensive volume of water that rose higher and higher into the air.

Xoese commanded the wind to come to her aid, however nothing she could do could overcome the sheer vastness of the wave that threatened to dawn down on her body.

Before she knew it, a forceful weight of water crashed down on her and sent her plummeting onto the ground with a painful impact. The remainder of the water fell onto the city and washed everything down the sides of its edges.

Once the water flowed away, the only thing left was a completely decimated area and in its centre, two souls.

Xoese lay on the ground and Zanetor had his hands tightly wound around her neck.

"He's gonna end up killing poor Xoese at this rate", Kekeli raised both eyebrows in some kind of slight boredom as he hid beneath a few debris.

A crack appeared on the silver-haired warrior's mask as Zanetor kept squeezing her neck. The crack expanded until eventually, the mask broke into two and exposed the face behind it.

Zanetor locked eyes with a pair of emerald greens. There was a lack of noticeable expression on the spirit warrior's face even as the shadow soul tried to kill her.

Her strange zero response to the situation took Zanetor slightly by surprise.

"You…", the silver-haired girl opened her mouth for the first time in their encounter.

Kekeli, who silently watched from a safe distance, moved over to Edem's side. The spell still seemed to be taking quite a while to complete.

"How is the situation", Edem asked with his eyes closed.

"Things seem to have reached a stalemate on both sides", he answered. "None of them are-"

A sudden feeling forced the flame warrior's words to die down his throat. Edem's eyebrows furrowed in response to that same feeling as well.

Back at the scene, Xoese slowly raised both hands and touched Zanetor's throat.

"You're…", she slowly began. "You're a living curse"

The moment she finished her words, a violently rotating wind sphere appeared around his throat. The sphere began to shrink, threatening to rip his head off of his body.

A wind drill then appeared right above his back.

"Tch!", Edem clicked his tongue as the spell neared completion. "This is more than enough!"

The young man slammed his palms onto the ground and almost immediately, the slowly expanding circle increased in size in time to cover both Zanetor and Xoese.

Both the wind drill and the wind sphere dissipated and Zanetor was immediately knocked unconscious.

However, Xoese wasted not even a second as she swiftly motioned her right palm into a deadly jab.

Her hand impaled his chest and then pulled out a small blue metallic sphere. Blood dripped down her hand as she pushed Zanetor's motionless body away.

"It's sad", she said in a barely audible tone. "It's sad how pain never ends."

Water droplets began to fall from the sky, raising the gloomy nature of the horrid scene. Soon, the rain began to fall in an endless cacophony.

Edem stood up, "Tch, things don't look good."

"Tell me about it", Kekeli walked back, petting Jackie in an attempt to calm it down.

Standing in the midst of the rain was an entity

This entity was devoid of any form of sympathy

Lying down with no signs of life was a dark smudge

A smudge in the face of the Spirit realm, a realm of merciless rules

The rain fell and it fell as if the entire realm was weeping, something that was nothing far from normal.

A never ending melancholy

…

..

.