"Magistrate Jenkins!" A woman slammed open his door to the point it fell off the hinges. "The south gate commander sent me to tell you we have a breach and need help!"

"A breach?!" A lychnus man jolted out of bed with only underwear on and stood before the scout. Not caring about the girl's shyness, he continued. "Is it the space creature we have been hearing about?"

"No, sir. It's a kid at the gates."

"You're waking me up so early in the morning just to tell me that you cannot handle a mere kid at the gates‽" He blurted out his displeasure.

"Sir, he has already killed our men at the south gate and is currently fighting the commander. It's dangerous to the point our commander could not control him even with several men besieging him!"

"Even with several men working together they couldn't even injure him?" Magistrate Jenkins nodded and quickly sobered up, "I'll handle this. Rest assured, I am confident there's no one stronger in my city. Relay the message to central that we had a breach and need more men sent to defend our borders!" He gave his order and ran to the south gate.

Magistrate Jenkins quickly found the team beaten black and blue. With just a few moments of observing their bodies, he was shocked.

'This amount of precision… it shouldn't even be possible for experts, much less for a teenage kid.' Feeling restless, he followed a set of bloodied footprints until he saw the black-haired kid walking up the street.

"You! Stop where you are!" He shouted with a firm and authoritative voice that caused the adults and soldiers around him to flinch and jump, yet the boy continued walking. Strangely, he felt anxious when he saw the boy.

"Are you deaf‽ I told you to stop moving!" Magistrate Jenkins' chest heaved up in down from anger and disrespect he felt. The kid looked him in the eyes with cold hatred and broke into a sprint.

The man sighed, 'This kid fought and killed our men? He even looks down on me but is now running away? Did I overthink this?' Whatever the reason, Magistrate Jenkens felt off about the kid, but he still needed to take action. He caught up to the kid, and with one swift action, he swung his heel at the boy's feet.

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As if Soma had eyes on the back on his head, he jumped and sped up, causing Magistrate Jenkins' foot to plow into the ground. 'He actually saw my attack and dodged it despite how fast I was?' His movements should have been nothing but a blur to the Soma, yet he still managed to evade without even turning around. Sweat covered his back and his hairs stood on end as he realized how powerful Soma would be in the future.

Gritting his teeth, Magistrate Jenkins was even more resolved to stop Soma, whatever the cost. Under the support of the light law, he flashed toward Soma and set his body ablaze. As a pillar of fire swirled endlessly around him, he used his fingernails as ten sharp daggers to mercilessly slash Soma.

"Enough!"

Soma's body was no longer able to keep up with a man of his level. When the nails were about to pierce into his skin, he violently shook and shouted. Rampant energy swept across Magistrate Jenkins, causing his face to go pale. With the aid of space energy, Soma swiped his hand through the man, and he cried aloud.

"My hands!!" Magistrate Jenkins fell to the ground and stared at them. "You brat," he spat out in fear and anger, "what did you do‽" He tried to move his fingers and wrists, but they would not respond; he couldn't feel his hands! Even when he tried to force energy into his fingertips, he only felt more pain.

When he looked up at Soma again, he only felt intense fear. All anger washed away and was replaced with the desire to hide and run away. Soma gazed into his eyes like he was deciding the man's fate. With one hand brimming full of energy, his life was literally in Soma's hand. He wanted to run, but he couldn't even move his body as if he shackled, waiting to be judged by the messenger of death.

Blood dripped down the side of Soma's lip as he coughed up blood. The man looked down and pretended not to have seen anything. Every second of silence killed him as he painfully waited. What was only a moment, seemed to last Magistrate Jenkins' whole life. Soma wiped away the blood from his mouth and ran away. Only after the kid was out of sight and hearing did he dare to breathe and flee.

Within the soul realm...

Rey moved the energy away from his heart, causing it to slow and spasm. He felt like he was going to have a heart attack; he needed the energy to nourish is soul, but he also needed the parasitic mesh around his heart to wither away. It was a test to what would give out first, his soul or the parasite. As his heart thumped less and less, the mesh retracted and lost its luster. Just when he felt too weary to continue, the mesh stopped contracting. He quickly pierced his hands into his chest and pulled it out. The energy withdrew back into his heart and helped him recover.

'Done… Am I so used to risking my life just to stop Soma?' He felt wrong and empty, always fixing another person's problems with little disregard for his own life. Soma was taking away even his life. 'Now's my chance for revenge.' Rey seethed and called upon the symbols. Hearing their faint, melodic tune, the symbols melded into his heart once more.

Perhaps it was the pressure of saving Riza, or maybe the boons from learning redwater form, or even Rey's hatred of Soma becoming clear to him, but his willpower easily broke through the barrier and changed again. He reached out toward the bars that imprisoned him and the force was still too strong for him to bear.

'It's still not enough…' Rey sat back down with hopelessness and called for the next wave of symbols to meld with. Thousands of symbols appeared all at once this time. Rey's desperate and final attempt to regain control came to fruition as they circled and filled his mind, making him howl aloud. He knew he couldn't control that many symbols on his own; he might truly lose his mind… but as long as Riza was safe, that was enough.