I'll have more time to write starting tomorrow afternoon. I'll try to finish this arc by Saturday.

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Serph and Kongming returned to the house. Akiza was not there. The only thing there was an unconscious man in armor.

"What happened?" asked Serph.

"Only he knows," said Kongming pointing at the armored man.

The two waited for him to recover. It took a while before he finally woke up.

"How?" Akira said to himself. "I died a long time ago and I should be dead again." He looked around and saw Serph and Kongming.

"I couldn't stop her," said Akira.

"Who are you?" asked Serph.

"My name is Hassan-i-Sabbah, but you know me as the previous Hero, Akira," said Akira.

"That means that Akiza is the current Hero," said Kongming.

"Yes," said Akira. "But when she absorbed the Yin-Yang Rose, something inside of her changed. I could only stop the transformation of the Hero's Flower."

"But the fact that you are not dead means that Akiza is resisting," said Kongming.

"What?" said Akira.

"You are currently a Spirit and not dead, if Akiza is as strong as you say she is, that means that she could have killed you, but for some reason she did not," said Kongming.

"Can we help her?' asked Serph.

"No," said Kongming. "This is something that she must deal with herself."

"It's my fault," said Akira. "Had I told her the truth and taught her better, this would not have happened. She had a teacher, but not a parent. I was a soldier and only knew how to get stronger and teach others to become strong. When faced with weakness, I was taught to overcome it."

"What happened to Akiza anyways?" asked Serph.

"I'm not sure," said Akira. "She possessed Dark Energy equal to that of a Demon, yet she was not entirely a Demon. Even though there was Dark Energy in here, she still possessed an immense amount of Internal Energy rather than being completely filled with Dark Energy."

"If worse comes to worse, we will have to kill her," said Kongming.

"Then I must ask you Master, please save her!" said Serph bowing to Kongming.

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"I'm afraid that the only thing that can save her is Divine Energy," said Kongming.

"I know, that's why I gave her all that I had," said Akira.

Meanwhile, Akiza's body was taken over by the older woman in purple. Akiza was sealed inside the tree in her Dantian.

"Why are you doing this?" asked Akiza.

"I'm going to give you everything you ever wanted," said the woman. "I'm going to give you power, I'm going to give you Serph, I'm going to kill Haman, and then you will be able to enjoy everything without ever having to worry."

The woman hugged Akiza. It was warm.

"But this not how I want to do things, this is not me!" shouted Akiza.

"Continue to resist," said the woman. "It only makes me stronger," she said. "Give me enough strength and I will give you everything you ever wanted."

Kongming, Serph, and Akira had followed the source of Dark Energy. Akiza was the only thing with Dark Energy in the Immortal Realm. Akiza had left behind a terrible trail of destruction. There were the corpses of numerous monsters. All of them had their Cores ripped out and were devoid of any Internal Energy.

"How is this this possible?" asked Serph.

"She is feeding on these creatures to become stronger," said Kongming. "Some part of her desires to be much stronger."

"If only we knew what she was after, then we could find her," said Serph.

"That's easy, she's after you," said Akira pointing at Serph.

"Me?!?" said Serph with shock.

"She said she wanted four things," said Akira. "Power, revenge, pleasure, and you. She is already getting power from the creatures here. Pleasure and revenge are not possible right now because there isn't any fancy food around here and Haman isn't here for her to kill. That leaves you."

In the distance, they felt a surge of power. Akiza had ascended into the Lord Stage. With the combination of Dark Energy and reaching the Lord Stage, she now certainly had the power equal to rival a Demon Lord if she did not before.