His eyes had changed as well. They were back to their normal hazel color, except they now had a glowing crimson outline. There was no question about it. He had evolved just now.

'So that's why he disappeared all of a sudden.'

It made sense for him to want to test out the limits of his abilities now that he had evolved and tried new things to see if he had gained any new abilities.

There was no doubt that I was in big trouble now, since the gap in our strengths had hugely widened just now. However, I couldn't properly focus on the battle that was going to happen, since my mind was being flooded with memories that were more relevant now than ever.

'The man just wanted to play god, and he got what he wanted. Now we are powerless and deemed to suffer. That is the reality of this world,' Amelia's words appeared in my mind as I gazed at the great statue carved into the wall. 'This is the reality of the ruins? A god?'

I looked around at the other statues depicting the life of the creator. 'The journey to godhood is riddled with misfortune and suffering. All for him to create a place like this? Why?'

I looked below me at the statue of the night and remembered a couple more words of Amelia's, 'The Creator is a cruel man.'

Then my eyes darted as Adam made a sudden movement and was standing on the hilt of the knight's sword not long after.

His unimpressed gaze was directed straight at me as he squatted down with the intention of launching himself at me to engage in round two.

"Wait!" I yelled, hurriedly unsummoning my weapon and raising my hands, my palms facing Adam.

Fortunately, Adam listened and returned to a regular standing position. "Huh, what?"

I gulped before opening my mouth. "You evolved, right? You won't have trouble dealing with me swiftly if we continue fighting, so just listen to me for a minute before making up your mind. I just realized something."

"Okay, talk then," Adam said, unsummoning his weapon and raising his hands as a sign of peace. "I'm listening... for now."

I breathed a sigh of relief. To be honest, I had trouble getting a read on him. The feeling he gave off had also changed since his evolution. Before, he had acted much like I had acted towards him when we met in the preparation room after the second ruin, but now he seemed more serious and sinister. Maybe he had tried acting differently to get more confidence and now had all the confidence he needed from his evolution and obviously superior strength, so he didn't feel a need to act like that anymore and thought killing me and making it out was just a matter of time.

"Did you happen to face a ruin where you were to survive three nights in a forest where undead hunted you?" I asked with a serious tone.

"No," Adam responded straight-forwardly, furrowing his brows a little.

'Damn.'

I'd had hope that he would've maybe experienced the same ruin that I did at a later date, but since he hadn't, succeeding in convincing him about my theory became much less likely.

"Well, I did. And there was a person in that place who told me some interesting things," I said and raised a finger. "The one who created this place is a mortal. An inhabitant of the world we are in now. The one who told me this is the daughter of the one who helped in the creation against his will."

Adam scratched his head. "So what?"

"Look around you. These statues are all depictions of the creator. You can feel all the negativity, right?" I spread my arms out before changing my tone into one that had a bit of urgency and pressure in it. "You think someone like that would create such a straight-forward ruin as the last. Surely, he has some kind of sadistic trap under this ruin. Come on, think about it. Did the rules of this ruin ever say we were meant to fight each other? According to what I remember, it just told us to make sure we were in the square in 25 minutes."

Adam's expression dropped, and his gaze started exuding disappointment. "That's your way of convincing me not to kill you? To make up some bullshit like that? Come on. I had a lot more faith in your intelligence since you managed to come this far, but this is just... ugh."

"No, just think about it!"

"No, you think a little first." Adam said straight after my desperate yell, like he had known beforehand where the conversation would go. "You may actually be right, but is there any actual reason for me to trust your intuition and risk my life instead of just murdering you and surviving in any case?"

'Ah, that's right. I'm dead, aren't I?'

"Just what kind of idiot have you become to believe something like that would work?" Adam asked, shaking his head. "Actually, what happened to the other Akir? Did that side of you just fall off somewhere, leaving only a husk like you behind? I mean, you're still good at combat, but it doesn't feel like your heart is in it. Or are you just pretending to have me drop my guard? Now that would be something. But that's not the case, is it? You've just lost your edge and are desperately trying to hang on to your life by relying on my good faith. What a fall from grace."

"You may be right... but I never fell anywhere. I've always crawled in mud my whole life. And you're the same, are you not?"

"Yeah, maybe I am. However, I was a kind person once. I don't think you've ever been one."

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"That's right."

"Don't worry, you didn't miss out on anything except more suffering. Being a kind person is like working overtime for free. You get shit dumped on you daily, so trying to add to your pile by taking from another's is just masochism that's framed in fake gold. It's not actually worth anything, but some look at it and think it's something admirable."

"Is that why you changed? Because being kind is not worth it?"

"That and the fact that I'm honestly not a kind person. I just tried my best to be something I'm not, forcing myself to be optimistic and positive all the time. It just caused me pain, since it was not in my blood to be that way. My father was something of a monstrous creature, so I guess it's only natural for me to be one, too."

"Hmm, I see. I would like to try out being kind just once, though."

"Hah, you're talking like you have a chance to do so. Well, maybe if you just offered up your life, you would be doing something nice."

"No, I won't do that."

"Then you'll never do anything kind in your life."

My jaw tightened as I firmed my gaze and summoned my dagger. "Is that so?"

Adam did the same and prepared to jump as he said, "That's right."

Then he launched himself at me. However, this time I didn't try throwing my dagger at him. I knew it wouldn't do much, and I had something better in mind.

Upon his landing, Adam started to immediately attack me with an aggressive barrage, but I managed to weather the storm due to being able to somewhat read his movements to make up for the gap in speed.

The problem was that he no longer had any openings. His senses were too fast for me to catch him by surprise, and his strength was too overwhelming for me to pressure him. It really seemed to be hopeless.

I received cuts everywhere, even though I did my best to simply defend without doing much counterstriking. Adam noticed this after a while and started to get even more aggressive with his fighting.

The adjustment was only natural, as he knew full well he could rely on his superiority in speed and strength to defend against any attacks.

The barrage of attacks got more and more intense as time went by, and I was getting sliced all over just so that I could survive the more fatal hits. I was slowly but surely being reduced into a torn-up corpse, and we both knew it.

I had been circulating around the knight's helmet at first but had to expand to other places like the shoulders and arms once my situation got worse, but Adam had figured it all out and had cut off any exit when I was on the statue's shoulder with my back facing open space.

I was a rat trapped in a corner.

Adam then rushed at me, knowing I could go nowhere but down in order to get away. He had forgotten two things, though.

He had evolved just now, so I likely wasn't far behind, and my regeneration made unfavorable exchanges suddenly favorable.

At that moment, I decided to make a gamble with my life and darted forward instead of escaping. Adam hadn't suspected it but was quick to react, going straight for my throat. I mentally prepared myself for hellish pain and lowered my head, chomping down on Adam's blade.

Putting the enemy's weapon there surely didn't seem very logical, but in this situation, it was somehow an attractive choice.

I grabbed his hand, which was holding the blade, but he could surely have ripped it out if he was using his full strength. However, he couldn't do that, as I was stabbing wildly at Adam, who was very cautious of taking damage, which led to him focusing on dodging rather than removing his blade from my mouth.

He didn't keep dodging forever, though, and quickly kicked me in the stomach after having dodged a couple strikes. I let go of his hand at that instant, finding a better use for it in my mind. I then smiled as I felt the impact on my stomach and grabbed the foot tightly with my right hand as it landed, having expected the kick.

With a quick motion of my left hand, I sunk my dagger into his thigh and kept stabbing at it repeatedly like a madman while he was finally ripping his blade free from my mouth, destroying some of my teeth, carving through my gums, and slicing my upper lip in the process.

He tried pulling his leg back, but I held onto it with all I had and managed to keep it in my grasp since he was in an unfavorable position. Right after unsuccessfully trying to pull his leg away, he stabbed at my skull, but I managed to move my head back so that he only managed to slice my eyes.

As I lost my sight, I felt a chill run down my spine and frantically stabbed at his leg as many times as I thought I had time for before pushing myself off of him and falling off the statue.

It was truly a gamble for my life. My sense of sight was gone, my teeth were aching like crazy, and my gums were bleeding profusely. I felt cold as I fell, with no real sense of what I should do.

'Please, just this once, let luck be on my side.'

Then I felt it.

The feeling of strength in my body increased exponentially, and the pain I felt became much greater before being mostly replaced by a tingling sensation around my wounds.

Suddenly, my fear was wiped away, and even as the blood from my eyes and mouth were leaking all over, mixing into a disgusting amalgamation, I could do nothing but curve the ends of my lips upwards.

I had won the gamble.