. . .

  Cat and Radu stared at the scene directly. Cat was able to keep track of them. Pure light work for him. Radu kept on gasping from time to time whenever he would see Ares get hit.

  “Do you think he can win that?” Radu asked quietly.

  “He has to. He's your only hope.” Cat replied with a serious tone.

  “And, if he fails?”

  Cat slowly looks over to the red zone.

  “If he fails, then you have to pray that my creation will suffice. If plan ‘B’ doesn't work out, I'll have to handle her myself.”

  “Then why don't you do that now?! Ares is going to die-”

  Cat suddenly snaps at Radu, turning at him before shouting.

  “Because I will destroy everything! This whole world will be gone! Including you!” Cat paws his left paw on his chest. “I promised myself to never use my machines this way! Do you think I'm not capable?!”

  Radu looked up at Cat, his eyes losing any sort of glow he previously had. Hugging his knees tightly, he hid the bottom half of his face in them before beginning to tear up softly.

  “I'm… sorry…” Radu replied.

  Cat was taken aback by his reaction. He instantly started rubbing his forehead, closing his eyes.

  He looked at Radu, seeing right through his mind. A swarm of feelings he hasn't felt in a long time avalanched all over him.

  “Listen… Ares has currently awakened his soul element. I've worked with soul elementalists before. Ares is not… entirely elementalist…” Cat said as he looked away in shame.

  Radu suddenly stops sobbing.

  “You mean… he's a…”

  “Yes, Ares is half human…”

  Radu covers his face with his hands.

  “No, no, no, no, no, no…”

  “You got to live with it. I know elementalists hate humans, but they are not the cause of your suffering. They did not enslave you in this alternate world.”

  “As if anyone would want to live in that place called ‘Earth’.”

  Cat sighed deeply.

  “Is… is he a human too?”

  “I'm afraid to say… but yes, your dear captive friend is a human as well. He is… a full blooded human, not even half elementalist.”

  Radu began chuckling, slowly feeling his mind go numb, his eyes remaining open wide.

  “Ha, ha, ha… haha… I've been sympathizing with a monster, no, two monsters until now…”

  “Radu, get yourself together! They're your friends! Didn't they help you in your worst moments?! Why are you so prickly about all of this race thing?!”

  Radu took a deep breath then sighed slowly.

  “I'm done.” Radu said before standing up.

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  “You're… done? What is that supposed to mean?” Cat said while looking at him confused.

  Radu looked at him with a dead, emotionless expression, his body completely battered.

  “Kiddo…!” Cat said while looking at him with widened eyes.

  . . .

  Ares threw a specifically slower right punch at her. Iulia fell for the trap and caught his fist before smiling at him. Ares quickly punched her in the guts with his left fist twice before delivering a third blow into her right cheek, making her let go of his fist.

  “ON YOUR FEET!” Ares shouted before tackling her off the platform, wrapping himself around her.

  He began punching her face as they descended. Iulia caught his hand.

  “What are you, crazy?!” Iulia scowled in confusion.

  Ares nastily spat right between her eyes, catching her off guard for a fourth time in a row. She quickly let go of his hand to rub her eyes.

  “What the fu-”

  But she didn't get to finish her sentence as Ares jumped off of her and released a storm of spears, all falling down into her.

  “This, is your judgement. Mother.” Ares said in his mind.

  Iulia rubber her forehead clean. Upon noticing the army of spears traveling towards her she channeled a sword out of disintegration energy in her right hand and began splitting the spears in half, making them avoid her. Due to her lack of swordsmanship, after deflecting 30 spears the rest began piling up into her, penetrating her body everywhere the eye could see.

  “And with this… we end.” Ares said to himself before snapping his fingers.

  . . .

  Silence.

  The spears didn't go off.

  Iulia reached out from the stack of spears and plucked one out of her body. She turned it around in order to point towards Ares then threw it. Ares quickly deflected it with another fire spear.

  “What's going on?” Ares said in his mind.

  “Disintegration. Storm.” Iulia said with a loud echoing voice.

  A large explosion of crimson energy bursted out of her, accompanied by a deafening malicious shriek of doom, launching bits of his spears in every direction. Ares braced himself with his arms as the shrapnel hit him. The entire zone was filled up with even more hell energy, making it more visible now. Iulia created a path of disintegration energy to step on as she walked towards him.

  “I did not expect you to do that. Make me use the storm, I mean.” She said before placing her left hand on her hips. “I'm not impressed, but I wanted to keep this surprise for your brother. The seals I chained him up in should only drain him of his energy. He will be the perfect torture dummy after I'm done with you.” Iulia said with a serious expression.

  Ares stared down at her, his mouth slowly getting agape, his body more and more limp. Iulia, confused, raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Hm? Did my energy have that much of an effect on you~? Come on, sweet love~.”

  But Ares was desperately trying to clutch onto reality. His mind, filled once more with an abnormal amount of hell energy, began to hallucinate. The entire landscape began to glitch before his very eyes.

  “What… am I… doing…?” Ares said in his mind.

  He slowly blinked as he looked to the right, seeing Cat and Radu. Static could be heard louder and louder as he lost control.

  “What… am I…?”

  His vision faded into white.

  “I remember…”

  He closed his eyes and then opened them again. He was at home, his past home. A packet of cigarettes in his left hand, going over to the living room. He took one cigarette from the pack and handed it to a black glitch-faced adult.

  “Couldn’t have you come any slower?” The man said with a glitchy tone. “Let me see your hand.”

  Ares, trembling, showed him his right palm.

  “No. The other one.”

  Ares gasped quietly. He passed the box of cigarettes into his other hand slowly.

  “Faster.” the man obliged.

  Quickly, Ares showed him his left palm, which was already stricken with red marks in its middle. The man put out a flaming cigarette in his palm, rubbing it as it fizzled, making sure it leaves the mark.

  “Hm. That should do the job. Now go.”

  Ares stared at his palm and the accentuated mark that the cigarette left. All he could do was keep every squirm inside his body.

  “D-dad…” he said in a hush before pausing for a second.

  “Say.”

  Ares looked away, scared.

  “What am I…?”

  “You're worthless. You're just a kid.”

  Ares took a look once more at his palm before staring to the ground.

  “Of course… of course I'm just a kid. Of course. All kids are worthless, and I'm no other. My age, my serenity, my innocent looks. They all weaken me. They all made me what I am today.” Ares said in his mind.

  Iulia stared at him, her confusion never ending.

  “Hm, maybe he is lost. Whatever.” She said to herself before leaping off of her platform. “After all, he is just-

  “After all, I am just-

  . . .

  -useless.”

  . . .

  Iulia kicked Ares into another platform with great strength, knocking him out of his elementalist coat upon forcing collision. Ares spat blood and choked before falling down to another platform. Desperate and trembling, he tried standing up. His mouth covered in his own blood, his eyes bloodshot from rage and his head leaking even more of his raw red essence. His body was moving on its own. He hasn't been conscious for a while. He didn't even know what he was doing. His instincts had no idea what he was fighting for. And so, his systems gave up, making him collapse on the spot, his corpse still twitching as his body tried to wake him up. A humane instinct. Worthless, as his own life.