Panicking, Acton allowed his domain and his mana to expand outward. Grabbing thousands of drifting globules, along with several colossal chunks of dirt and rock from his surroundings, he forced them into the maelstrom of mud. If his mana wasn’t enough, he’d have to supplement it with mundane matter from outside!

The walls of sludge rose even higher than before, spinning with renewed fury. More constructs formed, piling toward his opponent one after the other.

But it was futile!

This… creature… it grew faster and stronger with each passing second. Acton couldn’t see him clearly through the swamp, but he could feel him through Mana Sense, and through the shifts in his domain.

‘Is he really an Orange-born?!’

It was unbelievable! The mana surrounding that person was merely Yellow – of that, there was no doubt. Yet, there was so much of it! It trailed behind him as if he were a comet, smashing into the mud with the force of a meteor, dancing between Acton’s constructs with the grace of a snake.

And the way he commanded his mana and body was unlike anything Acton had ever seen. Every drop of mana in that person’s channels seemed to respond to his will, moving alongside his muscles as he shot through the battlefield. Ambient mana kept rushing toward him, constantly fuelling his every action, allowing him to even compete with a Blue!

‘Just… how did it come to this?’

Acton was happy with how his trip to the Valley had gone. He was still some time away from Violet, but he knew he’d get there. It shouldn’t be long before his crow reached Green either – it couldn’t be, since it had been stuck at Yellow for ages. Once Acton emerged out of the training holy land, he would finally have the strength to carve a name for himself inside the Order!

So why… just why did this have to happen?!

Where had this monster come from?!

At the beginning, Acton had actually enjoyed the fight. It was his first time getting pushed to this extent. He’d progressed more today than after countless years of killing those useless Green beasts. So, where exactly had it all gone wrong?!

A violent impact shook the entire swamp, breaking him out of his thoughts. It was followed by a second. And a third. That man continuously slammed into the mud with tremendous power as he jumped from one surface to another. Sometimes, he stepped on the flat stretch of sludge near the centre of the maelstrom. Other times, he leapt onto the vertical walls swirling around them at ridiculous speeds.

‘Is he a person, or a frog?!’

Most curiously, wisps of burning mana splintered away with every leap, shooting at random directions. They formed dancing figures no different from the Orange-born, messing with Acton’s senses. Identifying the real one was never particularly hard, but it was irritating. That man kept producing more illusions, constantly disappearing into the growing crowd.

‘What a bizarre spell…’ Acton couldn’t help but think.

The booming explosions resembled fireworks. And… those orbs orbiting the armoured figure… at first, Acton hadn’t heard anything coming from them, but their shrill cries had made their way to his ears at some point. He couldn’t tell what exactly they were doing though. Were they crying? Or laughing?

He couldn’t tell.

‘Ah, what am I even thinking?!’

He shook his head. This wasn’t the time to marvel at his opponent’s magic. He might actually die if this continued. Those burning scythes kept flying closer and closer to Acton, gnawing at his domain with each savage slash as their numbers continued to grow.

Out of options, he split the swamp in two, overturning the top half over the man’s head. The bottom half, he dragged with him, shooting away toward the nearest boundary of the Valley.

‘That ought to buy me some time…’ he thought.

Well, he was wrong.

Glancing behind him with Mana Sense, Acton saw the man leap off the top of the maelstrom just in time to roll over the tumbling wall of mud, already hot on his trail. Dozens of weapons spun through the sludge too, completely unfazed by the cataclysmic spell.

Gritting his teeth, Acton released more mana, soon recovering a fraction of the discarded mud. The expanding blob continued to roll away, carrying him toward salvation. It wasn’t until a few seconds later that he realized he wouldn’t make it. The man’s scythes had already reached him again, digging through his defences once more. They’d last for a while, but not nearly long enough for him to escape. Pushed to a corner, Acton switched to diplomacy.

“Okay, you got me! How about this? I’ll get you a pardon for killing my guards! I’ll even give you a couple decades’ worth of elixirs too, as your reward for helping me improve! That has to be enough, right? Just let me go!”

No response.

Acton didn’t miss the man’s mana flaring violently though, his gaze growing colder. For some reason, his plea had clearly had the exact opposite of the intended effect...

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“Come on, you can’t be serious about killing me, can you?! I’m a Green-born

! I could become a god one day! Remior’s shield against the monsters outside!”

The man closed in on him, countless ghostly figures dancing by his side. At first, they resembled the armoured person himself, but their appearance changed upon hearing Acton’s words.

Some grew taller, others short. Male and female, slim and burly. There was a crying woman… a toddler no older than five or six, with a head of curly hair… a bald man with an eyepatch covering his left eye… a petite woman with a bulge in her belly…

Their faces seemed familiar, but Acton couldn’t quite place them.

“The people of Goldenfield town…” the Orange-born hissed, his voice hoarse and dripping with venom. “…are you going to protect them too?!”

Acton’s eyes widened as he finally put two and two together. But how was this possible? Was this man even human? Or was he the devil himself, sent from the pits of hell to drag him back with him?!

The figures danced closer to Acton. He shot one construct after another at them – spears, snakes, clawed hands, even random splashes of mud… They all passed through them, not as much as scratching them. Only when he infused part of his domain into the attacks did he pierce through the spectres, but that didn’t seem to affect them at all. The figures continued to approach, their wounds closing almost immediately.

“Just… keep those creepy things away from me! I’ll do anything if you let me go! You can have your bird back… Please!”

More figures appeared. Many he recognized, but others he didn’t. They weren’t all humans either… There was a girl without pupils, her wavy hair reaching her shoulders. There was a boy with a mane like a lion’s, a couple whiskers adorning his upper lip, wearing a fancy uniform… A humanoid creature with transparent skin, whose organs Acton could see pulsing beneath... A boy with fangs jutting out of his mouth, wearing a pair of wooden sandals… Some kind of creature with webbed digits and gills on his neck… There was a naked dude too for some reason, his body covered in dense fur from head to toe.

They all wielded the same scythes as their master. Anywhere from two to six of them, their shafts rolling and pivoting elegantly along their limbs as their curved blades drew burning arcs through the air. The figures themselves were hollow – mere illusions – but the weapons were real. Acton could tell, having suffered greatly at their edges already.

Was it the figures who clung to the weapons, following their movements? Or was it the weapons responding to the ghosts’ wills?

Acton didn’t know. He wasn’t sure his opponent did either. But it didn’t matter.

Eventually, his core ran dry, the blob of sludge around him slowly whittled down to nothing. With his mana gone, he crawled backwards along the dirt, staring at the army of dancing figures with horror. Retracting his domain as much as possible, he forced it to condense into a thin layer above his skin – a final shell to protect him from the demons.

Uncaring about his defences, the spectres flew at him one after the other. Their weapons shattered into shrapnel and sparks as they collided with his domain, each violent impact sending his very will into turmoil. The losses didn’t seem to deter the ghosts in the slightest. They simply forged more scythes to keep going, each slash leaving a tiny dent into his makeshift armour.

By now, they were close enough for Acton to examine them more closely. Their eyes were cold, yet they still burned with hatred, somehow. He even pieced together the meaning behind their shrieks. They were mourning their deaths – the lives he had taken from them. And they were also celebrating… the vengeance they were about to serve!

‘No! Not like this!’

Unwilling to go down, Acton pushed what little mana he’d managed to recover into the ground. It wasn’t much, but it could certainly kill the bastard if he got a good shot at him.

Not letting his expression betray his plan, he continued to crawl away as the man calmly followed, waiting for him to step over the trap. It was humiliating, running away from an Orange-born. A bottom feeder.

But he’d do what he had to, to survive. Nobody would know anyway. It would just be a lesson for Acton to remember – to mind who he provoked in the future. To not underestimate the low-borns… the crazy bloodlines they might have…

As soon as the man set foot over his mana, Acton forced it to jut upward in the form of a spear, focusing on speed and piercing power above all else.

The armoured figure sidestepped the attack effortlessly, however, having somehow seen through it. Shooting forth, he landed over a dozen slashes on Acton’s domain in an instant, the ethereal blades managing to slice through the armour this time. The wounds themselves were shallow – barely sinking half an inch into his body. They didn’t draw any blood either.

But the pain was immeasurable.

Having never experienced anything of the sort, Acton folded over, puking out yesterday’s dinner as he stared at the figure looming over him through a screen of tears and snot. As a last resort, he focused what remained of his domain into a single point, shooting a powerful blast at his opponent from up close.

The man barely raised his scythes in time, both of their shafts shattering as his chest plate caved in. His feet dug deep trenches into the ground as he slid back for dozens of metres, a trickle of blood snaking down his helmet as he came to a halt.

But he didn’t collapse, his monstrous eyes still glowing under the shadow of his visor, stabbing right through Acton’s soul. They looked just like they had that day, all those years ago…

The spectres rushed Acton once more, and he was completely defenceless this time.

One… two… five… ten…

The cuts didn’t even hurt at this point, darkness seeping into his vision, his body already collapsing. Among the dancing crowd, a strange figure caught Acton’s attention for some reason that he couldn’t quite explain.

He wasn’t one of the peasants he had killed. He wasn’t even human. Just another of the strange monsters. But he felt a little different from the rest. It was a young boy, with two pairs of arms. A long beak in place of a mouth or nose, and a few tribal tattoos visible on his exposed skin. Acton had no idea who this person was, but his gaze felt familiar. It burned with cold hatred, even greater than his master’s.

The last thing Acton felt was the cold ground pressing against his face, his consciousness fading.

An azure sky flashed through his memories, the sun shining brightly over his head. He was standing atop the tallest peak of that mountain, marvelling at the sea of clouds below. This place… it was where the chosen ones walked. The pride and hope of Remior… Acton… he just… All he’d ever wanted had been to stand tall here. To be respected by his peers. To be the centre of their attention – the object of their envy…

Was it such a huge crime?

What did these peasants even know?! With their worthless lives, clawing for centuries to reach Blue or White, just to lead one of those pathetic Houses of theirs. As if it was some grand achievement – for an ant to lead other ants. Who did they think they were, judging the likes of him?!

But then…

He couldn’t help but think back to the monstrous opponent who had reduced him to this pitiful state. The elegant dance that had shredded his spells and ground his domain to dust. The army of spectres that had unleashed their unholy vengeance upon him, dragging him back to hell with them.

Acton’s final thought was a sobering one.

‘That place… maybe you belong there too…’