Atop a tree, some one hundred meters away from the location Luke and Nikolai's battle was about to take place, stood two figures.
The slenderer of the two people spoke.
"Your Majesty… Are you sure about this?"
Anastasia decided to voice her concerns about this plan, even though it would probably fall on deaf ears.
The other figure, Ellios, slowly shook his head with slight disappointment.
"I told you, drop it with the 'Your Majesty' stuff when we're alone or with Luke…"
Anastasia clicked her tongue.
"You could've at least pretended to answer my question."
Ellios chuckled.
"And where's the fun in that?"
Anastasia stifled out a sigh as her head dropped.
"Haa… It's always like this with you…"
When an average citizen of the Empire heard the name Ellios, they would instantly be reminded of the bold, powerful man, who still stood tall as a pillar of the Empire even with his old age.
He was well-known even outside the Empire, due to the plethora of stories surrounding him.
The man instilled fear and authority wherever he was, with his presence alone.
And yet, people who knew him privately knew that there was more to this old man.
Ellios was the epitome of the word 'childish'.
More often than not, his motivation for doing something was simply 'fun'.
Anastasia, even though she had been at Ellios' side for years now, couldn't quite figure out his intentions towards Luke.
She had a rough idea of what Ellios' intention for this upcoming fight was though, since she had heard him talking about the second stage of soul cleansing.
A thin veil appeared around Luke, dispelling Anastasia's thoughts in an instant.
Both she and Ellios shifted their focus on the unfolding battle in front of them.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Luke was barely able to keep his head up as Nikolai approached him.
Several bones in his body were broken, but that wasn't the only reason he couldn't move.
He felt as if he was a puppet whose strings were cut, almost like his brain couldn't order the rest of his body to move as he willed.
Nikolai's smile deepened the closer he got to Luke.
'Goddamn it…'
Luke glared at Nikolai.
That was the only thing he was currently capable of doing to him.
A metasoma made out of pure ice started forming behind Nikolai.
It grew to the same size as before, but…
'?!'
It continued extending…
Three meters, four meters, and then finally, the metasoma stopped extending at the length of about five meters.
The metasoma coiled around Nikolai as he walked.
'He was holding back earlier?!'
Luke felt pitiful. He knew that he was subpar when it came to elemental power, but this person in front of him had been just toying with him the whole time.
Luke grit his teeth and his eyes began turning bloodshot.
He couldn't help but ask himself once again.
'Why would Ellios tell me to defeat this person when it's literally impossible?!'
And then Luke, consumed by fear and pain, came up with a theory.
'Wait… Could it be that Ellios had planned for this person to kill me from the very beginning?!'
The more Luke thought about it, the more it made sense to him.
His face twisted in disgust.
'Yes… He trapped me with pretty words and then led me far away from the city, where this guy was waiting for us. The dismembered heads of the three guards have got to be fake too… They're all in on it!'
He was betrayed once again.
Unable to handle his wild thoughts, Luke's eyes turned completely bloodshot… No, they started turning completely red.
He sat up and started getting up.
Nikolai's smile froze at the sight.
He was well aware of the state Luke's body was in after he had kicked him.
Luke stood back up, but saying that he looked fine wouldn't be even remotely correct.
One of his arms was dangling limply from the shoulder down, and almost all of the fingers on his other hand were broken.
His left leg looked relatively fine, but a bone was sticking out of the thigh on his right leg.
Saying that Luke looked like a zombie at this point would be correct, especially with his completely red eyes.
There was a strange aura rising up and surrounding Luke.
A translucent red light with a hint of silver enveloped Luke's body and his surroundings.
This wasn't something that could be seen with the naked eye, unlike the silver glow that surrounded Luke when he had used the mana amplification artifact.
But Nikolai could certainly feel it.
It was as if he was facing an undead lich overlord, or an army of undead soldiers numbering in the tens of thousands.
The stench of death was spreading.
Nikolai shook his head.
Aura or not, Luke was still the same half-broken weakling from before.
He just had to finish what he started, so he could prove himself.
Cold sweat formed on the back of Nikolai's neck.
His goal of talking with Ellios remained unchanged.
Luke stood still with his head hung low ever since he stood up, giving Nikolai a perfect chance to attack, even after his initial hesitation.
Nikolai moved his hands in a rhythm, prompting his metasoma to rise high above his head.
The metasoma was poised to strike; one swing of Nikolai's hands would be enough to end Luke's life.
And just as Nikolai was about to do so, Luke raised his head slightly.
Luke's deeply red eyes made eye contact with Nikolai, even though he was wearing a hood.
Just this single motion from Luke prompted Nikolai to stop moving his arms.
No, it wasn't that he was merely prompted to do so, he was forced to stop.
Nikolai was no longer smiling. His face was now filled with dread.
Luke's suffocating aura made it hard for him to breathe, no, to even exist in front of Luke.
The feeling his aura gave off wasn't one of strength but instead one of the inevitable end that all living things would eventually face.
Luke started slowly dragging his body towards Nikolai, with the latter being unable to move at all.
Nikolai felt like he was being strangled by an invisible hand.
A sharp wisp of wind, no longer than 2 centimeters, formed on top of Luke's only finger that was left intact, that being the ring finger of his left hand.
With one swift motion, Luke swung his hand at Nikolai horizontally.
The motion also made Nikolai's hood slide off of his head.
Nikolai's mouth went agape.
A streak of blood gushed out of the slit on Nikolai's neck, painting Luke's face completely red, the color of the scarlet red blood perfectly matching up with the color of Luke's eyes.
Even though Nikolai was rapidly losing blood, his body still refused to move.
The hand that he had felt strangling him earlier now softly caressed him.
Nikolai couldn't even notice the change.
The metasoma above his head fell apart into small shards of white ice in an instant.
Even though he was about to die, Nikolai felt oddly at peace with himself.
Nikolai fell backwards onto his back and lay in a puddle of his own blood.
He forgot about Ellios.
He forgot about his goals.
He forgot about his horrible past.
All he could think about was the warm sensation enveloping his entire being.
People have told him all his life that death would be cold, painful and cruel.
Yet, was there a single person that existed who could explain what he was currently feeling?
Nikolai's eyes wandered around until they met two deep red jewels in the sea of scarlet.
His irises expanded.
Nikolai smiled softly in realization and closed his eyes.
The zombie-like person looking down at him was the one who could give him the answers he wished for. But that would never happen.
For Nikolai's life was now forfeited to Luke.
A light blue orb that was at least three times the size of the mother Gleem's wind elemental silently floated out of Nikolai's chest.
But instead of absorbing it, Luke silently watched the orb disperse into its surroundings.
He then turned his maddened eyes in another direction.
Luke stared at a tree situated around one hundred meters away from where he was.
And soon enough, two figures were walking towards Luke.
One of the figures stopped walking when they were around twenty meters away from Luke.
The other figure continued walking until they were face-to-face with Luke.
That person was Ellios.
He smiled at Luke.
Luke glared at Ellios and started dragging his almost destroyed body towards him.
Luke also conjured a tiny wisp of wind, similar to the one he had used to end Nikolai's existence.
Ellios ignored such notions and simply extended a finger towards Luke, forcing him to stop.
Luke, of course, didn't stop out of respect for Ellios.
No, an external force was stopping him from moving altogether.
Luke could barely breathe under such pressure.
It felt as if hundred-ton weights were chained to each of Luke's limbs, and then also pressing down on top of him.
Ellios narrowed his eyes.
"So, this is the 'thing' that has been hiding inside your soul…"
He walked around Luke, studying him from various angles, and nodding to himself from time to time.
The aura around Luke was even thicker than before, but it seemed to have had no effect on Ellios at all.
"Hmm, just what in the world is this…"
And just as Ellios said that, the light in Luke's eyes dimmed.
Immediately after, his eyelids closed, and Luke fell unconscious, still standing up.
The aura surrounding him was gone.
Ellios scratched his chin.
"How peculiar…"
Ellios stopped pointing his finger at Luke, causing the force that had been holding him disappear.
Luke started falling towards the ground, but Anastasia managed to catch him just before he hit the ground.
"Hey! Do you want him to break even more bones?!"
Ellios shrugged.
"I didn't think that such a small fall would hurt him. Even in his current state."
Anastasia sighed at Ellios' carelessness.
"Haaah… We need to get him back to Naiccos. Even though he somehow managed to defeat Nikolai, your plan has failed."
Ellios chuckled.
"Did it though?"
Anastasia wore a surprised expression.
"Huh? What do you mean?"
But Ellios just ignored her question and examined Nikolai's corpse.
The only wound that was visible on Nikolai's body was his slit throat.
Having witnessed the fight, Ellios knew that such a simple attack wouldn't have worked under normal circumstances.
Of course, these weren't normal circumstances at all.
Nikolai seemed to have been unable to move for the last few minutes of the fight.
And once Ellios approached Luke earlier, he realized what had happened.
That thick aura around Luke had to be both the reason for Nikolai's defeat, and also the partial answer to Ellios' question of 'what was hiding inside Luke's soul'.
Of course, such an aura wasn't even close to being a threat to Ellios.
It was much too flimsy.
The death that he had seen and went through throughout his long life was incomparable to Luke's experiences.
Luke was still barely a little toddler when it came to the realm of death, at least when compared to Ellios.
On the other hand, that same aura of death was enough to subdue Nikolai completely.
It all came down to personal experience.
Ellios sighed and turned around towards Anastasia.
Understandingly nodding, Anastasia picked Luke up and put him over her shoulder, and then followed after Ellios as he started walking back towards the direction they originally came from.
Even though night had already fallen, that wouldn't stop them or bother them in any way as they made their way back to the city.