“Never in my existence have I suffered such a humiliation!”

As Rote channeled his strength and lifted up the sleeping right head of Cerberus to allow Rache to cut the vines off around, he inadvertently commented on how heavy the shriveled up head is despite its less than impressive size.

“Done.” Rache said before Rote dropped the head down and powered down the red glow around his body. Then, he moved on to cut off the vines tied to his body before further breaking down and pulling aside the roots of the vines from the gaps in his shells.

Some of the roots were so deep into his body that they extend out to a meter long and were drenched in the Cerberus' dark blood by the time they were all completely pulled out. The Cerberus did not make a single sound, though Rache could tell the shaking in its Wave as he continued working. And without it asking, Rache padded its head like a dog which only made the Cerberus even more irritated.

At last, the last vine around the beast’s tail was severed, and the beast was able to move again. However, it was too weak to even carry its own body weight around.

“I would have betrayed you two for such humiliation already! Yet even I, the great hell hound of Cerberus, couldn’t move my body anymore after decades of draining...What utter shame I have brought it upon myself!” The middle head wailed when Rote squatted down in front of him and smirked.

“Don’t you worry.” Rote said, “Rache is kinder than I am, so you will be fine within him.”

“So…what do we have to do?” Rache asked, “I get how you can just absorb his Wave for the first method, but how do you even make him a Manifest of mine?”

“You ask me to be yours, without knowing how it’s done?!” The middle head perked up, “Are you an idiot or something?”

“You are an idiot for not realizing that I didn’t know.” Rache shot back and silenced the middle head immediately, “I just did what Rote told me.”

“It’s easy.” Rote smiled before he jumped to right in front of Rache, and he stepped forward until their faces are nearly touching. With a finger pressed against Rache’s lips, he lightly pushed him back until he fell onto the head of the Cerberus.

Then, as their Waves came into contact with one another as the middle head lightly bit onto Rache’s head and its sharp fangs pierced through his skin, the red glow of the Cerberus started to slowly fade away while a surge of power entered Rache’s body through those brand new openings. Strangely so, it didn't hurt, and Rache only felt coolness from his skin as if someone pressed the tip of a fork against him.

Then, the Wave came flooding in and it felt as if someone was trying forcibly take control of his entire body and what little Wave he had in his body was trying to fight back. Rache clenched his fist tight as he fought against the pressure, but slowly and slowly, the pressure started to creep up more and more.

He felt his body collapse onto the ground as the body of the legendary beast vanished from behind him fully through the wounds.

“Fight it.” Rote’s voice from beside him sounded as if it was from a world away, and Rache found himself floating in the endless dark depths of the ocean as the true scale of the legendary beast towered before him, its three heads fully alert with flames, whirlpools, and a shockwave pressed between the teeth and all focused at Rache.

Then, all three mouths opened and fired at Rache as his body became bathed under all of that damage all at the same time.

“FIGHT IT!” Rote shouted as cracks suddenly started to form within the air pocket that both of them and the Cerberus were in. The cave formations and the network of vines that grew from the Ceberus’s Wave quickly started to wither away, destabilizing the structure as tiny rubbles started to rain down all around them. However, from Rote's perspective, Rache's still lying flat on the ground with his face paler than sand and sweats pouring out from his body.

He bit into his lips as a surge of emotion welled up within him, and he stepped over Rache’s body, leaned in, and pressed both hands around his face.

“Think about all that you have lost! Take control of your body!” Rote shouted, pressing into Rache’s chest as the pressure poked into his body like a sharp spear, "It's yours, and yours alone! It was a gift given to your parents, and you WILL NOT give it away!"

“Your body is mine now!” Cerberus stated, his voice dominating the space that Rache’s floating within as he prepared to completely eviscerate Rache’s soul and take over his soul. Rache felt his body slowly giving away in strength as the relentless pressure from the beast started to become too much to bear.

Then, he heard Rote’s voice.

Like a light in the dark, like a lighthouse in the ocean, like a star in the night, Rache reached out and latched onto that voice.

“You lost someone, didn’t you?”

Everybody lost someone that day.

“You want vengeance, don’t you? But on top of that, you also want power?”

I want both, but what if I am just not that guy. What if I am just not strong enough? What if this plan had been shit all along, and now the Cerberus is just going to take over my body?

“You want to be gathering pearls your whole life, or do you want to be strong enough to see the world?! The world that we will build together?!”

Rache’s eyes oped up wide, and he bit his teeth down and reached for Rote's voice. He grabbed onto it with everything he had, and he marched on. With his body covered in the same layer of Wave that he used to venture into the deepest parts of the ocean, he charged forward, bearing the full brunt of Cerberus’s attack and tanking it all to his face while staring at the beast straight in its eyes.

The burning pain around his body became dissipated away immediately, and he moved through the waters with a smile on his face. He need not to be motivated by only his grief and his anger. He can also be motivated by his desire to move forward, his desire to see a better tomorrow, and his desire to create that future by himself.

And that power is HIS. He will make it HIS.

“You are MINE!” Rache declared as the size of Cerberus started shrinking away relative to him, “Remember your place, beast!”

“You have passed the test, boy.” The beast’s voice returned, and its shadows faded away from the waters before Rache finally opened his eyes and returned to the real world with a gasp for air. His right eye was burning freshly with pain, and a mark of a claw with three fingers formed around his eye socket.

“Welcome to the world of Manifesters.” Rote’s voice came from above him, “Now, we share yet another thing in common.”

Rache blinked a few times, and his eyes widened as he saw Rote holding up a massive boulder over his back while standing right over him. Blood was dripping down the side of his face as the armor of Wave behind him was compressed to a thin sheet that started to dig into parts of his skin.

“The Cerberus?” Rote asked again as his face glowed brighter and eyes became redder with a cracking mark of Manifestation glowed upon his right eye. His mark of Manifestation was unique in such a way that it was only visible as a glowing symbol as he channeled his power, and it looked like a series of spiraling red cracks that extended out from his right eye as if a vulcano was about to break out from under his right eye.

“I shall consume you too!” Rache said with an extra-low voice and stuck his fingers out, and Rote looked like he was about to snap before Rache finally relented, “It’s me! It’s me! I have its power now! And…I feel sleepy…”

“Sleep after you are DEAD!” Rote said as a vein bulged upon his forehead, clearly not appreciating Rache’s joke, “The air bubble’s done, and…I can’t hold it much longer.”

“Seemed like you are rather useless without me.” The Cerberus said, “Let me take over, and show you what you could accomplish with my power.”

When a Manifest is of the nature of a legendary beast, and the Manifester himself completely gives up control, then they would have been able to completely enter into Perfect Synergy from the get-go. At that moment, there’s only the beast and no Rache.

Glowing blue and white armor formed over Rache’s skin as he became fully transformed into a humanoid with burning red eyes before two more holographic heads formed on top of his shoulders. Then, black flames burned around his body as the individual flame were in fact the lines of Wave coming straight from the environment.

For now, there's only the Cerberus, and no Rache.

“Perfect Synchrony: Darkness Walking...” Cerberus murmured before he latched onto the lines of Wave with its claws and yanked it like cables as the rocks above completely collapsed around them. Rote grabbed onto Rache’s back and stuck his hand in between a crack as the water pressure from the depths rushed through the rocks and slammed into him.

However, as Rote anticipated being thrown around by the currents, he quickly realized that the water was kept at an arms-length all around them as thin densely packed Wave lines were extending out from the Cerberus’ body and keeping the Water back through the manipulation of the Wave itself, a small surface forming at the end of each line and created a seemingly indestructible bubble.

“Cough…” Cerberus coughed once before its strong figure started to shake, “Shit…I am too weak now to maintain this…”

The low voice of the Cerberus became intercut with Rache’s voice from phrase to phrase, “I…We need to get away from here…”

“And we will.” The Cerberus said, pushing both claws down and blasting them up straight up. As they traveled closer and closer to the surface, parts of the Cerberus’s shells became left behind in the ocean under them. However, Rache soon felt the rich supply of Cerberus’ Wave draining him up as he quickly switched over to maintain that bubble of air around him by pulling Wave directly from the oceans.

“It’s okay now.” Rache said, feeling the pain in every single inch of his body as all of his cells screamed about the possession of the legendary beast, “It’s going to be okay…”

Then, as the endless blue around him started to become more and more blurry, he simply held on as Rote slapped onto his face, trying to wake him up. However, before he passed out, he maintained the air bubble with the last of his strength. With his body nothing more than a conduit, the Cerberus feasted on the Wave from the ocean.

When Rache next woke up, he was lying down next to a warm campfire as the smell of roast fish filled the air. He rubbed his eyes before looking to the side to see a topless Rote sitting by the fire spinning the fish by hand with his fingers covered in his own red Wave armor.

“You are horrible at finishing things.” Rote remarked, “That’s something we will need to work on.”

“Everything hurts.” Rache said when his stomach growled so loud that he wondered if people on the Western continent could hear it, “And I am starving.”

“So?” Rote shrugged before lifting the fish and placing it on a rock to cool. The juice flesh pressed against the rock, absorbing the salt as seasoning.

“Can you feed me?” Rache asked, his head looking away so Rote wouldn’t spot his red face, “Please?”

“That’s only what lovers do!” Rote smirked before leaving over the fire with the fish in hand.

“Shut up and…do it. I can't even move my arms now” Rache mumbled when Rote placed a finger on his chin and turned his head until Rache was looking at him in the eye. Then, he tore off a steaming strip of flesh before blowing on it lightly and tasting it.

It was the perfect level of saltiness. And Rache swallowed hard as Rote tore off another piece and slid it in between his lips. As his finger made contact with Rache’s face, the flavor of the flesh also exploded within Rache’s mouth.

“So…? How was it?” Rote asked, sitting back and taking advantage of the head from the flames.

“It’s…perfect. Simple and perfect.” Rache said, smiling as he looked up into the stars.

All of a sudden, things aren’t so gloomy in life anymore.