"That reminds me," Lone said as he looked at the Homunculus that was having a mini panic attack on the floor after having witnessed him pamper Sophie.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the Divine Soul Prison which was still glowing faintly. Sophie looked at it with curiosity. "Did you manage to store that big guy's soul in there?" she asked.

Lone nodded proudly. "Yup. You were right. I just had to use Soul Binding and bind it to reality to keep the soul intact as I moved it. Now he's trapped in here. I got a skill as well, Soul Transferal, so I should be able to move Scratchy's soul here without any issues... hopefully."

Little did Lone that what he had done, binding a soul to reality, would have been utterly impossible had an outside force not assisted him.

"'Hopefully'?" Sophie quoted.

"Well," Lone rubbed the back of his head, "His soul was pretty weak compared to his physical power, so it wasn't too hard to move it. Hers though, I'm not sure. The Homunculus is X-ranked, so it would stand to reason that her soul at least that strong too, right?" he explained his worries.

He sighed and rolled the Divine Soul Prison around in his hand for a few seconds before he said, "Well, regardless, I guess I need to try. If it's impossible, I can always weaken her soul with Mental Destruction, though that could have some serious long-lasting effects."

"Why does it matter? She tried to kill you," Sophie said as she pouted cutely.

Lone smirked. "I don't want to piss off an Ancient-level Dragon, you dummy. Did you forget?"

"It's a Darkness Dragon, so can't you just defeat it easily?" Sophie didn't understand Lone's concerns.

From what she understood, as long as the Dragon was a being of Darkness, then Lone had nothing to fear since the primal essence which that Dragon was born from was under Lone's control.

Flicking Sophie's head lightly, Lone laughed. "I don't wanna take risks with anything stronger than a Divine-Level being. You saw how King Ele'hunda had a chance to kill me in the tests, right? And he's only an XXX-ranker which is a child in comparison to an Ancient-level being. It's better to be safe, rather than sorry."

Sophie put her hands on her forehead and frowned. "Muuuu... Okay. It's just unfair. You did nothing wrong, but she attacked you, and now you have to worry about an Ancient Darkness Dragon..."

"That's life, simply one unfortunate incident after another. However, it's how you make the most out of those experiences that matters and not the experiences themselves," Lone wisely stated.

"you're right..." Sophie agreed.

With that all said and done, Lone gave his attention to the girl lying down on the floor pretending to not be there. "This is your last chance to sign the contract and be freed. So make a choice, sign it and leave everyone and the tree alone except for me, or risk having your soul destroyed."

Itchy looked up at Lone defiantly. Clearly, she had no intentions to sign anything and would rather risk death than betray her master.

Lone heaved a heavy sigh. "This sucks," he said bitterly.

He was afraid that whoever helped this woman get into a Homunculus in the first place would realise that her soul had been moved if he succeeded, but Lone concluded if that was the case, it would be better than killing her and receiving Ythmagobla's wrath if she did happen to be important to him. At least this way, he would have a bargaining chip via her soul.

Lone put his hand on Itchy's head and muttered, "Soul Extraction."

Itchy groaned a bit and gained a slight headache, but apart from that, nothing else happened. "W-What did you do?!"

"Damn it," Lone cursed. "Please don't die on me, okay?"

"What?" Itchy was given the answer to her question as soon as Lone uttered the two words, 'mental destruction'.

Despite being bound by Lone's skill, Lord of Possibility, Itchy still managed to violently thrash about in a fruitless attempt to distract herself from the unimaginable pain in her mind. "AHHHHHHHHH! STOP! MAKE IT STOP! AHHHHHH!"

Lone winced. He didn't enjoy watching her in so much pain. "I never thought it would be this bad..."

When he had used the skill multiple times of Void in his mind temple, all the primal essence had done in response was lay on the floor and laugh more so than he screamed, so Lone wasn't able to notice the pain it had inflicted on the incredibly powerful being.

"Lone..." Sophie weakly called as she held his sleeve tightly and an uncomfortable look was on her face.

"I know," Lone replied.

He then attempted to extract Itchy's soul once more, however, he, unfortunately, failed again. There was certainly less resistance, but he no choice other than to weaken her soul a second time.

"Menta-"

"Please... no... please... I'm sorry... don't do that again..." Itchy weakly mumbled amongst her abated breaths.

Lone opened his mouth slowly before closing it again. He clenched his fist tightly and sighed. "Soph, take her barrier badge and teleport her away from the tree. Far, far away. I don't ever want to see her again."

Sophie silently nodded her head and grabbed Itchy's near-lifeless body before the both of them vanished.

Lone held the Divine Soul Prison in his palm and squeezed it so hard that his hand began bleeding. The Commander's soul that was within panicked and frantically bounced from one side of the sphere to the other.

'Master, why did you show her pity? How unlike the usually barbaric you,' Darkness noted with his usual playfulness in full swing.

A look of nostalgia entered Lone's eyes as he threw his head back and leaned against the spine of the chair he was on. "That was the first time someone's ever begged me for their life."

'Oho? What of the Lemurians in Clicker's dungeon? Did they not also beg you to spare them?' Darkness teased.

Lone shook his head as he rubbed the arch of his nose. "It's not the same. Scratchy, or whatever her real name is, she had sincerity in her voice. The Lemurians were nothing but a group of selfish fools that only wanted to live for the sake of living and wouldn't change their ways no matter what I or Swind said to them."

'Mmm, you aren't wrong. Still, I don't see why that matters in this case,' Darkness responded with a perplexed tone.

Lone grinned at the thought of an existence as old and as powerful as Darkness not knowing what he meant. "I could tell, that girl, she didn't want to live for herself. She was genuinely scared of letting someone down, of disappointing them. I'm not a heartless murderer."

'The soldiers from an hour ago would disagree,' Darkness joked.

"Thay had plenty of chances to surrender," Lone shrugged.

Darkness chose not to reply any further, so with that marking the end of their conversation, Lone looked at the Divine Soul Prison once more and frowned. "How can I use this? It'd be a waste to just let it rot in my Dimensional Storage..."

He had tested it, and it would seem that he could store the sphere in his skill even though it contained a soul, which was a relief to Lone.

"I suppose I could always use it for that, couldn't I?" Lone said to himself with a bit of a smirk on his handsome face.

Itchy suddenly found herself being tossed onto the ground. She wasn't sure where she was, but she did know that this place wasn't in her memories at all.

A soft and emotionless voice suddenly spoke from behind her. "You're lucky Lone has a soft spot for helpless things. If you ever try to hurt him again, I'll kill you myself."

Itchy turned her head to see the entirely expressionless and cold face of Sophie. Something about her impassive attitude and piercing stare gave her exceptionally beautiful face a hint of elegance and looming dread.

Itchy, the XXX-ranker who had lived for an obscenely long time, found herself shuddering in the wake of this small girl's words.

"I'd also suggest you tell that stupid Dragon to stay away from us too. One way or another, Lone will defeat it. Don't look down on him just because he's a B-ranker," Sophie stated before she instantly disappeared from sight.

It began raining softly and Itchy felt like crying. When had she ever been forced into such a desperate situation before?

Not only had she failed her assassination attempt, she was bound by an unfamiliar magic, almost forced to sign a peculiar blood contract, had her soul harmed and experimented on, and to top it all off, she was teleported out into the middle of nowhere!

Stuck without her true body, unable to move and left in a muddy forest while it was raining, Itchy began sobbing lightly. Her tears were masked by the soft pattering of the rain. "Ythy... I wanna go home..."

With this incident now behind them as far as Lone and Sophie were concerned, the two went to sleep and slept through what little remained of the night.

Come morning, Lone told everyone that they didn't need to worry about Scratchy and that she had been dealt with.

"I'm glad you weren't hurt, Mr Immortus-ss," Swind said as he sat next to the blushing Rachel and held her hand softly.

Eolande, still very interested in their new relationship more so than the matter with the Homunculus, brushed the issue aside. "Well, of course Lone could handle it. It's Lone after all. He's a ball of anger, but he's a strong ball of anger."

"A fluffy strong ball of anger," Sophie corrected as she buried herself in her kingdom of fluff.

Lone laughed. "It's not my fault a lot of people do stupid things that piss me off."

Eolande was just about to retort before the door was slammed open and the overweight Fairy, Letty, looked at the nine-tailed Foxkin with a scowl on her face.

"You and you, come with me now," ordered as she pointed at Lone and Sophie. "The council demands your presences."

"Uh oh," Eolande said with a smile on her face. "What did you two do now? Maybe their bedtime activities have been keeping the neighbourhood awake. I would hardly be surprised..."

Lone and Sophie got up and walked towards Letty. on the way, lone flicked Eolande's forehead. "Shut up and prepare for today's mission, you troublemaker, though as usual, I'll probably be the one doing all of the work."

Eolande stuck her tongue out cutely and glanced at Sophie provocatively. Sophie snarled lightly at the Tylwyth Teg's attempts to flirt with her fiancé.

Letty crossed her arms over her chest and said, "I'm surprised you lot can be in the mood for your usual shenanigans."

She left the room with Lone and Sophie following closely behind her. "Do you even know how serious it is that the entire council has gathered for your summons to hear your excuses and judge you accordingly?"

"It hardly bothers me," Lone replied. 'This has to do with Scratchy, doesn't it? Well, I wonder why there's such a big reaction, hmm? Perhaps there's a traitor or two... My money's on Elder Shit'len.'

"Hmpf, we'll see how far your arrogance gets you today, Stupid Fox. Money can't fix all of your problems, you know?" Letty said with an expectant grin on her face.

"You don't seem too worried that two of the keepers under your management are going to be judged for, what is it that we're being accused of, by the way?" Lone said as he walked behind the floating Fairy through the treetop city.

"Two crimes, nehehehe! Furthering the tree's corruption and killing the most promising new keeper from yesterday's trials, Scratchy," Letty laughed.

"Interesting," Lone said candidly.

Letty glanced at him and smiled. "Also, I'm not worried because I know you. If there's anything I've learned while watching you for the past four months, it's that you always come out on top... somehow. A very useful ability to have, nehehehe."

She spun around and began flying backwards. "That, and I watched everything last night."

Lone looked mildly surprised. "You did?"

"It is my house and I'm a Fairy. Of course I would see and hear everything that happens in my world, nehehehe!" Letty replied happily as she laughed, making her belly jiggle adorably.

At that point, the three had reached the council hall where the council members and King Ele'hunda were undoubtedly waiting for Lone and Sophie.