The being glanced at the destruction around him, then with a flick of his sword, the once haughty young God got reduced to nothingness, his power destroyed, body torn to shreds, the only remaining proof of his existence, his soul, like the rest, did not manage to avoid its fate of getting crushed to smithereens. And just like that, the God of War was no more.

Witnessing such monstrous power, the battlefield grew deadly silent, from demons to gods, all eyes concentrated on the being. Some looked at him in admiration, some stared silently while others glared at the being with undisguised bloodlust, yet behind it, fear was clearly visible.

As for the being in question himself, he continued to watch the last bit of soul particles disperse before his eyes, seemingly undisturbed by the gazes others gave him. Then, just as his blood red cape got blown back by the wind, the being muttered under his breath.

"Absolute Nothingness."

Despite the screams of mortals, the shaking of the Heaven and the rumbling of the Earth, not a single person on that battlefield missed what he said. Allies cheered loudly for the being while his enemies ran for their lives. This soon changed, however, as they all realized something was wrong.

Not long after, space around the being started to distort. The small blue cube he clutched tightly in his left hand shook, accompanying it was a large shock wave so strong, it ripped apart reality itself.

•▪•▪•▪•

Rito wakes up drenched in sweat. Such power is unimaginable even for him. At his peak, he could at most take down two to three patron gods depending on the situation and environmemt. That just now wasn't a fight, it was a complete massacre! A being of that caliber could easily squeeze the old him to death without lifting a finger.

Yet this only creates more questions for him. Who is that man? What does he want? Why does he appear in his dreams? Rito's curiosity is piqued, but he knows it'd be pointless even if he somehow managed to meet that man, which considering his current strength, he seriously doubts will happen anytime soon.

So far, his progress on Ki has been decent. It'd be quite slow if compared to others youngster of that universe, but Ki at its core is essentially a type of energy created when the body moves so he reckons basic body exercises should work. And it indeed works, even better than expected.

Despite the slow speed, his Ki is more robust than ever before. It's also much easier to circulate it. As Rainer, his power leaned more towards the magic side, but that doesn't mean he is clueless about Ki. And according to his knowledge, a new martial artist definitely shouldn't have this kind of power.

That said, this way of practicing is hundreds times slower than simply absorbing Ki by mediation. It's also very tiresome and one must be incredibly hard-working to see any real result, it's no wonder no one used this method. To be honest, Rito himself also hates this method, it's too troublesome yet lacks noticeable results. But as the saying goes, beggar couldn't be chooser.

As for Mana, so far, he hasn't had much luck finding it. Part of this is because he has been grounded. Ever since the accident, his parents act like he's made out of glass, they dare not let him go outside for fear he would get hurt. At the same time, he also hasn't been able to fix the relationship between his parents.

But all that is about to change. Rito chuckles creepily, a mischievous light shines in his beautiful eyes. He pulls up a black mask made out of worn old cloth to his face and sneaks out, running agilely like an elf through the dark hallway that would normally give children nightmares at night, in less than a minute, he reaches his destination.

Then slowly, but surely, he turns towards the camera, his eyes look straight at the readers and says as his mouth curves up into a meaningful smile.

"Kids, never go to your parents' bedroom at night if you don't want to get traumatized."

Finished, he carefully turns the door knob as to not wake up his sleeping parents. There, on the bed lay two figures. Occupying the left side and most of the bedsheet is unmistakably his biological mother, Yuuki Ringo. On her right is no doubt his father, Yuuki Saibai. Both are sound asleep.

After making sure they're still sleeping, Rito goes down stairs. It is very dark but not enough to stop his Ki-enhanced vision. He continues to the kitchen, taking out two home-made portions of food. Returning to their room, he puts down the meals, sprinkles some suspicious looking powder into his father's water and backs off, closing the door behind him.

•▪•▪•▪•

That morning, Saibai wakes up feeling very tired. As usual, he reaches out for his water to refresh himself then starts preparing for work. He is a mangaka so realistically, he shouldn't need to go anywhere, even new chapters for his mangas could be sent to the company using either printer or email.

In spite of this, he still rents a small apartment nearby, his reason is he couldn't concentrate around other people, but both him and his wife know this is just an excuse. Their relationship has been quite rocky for the last few months, and now that the anger of almost losing his first born has subsided, he desperately wants to fix it, but him being the crude man he is, Saibai doesn't know how.

Sighing out loud, he takes off after putting on his favorite outfit. A dark blue shirt, cargo pants and his red headband which says 'Big Haul'. Some people call him weird for always wearing the same headband, what they don't know is that this is how his teacher used to look everytime he met him.

Although the old man has been dead for a long time now, Saibai deeply respects his teacher and wears this to honor him. It's his own way of saying thank you. Well, it's not like he needs to explain himself to anyone. The only person he has told this to is his wife, who he has a very affection relationship... Who he HAD a very affection relationship.

Only after trying to open the door knob did Saibai realize the door wasn't budging at all, but that wasn't all, his body was also burning up to the point he wanted to rip off his clothes. Moments later, his wife sits up, rubbing her eyes sleepily. Her cute gesture is the final straw for him...

•▪•▪•▪•

Rito who has been exercising in his room smiles when he hears his parents going at it.

"If they're trying to keep it down, then they're certainly not doing a good job at it." He chuckles to himself.

His plan is quite simple, lock them up and let them sort it out together. The real problem is his father, the guy is as dense as a log. His solution for that is love potion, in this form, no matter where he goes he wouldn't be able to buy such a thing and even if he can, he doesn't have any money anyway. So he personally made one.

It really wasn't that hard, though it did cost him a few sleepless nights sneaking onto the mountain. Near their city is a forest mountain, it isn't that big and has nothing valuable, at least in others' eyes so it's relatively deserted. It's also the place where many couple go to... As for what they do there, I don't think I need to explain.

It took Rito appropriately a week to collect all the ingredients. Individually, these plants are quite useless, even after they've been proceeded and turned into medicine, it still has very weak effect, but with a bit of Ki poured in and KABOOM! You've got yourself a home-made family-friendly love potion!

At first, he wanted to make something more effective, however, as a battle-crazed, his alchemy is bad. That low-grade love potion he made was so badly done that had an alchemist been there, they would've had an irresistible urge to punch him in his perfect teeth.

Though if his father is already like this after using a small portion of that low-grade love potion, he wonder what would happen if it was something more potent. When he actually thinks about, Rito scraps the idea, he's afraid they would die in the midst of doing it.

Most love potions consume a lot of calories, there have been several cases where the user overdosed and died as a dried up corpse, otherwise he wouldn't have prepared food for them. 

When this is all over, he doubts they would be able to continue ignoring their feelings. They ought to have the talk that they so desperately avoided. He could only do that much, the rest is depended on them. Still, if he had to, Rito would say he himself is pretty nervous about it.

Although the chance of them breaking up completely is near zero he couldn't help but think 'What If?'. To take his mind off the matter, he has no other choice than to train. Thus begins his longest training up to date.