A girl who couldn’t have been more than ten years old was standing in the middle of the Colosseum. Her silvery hair gently fell on her little shoulder. The shocked gaze of the crowd was fixed on her as she clenched her fists without showing the least hesitation. For Lumia, this was her chance to stand out. Helial would finally see her fight alone. Without his help.

“Let me go first,” Lumia had asked him in a tone that sounded noting like a question as she cling onto her arm.

“And that’s the fighter sent against the Sect of the Worthy?” a Goblin sceptically blurted out. It was indeed common knowledge that the members of the Sect’s teams were provided with the Fury Elixir. This way, their strength would be increased exponentially. That little skinny thing could nothing against one of them.

The Team of the Executioners hadn’t their mind set on victory. Rather, their goal was to slaughter Helial’s group in the all vs all competition. This was why Medea sent one of her weakest players to fight against Lumia. She had sent for the less strong ones in the 3v3 relay competition too. She saved the elite for the last round.

The Team of the Executioners had received extremely clear orders by the Sect of the Worthy. No member of the Tristia Team must survive.

Even the direct heir Medea, cousin of the first in line for the Sect of the Worthy itself, had been left no choice and drank a Fury Elixir.

Apparently, the high places in the Sect of the Worthy wanted Helial dead at all costs.

The Sect did take every possible precaution. On the contrary, Caesar had had no contact with Helial. He didn’t ask him to kill nobody. He actually hoped that no fighter would be inflicted excessively severe damage.

The big shots of Orma were watching the match with a superhuman calm in their eyes. Every spectator though knew perfectly well that their calm was but apparent. That match was way more important than they could imagine.

It was true that Pseudonym and Circe lorded over the leaderboard, but their victories shed light on the future of Orma. Whereas that day’s victory or failure would shape the future balance of the Orman powers.

Despite no one having said this aloud, Helial was a representative for Caesar and the Clan of the Heavenly Eagle. Medea was one of the greatest talented warriors in the Sect of the Worthy. Despite not yet being as strong as Medusa or Comodus, she would totally gain a place in the Sect of the Worthy top five talents ranking.

Helial has his arms folded as he gazed at Lumia from behind the gating that led down to the team’s room. From there, he could only catch sight of Lumia’s slender little shoulders.

Skill Activated:

Perception

His recently reached Emperor State gave Helial’s Skills got a number of benefits. Helial hadn’t yet had the time to closely inspect them all. However, he noticed how Perception had grown more powerful. According to his math, that highly underrated Skill could now easily replace the Divine Sense practitioners could only get after the Third Phase.

A kid with the black bangs and a funny bowl haircut suddenly appeared next to Helial.

“According to Perception, I sense that Lumia’s Aura has changed. Her Meridians seem thicker and stronger. Can I ask you why, Master?” Helial asked with a frown.

As the boy’s eyes lay on the kid, the latter brought a finger to his ear to warn him to pay attention. His eyes were fixed on the opposite direction.

BOOM!

Helial jumped on his feet, scared to death.

What the hell did just happen?

He immediately turned towards the grating. He would promptly blow it to pieces to help his sister.

The crowd fell silent. A thick cloud of sand rouse from the arena preventing everyone to see.

Helial scanned the area with Perception as he let a terrifying amount of Mana rush through his eyes’ Meridians.

Nothing.

He could see nothing.

The Mana across the arena was in an uproar. In that chaos, Helial couldn’t catch a glimpse of a single Mana spark of his sister.

“What’s happened?” Helial asked worriedly as he turned towards Iblis. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to save Lumia. Iblis’ peaceful expression though seemed to hint that his sister wasn’t inflicted no damage.

In that very moment, the sand cloud finally cleared. A silhouette emerged and calmly approached Helial and Iblis.

A calm beaming expression suddenly came in sight of the Devil and his disciple.

“I’m back in a min, wait for me,” Lumia told her brother. On the opposite end of the arena, a voice announced the death of her opponent.

Lumia wiped her opponent out in a matter of seconds. She shed no beam of sweat. Even Helial was taken aback – just like his friends and the whole crowd.

The only one whose expression didn’t betray the least bafflement was Iblis. The Devil was sniggering.

“I want to bring joy to my brother,” so Lumia had explained to the Devil. These words had led the Devil to pay a great deal of effort into Lumia’s training. The little girl was ready to experience unspeakable pains in order to try to reach her brother – who, for his part, received a terrifying power and a terrifying Mana flow compression. And she did.

Iblis closed his eyes for a second.

***

Countless eras before

Tsukuyomi was lying on the ground gasping for air. Iblis was staring at her in apprehension.

“Again,” Tsukuyomi mumbled through loathing and pain.

Iblis furiously interposed: “Let’s stop this folly! The technique to the Emperor state is yet to be perfected! You’re already in the King state just like your sister, why would you risk your life?!”

The girl stood up from the ground.

Amaterasu’s sister was an Immortal who got in touch with a terrifying artefact – the Fountain of Eternal Youth. Thanks to this, she became able to keep her girl-like appearance before reaching Immortality. Once after the Tenth Phase, she could shape her body again. Since she knew that Iblis was now used to her childish image, however, she chose to live eternally as his little sister. It hardly mattered that they had no blood bond.

Tsukuyomi slowly stood up. Her body was trembling and shaking.

“Again,” she repeated bluntly. She slowly shook her head.

“If I don’t grow in strength now, I’ll slow you down when we face my father and his army,” Tsukuyomi calmly explained, “we went through a number of attempts. I was extremely close this time. You just need to perceive all my Meridians at once and hit them simultaneously after unblocking the Cardiac Meridian.”

Despite the theory seeming so simple, Iblis knew perfectly well that the actual process was a terrifying one. Even him never put into practice the theory of that technique Tsukuyomi had come up with.

Exactly. The technique Iblis was using was the 365 Lunar Phases Technique. Tsukuyomi developed it all by herself. However, it could only be implemented by a terrifyingly powerful body as that of Iblis.

Up to that moment, he had been a lab rat under Tsukuyomi’s advice.

“I will spend my life by the side of he who showed me their goodwill. You never asked me any questions, big bro. You never demanded anything. You’re my family more than my sister and Qinguang will ever be. So don’t ask me to retrace my steps now. I have dedicated my whole spirit to this. Unlike the Clan of Life, the love you gave me was unconditional. You taught me how to follow my heart in spite of the rules of those who tyrannize the universe.

“I won’t stop until you’re happy. Until you yourself will stop. You live, I live. You die, I die. The moon chose to live as a reflection of the sun in order to be eternally close to him. I chose her same destiny. But I won’t be able to truly exist until I wield the power to.”

***

In the present

Iblis opened his eyes. He looked at the silhouette of Lumia as she walked towards the center of the Colosseum. He glanced at Helial and chuckled, then dissolved into black smoke. He reappeared sitting at the table laid for two inside Helial’s Soul, holding a recipe book.

“Not only did the little girl reach the Soul state, but she also learnt how to hide her presence, control her emotion and let them flow together with her Skills. She now knows many of the characteristics of her state… Yet her decision is to keep being your little sister. Life is indeed strange… Things seem to reoccur in a cycle, and destiny likes tearing existence and patching it up differently every single time, as if to torture the poor Immortals who decided to challenge it.”