I had never seen a dagger like that before, but the scientist was confident that the dagger would turn the tides of this battle.

“Din, watch out! He’s holding an unusual weapon, it could be dangerous!” I called out.

But Din didn’t respond. It was as if he didn’t hear me.

“Din?”

I moved in front of him.

As I tried to get his attention, I noticed. He couldn’t see me anymore.

What do I do now?

There was no way of warning them now. Whatever that weapon was, it could be very dangerous. And he seemed to want to use it on Din.

“Nice work, team B.”

Eliana entered the room. She checked her surroundings before facing the enemy.

“So this is where you’ve been doing all your little experiments, huh?”

The guards that had dropped their weapons earlier were on their knees now. Some of them even threw their weapons to the side to show that they had given up.

“If you’ve surrendered, walk out of the door now. My men will be there to capture you.”

They seemed hesitant at first, but after the first few walked out, the rest of them followed.

In the end, there were only about five guards and the scientist from earlier.

“Those traitors…” One of the guards mumbled.

“Now then, looks like we have some that still think they can win,” Eliana said as she folded her arms.

Members from the other teams stood between her and the remaining guards.

Surprisingly, the scientist walked in front of the guards. He still appeared calm as he spoke, “Now, now. We don’t have to get violent here. I’m sure we can all find a safer way of dealing with this situation.”

I checked his hands, but the dagger from earlier was gone. He must’ve hidden it somewhere.

“You must be their leader if I’m to assume?” he continued. “If you were to hear of our reasonings, you might just let us go freely.”

“And why do you think that is? In the first place, who are you anyways?” Eliana asked.

“Be careful, Boss. That one there is a Spirit,” Cyen warned.

“I see.”

“I’m known as Reine,” he bowed. “And my goal… no, my mission is to rid this world of all inequalities. As the saying goes, ‘all men are created equal’. That saying lacks truth even more so now. In recent times, there’ve been demons luring the streets. They appear similar to you and I, but they are beings not from this world. Without outside interference, the demons are much more powerful than we humans could ever be.”

As if in pain, he held his chest tightly, “This is a job left upon me. Only I can cure this world of these demons. I can finally make the dream of equality become not just a dream, but a reality.”

Eliana didn’t respond. She tilted her head, trying to make sense of what he was saying.

Alby stepped in, “Does your mission involve taking the lives of these demons? If so, you’ve been doing a great job. Idiot.”

“I lack interest in how I achieve my goal as long as it’s reached. There is truth that many demons will suffer on the path to true equality, but once I have an understanding behind their power, I can use it against them to drain them of it.”

“Drain their powers?” Eliana repeated.

“You’re interested now, aren’t you?” Reine asked.

“How do you go about draining a demon’s power?”

“It’s very simple, really. From what I’ve tested, the moment when a demon uses their power, their brain goes through a terrible amount of pain, but because the pain is instant, they don’t remember it at all. It leaves them even wondering if the pain was real in the first place.”

He began laughing for no reason. He reached both his hands into his pockets and continued laughing while almost losing his balance. After he caught his breath, he apologized, “Sorry you had to see that. I just remembered when I first got the idea to use their own activation method against them.”

“What do you mean?” Eliana asked.

“By inflicting pain directly to the brain of a demon, their power leaks from their body. We created machinery that allows us to drain that power and store them for our own use! Isn’t that the best?”

Suddenly, Reine pulled the unusual dagger out of his pocket and rushed towards Din.

Why would he do something so reckless, I wondered. Alby was right next to Din and he had to reaction to step between them.

Alby swung his sword, but rather than hitting Reine, it hit some kind of a shell that appeared between them. The sword went right through the outer parts of shell, but got stuck right as it neared the center.

I could see from Reine’s other hand, he threw away something he had crushed in it. It was broken into little pieces, but the color looked almost identical to the shell that appeared in front of him.

Luckily, the shell was only between Alby and Reine. Din was free to swing his sword at him.

With a quick slash, there was a small pool of blood that dropped to the floor.

It was from the Reine’s hand. The moment Din moved to swing the sword, Reine grabbed onto the sword and stopped its movement. He had held onto the blade of the sword and his hand was bleeding as he still gripped onto the sword tightly.

With his left hand on Din’s sword, Reine raised his right hand that held the unusual dagger and stabbed Din on the shoulder.

“Argh—!”

Din cried out in pain. He grabbed Reine’s hand and tried pulling the dagger out of him, but Reine held his ground.

Meanwhile other members of the Ravagers approached Reine but were met with the few remaining guards. Only Alby was close enough to help.

But at the moment, Alby was trying to pull his sword back out of the shell. He eventually gave up on his sword and ending up helping Din but pushing Reine away.

Reine laughed as the two struggled against him. Something about seeing two people struggling against one person made me curious and that’s when I noticed. Something had formed out of Reine’s left hand and attached itself to the sword. It seemed to be the same material as the shell and it connected the sword to Reine’s hand.

Then I looked over at the dagger and noticed something else. The glass sphere that had been attached to the end of the dagger was filling up with something red.

It must be Din’s blood!

Din’s struggle was getting weaker as the sphere was filling up. As the sphere filled up halfway, Din lost hold of his sword and Alby was finally able to push Reine off of Din.

Blood was spilling from Din’s shoulder as Alby tried covering it.

“Just hold on, you’ll be fine. You just need to get it covered. A small blade won’t be the end of you!”

The scientist, with Din’s sword still attached to his left hand, had fallen on his back, but he quickly got up and rushed to the other end of the room. His remaining guards had fallen, but he still had a confident smile on his face.

“Let’s see what surprise we have in store!”

The shell that held the sword onto his left hand shattered into pieces and Din’s sword dropped to the floor as well.

He twisted the glass sphere off of the dagger. The part of the glass that was attached to the dagger had a hole on it. Din’s blood swirled around as the scientist gently shook the glass sphere as if he was holding a glass of wine.

“Bottom’s up,” he cheered before drinking the blood.

“What’s he doing?” Eliana asked.

“I-I don’t know…” Tal said.

Everyone was watching worriedly, but no one dared approach him.

Reine’s confident smile suddenly disappeared. He was deep in his thoughts for a while before he finally turned to Din with thirsting eyes.

“Y-you’re not a normal demon, are you?” he asked. “You’re a demon and yet you have no power.”

Din glared at the man who had stabbed him, but he didn’t reply. Alby was still holding onto the stab wound on Din’s shoulder. Cyen had approached them and had begun tending to the wound.

“That’s enough! Capture that man!” Eliana ordered.

Having lost his chance of winning, Reine dropped his unusual dagger and accepted his capture.

He was escorted out by members of the Ravagers. As he was being taken out of the room, his gaze was still focused on Din. Even though he had lost, he still appeared overjoyed.

It was finally over. The battle in the governor of Newron’s garden had reached its end.