Azra was the first to react. Jumping through shadows to get to Van where she could cocoon him with her dark magic and hopefully whisk him away somewhere safe. But it was already too late, by the time she took him in her shadow, they were blasted right out of it just two dozen feet away, Azra taking the brunt of the attack.

Karen didn’t fare better, she was either dead or knocked out, but even if she was alive it didn’t look good, as half her body was unrecognizable.

Karmila was panting like she ran a marathon, but she was an Archduchess and a high vampire, she wouldn’t go down so easily… Already she was weaving a shadowy plaster to cover up the hole in her body, just so she could turn and limp away, her mind on the assortment of healing potions she tucked away in her room.

“G-Goin away so soon?” Karmine coughed, hacking a bloody loogie out of her mouth. One of her eyes was bleeding profusely and she was on one knee. But she was slowly getting back on her two feet, showing her resilience and the reason why she was one of the toughest of Van’s knights.

Karmila stared daggers at her daughter, which quickly searched around her to see if anyone else was up in case they might want to try and stop her as well. But other than a few who seemed to be still conscious, only Karmine was able to stand back up again.

“Don’t get in my way Karmine.” She growled like a wounded animal. “You and I both know that even as weakened as I am, you still can’t defeat me… Stay where you are and your punishment will be light.”

Karmine blinked and slowly began to laugh. “Wha-? …PFFT!… Hehe… Haha… HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Giving it the full belly treatment she lifted her head up and laughed loudly.

Karmila’s eyes narrowed as they blazed with fury at what she could only perceive as mocking laughter directed at her.

“HAHAHAHA! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!” Karmine Chortled. “After everything you have done to me, to your daughters… After everything I went to get stronger…” Her voice slowly losing its mirth. “After finally finding freedom, fun, and friends…” Her own eyes began to flare with anger, no, HATRED… “After finally confronting you, ready to literally kill my own mother!” She snarled. “YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST ORDER ME ASIDE!” The fury welling up in her like a volcano, helping her regain her strength and power as blood red aura began to spill out of her body like fiery steam. “No… You don’t get to tell us what we can do with our lives anymore…”

“It’s time to end this.”

Mother and daughter stared each other down for a long time. The corpses and the unconscious people around them already forgotten. Right now it was just the two of them in existence, and they both knew, only one of them was getting out of this alive…

“DIE!” Karmila sent a bolt of dark shadows Karmine’s way, to which her daughter dodge and blocked with her great axe.

Karmine flared her aura high, her energy creating ripples and waves in the air from her body. She lifted her axe and send a scythe of aura towards her mother, creating a shockwave blast as the attack sliced through the distance between them at Karmila, who lifted a hand and like swatting a large fly, smacked the energy blade out of the way with great effort. Leaving a slightly scalding burn mark on her hand.

Karmila’s eyes turned red and black as her own body began to emit a bloody red aura, she rushed at her daughter and the two began to dance a dance of death and carnage.

—Van’s soul realm—

“Well… Looks like your body was knocked unconscious… Glad to see you put your training to good use and came here in spirit, though I don’t think there is much we can do now…” Ren said, looking down at Van who was sprawled on the ground of his throne room.

Van blinked slowly, a headache coming on as he got up and tried to process everything that happened. “What happened?” He asked.

“Like I said, you got knocked out cold.” Ren replied.

Van got back on his feet. “I need to go…”

Ren shook his head and sighed. “There’s nothing you can do… At this rate, trying to fight is just going to end your life. Might as well just rest for a bit and hope for the best.”

Van turned on Ren angrily. “Are you kidding me! You just want me to roll over and hope for the best!? What are you thinking!”

Ren just gave a slow sad look towards Van. “Does it even matter anymore? Even if your power was unsealed, you still wouldn’t be able to defeat Karmila. She’s just too powerful.”

Van couldn’t believe what he was hearing from Ren of all people. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you acting like this!?” he asked, confused by Ren’s attitude.

Ren gave a deprecating laugh. “What's wrong with me? YOU! THAT’S WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME!” Turning on Van with a sudden viciousness. “Do you know how much I’ve worked and sacrificed to help you! How hard I worked to get you where you are now!”

“But all you want to do is what!? NOTHING! You just let the world stomp all over you! You just go through the flow, doing nothing and adding nothing! Remember when I said that you had neither hope or rage? WELL IT’S A LOT MORE FUCKING TRUE THEN I REALIZED!”

Ren was now glaring Van down angrily, getting right up in his face. “Your passiveness, your lack of drive and ambition and dreams and goals are what are affecting me and making me act like this! You are literally the worst aspect of the true Van I had ever the misfortune to try and help! And I-” He suddenly stopped, tears running down his cheeks, his shoulders slumping. “And I’m just so fucking tired of doing this…”

He sat down, curling up a little as he looked away into the distance at something only he could see.

A few tense and awkward seconds passed as Van tried to reconcile what the hell just happened and process it all. Slowly, he awkwardly sat down next to Ren. “...Are you okay?”

Ren sighed and closed his eyes for a few moments before opening them. He still didn’t look Van’s way but he began to talk. “Listen closely… Because I’m going to get as close to the truth as I can… Whether you're happy about what I say or not doesn’t matter, just know I… Literally… Can’t tell you more than what I’m about to tell you now…”

He turned to Van, a dead serious expression on his face. “Are you ready?”

Van hesitated, but gave a firm nod, wondering what all this was about all of a sudden, but not wanting to let such a rare opportunity go.

Ren sighed.

“Remember when you learned about the goddess that created this world? And I explained a bit more about that? Well… The truth is… This world isn’t real… All those stars in the sky you see at night are fake… This world is an illusion. The myths about her… All fake…”

Van’s eyes widened, a part of him wanted to ask how that could be true, but he kept quiet, waiting for Ren to continue.

Ren let out another deep breath before continuing his story. “This world is designed to trap souls… specifically a set of souls, primarily one soul…” He turned to Van. “Your soul…”

Van felt a sense of dread well up inside him, a strange feeling overtook him, almost like he was listening to a horror story and already knew the terrifying ending.

“The reason why you are the way you are, is because Malon has your hope, and the guy up north has your rage… Without hope or rage you have no drive, goals, or passion… Instead your task is… Unique… You are to acquire souls to help heal your large fractured one… More specifically you are to acquire a set of specific souls… Like how Luna’s soul realm helps keep your soul realm together.”

Ren opened up a window displaying how Luna’s soul realm tree had its roots all over Van’s soul realm and how it helped keep everything together. Not just his, but also helped keep everyone else's to his as well.

“But because you are just so fucking…” Ren stopped himself from complaining further. “Because how your soul is, you accept things too easily and are more the aspect of the true Van's desire for sex and control. You don’t care about anything. You have no goals or passions and your just happy fucking everything that moves!” He sighed realizing he was complaining again. “Sadly that is exactly what you are made to do…”

Ren turned to Van with determination in his eyes. “That's why if we survive this… Van… You have to absorb Malon…”

It took a few seconds but Van blinked. “What-?”

“You have to absorb Malon! It’s the only way to help regain your sense of purpose!” Ren reiterated. “Malon is hope, he has dreams and aspirations of bringing peace to Alcray by destroying the waste and the ancient Nilfan capital. He worked hard, even as a male, even as a male in the east! Where they treat males even worse than they do in the west! He worked until he rose to the very fucking top becouse he had the ambition and dream to set his mind to something and see it through! If you want something like that, you are going to have to absorb him so your true soul will become more complete.” Ren said dead serious.

“I… I can’t do that!” Van exclaimed! “I just can’t kill a person just because you said so!”

“VAN!” Ren yelled. “This entire world was literally built for you to do just that! Every soul that passes through this world goes through a stringent set of exams and evaluations to determine which is allowed to stay and which is allowed to move on. Every soul that has even the tiniest association with your primordial soul is allowed through, with a few exceptions to help fill out the world's populace.”

“The goddess that built this world, built it for the soul purpose of finding your scattered soul with the hopes of repairing it. But not just your soul, the souls of others connected to you as well. Just look at Anna, she’s literally one soul with multiple bodies! That’s the whole point! Bringing scattered souls back into one primordial one! You saw how easy it was to take a simple fleck of your soul and make a double out of it! You even weaved and shaped it into a death knight! This is the world's purpose! To create a crucible where your souls are forced together but in a way that can destroy them and mold them back together!”

Van wanted to ask why the world had to be this way specifically, but kept quiet as Ren continued, giving him a death glare to make sure he kept his mouth shut.

“If you want my help… If you want to know just a little bit more… you will have to promise me… To absorb Malon’s soul. If not, I’ll just jump ship and start from scratch somewhere else. Your call…”

Van had to think about this for a good long while… It was literally a choice of saving his own life at the cost of another, or dying… But… Van didn’t want to die… And there was a part of him that hoped he could simply accept and not pay the price later… Or at least figure out another method to satisfy the conditions.

“Okay… I accept…” He said.

“Swear it on your soul Van…” Ren said, eye narrowing.

Van swallowed… Rethinking everything but… “Alright… I swear on my soul… I’ll absorb Malon…” Already hating himself for doing something like this…

Ren stared at Van for a good long second before nodding. He stood up and said. “Follow me.” Then proceeded to walk out the throne room.

Van nervously got up and followed after. The two then flew through the skies for a while, but slowly they made their way to the edge of the island and then past it. All the while Van was wondering where Ren was taking him.

They then started to descend downward, the clouds parting and the endless clear blue sky beneath them. All of a sudden, after a few miles of descent, Ren landed on what appeared to be a glass dome, an invisible barrier and waited for Van to catch up.

“What is this?” Van asked as he landed on the strange dome. He had no idea that such a thing existed.

Ren gave a deadpan look. “It’s your true soul realm. Not the fake one I built where you and everyone else lives.”

“What?”

“And I am not Ren…”

All of a sudden Ren’s body began to change. It went from a male form into a female form. Crystalline horns sprouted from the side of her head and wove upward, followed by a tail made from the same substance of the horn with a jagged edge flowing behind her. She grew wings like a fairy, but sharp and crystalline with swarms of code and other languages flowing through it. She wore a tight form fitting sci-fi suit that came with high heels, retractable claws, black armor that hugged her body with a violet landscape of stars hugging her legs and arms. Her eyes were a deep electric blue with a swirl of white stars like a miniature galaxy. Her voice rang out like beautiful bells.

“I AM Lynaria! A LYN FROM ANOTHER LIFE FROM ANOTHER UNIVERSE! AND THIS IS YOUR TRUE SOUL!”

Lynaria then gave a wave of her hand and revealed what was beneath the dome. Instead of endless blue skies, it was a pitch-black hole. With a small white light in its center. The black all consuming orb crackling deep blue electric arcs on its surface.