Glenn groaned and stretched his sore limbs. The wounds around his wrists and ankles healed in a matter of seconds with monstrous vitality. His left purple hand was glowing softly as a mouth grinned widely within it.

  "Haha, back again!" Diamanes cackled loudly, unconcerned about being remotely discreet.

  "Don't rejoice too quickly, you little fuck." Glenn glared at the evil entity. "I'm not sure I appreciate you taking over my body and trying to eat my pets. Talking about pets, where the hell is...?"

  Pebble appeared out of thin air, yelping as it snuggled against the young man's bare chest. Glenn chuckled and hugged the small, one-eyed dragon.

  "Yeah, I missed you too. Now, why the hell do I feel like I just landed in a Thorn's Church orgy?"

  "Hmm, maybe you can ask around after you take care of the two Newborn Rulers staring at you in awe?" Diamanes proposed.

  Glenn flicked his fingers. A pristine white suit more suitable for marriages than battle covered him from head to toe. He looked down at the closest Newborn Ruler, a disgusting guy covered in blood who seemed to have had his entire world destroyed. His Divine power created a storm of vines around him as tears streamed down his face.

  "Give yourself up, Pope." The second Newborn Ruler—a knight wielding a pair of rapiers—pointed a sharp weapon at the so-called Pope. "With the Devil's Hand here, you won't be able to resist. Give yourself up, and I guarantee you a fair trial before the King himself."

  "Pope?" Glenn repeated with slight disbelief. He looked at the bloodied man, and the realization finally settled in.

  This was a Newborn Ruler. Someone strong enough to render all of his spells entirely useless.

  'Shit, I did die to Laurance, who was supposedly as strong as this Pope.' Why am I not scared of this cultist fucker?' Glenn couldn't ponder on the question for long as the Pope suddenly erupted into a wriggling mess of poison-dripping vines. An otherworldly scream rose out of his throat with terrible pain.

  "Newborn Ruler or not..." Glenn grinned as he felt the power broiling in his chest. It felt like his Mana was asking for only one thing; to be used.

  And he had a whole new understanding of what the meaning of space was.

  The Pope pointed a trembling finger at Glenn as Epinos' divine voice forced itself through his mouth. "3333...You are...Blasphemer! With the power of...Impossible!"

  Glenn clenched at the air in front of him, moving the Mana as he so wished. "Blasphemer, blasphemer... those are some very bad words you're using, you fucking, twisted mad god! Why don't you try to shut the fuck up now?"

  "You!"

  "Space Vacuum." Glenn twisted the Mana, suddenly creating a void around the Pope. His Mana clashed with the cultist's Divine energy, and in normal times, he should not have resisted the pressure, but...somehow, breaking through the Divine's resistance was quite easy. It was like pushing against a sheet of paper. Strangely, disturbingly simple.

  The Pope clenched at his throat, the vines surrounding him freezing and dying instantly. He gasped for air, but there was nothing like that in space. The blood covering him crystallized and shattered, revealing the naked, wound-covered body previously hiding beneath impossible quantities of blood.

  Like most of his cultists, the Pope was bold, with the Thorn's Church's symbol carved on his forehead. He had cut that same symbol into every part of his body, creating wounds that bled forever.

  Until Glenn arrived on the board.

  The Pope's eyes became bloodshot, and he fell to his knees, contorting in extreme pain.

  'Huh. Seems like this goes beyond even the classical Thorn's Church masochism. Shit, I surpassed a cultist's pain tolerance. What does that say about me?' Glenn sighed dejectedly and kept on maintaining the spell. His opponent seemed a moment away from exploding from decompression, but his Divine energy suddenly rose in spike.

  Glenn carefully retreated, not too worried. His Space Vacuum disappeared, shattered by Epinos' filthy power. The Pope pushed himself up, coughing a boatload of blood. His right arm suddenly fell off, replaced by a thick, black vine covered in small, pointy thorns.

  "Huff... huff... I will accomplish your will, my Lord..." The Pope heaved, Epinos' divine presence fading away.

  "Seems like that loser god couldn't stay down for too long. Oh well, he was there just to give his favorite follower a few more minutes to live. Great of him. Very generous." Glenn applauded quietly, his heart as calm as a lake.

  'You know, it's a little scary to see you so... insensible, I suppose?' Diamanes commented.

  Glenn scoffed. 'I bet it's not as scary as the premise of being taken over by the entity living in my left hand, right?'

  'Come on, are we going to be talking about this now? You do need to take care of a murderous Pope, Glenn,' sighed Diamanes.

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  Glenn clicked his tongue and pointed at the Pope once again. "Space Vacuum."

  The atmosphere around the Pope disappeared once again, but the latter didn't let that get to his head. He disappeared in a flash, leaving behind a trembling after-image. Glenn braced himself as he felt his opponent appear behind his back, but was too slow to dodge the attack.

  Harriet defended Glenn, his rapiers shining with a familiar glow. "Not on my watch, heretic. You missed your chance to give up. Now, die!" He knocked the Pope away and stabbed both of his weapons into the ground. The Pope disappeared once again when hundreds of Aura swords rose from the ground and shot for him.

  'Huh, that's... Isn't that a little like that Sword Grave spell we took from one of King's Rise's statues?' Glenn shrugged and planted his feet firmly into the ground. He pressed his hands together, his eyes watering as he struggled to follow the Pope's movements. The world seemed to slow around his hands, the spell fighting to break through his control, but Glenn remained fully concentrated.

  Harriet slammed his rapiers against the Pope's whip of vines, hurling him down to the ground. The King's Blade was about to rush back straight into the fight, but his instinct screamed at him to stop.

  "Absolute Zero."

  Harriet froze in mid-air and watched in disbelief as the Pope came to a complete standstill, his eyes wide opened in utter shock. A bead of sweat trickled down Glenn's forehead.

  He grimaced. "Sir knight, I wouldn't mind if you could finish him now. I'm not exactly strong enough to—"

  Harriet's twin rapiers pierced through the Pope's chest. The attack created holes as wide as apples in the cultist's chest, which happened at the same time as Glenn lost control over his Absolute Zero.

  'Damn it. Maintaining it against a Newborn Ruler is still too hard.'

  Diamanes cackled. 'Are you seriously complaining? You're at the Fifth Circle. An Expert Magi. You're not even supposed to be fighting these kinds of guys! Not that I don't enjoy it, mind you.'

  'I don't talk to traitors who are susceptible to taking over my body.'

  '... You're really going to hold that over my head forever, aren't you?'

  Glenn pressed his lips together and drew out more Mana. 'You'll need to answer a few of my questions truthfully if you want to regain even a slight bit of my trust.'

  The Pope slapped Harriet away and cried violently as his Divine energy made countless vines burst out of the ground. Glenn emotionlessly created a Sun in front of him, burning every vine away, while Harriet's flurry of stabs disintegrated them to ashes.

  'It sure is nice to have a capable Newborn Ruler on my team,' remarked Glenn. Most of the pressure was off him as the Pope mainly focused on Harriet. The battlefield was getting completely obliterated by the two as swords rose from the ground and crashed against massive, tentacle-like vines. Glenn was about to throw himself back into it when a hand suddenly grabbed his wrist.

  'I failed to sense anything! Who—' The Blackhole he readied in half a second disappeared when he recognized Milena's head floating in the air.

  "W- What the fuck? Milena, where's the rest of your body?"

  Milena grimaced and shed away her camouflage spell. "Illusions, Glenn! Now, I need your help! Sahro is unconscious in the forest, and a spatial domain seals most of the area!"

  "... Sahro, unconscious?" Glenn shook his head in regret. "How could I miss that? Alright, guide me there so—"

  "GLENN! YOU'RE FINALLY BACK!" Nelg's tearful voice exploded inside Glenn's mind into a violent headache.

  Glenn stumbled to the side and clenched the side of his head. "Shit, Nelg, no need to be so damn loud—"

  "LIARA IS DYING! THAT HEART OF DARKNESS POISONED HER!"

  "What- Where?" Glenn's blood turned to ice. He turned back and watched Nelg in his human form, jumping out of some sort of gigantic green mass through a bloody hole in its center. His doppelg?nger was carrying Liara in his hands. The Black Heiress was bleeding profusely, her eyes closed and her skin turning progressively paler.

  Glenn turned to Milena, his face as hard as granite. "Go grab Sahro. I'll be quick."

  Without even waiting for her reply, Glenn picked himself up with Gravity Manipulation and threw himself at Nelg as fast as he possibly could. This was faster than simply 'flying' using Gravity Manipulation, even if a little more dangerous. Right now, he had basically become an unstoppable projectile.

  He stopped mere inches away from Nelg and Liara, using Gravity Manipulation once again to cancel the kinetic force influencing him.

  'This feels like you're breaking more than a few laws of physics,' mocked Diamanes.

  "Says the guy who had his soul split into three and placed into space crystals."

  "Wait, how the fuck do you know that—?"

  Glenn grabbed Liara out of Nelg's hands and laid her on the floor. "Not now, Diamanes. Thank you, Nelg. I'll take over from here."

  Liara was breathing slowly, her face contorted in a painful expression. She had a couple of wounds, with two critical ones, one in the chest and another in the stomach.

  'Like me when I arrived in this world.' Glenn ignored that last thought and tried figuring out what he could do to help her. A quick check with Mana Sight revealed that she didn't have a single drop of Mana nor Aura left in her body. Because of that, the poison Nelg mentioned earlier was running through her veins freely and stopping any form of self-healing.

  "I can transfer my energy to her!" Nelg exclaimed, eager to help.

  Glenn blinked. "How—" He shook his head. "Never mind. Do that, then."

  Nelg complied without another second of hesitation and began transferring his energy to Liara. Glenn pressed his hands on her wounded chest, calling up to Diamanes for some C.P.R.

  But, strangely, it was another spell that replied to him. Something much stronger, much more potent, and with no apparent side effects. The wound on Liara's chest closed suddenly and healed in an instant.

  "What was that?!" Glenn blurted out as he moved to her wounded stomach.

  "Oh, I took that from spider-but-not-spider guy, Laurance. Monster Regeneration. It was my best be to save your life since, well, you were dead." Diamanes clicked his tongue and added, "Never thought it would work on others. Pretty nice. I'd prefer if Liara survived. She and Milena are still the best bride candidates—"

  "Nope." Glenn cut him off. "Your right for bullshitting freely expired when you betrayed me. So shut up and help me."

  "Tsk... Fine."

  Glenn, Diamanes and Nelg kept silent throughout the entire process. The colors slowly but surely returned to Liara's face and her breathing became more regular and assured. Nelg eventually dropped her hand and fell back, exhausted.

  "I gave all I had. I'm going to need a lot of souls to make up for everything I gave."

  Glenn wiped the sweat off his forehead. "Don't worry about that. I'm sure I'll be able to reap a few for you." He glanced back at Harriet, frowning.

  'Shit, he's losing grounds. Shouldn't the mysterious knight stranger be stronger than that?'

  Diamanes quickly corrected him. 'In a sense, he's not a stranger. He's Harriet the King's Blade. But yeah, he does seem weaker than he should be.'

  Glenn grabbed Nelg's hand and slipped something into it. "Listen Nelg. I have an idea and a half about what's going on. Take Liara and join up with Milena and Sahro. Apparently, there's a spatial thing going on. Try to figure that out, and if you can't, just try to wake up Sahro. In the meantime..."

  He clenched his fist, and his Mana exploded into a violent wave.

  "I have a Pope to burn."