Reluctantly, Samael agreed.

Instantly after that, and with untold amounts of struggle, Uriel drew the formation onto Korynth, using his methods of harmony and resonance to change and transform the link she had with the pike.

It was surprisingly easy.

Uriel handed Samael the command key, and then, with a smile, he sent them away.

Space warped, and they vanished, Korynth’s gaze just as dark as Samael’s own, though for entirely different reasons.

One burned with rage, and the other drowned in helplessness.

"..."

TAH!

Uriel collapsed to his knees the moment they left, clutching his chest in pure agony and writhing around without any thought for appearances.

He gasped and guffawed in pain.

It wasn’t just the wound in his chest that hurt, but also whatever evolution he had begun while in the mirror space.

He felt every single one of his cells shifting and shattering, then being reborn with maddening clarity. Every part of him constantly died, then came back to life without end.

His mind split, then joined back into one, only to fracture into infinite variants of people he wasn’t, all roaring to be the one true personality.

The strange changes happening to his body made him something close to a mad undead, and were most likely the reason he was still alive without a heart and breathing without lungs.

It hurt, though.

’How the hell am I going to get myself out of this...’

His Will, which had become as tangible as it could get after his encounter with the Regulator, was rather calm. By overextending it, he’d been able to completely hide his pain from the duo.

But that couldn’t last long.

’What to do...what to do...what to do...’

Now that Uriel truly understood the essence of his cores, it was as if his truest potential had been unleashed.

He could easily use the three arts of control now and bend their truths to his liking. If he wanted, he could use dissonance to force his body into a state of stillness.

If that happened, the pain would stop—but he’d also die.

If he used harmony to speed up his evolution, he’d most likely end up as a twisted, cancerous horror of flesh. That was due to the simple fact that this evolution was the result of a scheme his past self had formed.

In what world would he be able to not only comprehend his past self’s designs, but also speed them up? It’d be foolish to even try.

Worst of all was that if he tried to use resonance and change the state of his body, all he’d be able to do was return to the Mad Draconic form he’d had before he burned to the flame.

And he doubted that would end well.

’Damn it!’

There was one more path, but he didn’t like it.

Timeless Resonance.

That path would have him apply it to his Will and simply force himself to...endure. To endure until the pain became bearable and he could move without wanting to kill himself.

Just like he’d done in the cave, but this time, instead of it being his body that shattered its own limits, it’d be his Will.

Uriel’s expression darkened.

....

Time passed.

WHOOOSH!

The flows of wood and sand aether in the air broke, and their Will followed soon after.

The vines binding Kael were incinerated by flowing arcs of lightning that burst from his body, their momentum carrying through him to shatter the sand incapacitating him.

His pupils flickered, and he regained consciousness.

"..."

The dungeon wasn’t as dark as it had once been. The tall, curved cavernous walls of the place, covered in glowing green moss, were revealed.

The glow of the moss unveiled the wide and empty vastness of the space, the countless chains dangling from the ceiling that trailed across the charred ground, and the place where the trio had once been held.

But there were a few oddities.

The first was that...

’Blood.’

...every single inch of space, from the ceilings to the ground, to the moss and all else, was covered in runes drawn with blood as ink.

It formed a gigantic formation which Kael couldn’t see through.

And secondly, Kael immediately noticed that they weren’t here anymore. But more specifically, the pikes weren’t here. They were all gone.

One had left with Samael, still entrenched within Korynth, and—

"..." Kael looked down at his bleeding chest.

—the two others were lodged deep into his own chest, one piercing through his heart and the other through his core.

Kael stared down at the wound torn in his chest and the blood that leaked from it for long seconds. Then, as if the wound was meaningless, he looked up.

There, in the far distance, he laid eyes on Uriel. The young man looked just as beaten and broken as he last remembered.

The same wounded and bloodied body, and the same gaping hole that tore through him—nothing had changed.

He simply stood straight, eyes calm, almost void, with his hand bare of any weapon and breath weak.

"Is this worth it?" Kael asked Uriel.

Before Uriel could answer, his hand moved to grab the pike tearing through his core. Without care or mercy, he viciously tore it out of himself, his blood gushing from his belly as a part of his guts spilled out.

He didn’t pause or wince.

His hand moved again, tearing the second pike out of his chest, uncaring as the last remnants of his heart tore into bits and pieces.

He threw the metallic structures away. And in the next breath, beautiful flames of gold and ivory surged to wrap around his body, exploding with energy to rapidly mend his body.

Phoenix flames.

In a beat, Kael was back to full health.

"..."

He bent down slightly, then picked his mask back up. Slowly, he fitted it back onto his face, veiling away his sea of blue eyes and golden worms.

CLICK!

"Is it?" he asked again.

Uriel smiled awkwardly. "Is it going to be that bad?"

Kael nodded. "It is. And I’ll be sure to make it long."

He flipped a palm over, and a long sword with a hilt of dark crystal, a roaring phoenix for a pommel, and a long flaming blade appeared in his grasp.

Kael swung his sword around loosely, getting used to its weight in his grip. There was no anger on his face, no shame, no confusion—nothing.

He didn’t even ask where the other two prisoners had gone. He didn’t ask how Uriel had thralled his mind a second time, and he didn’t ask what his purpose was.

"I will not kill you," he said, pointing his blade at Uriel just as his core fully mended. "But I will hurt you."

"And then I’ll consume you."

Kael then simply...vanished.