In the backdrop of a rising sun, two individuals stood facing each other going through a range of emotions yet unable to express any of it. Fortunately or unfortunately, Lyod was face to face with his wife who he had assumed dead for so many years. 

"You are not my wife." Only the old man himself knew what kind of conviction it took to ruthlessly crush his own hopes. Opposite to him, the woman who was profusely bleeding from her guts laughed in travesty. "You break my heart Lyod. Did you age so much that you can't even recognize me?" 

Stumped, Lyod remained silent for a long while but in the end, he just shook his head. There was no way he could come to terms with this. The murderous intent he had felt from this woman was real as daylight. Paula would have chosen death before she would have harmed him. As if the extent of his agony was not enough, the woman carrying Paula's face still had her malicious intent intact. 

"No.. this can't be. You are not Paula. All you have is her face." In a world of mana and spells, it wasn't too farfetched for a person to transform how they looked. While his assumption did leave a big blank owing to the fact that the woman was able to pretty much copy every spell of Paula to the dot. Lyod simply didn't want to consider that. 

"Not only face... I got the whole body you know haha..." Standing atop his dagger that he has previously used to rip open the woman, Lyod was growing restless every passing second. Who was this woman? How was she possessing the body of Paula? And the most important question out of all.. was there a chance Paula was still alive?

Prior to being told, Lyod would have answered that question with an emphatic no. He had watched with his very own eyes as his beloved partner for life was dragged away to a different dimension. Any sane person would rate her chance of surviving in such adverse conditions as zero. Nonetheless, the existence of this woman changed everything. 

Lyod would have been willing to beg if such a gesture could get some lead of his wife's whereabouts from this woman. But as pitiful as it might sound, he knew such a method will yield no results at all. 

"Hm... I am not sure. Was my performance lacking in some way? Why am I not convincing to you?" Paula or her lookalike took the time to seal up her wound while showing interest in another round of small talk. 

Even with all chaos in his mind, Lyod displayed a simmer of smile. "Because you neither have her gentle personality nor do you have her memories." Taking a pause, the man commanded his mana dagger to bring him much closer to the lady. "If you were really Paula, you would have known very well that the void vortex spell would not have worked on me. She had been aware of how easily I can slip out of her spell." 

Paula who truly had only a handful of her memories intact, can only display a wry smile. Naturally, she had no recollection of such an interaction ever taking place between them. 

"Hahaha.. what can I even say? Maybe we were not in perfect harmony during our married years. Why else will you fail so utterly to recognize me?" Paula shook her head, as of genuinely disappointed in Lyod. 

Though her murderous intent had not gone anywhere, Lyod can sense a hint of desperation in her voice. And that's exactly when he came across the dark eyes of the woman, peering straight into his soul. "This.. this is impossible... Paula is gone.." 

There was no faking it now. Lyod can recognize those pair of eyes even on the cusp of his death. A person might be able to morph their face to look like someone, but going to the extent of modifying their eyes was simply unheard of. Not only that but strangely enough, the voices emerging from his heart had begun overpowering his rationality. 

"Now do you understand? I am Paula. Besides, why would I lie to a departing soul? That's too cruel even by my standards." As heartless as it can be, Paula simply had a good laugh at the utter dismay and horror of the old man, indicative of the fact how little of humanity remained in her. 

Lyod was giving his best, but the surge of emotions had grown to such an extent that his limbs shook. The resonance with his mana was disturbed and the man almost tumbled down from the sky. "What... what.. happened to you... Paula?" 

Finally accepting the fact, Lyod was completely broken. This woman.. she was no imposter. She was actually his wife.. whom he had tragically lost and was presumed dead by him for such a long time. However, this was not the limit of the old man's suffering. 

"You want to know? Fair enough... I will tell you. But first, you must fill me in on how you escaped my spell." The fact that she was more focused on her spell breach at a time like this when her husband was right in front of her and brought to the point of sobbing, told volumes of Paula's total detachment from her past. 

As devastated as Lyod was, another man would have simply crumbled. It was only his age that gave the man conviction to still stand on his feet and face reality. Regardless, for the next minute, Lyod could not bring himself to speak anything. It's like time had stopped for him with fleeting moments of his beloved wife flashing right before his eyes. 

"I don't have all day, old man. I want to hear it before I put you to death." Paula's words were a completely rude awakening for Lyod. Even if this was the body of his wife, was it truly occupied with her soul as well? This made no sense to him, the real Paula can never harm him.

Closing his eyes, Lyod forced his fleeting heartbeats to come to harmony. He had already let the woman influence him too much and if he still didn't put his act together, there was a good chance today can be his last day. 

"Huuu... I want to hear the entire truth." He negotiated, to which the woman carrying Paula's visage returned a derisive smile to him. "Go ahead.." Lyod had finally got his emotions under wrap as his body once again floated back to the same height as his opponent. 

"It's an easy fix.. if you can ride the wave then your spell itself will carry you out of it." Paula's narrowed her brows at the explanation. It had to be noted at that kind of spin, a human body will simply be torn apart if anyone tried such a foolish adventure. "You lie." 

Lyod remained calm in the face of Paula's contempt. "It's a practiced maneuver for me because I had done it so many times. Also, my ability to conjure weapons out of mana lets me rip through the storm with relative ease." 

Paula was stumped for a moment. She might have looked over the mana dagger Lyod had been riding. It seems that weapon was the actual antidote for her vortex spell. "Hmph... I will still say you escaped by a fluke." 

"I told you what I could. Now tell me what happened to Paula." Lyod pressed the lady to keep her end of the bargain. "While I am disgusted to even keep my words with an insect, I suppose I will let you know. It's not like you will be able to speak of it to anyone." She smiled ostentatiously. 

"I was simply telling the truth earlier. I am Paula, yet not the one you knew Lyod. You can say I have achieved liberation. This body is no longer as fragile as a human's. I am on the path to becoming a demon now." Paula's dark pupils started turning red as the skin on her body began pulsating with black blood. 

"Demons were the epitome of existence and with the help of my new master, I shall achieve the same level of existence haha haha.." Two small horns broke out of Paula's head as remnants of a set of crooked wings emerged from her back. The skin-tight clothes she was wearing had been shattered to reveal a gruesome sight.  

Paula's skin had turned completely pale, so much so her veins carrying black blood were visible right through it. Her teeth had grown as well, giving her a vicious aura. Comparing her current horrifying profile to her earlier elegant appeal, it was the difference between night and day. 

"Master had given me power... power that I have desired so determinedly." Bells of danger rang in Lyod's head. This person.. she was no longer the woman he had been fighting. When he had first come across her, his intuition had warned him continuously. That's the reason he took no chances and sent Ryu away even before they had begun clashing. Now observing the non-human entity opposite himself, his intuition had been on point. 

"I must break you out of whatever nasty spell they have placed you under, Paula." A slightly reddish hue engulfed Lyod, evidence of the incredible rate he was burning through his mana reserves. In a matter of seconds, the entire sky was filled with all kinds of weaponry, each one directed at the demonic creature who once was his beloved wife. 

"Ahahaha.. try it, insect." Paula's voice was choppy, far off from how mellow a woman's voice was supposed to be. Much like her opponent, black sand had spanned across the horizon. "Today, I shall completely bury my past along with my dear husband... Kukukuu..." 

***

Miles away, Ryu had been running non-stop for more than twenty minutes now. With his cultivation level, every step of his carried him swiftly through the air, allowing him to cover vast distances with every stride. 

Even with the range he had carried himself away, Ryu's heart was still beating in panic. This wasn't a beast slightly above the level he was facing right now. It's a person who might even be stronger than Master Lyod. It doesn't take a genius to figure out Ryu will be courting death if he faced that person. 

Suddenly, his footsteps came to an abrupt halt. The reason was the fact that something had covered the sun behind him. Despite the dread in his heart and the perspiration overflowing from his head, he actually convinced himself to look back. 

Turning his head around, the scene was as horrible as it could get. The sky was separated into two sections. The first half was covered with thousands.. if not millions of sharp weapons while the second was drowned by a literal tsunami of black sand. 

This was the level of these so-called experts? It's like a god from the heavens had descended to the planet. Needless to say, Ryu felt his breath stuck in his chest for the entire duration. 

Just as he was looking, the titans clashed. Even from such a distance, Ryu can simply describe the scene as total mayhem. The sand was blasted in all directions by the huge weapons, yet the sea of sand seemed like it was here to drown the world itself. 

His throat dry, Ryu forcibly tore his eyes off the breathtaking sight. At the time of his reckoning, he touched the bracelet provided to him by his grandmother. Though he was more certain than ever that he will have to rely on this artifact if he was to survive today, Ryu would like to push things as far as possible. 

Now the only matter remaining was to figure out if his grandma had anticipated the threat correctly or not. Because if Emily had underestimated the threat perception, Ryu was pretty much doomed today. With that suspense in his heart, the boy kept running for his life.