The strange feeling began when he first entered the tower. It was too faint for him to notice then, but in retrospect, there was something off.
It was always there, like the silk of the spider hanging down the wall, always there, but slipping past his vision.
As he climbed the flowers, the feeling was pushed to the back of his head, ignored as one of the tower effects.
But when he entered the world tree, Varian could feel something he had no idea of. They were still faint, still invisible to the point they could be ignored.
When he took out the artifacts though, they began to vibrate and hum. It wasn't just a simple rattling of the metals, Varian could hear a strange symphony in their movements.
A pattern, a melody…an ode.
He didn't want to believe it, but he felt a sense of 'nostalgia' coming from his artifacts as he traveled down the world tree.
It was a nonsensical notion to think these objectively dead items had any emotions but his Binder power, with all its soul mastery, was telling him that the artifacts had indeed changed after being in the vicinity of the world tree.
As Varian immersed himself in an intense internal debate, a body slammed beside him and drilled into the ground, going a whole mile before stopping. It wasn't that the attack was weak, rather, the ground was just too tough.
If the place was to be changed and the earth bore the brunt of this attack, it'd have exploded into pieces.
Varian teleported away from the battle region and looked at the star-breaking explosions with a gloomy expression.
'I'll use the [Broken Seed] and improve the aura concentration of the solar system. Or any celestial fight will destroy the planets.'
For that, he needed to return. And for him to return—
"See you later!" Varian waved his hands and started running away.
Maria was just kicked back by Reaper's anti-vitality explosion. Her withered arm that looked like a dry branch recovered in a blink and she gnashed her teeth at the words that reached her.
"You can leave if you want, but why do you have to make it sound like we're on a vacation here?" Maria growled like a tigress and thrust her spear at the Reaper.
Waves of black energy spread out from the skeleton warrior and deflected her spear in a blink.
Maria's palms bled at the strong rebound and her feet dug into the incredibly hard ground.
A large black hand appeared out of nowhere and gripped her from behind. Maria's arms flapped around and she struggled violently. Yet, her life force was drained. Maria's beautiful green hair began to lose its luster.
"Aargh, Fuck you!" Maria managed to take out a cylindrical box and slammed it on the ground.
A brilliant light, far surpassing even the brilliance of a star, swept the place, blinding everyone in the nearby million miles.
"The power of Princess Calamity…" Reaper muttered calmly, the fire in his eye sockets glowing brighter.
"Huff! Huff! Huff!" Maria panted heavily as she placed her hand on the back of her neck. Her expression twisted as she dug her nails into her skin and tore out a chunk of flesh infected with ominous dark energy.
As she pulled it out, the dark energy flared and pulled her body towards it, overwhelming Maria with tremendous pain, causing her to feel as if her arms and feet were tied to four different horses and pulled apart.
"Damn you, I'll throw your bones into a pigsty!" Maria slapped a talisman—leather-skinned, rune inscribed and glowing—onto her wound, and a barrier formed around her neck, obstructing the entry of all foreign aura.
Reaper looked at her with an impassive gaze, as if her words couldn't shake him in the slightest and her entire existence was nothing but another obstacle in his record.
"Y-You'll pay for this, bastard." Maria pulled out a long bow out of her storage and threw it into the space.
The bowstring bent and incredibly powerful energy began to coalesce, targeting Reaper.
The power was enough to kill and injure even a strong rank 6. Yet, Reaper's gaze remained the same.
In fact, he turned his face slightly and looked past Maria, onto Varian who was running away like this was none of his business.
The corpses of his subordinates were scattered all around, though only their clothes and skins remained, they were 'drained' by Varian to improve his own strength.
The sight didn't faze Reaper. He was in full control. But they were on world tree and letting Varian escape this safe zone which the elves couldn't properly sense might lead to unexpected variables.
'Maria is easy to beat but hard to kill.' Reaper's gaze went to Maria's storage rings that were filled with crazy treasures.
He wouldn't be able to show his back to her and blatantly chase Varian without risking his life.
So, he glanced at his two colleagues.
The three-headed hound had an incredibly thick skin as an Adept and had a great advantage over Princess Bella's whip attacks.
Their battle was one siding employing pure offense while the other taking complete defense.
Bella's whip blurred as it struck the hound's skin a thousand times in a second. But except for some torn skin and light flesh wounds, there was nothing else.
While Bella was on the offensive and looked like the winning party to an average spectator, it was the hound that was in a stable winning position from the start. Bella's stamina, while high, was quickly depleting.
When the barrage of her offense falls and it'd fall, the Hound will feast on a weakened, demoralized prey to its heart's content.
On the other hand, Prince Sohan wasn't any better.
Traitor Numan's axe glowed a malicious purple as it cleaved into Sohan's chest.
The purple glow—said to be born from the fires that burned down a million people alive—drilled into Sohan and burned his soul.
"Arghh!" Sohan's body stiffened and responded with all his power. It wasn't a move to save himself though—but a move to die with his enemy.
The heavy sword in his hand arched through the air and reached Numan. If the sword hit, then Numan's body would be crushed into a paste.
Even if he's an elf that boasted high vitality, Sohan's heavy sword and tyrannical aura wouldn't allow him to survive.
Numan kicked Sohan in the chest—on the very wound that his axe created and blasted him through ranges of mountains.
The heavy sword left Sohan's grip and flew into the air, looking like it was about to be dropped. But it froze and then shot towards Sohan like a flash of lightning.
Even though he managed to save himself, Sohan was in a fight he couldn't win.
'A bunch of youngsters having so much power is really astonishing and exciting.' Reaper sighed inwardly. His bones vibrated with him, a hunger growing deep inside him, demanding him to devour these three young lifeforms.
'Fine, we'll kill these three and then chase him down. He can't go far anyway.'
As Reaper raised his bony hand, the space around Maria, Sohan, and Bella distorted, teleporting them away.
While they thought he was running away, he used the sliver powers to remove the spatial restrictions, used the tower-gifted mask, and drew space formations around these three.
Varian's voice lingered in the air, with a hint of sarcasm and ridicule. "Are you crying? Then cry harder!"
