"Argh, I can't think of anything!" Lia dropped to the floor with a headache. She had tried to remember to the best of her abilities but to no avail. Instead of remembering anything, only her headache was increasing.
"What about you? Remembered anything?" She asked Raphael.
"I might if you stop interrupting me every other second," Raphael responded, opening his eyes.
Lia was such an impatient girl that meditation was her bane. At regular intervals, she kept giving up and even distracted Raphael in the process.
Raphael couldn't blame her either since it wasn't as if he was close to remembering. It was harder than he expected. He had assumed that knowing about his past was going to help him remember, but instead, it only made it even harder for him to remember the missing bits.
Whenever he tried to remember the parts of his memories that he was missing, his mind instead shifted to what he had seen, making him lose his thought process entirely.
He wanted to remember who killed him or what even happened to him, but random memories kept giving him an unnecessary burden.
It had been close to an hour, and he still had no idea what to do. How could he help himself?
Similar to Lia, he also dropped to the ground. "I am at a loss. I don't know what I can do to remember and how long it's going to take. Maybe we can never remember?"
"That's why the old man should just tell us directly what we don't know." Lia agreed. "Why is he torturing us when he can end this easily by just telling us?"
"That's true... He can just tell us the missing parts of our memories." Raphael knew that Lia wasn't wrong with this. That path was certainly easier.
"However, for some reason, he wants us to recover our memories ourselves... Maybe it has something to do with us getting our bodies back. Maybe we can only get our bodies back after we actually break the seal on our memories. Other than that, I can't think of a reason why he won't just tell us everything."
His mind kept going back to the mark on the back of the person. Without his memories, that was the only identifying feature he could think of. Unfortunately, he had never seen that mark in his life before.
"I can't rest until I find them..." He sat up again after a brief minute of rest.
No matter how many times he felt like giving up, the questions about the identity of those people motivated him to try once again.
****
The old King blocked Azekiel's attack with his katana.
"I told you that such childish tricks won't work on me, kid!" Brandishing his sword, he flew straight toward Azekiel.
As he was able to block Azekiel's attack with such ease, that only worked to boost his morale even more, even without him realizing it.
Azekiel could only shake his head in disappointment. He had just used a weak attack to test the capabilities of the old man, but even he hadn't expected it to have such unintended effects. The man straight up thought that this was all he had and attacked.
Azekiel could only smile in response. That was what happened when someone fought against a person they thought to be weaker. They never took them seriously, even after seeing a glimpse of their skills.
This was also an advantage which Azekiel had because his name wasn't in the Tower Ranking. Based on the Tower Rankings, people could more or less measure the threat level of a person.
Since Azekiel wasn't even in the ranking yet, he didn't have to worry about that part. Despite being a powerful person, he was considered to be the underdog here.
Seeing the Katana coming straight for his chest, Azekiel brought both his Gauntlets together, appearing as if he was just going to block the attack.
Seeing Azekiel just go for defense, the old man simply smirked. It was clear that Azekiel didn't have anything to stop him with.
The old man became even more fearless. The person who straight went to defense couldn't be a threat. The man attacked even more brazenly, applying even more strength to his attack.
The man reached closer to Azekiel, but just as his sword was about to hit the Gauntlets, Azekiel finally moved, pulling his hands back and giving the man a straight opening for his chest.
The man was slightly surprised and elated. He couldn't help but wonder if Azekiel was an idiot. He didn't have time to think about Azekiel's stupid decision. He was already so close to the attack that he just went forward with it, changing the angle of his sword.
Instead of slashing with his katana like he was previously planning, he just went with a straight thrust to stab Azekiel's chest to kill him right there.
The old man came closer, but just as he thrust his Sword, Azekiel finally moved, only by a few inches to the right. The Gauntlets that were in his hand abruptly changed to an Ax which he brought up.
"Arghh!" The old man's roar echoed in the surroundings as Azekiel's Sword came slicing up, cutting the old man's hand, which was holding the Katana.
The right arm of the old man flew along with the weapon of sin.
The old man was shocked. His gaze went to his katana and his detached hand as he hastily flew back, not realizing that this brief moment was enough for Azekiel to change his weapon once again.
From the short-range ax, Azekiel changed his Ax to the spear of Michael, which had a much longer range. He tossed the spear without taking any time to mark Target. It was as if he already knew where to attack.
"Urgh!" Blood came out of the old man's mouth as his face turned even paler. He lowered his eyes, seeing the spear that had passed through his body where his heart used to be.
One end of the spear was behind him, while the other end of the spear was before him. The man was planning to impale Azekiel, but on the contrary, it was he who had suffered the brunt of the attack. He died the same way he was planning to kill Azekiel.
"Who... are... you...?" The old man weakly asked.
He had seen Azekiel use three weapons to kill him, and all three weapons were Weapons of Sin, each having a different aura in itself.
It wasn't just his weapon that had transformed. Instead, it was like a perfect imitation of another King's weapon.
A hand and a Sword dropped to the ground. The old man was still in the air, on his last breath.
Azekiel flew closer to the old man and pulled out the spear, making the old man grunt in pain as his body floated down.
The old man's body landed on the ground, not too far from Azekiel.
The spear in Azekiel's hands transformed once again, this time changing to the Katana of the old man.
"Thanks for a new weapon..." He started before stepping closer to the old man.
He placed the tip of the Katana on the forehead of the old man.
"Killing me with my own weapon?" The old man asked. He was already at death's door. Even if Azekiel didn't do anything, he was going to die. However, Azekiel was still going to give him one last blow.
The old man closed his eyes, regretting underestimating this guy. He definitely wasn't a newbie. There was something different about this man. Unfortunately, he came to know of it a bit too late.
With the slightest of push, the Katana passed through the head of the old man, giving him a swift death.
After killing the old man, he used the Soul Snatch on him, using the Gluttony of Knowledge simultaneously to steal the memories of the old man to understand just why these people didn't want anyone else to get to the higher floors.
"Strange..." After receiving the memories from the old man, Azekiel stood up, slightly disappointed and surprised.
"Even he doesn't know why he was stopping people from going up. An idiot who just received an order and didn't even bother to ask questions." Azekiel shook his head and walked to the other people in the back.
Even in the memories, he couldn't find a reason. In fact, it was clear that the old man hadn't even been to the 80th floor in months. He just followed the orders of stopping people.
"Despite being a King, he was reduced to being an errand boy. No wonder he was so upset when I called him an errand boy. There was truth to it."
He used Soul Snatch on the Lords as well after walking over to their bodies, taking as much strength as he could. He had already brought his name on the tower Ranking, and he knew that this was where troubles were going to come from. He needed as much strength as he could get!
