By this point, Reen's Ranking Status had regressed.
Eliza had forced her to become a D-Rank demon beast. Reen's bloodline powers were still forcefully active while Eliza was operating on the Array Formation. As such, her lost limbs and flesh kept growing back only for Eliza to rob them again from her.
The regression was escalating at a rapid rate due to this continuous cycle.
'I won't let your trust in me go to waste, Reen. You know what you need to do to make us win big, right?' Eren asked Reen while looking at Reen's feeble state.
'I… I know,' Reen responded. 'Should I…' she asked with some difficulty.
'Yes,' Eren responded while clenching his fists hard, his bones making a crackling sound.
'Al… alright, Erni,' Reen looked at Eren with her clear eyes before leaving a parting message. 'You… you need to know that, no matter what happens, I… aaaaah… I won't blame you. Goodbye, for the time being.
Or… forever…" Reen said while looking at Eren with misty eyes. She wanted to smile at him to leave a good image in his mind. She didn't mind if the smile looked forceful. But unfortunately, her situation didn't allow her to.
Eren nodded at Reen, his own eyes moist for some reason, his heart beating erratically as if he was hyperventilating.
Swoosh. Zoom. Boom.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
"Aaaaaaargh!"
While she was busy triggering bloodline evolution in her seemingly lifeless real body, Eliza suddenly received a backlash from the failed operation of the Soul Seed Insertion Array. Her Soul Sense Manifestation started flickering as if she was turning into a spectral entity.
Her expressions made her look shocked and livid. It was clear that her Soul Space had been harmed due to this sudden malfunction in the Array Formation.
"Who… who interrupted my…" Eliza started looking frantically around her to identify what had caused the Array Formation to malfunction which resulted in her receiving such a heavy backlash from it. It took her a while to realize what was the reason behind it.
It seemed that the Array Formation had been interrupted from within. Eliza found out that the eastern Array Eye had suddenly gone inactive while she was concentrating all her attention on the northern Array Eye.
The reason why that had happened was because the entity confined within the eastern Array Eye had died by letting her mana core explode. Eliza opened her eyes wide in surprise when she realized that Reen had committed suicide.
Eren had already taken action while Eliza was busy dealing with the spiritual backlash. The Soul Spell barrier that Eliza had cast using her abundant Spiritual Force was no more because of the backlash.
While the Witch of the Enderflames was busy trying to figure out what had happened to her, he entered the Soul Seed Insertion Array and took Reen's lifeless body away with him.
Meanwhile, Reen's soul was converted into Soul Seed by Shallot's Mirror in a fraction of a second. The Soul Seed was soon pulled inside the mirror's space.
"Aaaaah!"
Another scream was heard at this point. Leela, who had remained on the standby inside the southern Array Eye also received a spiritual backlash from Shallot's Mirror as her consciousness was forcefully kicked out. The Shallot's Mirror had also stripped almost all of the Spiritual Force from Leela, forcing her to lose consciousness. The homunculus sister of the Little Witch fell on her back in a lifeless manner after losing consciousness.
Shallot's Mirror disappeared from its predefined position at this point. It appeared on Eren's wrist as a wristband, going back to its true owner.
"Now!"
Eren commanded his friends to change the behavior of the secondary Birdcage Barrier as soon as he stepped out of it. The fiends acted right away, making it so that the secondary Birdcage Barrier could not be breached by those who were inside it.
Everything happened in a split second with such a quick succession that it was nothing but a blur for Eliza's already compromised vision. However, it didn't take her long to realize what had transpired.
"This vile creature," Eliza hissed at Eren's distant figure with anger and frustration. She could have never imagined in her wildest dreams that he would make Reen commit suicide to break free from the absolute checkmate situation she had arranged for him.
"Aaaaah! I was trying to go easy on you and you just had to do this. You… you'll pay for this.
Do you think this Birdcage Barrier is enough to stop me from coming for you? I am not like those pathetic Sages waiting outside the barrier, you vile brat," Eliza looked at Eren with anger and eyes that sought revenge.
Eliza clenched her head with both her hands, her eyes turning red. Her soul was seriously hurt by the backlash she had just received. But for some reason, her Soul Space was damaged more than the injury entailed. As if this soul-related injury had exposed a deeper problem with her soul that had remained hidden from her attention.
'He… he had me. This snake… he didn't even hesitate to kill the only connection to sanity he had,' Eliza thought to herself and cursed at Eren.
'He… he is indeed more dangerous than I thought. I'll… I'll have to kill him. I… I must kill him because now he won't rest until he kills me,' the Witch of the Enderflames quickly concluded.
Mark of the Seven Sins: Domain of Wrath
Eliza deployed her demonic domain for the first time in a long while. She knew that demonic barriers could only be dealt with demonic might effectively. Plus, the bane of Gluttony Mana was Wrath Mana as well.
However, deploying the Domain of Wrath was perhaps the biggest mistake she had made at this point. Unbeknownst to her, Eren had summoned someone inside the secondary Birdcage Barrier using Sansara Sage's space-element runes before sealing them inside.
"You… you dare…"
A deep and wrathful voice sounded in Eliza's ears before she could take any action against Eren who was looking at her with eyes with equal hatred. She turned to her side to look at the owner of this voice.
"You dare usurp the position of this Prince?"
The man who had been suddenly summoned inside the secondary barrier spoke while looking at Eliza with hateful eyes. He had grayish-white, waist-length hair that had gotten messy for some reason. His pro-testosterone physique lay exposed. He had two giant axes in his hands.
And for some reason, this muscular-looking dual-axe-wielding man also looked injured and distraught, as he had been fighting with someone or something for a very long time. It was as if in his angered haze he was yet to realize that he had been teleported to an entirely different location from his previous one.
This man was none other than Demonmir, also known as Ottoman de Montmorency.
"Who the fuck…" Eliza was about to question Demonmir while clenching her head with her hand. But before she could complete her sentence, she was attacked. To her surprise, Demonmir could also use domain-type demonic attacks.
Samael's Authority: Domain of Wrath!
Swoosh. Zoom. Boom.
"Aaaaaargh!"
Saying that Eliza was shocked would be an understatement at this point. Before she could realize how her demonic domain had weakened all of a sudden before she could even make use of it, the injured-looking Demonmir attacked her with his Dual Axe Arts, destroying everything around her with his attacks.
The Witch of the Enderflames was sent a few meters flying from her initial position, her newly formed and severely injured body getting invaded by Demonmir's intrusive mana.
Enderflames!
The green fire made its appearance inside the secondary Birdcage Barrier.
"You bastard! I… I'll kill you," Eliza deployed another demonic domain at this point while charging at Demonmir. A cutlass sword had appeared in her hand that demanded blood from her potential victims.
This was only the beginning of the battle between the Witch of the Enderflames and Demonmir. The moment this battle commenced, the true might of the demonic Rankers laid bare for everyone in Anfang to see.
Meanwhile, the orchestrator of this battle watched the scene unfolding in front of him with misty eyes. He then looked down and looked at Reen's lifeless body in his arms which was beginning to lose its human-like form.
'I… I'll show this world… how a resurrection is supposed to be done. It better be ready to pay the price for it.'
While two of his biggest enemies were busy battling with each other to death, the butcher decided to launch his own version of the Lazarus Project.
A project that would change the fate of this world forever.
