As the rocks pressing down on him lifted into the air, Ares raised his head to look at the owner of the legs standing before him. He managed a smile, but his smile looked stiff and scary due to his battered form.
"T-Thanks... that was... quite painful."
Cassian slowly sank to his heels, locking eyes with him. He tried his best to return a smile but couldn’t manage it, so he let it go.
Gently, he grabbed Ares’ shoulder and whispered softly near his ear.
"Then... let me end your suffering."
A burst of shadows erupted from Cassian’s hand, engulfing Ares’s body. Ares screamed as his form began to melt. Before Ares lost consciousness completely, his eyes locked onto Cassian’s, and he questioned hoarsely.
"Why...?"
But there was no answer—only a cold, crimson gaze staring down at him.
Ultimately, all that remained in Cassian’s hand was a faintly glowing core containing Ares’ injured soul. He stared at the pool of blood before him for a while and stood up.
"You ask why... just because I am the one you met—the kind you never should have crossed paths with, the unkind me."
Cassian had just taken a step to leave the area and continue searching for Zami and the others, so he could get their souls too, when the sky above him darkened further, suffused with a strange, nauseating aura.
He lifted his head, only to see a massive, tailless symbol of a seven-headed snake.
The symbol glowed brilliantly in a hazy blend of white and crimson, before a lily intertwined with it and the tailless snake formed a tail. Each of the snake’s heads was crowned with a bewitching white lily, completing the symbol. Cassian blinked.
"Is this... also Azazeal’s power?"
He had barely spoken when a cold, disgusted voice echoed in his mind.
’How can you even consider that?’
Cassian flinched hearing Azazeal’s voice. Calming himself, he narrowed his eyes to focus on the snake symbol more deeply.
He indeed felt a familiar darkness coming from the massive seven-headed snake, yet different from Azazeal’s power—it carried a nauseating presence, as if it were stitched together from the essences of others. The realization hit him when two more symbols bloomed on the snake’s huge body: a purple flower appeared on its back, and a familiar clock symbol appeared above its stomach.
Cassian’s eyes dilated. Then he laughed wildly, a sound more terrifying than rage.
"It’s him! It’s actually him! Hahaha... he’s grown even more stronger! Why, why, why didn’t you stop him? Just why! Ahhh!"
He screamed, his voice cracking, clearly blaming Azazeal. Dropping to his knees, he banged his fist against the ground, each loud thud echoing through the emptiness.
"I’m doing what you asked!"
"Then why didn’t you stop him?!"
"You know what I want!"
Despite his screams, the silence that followed felt like a physical weight. The mere thought that he still couldn’t reach Nathaniel—even with the power Azazeal had given him, because Nathaniel had grown even stronger—drove him mad.
The faintly glowing core containing Ares’ soul slipped from his hand, falling with a soft click. Instantly, cracks spiderwebbed across its fragile form as the surrounding darkness crept in, curling into tendrils that began devouring the glow of the soul.
Cassian’s chest heaved.
Rage, despair, and helplessness collided within him—a dark, violent storm he could no longer contain. He growled dangerously as his power flared, forcefully consuming the darkness around him. Within minutes, his body broke through the boundary and entered the seventh stage of the Celestial rank before instantly reaching its peak.
He became as strong as Valance and the other Rulers at the peak of the 7th stage.
But at the peak, his aura stopped growing, and the surrounding darkness dispersed.
Azazeal made no effort to stop him from absorbing the fragments of power he had scattered throughout the realm—he didn’t even watch Cassian. After all, he knew this was as far as Cassian could go. This was Cassian’s limit. Why? Because he lacked a Celestial symbol. Without it, how could he ever claim the crown of a true Ruler?
Cassian didn’t realize that. Feeling his newfound strength, he leapt into the sky and struck the snake symbol with all his might, aiming to obliterate the image.
The symbols scattered, and for a brief, satisfying moment, he laughed—only for the broken fragments to easily swirl back together, reforming perfectly once more.
Cassian’s crimson eyes lost their glow completely as he charged at the symbol again, madness fueling his every move. Yet what had happened before repeated itself.
The scene looked pitiful—a man trying to destroy something far beyond his reach.
By the time, the symbol faded on its own, he had dropped down with a clouded look, lying motionlessly amisdt the many small and big scattered rocks, staring at the sky.
He cackled as the symbol vanished.
"It’s gone. Hehe... it’s gone."
"Finally... hehe..."
Darkness clung to him as he stumbled to his feet, swaying unnaturally. His eyes were vacant. The only thing left in his lost mind was Azazeal’s final command—to collect the souls of everyone he knew in the realm.
He grabbed the core containing Ares’ soul and wiped the dust off it, cracking it further with his rough handling, then hummed and slowly disappeared in a random direction.
Azazeal titled his head, raising his eyes as he watched him vanish into the darkness.
"Just this, and you lost your mind? Well, if he hadn’t forcibly taken the darkness that came from me to grow stronger in such a short time, this wouldn’t have happened."
He muttered disdainfully, then he glanced down at his own hands. It seemed he was resilient in that regard—no matter what he faced, a trace of sanity still clung to him.
And he knew why.
It was nature, always stubbornly ensuring that he retained that last shred of reason—even though it despised him to its core. It seemed to know that if Azazeal ever lost that final thread of reason, he would truly become uncontrollable—so much so that no force in existence could restrain him.
With a sigh, Azazeal turned his head to stare at the figure that had emerged after the snake symbol faded. His lips curved upward as he spoke, his voice imposing.
"What a dramatic way to announce your ascension. You even drove someone mad."