Reinhard's gaze held none of the quiet sorrow he had shown before. It held no pity. It wasn't even the righteous resolve of the Sword Saint.
It was cold. Unfiltered. A judgment sharp as a blade's edge.
His blue eyes narrowed, fixed on the broken, bloodied frame kneeling in the sand—a heap of black cloth and broken bones barely standing under the weight of its own defiance.
Why are you looking at me like that!?
Pride's lips curled into a sneer, defiance burning through the agony. His legs buckled, but his ego—his Authority—would not let him kneel. Not to a prop. Not to a side character.
"I… I am PRIDE…!!" His voice cracked from the rawness, yet the mania behind it was undeniable. "I am the protagonist of this world! I am NOT… someone… you can look down upon!!"
The sand trembled beneath him as his Authority surged, darkness rippling like oil across the dunes. His blade swung upward, a wild, unrelenting strike—the last gasp of spiteful determination.
But Reinhard barely moved.
His gloved palm shot forward, snatching Pride's wrist mid-air. He stopped the blow with the casual indifference of a man catching a falling leaf.
No exertion. No hesitation. Just absurd, insurmountable precision.
"Is that all?" Reinhard asked, his voice devoid of warmth.
But then—something shifted.
A spark. A pulse of wrongness in the air.
Reinhard's eyes widened—subtly, but for a living weapon like him, that was equivalent to a scream of terror. His thoughts raced, a hurricane of logic and calculation behind those godlike eyes. He attempted to draw upon his healing blessings to neutralize the boy before him without killing him.
He reached for Od Lagna, the guiding will of the world—the voice that had always answered, always protected.
But—
Nothing.
Silence. Emptiness. Static.
A violent shudder rippled through his spirit. The connection was dead.
The countless Divine Protections—the invincibility, the impossible reflexes, the untouchable fate—flickered like dying stars and vanished into the heavy, miasma-choked air of the Augria Sand Dunes.
"—!!?"
His hand recoiled through sheer instinct, but for the first time in his life, instinct was a fraction of a second too slow.
From beneath Pride's sleeve, like coiled serpents of corruption, jagged, blackened spikes erupted. They twisted up from Subaru's fingertips, slicing through cloth and flesh alike, embedding deep into Reinhard's arm.
Reinhard leapt backward, his body a blur of practiced motion, but the damage was done. His once-pristine white sleeve was shredded to ribbons. Black thorns pierced his forearm, the sickly sheen of the shadows glistening under the moonlight.
And beneath it—pain.
Real. Physical.
The kind of pain he hadn't truly felt in his lifetime.
His sword hand remained steady, but his left arm hung uselessly, streaked with blood and corruption. He landed with precision, the Dragon Sword Reid poised in his remaining good hand. His brows furrowed—not with fear, but with a sobering, clinical acknowledgment of risk.
"So…" Reinhard's voice broke the tense silence. It was measured, terrifyingly calm. "This is why you chose to face me here. The miasma..."
Pride's grin split wide, exhaustion hidden behind a mask of maddened triumph. The black spikes curled protectively around his arm, thrumming with malevolence.
"Keh… heh… took longer than I wanted…" Pride exhaled through bared teeth, the Authority of Pride surging like wildfire through his veins to patch his broken bones.
"But I figured it out… You're just a cheat code. And out here, where the Witch's miasma is thickest… the server connection is down."
Pride tilted his head, blood trickling from his mouth as he leveled his twisted blade at the Sword Saint.
"Let's see if you're still the 'hero' without your plot armor, Reinhard."
For the first time, Reinhard didn't respond with restraint. He didn't offer compassion. He simply adjusted his grip on the Dragon Sword.
"I suppose we shall."
And then—
They moved.
Pride lunged, the dunes erupting beneath his feet in a cloud of fractured glass and sand. Black tendrils whipped out behind him like the wings of a fallen god. His blade—a jagged, twisted thing of shadow—carved a line through the air, the sheer speed boiling the ground beneath them.
Reinhard met him head-on.
No Divine Protections. No fate-bending power.
Just raw, honed, human skill—and the impossible weight of the Dragon Sword Reid.
The blades collided. The shockwave split the dunes apart in a mile-wide ripple, sand and molten glass raining down like shattered stars.
Reinhard slid back a foot, his boots carving deep trenches in the sand. He didn't buckle. He didn't stumble. He simply absorbed the force of a blow meant to shatter mountains and redirected it into the earth.
Pride's eyes widened.
He blocked it? Without the blessings?
"Don't get cocky!" Pride screamed.
Darkness erupted beneath them both, jagged spires shooting upward like a corrupted forest. It forced Reinhard to step back, pivoting around each deadly spike with perfect, practiced grace.
But the sheer volume of the attack was overwhelming. A razor-sharp tendril grazed his side—Blood. Real, crimson, human blood painted the sand.
"I CAN REACH YOU!" Pride shrieked, manic glee breaking across his face. "YOU BLEED LIKE THE REST OF US!"
Reinhard didn't blink. He stepped into the storm of shadows.
He closed the gap instantly, his remaining good arm swinging the Dragon Sword in a tight, merciless arc. Pride barely ducked—the blade missed his head by millimeters, the wind pressure alone slicing his cheek open. The strike severed a massive sand spire clean in half behind him, the impact sounding like a thunderclap.
Pride scrambled back, his Authority lashing out in a panic.
He's fast. He's still too fast! Why is he still this fast!?
"You rely too much on the assumption that the blessings made the man!" Reinhard yelled, his voice cutting through the roar of the wind.
He parried a strike from Pride's shadow blade, the force of the parry nearly shattering Subaru's wrist. Reinhard followed with a kick to the chest that folded Pride in half, sending him skipping across the dunes like a stone over water.
"Gah—!!"
Air fled Subaru's lungs. Bones cracked. But his Authority refused to let him die. It stitched him back together, fueling him with agony and rage.
"Shut the hell up!"
The night sky ripped apart.
Hundreds of shadowy tendrils lashed out like a web spun by an abyssal god, ensnaring the very air around them. Pride launched himself into the sky, riding a geyser of black sludge, glaring down at the Saint with feverish, exhausted hate.
"I am the one who will kill you! I am the one who clears the game!"
Reinhard looked up. He bent his knees.
No blessings of leaping. No wind protection.
Just muscle, momentum, and mastery.
Reinhard launched himself upward like a missile of divine steel. The sand where he had stood was vaporized instantly by the launch force.
Above him, Pride screamed, bringing his blade down. Black Authority fused with roiling cursed energy, glowing sickly purple, coiling around the weapon like a phantom edge of pure annihilation.
Reinhard swung the Dragon Sword upward.
The blades met—
And the sky detonated.
A colossal, blinding explosion ruptured the heavens. The shockwave blasted the dunes flat, vaporizing clouds and splitting the sand into molten glass across miles of wasteland.
Both fighters were flung in opposite directions.
Pride spiraled backward, the melted remains of his shadow blade bubbling away in his grip. He slammed into a dune, tumbling, vomiting blood, his body screaming in protest.
Reinhard flipped in the air, his white cloak snapping behind him. He landed on his feet, skidding backward, his boots smoking from the friction. He breathed heavily, sweat mixing with the blood on his face.
He was hurt. He was bleeding. He was mortal.
And yet, as he looked across the crater at the struggling, broken form of Pride, Reinhard Van Astrea looked more terrifying than he ever had with his blessings.
Because he wasn't winning because of a divine gift.
He was winning because he was simply better.
Reinhard surged in low, slipping beneath the overhead swipe of the dark blade. He twisted the Dragon Sword Reid to its flat side—
And smashed it into Pride's gut like a battering ram.
Air left Pride in a broken, wet wheeze. His ribs buckled, organs lurching violently against his spine. The impact hurled him like a ragdoll, sending his body sailing through the night sky, miles high, before he managed to right himself. His limbs trembled, and blood leaked freely from his lips.
But the narrative didn't allow for a pause. Reinhard was already upon him—
A crimson and white comet tearing through the clouds, shockwaves of black, gold, and searing white trailing his wake.
Pride snarled, the audacity of this NPC irritating him more than the pain. He coiled his Authority—
A colossal, sweeping slash of darkness exploded from his body. It cut across the sky like a blackened crescent, wide enough to devour the moonlight overhead. A protagonist's attack.
The Reid Sword severed it in a single stroke.
Clean. Effortless. Boringly perfect.
The remnants turned against their master, shattered darkness becoming makeshift platforms beneath Reinhard's boots.
And from those platforms—
The Sword Saint launched.
In an instant, the gap closed.
Pride barely had time to raise a defense when—
The pommel of Reid slammed into his ribs—the same spot, a cruel precision—forcing bile, blood, and oxygen from his lungs in a single, miserable expulsion.
His body crumpled backward, tumbling, shuddering, spinning end over end as he fell toward the dunes.
Still…
Despite the agony, the splintered ribs, the sickening twist of his insides…
Pride was grinning madly.
Because Reinhard was actually breathing. He was heaving for air, like a human...
Like a mortal.
Wounds bled freely down the Sword Saint's leg and side. His steps, while composed, had weight behind them now. He wasn't floating; he was trudging.
The dunes cracked with each impact. The ground cried out with each slash. Molten glass fissures bled steam into the air, refracting the faint moonlight in fractured beams that scattered across the battlefield.
And Reinhard moved.
No Divine Protections.
No auto-dodge.
No cheat-code salvation.
But it didn't matter.
He was still Reinhard van Astrea.
Pride barely tracked him—
A flicker of red and white across the molten sands.
Too fast. Even without his blessings.
Especially without them. Because now, Reinhard wasn't fighting like a hero bound by rules. He fought like a genuine beast—ruthless, direct, without hesitation.
A footstep behind him—impossible.
Pride spun, his shadow blade already rising—
Reinhard's strike met his, the Reid Sword snapping against the blackened blade. Sparks exploded outward in a shower of molten fire.
But Reinhard wasn't finished.
A fist to the ribs.
Pride felt his bones flex, creak, and nearly snap under the raw force. His feet left the ground, body recoiling.
But he reacted—Authority pulsing like a second skin. He launched himself backward mid-air, spikes of darkness erupting from the molten sands, jagged and sprawling like barbed thorns to catch his pursuer.
Reinhard advanced through them.
Blade flickering like lightning.
Each spike severed. Each tendril carved apart.
His footfalls were merciless, leaving craters in the soft glass and stony surface.
The dunes hissed—black fog rising from below, the residual cursed miasma of the Watchtower clinging to the air. Pride inhaled it, the Authority inside him pulsing to life, feeding on the atmosphere.
The ground beneath Reinhard buckled.
Darkness erupted like a geyser—hundreds of spear-like tendrils shooting upward at impossible angles.
Reinhard leapt, spun, ducked—each movement perfect, controlled chaos. The Reid Sword moved faster than Pride's eyes could track, severing dozens of tendrils before they reached him—
But not all.
A single tendril wrapped around Reinhard's ankle mid-air—
And yanked.
The Sword Saint's body hit the molten glass below with terrifying force, sending a ripple of fractures across the hardened desert floor.
"Urk-!"
Pride pounced. This was the climax. This was the scene. He closed the gap in a heartbeat, dark blade poised to drive through Reinhard's heart—
But a hand lashed out, too fast to counter.
Reinhard caught the incoming blade barehanded.
He twisted, a gash opening across his palm, splitting the glove and revealing red flesh.
The darkness cracked, shattering like brittle stone under the monstrous grip strength of the Sword Saint. Pride's eyes widened—his wrist nearly broke under the pressure.
Then—
A headbutt. Skull met skull, and it felt like colliding with a falling star.
Pride stumbled, vision rattling, the world tilting on its axis.
Reinhard surged to his feet, blade whirling in an upward arc that split the air.
Pride blocked—barely—but the raw power behind it sent him skidding backward across the fractured dunes, boots scraping molten glass into shards.
His lungs burned.
His arms shook.
But—he was still standing.
Opposite him, Reinhard adjusted his grip on the Reid Sword.
His left arm hung limp from earlier damage, but his eyes?
His eyes were still sharp, calculating, relentless.
Even stripped of blessings…
Even stripped of the impossible…
This was still the man known as the Sword Saint.
The apex of swordsmanship, the living culmination of generations of the Astrea bloodline.
And Pride?
Pride was mortal, as much as he'd wish to deny it.
But so was Reinhard…
And that was the only plot twist he needed.
Pride's lips peeled back into a crooked, blood-slicked smirk, sharp as glass.
"Slower without your little blessings, aren't you?"
A brief pause. His eyes glinted with a toxic mix of mockery and self-assurance.
"But you're still a monster. The world really does love you, doesn't it?"
A sandstorm howled around them like nature itself recoiling, choking the sky with haze and gold grit. Even the battlefield was trying to provide a dramatic backdrop.
Reinhard's expression didn't waver. Only the faintest breath left his lungs as he stepped forward, eyes narrowed beneath the crimson fringe of his hair.
"It takes a monster… to kill a monster."
Pride's brow twitched. His grin soured into a snarl.
"Tch… Touché, Red. A bit cliché for my taste, but effective."
Beneath the bravado, his mind raced. The storm thickened, obscuring everything beyond a few paces. Every breath tasted like sand and blood. Time wasn't on his side. His limbs ached. The longer this dragged on, the better his chances—if only he could outlast him. But Reinhard… Reinhard already knew that.
As if to answer the thought, the Sword Saint's gaze sharpened through the curtain of sand. The Reid sword gleamed faintly beneath the storm's haze, impossibly steady.
His voice was quiet—but unshakable.
"I will free my friend. I will save Natsuki Subaru… no matter what it takes."
Pride scoffed—a bitter, near-hysterical bark of laughter clawing from his throat.
"You still—you actually—think you can say that? With a straight face?"
He shook his head, looking down at the Sword Saint with pity.
"Of course you don't understand what I'm talking about. No one else does. Because no one else can. I am the only one reading the script, Reinhard."
He spat to the side, blood and sand staining the ground.
"But wow… you're really that stupidly noble, huh? It's almost charming."
Reinhard's smile flickered, faint but genuine.
"I suppose I am. Though someone once told me to apologize less… I think I'll try to remember that."
Pride's eye twitched.
"…Gojo."
His grip tightened on his shadows.
"Would the man in charge of you really be okay with you killing his dear student, Red?"
Reinhard shook his head.
"You are not Subaru. I don't need any number of Divine Protections to see that."
His eyes sharpened, blue steel cutting through the haze.
"I will not kill my friend. But the thing that dares to wear his face… that, I will not forgive."
Their eyes locked—no more words.
Only inevitability.
The storm raged, the desert vanishing beneath a wall of gold and ash. Pride shrouded himself in darkness, a living silhouette against the screaming void, the shadows shielding his eyes from the biting sand.
And then they vanished.
Their swords met, the ground beneath them fracturing under the impossible pressure. Their muscles strained—two titans locked in a dead heat.
The cracks spiderwebbed out, widening beneath their feet.
Reinhard's blade swept in a wide arc—Pride ducked beneath, dissolving into the sandstorm. He moved by instinct, his vision reduced to mere flashes, his Authority flickering under the strain.
Even now…
Even with only instinct left to him…
I can barely touch him. What a terrifying final boss!
Behind—!
Reinhard twisted sharply, sparks erupting as Reid collided with Pride's black blade. Pride retreated into the haze, vanishing, reappearing—again, again, again—always targeting Reinhard's flank before seeping back into the sandstorm.
But Reinhard's blade was already there, waiting.
This world has favorites huh. Annoying!
Another feint—another instant parry.
His blade cut clean through—A pillar of darkness?
His instincts screamed—he snapped backward, the edge of Pride's blade grazing his cheek, a sharp sting drawing blood.
Reinhard pivoted—a swift spin, a low kick aiming for Pride's ankle—
Pride leapt above, tendrils lashing downward to strike, only to be instantly severed by an underarm slash.
Reinhard pressed forward—his next swing sliced the storm itself, a crescent shockwave tearing the darkness apart. Pride evaded by a breath, blood trailing from his side as he crashed into the sand.
Pride retaliated—a barrage of abyssal spikes surged from the ground. Reinhard's grip fell loose on the legendary blade, tossing it skyward to free his hands.
A shallow cut scored Reinhard's side—but he didn't falter.
His arm reached out and smashed into Pride's forearm, nearly caving it in to halt a second slash.
"...I believe you misunderstand."
A fist thundered into Pride's cheek, blood and spit spraying as he staggered back.
"...I may be the Sword Saint."
A low kick—
Pride hastily conjured a shield of abyssal matter, cracks spiderwebbing across its surface as Reinhard withdrew and drove his foot down with a crushing axe kick.
Pride blocked again—but his blade literally exploded beneath the force.
The second kick caught him clean in the chest.
He rocketed backward, skidding through the storm and back into the darkness.
Reinhard didn't pursue, even though the opportunity was there. He stood amidst the glass and sand, his empty hands clenched into fists.
"But I don't need a sword to deal with you."
Pride lashed out.
It was a cheap shot—a spike of shadow aimed at the back of the neck, drawing a thin, crimson line before the blow even registered. But Reinhard didn't turn. He didn't flinch. He simply raised a hand, catching the falling Dragon Sword Reid by the hilt as if it had been waiting there for him since the dawn of time.
His blue eyes narrowed, not with anger, but with a terrifying disappointment.
"If you insist on playing the villain..." Reinhard said, his voice cutting through the wind, "Then I will gladly remind you why I am the hero."
The Reid Sword responded to his will.
White light—no, not light. Something absurd. Something beyond human comprehension erupted from the blade. It wasn't a glow; it was a correction. It was raw, world-breaking authority, devouring the mana from the air, drinking the life from the atmosphere itself.
The ground shuddered beneath Reinhard's feet. The sky twisted, clouds contorting as the heavens recoiled from the pressure of his existence.
The world wept. Fissures spiderwebbed across reality as the impossible weight of the Sword Saint bore down upon it.
It was the strength to erase nations.
To end kingdoms.
To unmake the world—should he choose.
And he wielded it as effortlessly as a man wields a spoon.
Pride's eyes went wide.
Wide with dread.
Wide with the brutal, hopeless clarity that settled over him like the blade of a guillotine.
No...
It had all been a lie.
The openings. The flow of the fight. The glimpses of weakness he thought he'd exploited.
All of it—bait.
Reinhard had let him hope. Had let him believe he was winning.
And now—
With a single, final motion—
That hope was reduced to ash.
This isn't right. The narrative is wrong. You don't fight Reinhard van Astrea with victory in mind. You survive—if you're lucky. But you do not win. No one wins against the author's favorite.
The light consumed the battlefield.
But it wasn't light.
It was annihilation.
The storm? Gone.
The sand? Gone.
The air? Torn apart.
Mana itself? Devoured.
Even the malignant, suffocating Witch's Miasma that choked the air—the cursed presence that defied reason and life alike—was obliterated for as far as the slash expanded.
A colossal pillar of radiant destruction, hundreds of meters wide, swallowed the horizon. The world beneath Reinhard's feet vanished into a crater of smoking, molten ruin—deeper than mountains are tall.
The clouds above? Deleted.
The stars? Flickering out of sight, blotted by the sheer, impossible energy unleashed in that instant.
Silence followed.
Not the quiet of peace—
The quiet of absence.
Of nothingness.
Where even sound had been cowed into submission.
Only one figure remained untouched at the heart of that devastation.
Reinhard van Astrea.
Sword Saint.
The man who could destroy the world—not with armies—
But with a swing of his arm.
Victory was his.
But really—
What other outcome had ever existed?
Pride's lungs burned. His legs buckled. Blood seeped from countless wounds across his body as he stared at the deletion of the world in front of him. His blade—a jagged mess of Authority—quivered in his trembling hand.
He couldn't breathe.
He couldn't think.
No—he could. That was the problem.
"Impossible…"
The word slipped past cracked, bloodied lips.
It tasted wrong. Bitter. Like a glitch in the system.
This wasn't how the story was supposed to go.
He was Pride. He was the Protagonist.
The embodiment of supremacy. The one who loops, the one who suffers, the one who wins in the end.
A God above all of these NPCs.
And yet—
Look at him now.
Skidding backward like a mob character.
Bleeding. Panting. Falling apart.
His entire existence, his very purpose, had been to prove his superiority. To sneer down at those lesser than him—because they were all lesser. They were side characters in his story.
But Reinhard…
That man didn't just look down on him—
He barely acknowledged him as a threat.
Like Pride was just a joke.
The sheer absurdity of it made his fists clench, nails digging into flesh, black tendrils twitching uncontrollably around him. His breath came fast, sharp, uneven.
"I… I'm… the main character… I'm supposed to be… I'm supposed to win!"
His mind raced in a spiral of fury, confusion, and shattering disbelief. Every instinct screamed to run. To reset. To survive. But his nature—the black, festering essence of the Witch Factor combined with Subaru's toxic ego—refused to let him.
Even as reality crumbled under Reinhard's strength.
Even as he stared into the abyss of total erasure.
Pride couldn't accept the script.
But the cracks were there.
Widening. Splintering.
Gnawing at the foundation of his arrogance.
It's not fair. The game is rigged. You… you're a cheat code… it isn't fair…
The Sword Saint defied logic.
A man stripped of his Divine Protections by the Authority, yet still… invincible.
A man who could end worlds—who could obliterate him without even drawing on his full strength.
And what was Pride, against that?
A parasite.
A counterfeit hero.
A shadow daring to stand against the sun.
He staggered, vision swimming, bile rising in his throat.
"I…"
I'm Pride.
I'm the one who matters.
I'm superiority—personified.
But his own voice sounded frail.
His legs shook.
The familiar taste of plot armor…
Gone.
And in its place?
Doubt.
An emotion foreign. Terrifying. Poisonous.
For the first time—Pride realized.
It wasn't that Reinhard didn't respect him.
It was worse.
Reinhard didn't need to.
Because to him—Pride wasn't the rival, or the villain, or the final boss.
He was merely a monster wearing the face of his best friend. Irredeemable. Broken.
And that truth?
That unbearable, suffocating truth?
It hurt more than any wound the Dragon Sword could inflict.
And yet… beneath the humiliation, the cracks…
The hatred bloomed.
Ugly. Rabid.
Uncontrollable.
"I'll… kill you…"
The words were hollow.
But the spite? The fury?
That was real.
For Pride would rather burn—
Would rather destroy the entire save file—
Than accept that anyone stood above him.
Even if the world itself disagreed.
Pride's breath turned ragged. His chest heaved like a beast on the verge of snapping, bloodshot eyes wide with manic obsession.
He surged to his feet. The ebony blade raised, trembling not from fear—but from the sheer, rabid demand to force the narrative to bend, to win.
Even now.
Even after everything.
Even against Reinhard.
But Reinhard… was already untouchable again. His Divine Protections had returned. The Miasma was gone—obliterated for hundreds of meters. The world, once again, followed the whims of the Astrea.
So he didn't need to move.
He didn't even look.
He caught Pride's wrist. Effortlessly. As if plucking a falling leaf from the air.
The Reid Sword? Already sheathed.
It didn't matter anymore.
Because Reinhard was Reinhard.
And the world had no choice but to obey.
Od Lagna listened because it had a favorite.
His wish became the law of physics.
His free hand pressed gently against Pride's stomach.
A soft, almost delicate gesture.
And with a single thought—
The very soul split.
Pride's body stiffened—then crumpled.
Natsuki Subaru's frame, unconscious and mortal, dropped to the ground.
Pride—the Authority, the ego, the monster—was ripped away, reduced to a small, twisting wisp of darkness. A fractured spirit, no more substantial than a floating stain in the air.
Reinhard exhaled, a quiet relief crossing his lips.
His eyes softened as he looked at Subaru unconscious by his feet.
He'd done it.
He'd saved his friend.
Victory.
Just as Reinhard turned to erase the wisp of Pride completely—
"Reinhard van Astrea is no longer here after defeating Pride.
—He is instead patrolling the streets of the Royal Capital."
The words crashed into reality like a command from God.
A truth that should not exist, yet now was.
Reinhard's eyes widened. His breath caught.
What—?
His head snapped toward the voice—but it was too late.
The world folded.
He vanished.
Not killed.
Not attacked.
Simply… edited out of the scene.
His existence displaced by a higher law.
The sandstorm howled quietly in the distance as a young girl stepped from the shadows.
Porcelain skin.
White hair.
A white dress, utterly pristine despite the chaos around her.
But those who knew—truly knew—would see her not as a child.
But as something far, far worse.
And she wasn't alone.
A slow, deliberate set of footsteps echoed nearby. From the lingering shadows emerged a tall man in black, his Buddhist robes flowing like ink, trimmed with thin lines of gold.
Long, slicked-back hair.
A calm, cruel smile.
And stitches across his forehead.
"As impressive as always, Miss Pandora."
His voice was smooth, scholarly—but his presence weighed heavy, like the gravity of a dying star.
Pandora's smile remained unchanged, serene as a painting, as she turned her gaze toward the suspended black wisp—the fractured soul that was Pride.
The man's fingers stretched outward. Cursed energy, thick and viscous, swirled around his palm.
The wisp of Pride shrieked silently as it was dragged forward. It twisted, compressing, crushing down under the man's technique until it was no longer a wisp, but a small, dense black orb.
A sphere of pure, concentrated ego.
The man held it up to the light, inspecting it like a rare gem.
"A fascinating combination..." he mused. "An Authority from this world, grafted onto a soul from mine. The flavor should be… exquisite."
He opened his mouth.
He placed the orb on his tongue.
And with a wet, sickening gulp, he swallowed it whole.
Pandora's smile widened as she watched the act of consumption.
"But of course, Kenjaku."