While time rolled towards an important event, near the Demon Abyss, a spaceship streaked through space.

It easily sneaked past the patrol ships of the abyssals and approached a giant red crack in the sky.

"Hey! Someone is artificially pushing the news!" Blue Flash exclaimed as she signaled to Enigma.

Enigma scrolled through the titles and narrowed her eyes.

{Shadow Guardians: Torture Over Death}

{General Public happy over the participant's suggestion being accepted. Says it would decrease any such future organizations}

{Xander scientists promise to find the best ways to mentally break an individual—}

Crack!

The glass table in front of the couch she was sitting on was blown to pieces.

"The audacity…" Enigma muttered with killing intent.

"Well, at least they don't have to die." Blue Flash sighed deeply. "The original test was to kill them, but—"

"But Varian changed their fate." Enigma finished off her sentence.

"How do you know it's him? His disguise is changing every time." Blue Flash chuckled and passed a hologram showing a young man with an ordinary face bearing no resemblance with Varian's beating up the shadow guardian.

Enigma fell silent for a moment before answering. "I just know."

"...I won't even question you." Blue Flash waved her hand helplessly and continued.

"I don't know why he is doing this, but every social media platform now is flooded with these messages. And I'm pretty sure, he is pushing them with some agenda."

Enigma nodded. "He knows what he is doing."

"Can trust him on that." Blue Flash shrugged and the hologram shifted to play Varian facing Julius. Their eye contact was more than usual.

While normal people thought it was a sign of Julius' approval for Varian, Blue Flash could only wipe the sweat off her forehead.

"Fuck, he really has nerves of steel. Scratch that. He has balls of durasium." She declared.

Enigma silently stared at Julius and Varian. Her eyes didn't fluctuate but Blue Flash knew that she wasn't as calm as she looked.

"Are you worried about him?"

"…I don't care," Enigma answered with her characteristic monotonous tone.

"Oh, then do we abandon the plan so that he die—?" Blue Flash was abruptly shut up by Enigma's glare.

'I—I still can't get used to your glare.' Blue Flash thought as their spaceship sneaked into the demon abyss.

But she cooled down and started laughing. 'You glare at me for him, but don't admit that you care if he dies?'

"Hahaha!"

"Shut up!"

"Hahaha-mff!"

The spaceship finally entered the demon abyss under their weird banter.

*** *** ***

Varian stared at the legend of a man and his greatest enemy at an arm's length.

Despite being in his sixties, he looked to be only in his twenties. With a large build, curly golden hair, and a handsome face, people would only think he was handsome—not a psychopathic murdered who needed to be purged out of existence.

But Varian knew better. So, he vowed to kill this bastard one day. Not just kill, but destroy him as a whole. Including his Xander family.

While he thought so inwardly, Varian maintained a cordial attitude on the outside. He smiled at the guests, praised them from time to time as the five winners had a light talk with the VIPs.

And while doing so, he already found his target.

With a white coat over casuals, a lanky man with unkempt hair and a haggard face stood in contrast to other dignified VIPs.

'Dr. Thomas.' Varian muttered inwardly and glanced at the rest of the people in the floating loe.

There were a total of ten VIP guests, including Julius and Thomas.

Except for Thomas, the rest were level 9 with the exception of Julius.

"Now, the award ceremony begins!"

Prizes were delivered to the guests who gestured to the winners.

The VIPs presented gifts to each winner one by one.

First, it was a young boy in level 2. Then, it was level 3.

Varian felt his anxiety boil as he barely kept his cool.

'Enigma, you must time this properly.'

He held his breath as level 4 also received his prize. Then came his turn.

"Ryke."

Varian stepped forward and with a bright face, received the gifts one by one while thanking VIP guests.

The last two guests were Julius and Thomas.

"Your thinking, I like it." Julius patted his shoulder and nodded lightly.

"Thank you so much, Sovereign!" Varian retched inwardly, but on the outside, he put on an admiring face.

Julius didn't seem surprised as he waved his hand.

Varian sighed in relief and reached Dr. Thomas.

Since this was a VIP lounge and with Sovereign Julius himself present, Dr. Thomas' bodyguards weren't allowed here.

'But with these 9 monsters, I can't kidnap him…so.'

`Cleek!

An alarm rang in the comms of every VIP guest.

"Enigma is near!" One of them claimed and without any hesitation, dashed out.

The rest followed, but faster than them all was a golden light.

Julius used his artifact space ring and quickly teleported to a dungeon a hundred miles away.

His keen senses already caught a presence in the dungeon.

"Enigma cross tunneled?" He exclaimed, but soon his eyes were filled with killing intent.

"You're going to die today!" With a wave of his hand, the entire dungeon started to shake violently.

In the blink of an eye, he reached the location.

But right then, space fluctuated and the presence disappeared.

Only then did Julius understand that they once again Cross Tunneled.

"Wait, why would she do it…Fuck!"

Julius' eyes widened as he realized a possibility.

His senses already caught the eight presences outside—they were all here. That meant, no one was present on the stage.

"Hmph!"

Even though it might seem like a lot of time went by, not even a second passed—that was how fast Sovereigns were.

So, Julius immediately used his space ring artifact and teleported back to the stadium.

But since he was in a hurry, he ended up landing outside the stadium.

His superhuman senses first noted the chaos of the general public before they saw the level 5 winner—the guy who elicited his interest still in a handshake with Dr. Thomas.

But more than that, Julius was able to sense a space fluctuation coming from Ryke…no, from Dreamer.

But neither the Dreamer nor Dr. Thomas noticed him yet. Their reaction speed was simply not enough.

"Die!" Julius tapped into space and it broke like a mirror.

Kacha!

The space cracks extended in line all the way until they reached Dreamer's face in the blink of an eye.

But right then, the space fluctuation around Dreamer, which was strangely unaffected pulled him in along with Dr. Thomas.

However, before it did, the space crack finally reached Dreamer's face.

It was just contact for a tiny fraction of a second, but the disguise mask on Dreamer's face broke apart completely, revealing his real face before he was dragged into the ghost ship.

If it was anyone else, even if it was any level 9, including Bali, they would've totally missed it.

Unfortunately, Julius wasn't a level 9. He was a Sovereign and arguably, the strongest Sovereign.

So, he clearly saw that face before it vanished.

That face…he remembered that face from the Solar Trial.

"VARIAN?!"

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