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Reign was smirking at him as he stood at the very front.

"What is the meaning of this, do you realize what you are doing?!" The guardian asked them with anger as he stared at Reign primarily.

"Yeah, we understand." Reign said with a calm expression as the guardian panted.

"You won't be able to utilize mana well there, the deeper you go, the more powerful the monsters."

"You won't be able to survive fighting all of them, your control over mana will not return fully even if you were to reach the bottom of the dungeon, I have already explained it to you!"

"You have, and you didn't lie, I know that." Reign said as he nodded at the man who was now staring at him with a confused expression.

"So then, why the hell would you go there?!"

"I can't bring you back, even if you were to change your mind now, you are stuck there, the only thing you can do is reach the artifact, or die, that is it, there is no third option, none at all!"

Reign sighed as he took a step forward before suddenly placing his hand on the portal.

His hand suddenly went through the portal and he grabbed the guardian by his shirt before slamming him against the portal that acted as glass for the guardian.

Reign's face was merely 2 inches away from the guardian as he stared at him. The latter was shocked, the portal shouldn't not allow Reign to suddenly put his hand through it, that was simply not possible.

"I realized something when I was talking to you." Reign said with a calm voice.

"You were ignoring Liara for some reason, which was weird considering how she was the one with the soul fragments."

"I thought about it for a bit, but I couldn't understand what was up with you, why you were acting the way you acted, and why the hell you were going to help us."

"Telling us of the other dungeon where the rest of our group was, telling us about the other guardians, acting nice and polite, and telling us how those two are not powerful enough to continue with us without being killed."

"Honestly, it all smelled of some serious bs, and yet, you were completely honest with us, you did really want to help us, but it wasn't because of your status, it wasn't because of your allegiance to the artifact." Reign said as he shook his head.

"You see, I managed to learn one thing when fighting the previous guardian." Reign suddenly let go of the man and walked toward the rest of the group.

"The guardians are demonic creatures, not demons, but demonic in nature, and your soul was the same, but there was something else, and without you actually taking out your heart in such a manner, I wouldn't have noticed it."

"You didn't notice it you brat, I was the one that noticed it!" Aethion told Reign from inside his consciousness as he stared at the man and muttered, "An artifact used by a Saint truly is something else."

"You see, when you took out your 'heart' there was a slight disturbance in the area." Reign said with a smirk.

"Very faint, almost impossible to be noticed, but still there."

"Light converged and souls suddenly mended together, all in an instant, and it happened right inside that heart that you had taken out."

"Now, a heart doesn't have a soul, nor should it be able to use any sort of power, especially not when you had already lost consciousness, well, you pretended to lose it, but moving on." Reign said as he sneered at the man who was now staring at him solemnly.

"At that moment, for a brief instant, your soul suddenly became clear, there was nothing disguising it at that moment, which was exactly why you had used souls and light to converge in that heart, it was a diversion, one that almost worked."

"Your soul was not like the guardian's soul, not even close to it."

"The demonic power in your soul is many times larger, but it is still only demonic in nature, making you a being that was tainted by demonic energy, not a demon." Reign said in a low tone.

"What really interested me was actually the fact that your soul was not only much more powerful than the guardian's, as well as larger and denser, but it was connected to something, connected with plenty of things, to be honest."

"You see, a guardian's soul would only show a connection to the artifact when it was fully revealed, the one we fought only showed that connection, that thin thread of soul power that connected him to the artifact, right before death."

"For one to be connected to so many things could only mean one thing." Reign said as he suddenly pointed at the man.

"You are not a guardian."

"You are not a servant of the artifact, no … you are the artifact, you are its spirit."

The man stared at Reign with a solemn expression, his expression not changing for even an instant. It was creepy.

The good-looking man who seemed gentle and nice was now staring at Reign like a child that had not gotten their way. A slight smile suddenly started forming on his face, a creepy smile similar to a killer clown's smile.

Liara and the others all tensed up slightly and stared at the spirit of the artifact that was looking straight at Reign.

"You little bastard, to think it only took you that much to figure it out."

"Ah, no, you didn't figure it out, at least not by yourself, haven't you?" The man asked as he stared at Reign.

"That little helper of yours was the one to figure it out I presume, I was too lax, I didn't take into consideration that one of you would have something like that." 

"How could he be the artifact's spirit, shouldn't I feel something from him?" Liara asked, to which the man responded by staring at her.

"The one with the fragments, as if I would allow such a pitiful existence to take control of me, as if I would allow you, a little sl*t that was born lucky to get a part of 'her' soul to actually sense me?!"

"Seems like staying here for so long has corrupted the artifact a bit." Reign said as he stared at the artifact with a hostile gaze.

"Corrupted?" The artifact asked as he sneered.

"It corrupted nothing, it merely set me free, it allowed me to think for myself after millions of years!"

"No longer will I be a tool that someone uses, no, I will be the one to choose what happens, I am the one that will walk out of here by myself, not in the hands of somebody else!"

'Yo, you ever heard of something like this happening?'

"Kind of." Aethion said in a solemn tone, "I've heard of powerful artifacts losing control, gaining consciousness, disobeying their master, and so on."

"Even the items for the leveling realm can do that, as you already know," Aethion told Reign who nodded his head.

"An artifact of immense power being alone for millions of years before being exposed to demonic energy could very well lose all rationality and control like this, the artifact might be the reason how the demons know about its existence."

"It might have notified them itself, in order for someone to come and get it so that it could escape this place."

"Without the fragments of its former master's soul, perhaps the artifact could be the one that uses the wielder, not the other way around." 

'Got it.'

"It doesn't matter what you want," Reign told the artifact that stopped laughing maniacally and stared at him.

"What?"

"I said, what you want doesn't matter."

"Today, it will be Liara or me that takes control of you, and there is nothing you can do about it, not in this place at least." Reign said as he looked around them.

"You didn't create this place, well, this version of you didn't create it at the very least." Reign smirked as he turned around.

"This was probably made in the past, back when you were still rational."

"It was probably the original trial area, but once you lost control, you couldn't control it anymore, maybe your spirit was split in half, and you won, but you lost this place."

"Which means that this is the perfect place for us, the one place where you cannot stop us, not until we reach you." 

"Until we do so, stay silent and act nice, be a good little dog, and don't cause any problems, alright?" Reign asked as he glanced back with a calm expression, causing the artifact to stare at him in shock as anger started rising from it.