Death... and me

Even Regio couldn't help but get a little emotional after seeing his mother well again. Although that emotion on his expression disappeared as fast as it came.

Eventually, Natalia looked at Rean, still in tears. "Thank you, thank you! How can I ever pay you back for this?"

Rean shook his head after hearing that. "There's no need. Regio and I are part of Senior Fabio's group, so it's my duty to help. If there's any payment, Senior Fabio would be the one to do it. Hahaha!"

Regio, on the other hand, didn't like hearing it that much. "I owe you a huge debt. As long as it doesn't go against my principles, I will do anything you ask."

Rean patted Regio's shoulder in response. "How about smiling more as payment? Trust me, you don't want to grow all grumpy like a certain person I know."

Regio was taken aback. "This...might be a little difficult."

"Well, think about it," Rean said before he turned to the door. Soon after, he opened it and let Colen and the maids back inside. "Senior Colen, I'm done here."

"It worked?" Colen asked straight away. However, there wasn't a reason for Rean to answer as it was obvious to everyone due to Natalia's happiness. "Impressive...you did something even the Royal Physicians couldn't achieve."

Rean nodded in response. "It's just as I mentioned before. I have a huge advantage due to my Light Element Affinity. It's not that the physicians were bad. It's just that they can't copy me. No one without Light Element Affinity can." Rean left the Elemental Exchange out of the explanation, though.

Colen sighed before coming out of the room with Rean. "Let's leave Regio with his mother for a while. I still haven't had the chance to show you your and your brother's rooms."

"Sure, let's go there." Rean also wanted to have some rest.

With that, Colen finished the introductions and left Rean in his room before going back to do his own chores. He was still the house manager, after all.

"Sister Orb, is there any monitoring formation here?" Rean asked once he was left alone.

[No. There are no formations in this room except for the Anti-Divine Sense and Soul Power Scan Formations Colen showed you.] The room had inbuilt privacy features, and Sister Orb's words confirmed it.

"Good! Then, I can enter the Soul Gem Realm for a while. Let me know when Roan comes back." With that, Rean headed straight to the blacksmith workshop in the Dimensional Realm. He still wanted to work on the Earth's Remnants he got from the Cosgles's Village. Rean was in a good mood and was definitely having a good time in the blacksmith workshop.

Someone who wasn't having a good time, though, was Roan.

*Bang!*

Suddenly, a body was sent flying through the illusory combat room.

*Crash!*

*Crumble...*

That body was none else other than Roan. Just now, he had been overwhelmed by Gulia's power, not being able to bear the grunt of it.

*Rumble...*

He didn't give up, of course. He slowly came out of the rubble as he looked at Gulia in the distance. Gulia proved to be several times stronger than the Saint Realm cultivators in Cosec, which Roan had already expected. He could defeat Middle Stage Saint Realm cultivators from that place alone. Gulia, on the other hand, was only in the Initial Stage, but even he couldn't get the upper hand. "Interesting."

Of course, Gulia found the fight very entertaining. She looked around her body and could see a few small cuts here and there. Sure enough, Roan was still Roan. He might have no chance of winning, but he wouldn't go down without leaving a few cuts. "Truly impressive. I'm three stages above you, and I'm also in the next realm. Even with that, you can inflict injuries on me. I don't think you can bridge the gap between us with an extra stage or two. However, if we were in the same level, I would probably be the one losing here."

Gulia then pointed her greatsword at Roan. "However, that only makes me excited. That means I still have a lot more potential left to explore. I don't believe I can't match anyone at the same level. Let's continue!"

It turns out that this girl was quite brutal and used her higher strength together with her higher talent to overwhelm others. Roan also thought that her weapon of choice was very fit for the girl.

Hearing Gulia's words, Roan could only nod. "You're correct. You still have more potential to be unearthed." Roan also pointed his White Star at Gulia. "Let's go!"

Around an hour later, Rean was called by Sister Orb. [Roan's back now...or what's still left of him.]

"Left of him?" Those words puzzled Rean, which immediately made him pause his work to come out and see. "Holy shit!"

Rean had never seen Roan in such a mangled state. It was obvious he had many bones broken. Blood could be seen everywhere. One of his eyes seemed damaged while he held his White Star with another hand than his usual one. Well, for Roan, both hands had the same power as he practiced with both. It's just that he usually used the side that most bothered the opponent to fight against.

Rean couldn't help but ask, "Are you dead? No, you were already dead in the first place. I mean...are you dead dead?"

Roan glanced at Rean with his good eye, telling him, "Stop the bullshit. I'll heal myself soon."

Both Sister Orb and Rean were puzzled, though. [Why haven't you healed yourself yet?]

Roan then took out a few Divine Stones from his Spatial Ring before absorbing the energy inside. "I healed once in front of Gulia, which made her understand that she couldn't give me time to do that. Naturally, I couldn't heal myself as I had to defend and attack all the time. We fought nonstop until I finally ran out of Divine Soul Power and lost."

Rean was surprised to hear that. Nevertheless, it was obvious that Roan carried a hint of praise for Gulia behind his own words. "It's quite rare for you to recognize someone like that."

Roan nodded in agreement. "It's quite rare to see someone using their abilities to that extent, after all. If those participating in the Sacred Land Excursion are all like this, then it'll be very interesting."