In the training room, Piers was getting more proficient with his Phantom Sword Technique, but Zen's perception was so sharp he could stop Piers's attacks without even moving. Frustrated, Piers increased his sword's power with his hellfire. Zen had to react quickly, dodging and stopping the relentless, invisible attacks.
Suddenly, Piers felt the Phantom Insignia react. He stopped his assault. "What is it, Piers?" Zen asked.
"The sword is reacting to my power," Piers said, "like it's increasing the power within it."
Zen took the sword. "Yeah, it looks like this sword has a stockpile ability. When I used it, it never showed this. Maybe your Mephisto power awakened this ability," Zen said.
"What is this stockpile ability?" Piers asked.
"I don't know," Zen replied. "It could be anything: a black energy, a skill, an elemental attack, or even ghosts. We just have to wait and see."
On the other side, Kaiser and Lyla placed their Gaia and Erebus scepters near Rei's Chao's scepter. The stone in Rei's Chaos scepter shone, and a violet energy traveled through purple and violet clouds inside the gem only to reach Rei's mind realm, lighting it up. As the mind realm zoomed out, Rei's sleeping figure was seen in the water.
Suddenly, Rei opened his eyes. Back in the training room, Piers put his head down, huffing. "Are you okay, Piers?" Zen asked placing his hand's on Peir's shoulder.
Piers looked up, and the left side of his hair turned blonde and his left pupil turned blue. The left side of Piers's body was now under Rei's control. "You! You!" Rei shouted.
Zen's eyes widened in horror. Rei sent a blast of an all-encompassing inferno, which engulfed the field. Zen barely managed to escape. Piers and Rei were fighting for dominance in the mind, and Rei was also trying to connect with his Chaos Scepter.
Zen attacked with his sword, but Rei used his inferno along with a wind tornado to create an all-encompassing inferno tornado, trapping Zen. Zen continuously slashed at the tornado but couldn't break it. He used his devil powers, summoning horns on his head, his teeth enlarged, and his body's muscles increased. His eyes turned red, and with a swing of his hand, he destroyed the fire. He then lashed out at Rei, using the Phantom Sword Style to disappear from his vision.
Rei simply sent a wave of wind out like a radar to detect Zen's position and turned to him. With a look, he fired several wind blast projectiles, sending Zen flying.
Piers managed to say, "Who... who are you?" But Rei said nothing. Instead, he used lightning to make a duplicate of his consciousness. "Ahh!" Piers screamed. Rei merged Piers's lightning into his own mind to create a temporary consciousness duplicate.
On the other side, the Chaos Scepter suddenly shone and sent a flame of fire at the wall of the Midgard. It wrote, "Carry the scepter, use your qi and point it toward Tenko."
Kaiser immediately took the Chaos Scepter and pointed it at Tenko, using his qi. Rei, overwhelmed by Piers, was just giving orders to his scepter, firing various things, unable to see where anything was going. He decided to manipulate lightning for creating a duplicate consciousness, and Kaiser suddenly felt the scepter generate a very weak thunder. Tenko suddenly found himself in Rei's mind realm.
Rei's form materialized, but only his right side was visible. "Tenko, I'm communicating using a one-way communication," Rei said. "I don't know if you will see this, but if you are, let me say this: It seems I am in a place called the Black Devil Mansion, and I am called Piers. I also discovered that I will be moved to its main branch soon. My consciousness will soon become dormant, so make sure you come to me to release me. I can't hold on much longer."
With that, Rei's projection and mind realm started to glitch and fade away, and Tenko returned to reality. Rei's hair began to turn black, his pupils turned red, and he collapsed. Rei's consciousness fell back into the water. "Tenko, everything depends on you now," he thought as he fell into a deep sleep.
As Piers fell to the ground unconscious, Zen was horrified. He did not expect Rei's appearance. He turned back into his human form and went to Piers. "Piers, are you okay?" he asked.
Piers got up, his head aching. He put his hand on his forehead. "What happened? Why is my head aching so much?" Zen was surprised that Piers didn't remember what had happened. This was because Rei had searched Piers's mind.
"It's nothing, Piers," Zen said. "You used Mephisto's powers so much that you fell unconscious."
"I guess that's what happened," Piers said.
In the Midgard, everyone went to Tenko. "Tenko, are you okay?" Kaiser asked.
"Yeah, Tenko, what happened?" Lyla asked. Tenko put his paw to his head, feeling unsteady. His head was aching intensely. He looked at the Chaos Scepter, nodded his head, and struggled to walk to a nearby paper. He took out a brush and wrote.
"Rei is in the Black Devil Mansion's main branch."
On his side, Bret was running for information. He sat in his room and looked through the information he had collected. "I see," he said. "So this Piers, or whoever he is, will be going to the main branch in a few days and will travel through the Sky Forest. This will be the best time to investigate him. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll get a chance to kill him."
Bret sharpened his sword. "However," he thought, "first, I also need to go to the nearby town so I can collect information about super soldiers. After all, there are some low-level intelligence groups that keep this type of information." Bret looked at his now-sharpened sword. "Making them spill some information won't be a big deal, considering their position."
Bret put the sharpened sword in his sheath, took his bag, and went downstairs. He paid the innkeeper and continued his journey.