Chapter 221 - Restart

Ren who has been fighting the ORIGIN for a few minutes was covered in bruises. Though he gave it all he got, not once in the entire fight did he get a hit in. Ren licked the side of his lip that was bleeding. He didn't look panicked as he tried different ways of attacking the ORIGIN. 

Still no matter what he did everything seems to be ineffective. Since none of his usual attacks were working, and Ren couldn't talk to his past incarnations, Ren started to create new techniques on the spot. 

If this doesn't work, then I should do this. If that doesn't work at this angle, then I should move onto this angle. Ren started to experiment on new ways to attack, and he was doing this while fighting against an opponent many times stronger than him. 

...

The ORIGIN for some reason didn't end the fight as quickly as it could have. It was like the ORIGIN was allowing Ren to do whatever he wanted. Not only was he never using his true power, but all the attacks he unleashed were non-lethal.  

"This game has gone far enough my son." The ORIGIN spoke as he evaded another one of Ren's attack and caught him by the neck. 

"Then finish me off! Kill me!" Ren who was trying to pull the ORIGIN's hand away was unable to even move one of its fingers. He then tried to kick the ORIGIN while he was being held up, it was then the ORIGIN let go and backed away a bit. Seeing that reaction Ren didn't know if he should be happy or irritated. 

"You can't kill me, can you? I don't know if it's because you think I'm your son or something else entirely. But my past incarnations that I know off, have never been killed by you directly. It was either by someone you planted with a seed or a chosen messenger of some sort. It was always a lackey that would force my past incarnations to their end. It has never been you, or those possessed by you that killed my past incarnations."

The ORIGIN became silent for a bit and sighed. Ren then felt something changed, but he couldn't pinpoint what it was. As his body tensed up the ORIGIN extended its right hand towards Ren. Even though there was quite a distance between them, Ren knew that this was the same strike it used to capture him moments ago. Ren didn't understand how the attack worked since the power used was something he only encountered once back when the original incarnation used it to do a sword strike. So to evade Ren tried to move as quickly as possible to the side, but same as before it was pretty useless to do so. The ORIGIN was still able to catch him quite easily. 

Once again he was floating up in the air being held by an invisible force. Ren was about to do the same thing he did to escape the first time, but before he could unleash his counterattack, the ORIGIN lifted his left hand and made a grabbing motion. 

Ren could feel his right hand being grabbed by the wrist. It was a weird feeling seeing his opponent grabbing onto the air from a distance and still being able to touch him. It would seem like the ORIGIN's attacks were truly unavoidable. 

Ren whose right hand was grabbed quickly gathered a bit of mana in his left hand, and as he was about to cast a spell, the ORIGIN started pulling his right arm. It was a slow pull, making the sound of tearing flesh sound awful. 

Though his whole right arm was torn off, Ren didn't scream as he continued to gather mana onto his left hand. 

"It is true that I cannot kill you, but I can harm you. So-" While the ORIGIN was talking, Ren was able to gather enough mana to cast a [fire lance]. When the ORIGIN evaded the spell with relative ease, its grip on Ren loosened giving Ren enough time to back away for a bit. 

Ren tried to get a bit of a distance from the ORIGIN so that he could figure out a way to evade the ORIGIN's attacks. Yet as Ren backed away the ORIGIN was able to get behind him and grabbed hold of Ren's left arm and easily tore it off the same as it did to Ren's right hand. 

Now Ren was armless but that wasn't enough for him to despair as he started to show that vicious smile of his.

"You tore off both my arms, big deal. Do you think this scares me? Even if you rip apart my whole body as long as I'm alive, I will fight! As long as I haven't lost, I will find a way to win! If you let your guard down even one bit, I will bite you down!" 

As Ren's excitement was rising, he suddenly felt something and looked at his side where his hand should be. To his surprise, the hands that were torn off have come back good as new. 

"Foolish son, don't you see that I can easily torture you. Even if I can't kill you, I can hurt you to the point that a normal human would go insane."

"Do you think doing something like that can break me?!" 

Hearing Ren's answer the ORIGIN shook its head and sighed. "Of course, I know that you wouldn't break from something like that. You who have continued fighting cannot break that easily... I don't know what the others in your soul said about me, but I truly only wish for balance and order. Even though your current self is truly weak, against the others it is truly unfair. So for now since you don't want to listen to me, I'm going to take you out of the game for a while." 

The ORIGIN suddenly appeared in front of Ren and before he could react the ORIGIN poked his head with a finger. Once that was done to him, Ren had visions of his past from being Demon Lord Kretos until he became his current self. After seeing all those visions go through his mind, Ren fainted.