'He can smell my flesh? And it doesn't reek of drugs? What the fuck.' Varian gained a new understanding of Hex.
As a Mystic, he had insane control over his heightened senses. He could of course separate smells, ignore certain smells, or even track down an enemy using the smell.
But it never occurred to him that he could smell the blood or flesh or bones of a person separately.
It wasn't that he was incapable of it. But because of his upbringing and worldview, the thought simply never crossed his mind.
"Who remembers someone by the scent of their flesh?" Varian straightened his back and faced the Drug Lord.
His hands were shaking slightly and his feet were facing away. His breath was chaotic and his bleeding only grew worse with every passing second, forming a pool of blood at his feet.
'Still pretending to be strong when you're so scared?' Hex noticed Varian's subconscious movements and grinned wildly.
As a result, he confirmed that Varian had no way of turning things around.
"To think that you managed to put up a fight with my siblings and live to tell the tale." Hex chuckled as he slowly extended his palm.
The walls began to fold and new glowing swords slowly came out, facing Varian.
"W-Wait!" Varian shouted, his eyes erratic and his breath chaotic.
"Hm?" Hex tilted his head with a knowing, predatory smile. "You want to beg for your life?"
Varian slowly nodded.
The walls closed up.
"Hahahaha!" Hex laughed like a madman.
Tristan who was furious at Varian for manipulating him also joined him, imagining Varian's desperate eyes before his inevitable death.
While the two enjoyed the situation, small strands of white power left Varian's feet and sank into the ground.
Then the strands quickly spread and entered the walls around them. The nature of the walls began to be overwritten.
A new order was established and new rules were made.
1. Manipulation of walls was no longer possible.
2. All aura in this hallway would remain in this hallway.
It took a few seconds to work it out and thankfully, the two men were too confident that they didn't even think Varian had a trump card.
"Even if I want to spare you and let you work for me, my sister doesn't like you." Hex looked at him as if it was a pity. "Or do one thing, reveal your real identity and we can talk."
Varian's tense face, chaotic breathing, erratic eyes, and heavy bleeding all disappeared.
"What the…"
Hex's jaw dropped and he hastily turned his gaze to the little girl behind Varian.
When Varian healed her injuries, he thought it was just a healing spray. It wasn't a point of concern since the injuries he inflicted on Varian were much more dangerous and couldn't be healed by any normal treasures.
"Your sister?" Varian frowned. Hex's face looked nothing like any woman he had come across so far.
'Wait a minute…'
Hex's facial skin was wriggling unnaturally.
'This bastard is wearing a skin mask…and the smell of the skin and his own flesh doesn't match.'
Varian gained a whole new understanding of this specimen.
Even then, his enmity so far was with only one woman and that's one of the Deputy Directors of Starsafe, Helga.
"Helga."
"Shut up! Who the fuck are you? Why are you still alright after taking so many enhanced swords?" Hex stepped back and put on a defensive posture.
Tristan wanted to run away but ultimately decided against it. Running away at times like these would be counted as betrayal and warrant him an unpleasant death.
"I?" Varian's lips curled up and his bones crackled.
The encounter with that woman had really scared the living daily lights outta him. He needed a vent. A desperate vent.
"I am the one responsible for who you are today."
"Bullshit!" Hex instantly denied Varian's words.
When he and his siblings were kidnapped and tortured, they were indeed watched by those beasts. But he didn't remember someone like Varian. Maybe he was indeed there, Hex wasn't sure.
"When you went through hell, I was there, watching you, laughing at your plight." Varian's famine senses swept through Hex's body and he noticed the deformities in the Drug Lord's body.
His skin wasn't growing properly. His flesh was out of place in many parts. Of course, none of these changes were so big that it'd be apparent to a normal person. But for a famine who practically saw, smelled, and tasted life, it was clear just with a bit of focus.
"When those things bit you, tore your skin, fed on your flesh, I was there." Varian took a step forward and his lips curled into a distorted smile.
Hex's expression grew ugly and the face mask began to fall off, revealing a scarred, old face.
"You…you are with them that made my life hell. All of us triplets suffered." Hex growled but subconsciously took a step back.
"Yes, and I should've had you killed back then." Varian raised his hands and space began to fluctuate.
Hex waved his hands to control the walls and shoot the swords.
But the walls didn't move. They were built from a material that allowed such manipulation, yet they didn't respond at all!
"Why?!" Hex's face contorted in rage.
Since he could fight his siblings and stand his ground, Hex didn't want to fight without the support of the sword system.
The space began to twist and grow weaker.
"Aren't you a Mystic? Why do you even have the space power? And you're just a rank 1 in both, how could fight my siblings?" Hex took another step back and asked with a panicked face while secretly summoning an item from his storage ring.
Varian answered him with a middle finger.
Hex thought he was fooling him and buying time, but he didn't know it was what Varian wanted.
Thanks to the space fluctuations, the space opening under Marin was treated as just a normal space crack and not an entrance to a Synthetic World.
'I'm taking a big risk by letting him perform that attack, but this is the only way Marin will not get caught up in the fight thereafter.'
There's no other way. Even though he seemed to be in absolute dominance now, if they start fighting, it'd take at least thirty seconds. By then, the aftermath of their fight would kill Marin.
Exactly when Hex retrieved the item, Varian sent her away.
"Got you!"
A dazzling brilliance erupted from the glass shard Hex pointed at Varian and an overwhelming energy, complemented by crackling lightning shot at Varian.
Its power went beyond rank 2 and was capable of instantly killing Varian.
Varian built up a barrier with the power of chaos at the fastest he could.
The golden energy beam slammed onto the barrier and broke it apart. Even though the power of chaos itself was enough to shake the cosmos, Varian wasn't able to wield much control of the slivers.
But even then, despite being a rank 1, Varian was able to slow down the rank 3 attack just for a bit. And using that window, he teleported.
BOOM!
The walls in the way of the energy beam were blasted open and it flew straight into the prosperous part of the Ubiq.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
It passed through three huge buildings, tearing them into pieces before dissipating.
"F-Fuck!" Hex's face paled as he realized the consequences.
The entrance to the treasury and half of the treasury itself were also erased in the energy beam.
So, Varian appeared in the treasury and grabbed the water of life.
But even as he succeeded in his mission, he couldn't help but curse. "Son of a bitch!"
Even though he teleported, the energy beam still grazed him. The right half of his body was now burnt and smelled like some cooked animal meat.
The pain was horrendous and even though his plantae power worked hard, it wasn't able to heal him properly.
"You bastard! You ruined us! You ruined all of us!" Hex glared at him with bloodshot eyes.
"Did I?" Ignoring the burning pain, Varian waved his hand.
A black-light spread in the room and all of Varian's space aura disappeared. It was as if no one used the power of space in this room just a second ago.
"What the hell are you, you monster?"
"No time to answer." Varian snapped his fingers and a white barrier enveloped them.