Clementine smiled with her crimson gaze again focused on him.

One, who was thoroughly oblivious to the meaning behind her words. Whereas the clear confusion within his eyes already gave the woman the answer to her previous question.

"An intelligent calamity! Ah.. so that was why he was able to come here unlike those savage calamities. Truly commendable I would say...!" Her praise was like a silk ribbon hiding a sharpened garrote.

SNAP!

Out of nowhere, she snapped her fingers! Using all the power she was able to utilize in her current state to directly attack his soul. Aiming to completely annihilate him!

"Aaaaaaaaaagghhh...!"

"Still, how fortunate I am, to get what I truly need to succeed in my endeavor, such a weak calamity, merely at rank one in both his spiritual and material ascension cores. To think a rank one calamity actually survived in this place and came to me...!"

FUFUFU~!

Clementine chuckled, amused. Her excitement bubbled up like a poisonous spring in the desert.

Moreover, considering who she herself was when alive; an Ascension rank 10 <Divine Entity>, it should’ve been quite easy for her to accomplish the task of annihilating his weak soul even when using her current weakened consciousness(Will), maintained by her deep and dark emotions of hatred and vengeance. To initiate the attack and destroy the soul of this rank one calamity! If not instantaneous, correct!

However, that was not the case this time, as the calamity somehow fought back.

Surprising her!...

... ... ... ... ...

SNAP!

The moment the red-haired woman snapped her fingers, he suddenly felt an excruciating pain assault his whole body.

Furthermore, this pain was also mostly focused on his heart and brain. It was so sudden and so intense that he immediately fell to his knees, sprawling on the ground.

Grunting...!

Screaming...!

Suffering...!

"Aaaaaaaaaaagghhh...!"

He didn’t know where it came from or why he was suddenly in so much pain.

Frankly, his mind was completely blank already, fully focused on this new sensation that he was feeling for the first time. One that he did not like one bit!

He did not have the luxury to think why this was happening or what was causing it, since, momentarily all he could do was simply endure it. He gritted his teeth hard, clenched his fists tight. Hoping that the pain, the horrible feeling would go away as suddenly as it came.

A desperate hope—like a flickering candle in a hurricane of agony.

A naive thought indeed, but that was who he was currently! An ignorant who only knew bits and bits about the world. Meaning nothing. Even if he had a rough idea of what pain was, but knowing and feeling it were two distinct things altogether.

"It... hurts...! It hurts so bad...!" His voice was a ragged whisper, a thread of sound in the void.

He muttered. His eyes turned bloodshot. His fingers dug into the soil when clenched. His vision had already gone white and black, blurry red, because of this pain that came without any wounds.

"Hm...!" Clementine frowned. "Have I truly become so weak that I cannot even crush a pitiful soul such as his immediately. Even so..."

She focused on him, expression quite amazed at his tenacity. "To think this weak calamity is strong enough to endure the soul pain for this long, and without even screaming no less. A stubborn one, huh!" Her curiosity like the cold observation of a scientist watching an insect struggle.

She exhaled in regret.

"What a pity though, that it had to die so early without even realizing his actual worth. I really do need his body though, as I’m not strong enough to do the same with the other calamities. My soul has already been destroyed, with my Will(consciousness) having deteriorated enough that I can’t even dominate the souls of other calamities, even if they haven’t yet awakened their soul cores. You’re the only weaker one here, are a humanoid calamity, my only chance after so many years to finally fulfill my desires and vengeance, otherwise if not for this I would’ve truly loved to see you becoming the entity that your name entails...!"

Clementine blinked. "Hm.. Oh.. I’ve become quite chatty, huh! Must be because it has been truly a long time since I last talked with someone else. I’m bored it seems...! A boredom like a desert that stretched for eternity."

The woman talked to herself. Her lips curled, she raised her hand towards him and clenching her palms into a fist. "Let’s see how long you last, you poor thing!~"

She smiled. Finding amusement in the plight of the being before her!

Meanwhile, the pain started to increase with weakness spreading all over his body and the feeling of death rapidly encroaching towards his soul.

He raised his head, looking towards the evil smile of the woman; at this moment he did not feel fear as his death stood before him. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Nor did he feel what she described as the <soul pain> anymore.

Now, all that was in his mind was simply one thing; it was a simple thought, that this woman was the reason behind his suffering. Moreover, at this juncture, he didn’t even care why one of his abilities brought him here to her or why that something was preventing him from coming here.

Because all that was in his mind now was to kill her! Erase her completely! Annihilate her thoroughly, just as she had wanted to do with him. His rage was a black sun rising in the center of his soul.

He didn’t know how he would do it when he knew she already wasn’t alive!

All he knew was that he could do something to stop her. This feeling came from one of his abilities! Which again he did not even know the name of. As all he knew was that it has something to do with souls. No! Not souls but something more deeper, something more intricate, something without which a soul was nothing but an empty shell.

Like a body without a soul.

It was <Will>, aka the consciousness that made up an existence, made one who he was. It was like the mind of a soul. Something that which made a soul complete.

At this moment, before his death he unexpectedly came to understand a little more about the abstruse element, <Soul>, through one of his abilities!

He came to understand that a soul was more than just a container for one’s Will, but he didn’t have the time to dwell on this slight epiphany! After all, his life was just minutes away from being snuffed out.

The distance between him and the woman was approximately 17 meters. And considering a normal rank one ascendant can easily cover up to 10 meters in one second, whereas he as a calamity already had a strong body with a vastly different biology compared to other races, therefore, he was able to cover a distance of 15 meters within a second while somehow enduring the soul pain, of course. His charge was like the desperate flight of an arrow shot into the dark.

It could be said that his Will to live had given him the strength to resist that pain, and that currently he was solely moving on his instinct to get out of his current predicament.

Meanwhile, the red-haired woman was quite surprised to see the calamity suddenly coming towards her.

Additionally, it could even be said that she was also quite amazed and was caught off guard by his sudden movement, one which she wasn’t expecting. Nevertheless, the shock was only for a millisecond, as in the next moment she quickly composed herself.

Her being a rank 10 Divine Entity when alive wasn’t a joke after all; she had a lot of experience to fall for such tricks.

Her eyes narrowed as she saw the calamity attempting to grab her neck while taking a step towards her. She certainly wasn’t pleased when being challenged by a weakling like him. However, then her senses tingled, making her eyes go wide on realizing that something not good will happen if she were to get caught by him.

The warning was a cold shiver sliding down the spine of her consciousness.

In a split second, she decided to dodge instead of confronting the attack head-on. Clementine took a step back, creating distance between them. Even so, the surprise didn’t end there, as a sudden attractive force abruptly pulled her metaphysical form towards him.

Regardless, she noticed the change beforehand, and tried to fight back against this attractive force, but she failed completely and before she could think of something else or understand why that happened, it was already too late.

The force like a gravitational pit from which light itself could not escape.

GRASP!