Given an option like that, how could he ever choose?

The old man's face grows grim, "What? Not gonna answer? Oh wait! I forgot to mention something, Zen!"

He turns his head towards Zen who's caught off guard by his sudden attention, "What?"

"I poisoned your wife."

There is no hesitation in White's voice. No emotion whatsoever. Maybe a hint of sadistic amusement, but nothing else other than that.

"Oh but don't worry! She isn't dying anytime soon! At least... Not until midnight. If you don't help her by then... She might just drown in her own blood you know?"

Zen's fists clench and he dashes towards White, but he's stopped midway by Spider, who's holding a wooden skull in her hand, it's eyes emanating a ghostly white aura, or fire, seemingly burning without a source.

Unable to comprehend what is in front of them, Zen instinctively stops a few metres before he can reach White.

White clicks his tongue, "Tsk tsk tsk. Don't even think about it, Zen. Because if you do, i will be forced to use this Soul Bond. It's of a pretty high rank you know? The thing is... If i use it... It'll create such a loud shrieking sound that even the dead creatures around here will wake up, what's a living Abyssal then, right?"

Zen grits his teeth, and Ryuji behind him glares at White too.

But white isn't done yet, "You know what my Aspect is, Zen?"

Zen snarls, "Why would I ever be interested in that?"

But White immediately interrupts him, "Oh no no no no. It's not about if you are interested in it. See, the thing is... You should be interested in it."

Zen goes totally quiet, his shaking hands betraying his attempt to seem uninterested and unshaken. He was worried about Ice.

White notices that shift in Zen's behaviour and smiles.

"Well... My Aspect allows me to... You know... Control people. Turn them into my slaves. This girl here is a live example."

He points at Spider, standing with the skull in her hand. There is a slight change in the way she carries herself now that the attention is on her.

Both Zen and Ryuji find it hard to compose themselves properly when they realise that the girl they had watched for so long, was indeed for such a long time trapped in this Demon's Aspect.

Before they can utter a word, White continues, "The thing is... There is always a certain condition for me to enslave someone. And then certain conditions to bind them in that state forever. However, this time the condition was quite unique. I had to find a couple that loved each other since their time on earth, and then poison one of them to enslave the other one. My eyes were on your wife but... You wouldn't be such a bad slave yourself. So much potential is being wasted on you, I'll train you along wi-"

Before White can finish his sentence, Zen lunges at him with a hungry expression on his face, looking as if he'll devour that man. But before he can do that, he is suddenly punched in the face by Spider. Simultaneously, her other hand crushes the Skull, which suddenly creates such a loud shriek that Zen sprawls to the ground, Ryuji has to cover the ears of the boy, but one of his own suddenly bursts, he feels hot blood spewing out of his ear, but he has no time to check that. The horror above then is already up. It looks at their group with hunger and bloodlust in it's eyes, clearly upset about multiple things...

The Weeping Brother jumps down to the ground, Shaking the forest and making it shiver. It lets out a loud roar and looks at Ryuji who has the boy.

Slightly disoriented, Ryuji lifts his sword up, and just when the Abomination tries to lift it's leg up, something holds it back. Ryuji is surprised to see that the old man meant it literally when he said it can summon even the dead...

Skeleton of a titan-like hand emerges from the ground and grabs The Weeping Brother. It easily jerks it's leg off but another hand takes it's place, and then another.

Slowly, even the ground under there feet starts to move and before they know, skeletons start emerging out of the ground. Just in front of Zen, several serpent-like skeletons appear, just maybe too big to be considered safe to approach.

In front of Ryuji, a large skeleton with a shield in it's hand appears. His head covered with an iron helmet with a little red feather on it's top. But then suddenly another hand tears through the ground. It's a perfect replica of the last skeleton, just double the size. And the previous one was almost as tall as Ryuji.

Ryuji instinctively tries to pull the boy behind him, but he catches nothing but air instead. He looks to his side and finds the old man running away shutting the mouth of the little boy, but he doesn't have enough time to run towards that old man, he has to fight that giant in front of him.

The menacing jaw of the skeleton lets out a loud roar and dashes at Ryuji with an otherworldly rage, Ryuji doesn't even have enough time to dodge so he puts his sword in front of himself hoping to brace it.

But to his surprise, he doesn't find anything crashing into him, instead shirks enter his remaining left ear. The giant skeleton soldier is engaging in a battle with a giant ape-like monster behind him.

Both of them are wrestling with intensity that he couldn't hope to match. He looks around and sees Zen engaging the serpents in a battle. Spider herself is fighting and trying to damage The Weeping Brother as much as she could. The weeping brother is engaged by numerous other skeletons in the fight. Some skeletons are fighting among themselves too. It seems the ability of that skull was to summon the dead who fought anything they saw first.

Ryuji suddenly feels a deep and sharp pain in his left shoulder. He immediately grabs whatever had did that and tries to free himself, to no avail.

Suddenly, he thrusts his sword into that thing's teeth which cracks some of them and makes the creature fall to the ground. These monsters were definitely not as strong as they once had been when they were alive, but they still held considerable strength. When Ryuji looked back he found that he was bitten by a demonic dog-like creature that had 4 front paws and 2 back paws. it's teeth shattered at the front and it's eyes emanating a sharp and deep red color.

Thankfully, the dog was currently being strangled by a serpent he landed on. But Ryuji knew he couldn't stay there for too long.

He immediately dashed in the direction White went, clumsily dodging the horde of monsters still trying to emerge out of the ground. He had to engage one or two smaller beasts, but it was alright since the sheer amount of skeletal creatures coming out of the ground made the whole battle really disorienting and he easily lost anyone's tail.

Soon, he was out of the area, safe and with not many injuries. He knew White wasn't that far, and that he wouldn't go too far with the boy, since he wanted to absorb his Divinity as soon as he could.

Ryuji moved through the forest carefully, trying to look at any direction he could look at and listen for any sounds they might accidentally make. But they were nowhere to be seen. But he was sure, White definitely wasn't that far, so he had to depend on weather he could agitate that man, or could be not.

And so, The agitation started.

"Hey old man... you were talking about that story and going on about how Humans are demons and such, but you are not much different from them, are you?"

Ryuji remained silent for a while, waiting for a response. But got only silence in return, so he continued:

"You can act all righteous and stuff. Talking about how desperation can make the beasts of man, but aren't you the same? Hell, i bet you wished you could've devoured the twin yourself, and i bet you think you could've done it better."

An arrogant voice sounds from his back, "I think? I know I would've done it better."

Ryuji smirks and looks back, noticing the boy held quiet by him, "the cat is finally out of the bag huh"

White Scoffs at him, "I came out of my own volition, Young Man. And my reason was to make an offer."

"An offer?"

White smirks, "That is right... I was surprised Zen agreed to do something so Sinful but, You and Zen were here to consume this boy's divinity and ascend together, yeah? Well boy, let me tell you, if you got hands on this boy's divinity, then Zen would never let you consume it"

The boy's eyes start showing clear signs of horror hearing White's deduction of the situation. There is a hint of denial on his face, along with utter terror that maybe, just maybe the noble samurai he thought came to rescue him could be a ruthless butcher who wanted to cut him down for the very same reason as the others.

Ryuji simply looked down and rubbed his eyes while White continued:

"He just cherishes his blind wife too much. He'd kill you in an instant for the Tear of Divinity. He'd never betray her. So... It's for your own good boy, Don't stay allied with him... The reason I'm acting kind today is because we both can reincarnate using this one boy, let's let them all fight to death, and let the both of us use this thing to pave a path for a better life."

Not moved by White's words in the slightest, White feels a little confused. But then a realisation hits him, and the most ridiculous and confusing frown appears on his face:

"Oh wait... Don't tell me you both came here to save this boy, did you? Did you really just come here for such a mundane goal? Who do you think you are, some kind of main character of a famous novel? Heroes only exist in fiction, boy... Don't try to become one, you're not proving anything to anyone..."

Ryuji just raises his sword at him, "Kill this, Betray him, Eat them, don't be that, blah blah blah blah. Do you really know nothing but how to blabber with your mouth all day? Come on, Let's just fight this out. And don't try to threaten me by saying you'll kill the boy, you know i wouldn't buy that crap. You want to consume him afterall."

White threw the boy aside, making him stumble and fall to the ground on his face.

He hears Ryuji's voice after a few seconds:

"Hide behind the stone and don't go away. I'll come to you soon after dealing with this man."

The boy quickly stands up and nods, hiding behind a large stone laying nearby.

And then, Ryuji and Old Man's face off starts...

Ryuji already knew the Aspect the old man Possessed, he had the ability to turn people into his slaves right? Someone who hid behind slaves to save his skin couldn't harm Ryuji in all of his 7 lives. Only if the old man didn't get such a ridiculous condition to make a new slave in this hell of a place, he could've saved his skin today. But life is unfair, right?

Ryuji dashed at the Old Man, hoping to end this match in one strike and return to help Zen.

He runs to thrust his sword and impale the Old Man, but at the last second, the figure disappears from his sight and all Ryuji impales is a gust of wind swirling past his right. Then, before Ryuji could process what happened, he feels as if someone hit him in his neck.

Ryuji falls with his face in the ground, But he knew that he couldn't waste a single second, he rolled to this right and nearly evaded a heavy blow the old man directed at his lying body.

'Gods... Were Old men back at earth that powerful?!'

He immediately stands right up and looks at the old man standing to face to face with him again.

A mocking grin appears on the prick's face:

"Hehe... Sorry, did you not expect that? My Aspect is indeed the ability to turn people into my slaves... But... It's not limited to that. I can borrow the power of my slaves for a short amount of time whenever I want. Right now, Spider may die at any moment considering I took a fourth of her strength, but i know her too well... She will survive anyways, just like a spider always does... Her aspect is a perfect counter to one of The Weeping Brother's kind. So I'm not too worried about her... She can stay back... And i can easily devour this boy's essence..."

'Crap!'

Ryuji grits his teeth and dashes back at the old man:

But once again, he is met with just his afterimage. But this time, it was a feint, and Ryuji sends an attack to his left, but to no avail. He suddenly feels a huge punch to the right of his gut and crashes away into a tree.

'ugh!'

Ryuji's vision blurs and he looks at the hunched figure of the old man in front of him, giggling devilishly.

He summons a Soul Bond looking like a twisted Scythe, red gems endored at it's end. It's shaft made of polished black wood, looking almost omnious.

With a soft smirk on his face, White asks:

"Let's spar?"