Clive sighed, glancing down at the blood spots on the ground. Those were the only evidence of Kallius even being here before he died, and Clive simply kneeled down and wiped them off the ground. In his eyes, he did not deserve to be remembered.

He stood back up, realizing just how sore his back was from just how many battles he had fought in lately, so he decided to head toward the hot spring that was up north of this now ghost headquarters.

Arriving at the hot spring about an hour after he began to walk, he was mesmerized by the sight in front of him; it was peaceful. This was...almost strange to him. He sighed and stripped down but kept his sword with him as he stepped in the warm water of the spring before sitting down, and for the first time in ages, he deactivated the waver that he was using on himself. He let out a loud groan as all the pain from all his previous battles all hit him at once. He was left sweating. But he endured it. For the first time in ages, he also felt a mix of emotions: grief, pain, exhaustion, and sadness. He couldn't control them unless he was using his waver. Clive was a mess.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the water moved as if someone else was inside. Clive turned around, pointing his sword at whoever it was, and there stood a woman... She looked to be almost 30 but was still young-looking... aged quite well, Clive thought to himself. She was ravishing. Everything about her was perfect... However, Clive was still loyal to his dead wife... He still had her ring... He glanced down to look at the ring he had on his finger, but it wasn't there. It never felt like it was truly there. Clive was confused, which is exactly when the woman reached out for him in a handshake, saying hello. She had a charming voice. She was...perfect. But...no. Not as perfect as Sylvia. But Sylvia had died almost like 2 years ago... He could just move on, right? But why was his mind telling him not to move on... was it because of his love or for something else?

Clive slapped the woman's hand away, refusing to reach out for her despite the fact she obviously just wanted to take care of a tired man. She was too kind.

The woman's eyes softened before hugging him. Clive froze. What the hell was she doing? Why... The more he kept questioning it, the more he melted against her touch. He needed someone to reach out to; that was clear, and this random lady was doing that out of her own goodness.

Seeing how tense Clive was, the woman let out a small chuckle before letting out a soft whisper directly into Clive's ear. What she said made him blush like a madman, which made the woman let out a soft chuckle.

The woman gripped Clive by his waist before pressing a soft kiss on his shoulder, her hands roaming his scarred body, but before she could reach even further down. Clive snapped. It seemed like the fact he had deactivated the use of his waver on himself made his emotions unstable. In a single moment. He shoved her away from him, which made her stumble back and hit her head on a sharp rock. Clive's eyes widened as he approached her; as he tried to come out of the hot spring to help her, he stumbled too and crushed her face in with his metal arm by accident.

Clive froze as he saw her mangled head on the ground below the metal hand of Markus. He stumbled back and gripped his clothes, quickly putting them on before using his waver to calm himself down before walking away from the hot spring without looking back once. Not even checking if the lady was somehow alive...which she was somehow. She was still whimpering in pain despite her face having been crushed.

But someone did approach her... Astaroth himself came up and kneeled next to her, using his healing to help her before grabbing her by the neck roughly and infecting her before walking away. Why did he do this? Who knows...

Clive kept on walking until he arrived at the nearby blacksmith village, where he gripped one of the blacksmiths by the collar of his shirt and held him up, ordering him to make armor strong enough to resist black matter or he would kill all the blacksmiths there. The blacksmith immediately got to work as Clive leaned against a wall watching and waiting until something caught his eyes. The woman he thought was dead was staring at him from afar. Was he hallucinating again? No...She was there... How the hell was she even alive? Clive slowly approached her carefully, clearly not wanting to hurt her again, he glanced down at her strange outfit... It was as if she just grabbed random items before getting here... she was covered by bandages and a simple coat. A very light outfit.

The place were here head had been crushed had now a huge scar and some part of her skin had water motif on them.

The moment Clive hand was just above her arm, The woman quickly sent a sharp jab right into his neck which sent him stumbling back, he had not been using his future sight on her has he did not think she would attack.

Clive quickly used the momentum of his falling backward to unsheat his blade and send it swinging right toward her neck but he...couldnt do it. She let out a small scoff before snapping her finger as all the water from the nearby pools of water all gathered around her before she chanted:

Ceto Maxima

All of the water quickly morphed around her into a giant form of herself with a giant sharp sword of water. Clive froze, just...what the hell happened to this woman. She quickly swung her blade of water which quite litteraly leveled the village in mere seconds. Clive could only stand there and watch as all of the Blacksmiths were killed in seconds, welp there goes his damn armor huh.

He let out a sigh knowing he had to kill the woman he had accidentally hurted and felt bad for earlier that day.

He quickly lunged up at the woman trying to rip her out of her water construct but she saw him coming, she quickly swung her water blade right at him which he...caught. That surprised the both of them. How strong was he really? He then proceeded to rip the sword out of the water thingy which ripped the woman arm off too making her pass out and fall toward the ground, since she was quite elevated in her water monster, she hit the ground quite fast and exploded into piece as Clive simply watched.

All of suddent, Clive froze as he felt a hand on his shoulder, a familiar hand. The ghost...or vision of his dead wife, Sylvia, he wasn't sure what she was yet but he did not truly wish to know either.

Instead of pushing her away like he had done with the other woman, He holded tighly onto her before walking away toward the next head quarter.

Syndrielle's