Katarina looked at Ray with a weird look; something about him had changed, a feeling of old times in her mind.
"Why are you smiling like that?"
"Like what?"
Katarina narrowed her eyes. "The kind of smile which comes after you go and slaughter a whole bloodline."
"Me? No." Ray thought for a moment; there was no harm in letting Katarina know about her new craft. "I just discovered an astonishing achievement."
He threw her the Ashbringer, letting her read the description. As Katarina inspected the weapon, her eyes grew wide.
"How?"
"I don't exactly, but I think I can craft weapons like this easily." Ray had checked every detail about the Ashbringer; nothing about it could be compared to a mythical weapon.
Katarina gave him back his scythe. "How about mythical weapons?"
"There is something missing about them; that's why I want you to let me see the crafting of Stardust from up close."
Both the blood bubbles moved to her side. "Not possible; my own system crafts it. If I let you in my mind, you will lose your sense of self."
Ray raised his eyebrow. "So what?"
She shook her head; there was no point in arguing when Ray had already taken his decision. "Ok, let me eat you."
A pair of hands took his mind into their own and moved them into a part of Katarina's consciousness. Unlike Alexanderia's mind, her mind was like a stormy sea with big waves trying to kill him.
Ray changed his mind's form into a leaf, letting the thoughts take him to wherever the waves took him. "To see her system, I should become one with her body."
The act itself had many dangers; losing the sense of self while being carried by the thoughts of someone else was the most common reason for death.
"I need a string to connect me to my true self." He thought for some time until the right answer presented itself: "I'm the Blood Angel." His title carried his journey to the person he had become; for him, it showed who he truly was.
Meanwhile, for Katarina, all signs of Ray's consciousness had faded away in her mind. "He probably had a plan for himself."
All three of her targets were already counted as dead people, so she just attacked all three at once. Minds and thousands of thoughts rushed to her mind at once.
All the ingredients for Stardust are ready.
The process shall begin.
Ray could hear the message of her system, "It tells the ingredients too. To feel the process, I should go way deeper."
Unlike before, this time Ray went against the flow of waves: "Their brains should still have their own identity. That should guide me."
The thing about Victor that stood out was his transformation into a bat: "The frequency of bats is different from humans; I should just go after an anomaly."
After what looked like an eternity, Ray found the location he had searched. As he got closer, the area tried to destroy his mind, but he continued to go on.
There were many unknown things about how the lust system even worked, and at that moment, Ray walked into a sea of unknown.
The world around him changed; five brains were put on each other, with a big wall of diamonds as their floor and a ceiling made out of a violet material that Ray had never seen.
Ray wanted to know more, but that place was behind even Katarina's control. Upon realizing his presence, his mind was shot out of Katarina's body.
His body didn't listen to him; on instinct, he tried to breathe, but his mind went against it. As his mind slowly got used to his body once more, a message popped up in his system.
You have defied one of the system's rules.
Punishment: You lose all of your experience.
"What?" It was the first time he had heard about the system's rules. He raised his head to look at Katarina's curious face. "I think you should see this too."
After seeing the message, Katarina had the same response as him: "What did you even see?"
"One thing is for certain: mythical weapons can be crafted by us, but they have a recipe; your system was following pre-planned steps." That information alone was worth more than anything that he had gained so far; even if he returned to level 1, he didn't care.
Katarina asked the same question on his mind, "What are the system's rules?"
"The better question is, what is our system?"
Both of them had no answer.
Ray lay on the ground, his mind still on the brink of falling apart. "After you are finished, let's return."
Katarina nodded as her system gave her a new announcement.
Your weapon is ready.
Weapon: Stardust
Rarity: mythical
Passive: 80% boost to mind
Level: 1 (0/5)
A pair of white gloves made out of fabric came to life around her hand; with her fighting style, they suited her the best.
Mind: 2576
"Now, that's something." She cleared her throat as her hand pulled Ray's hand from the ground. "See you in the impact."
"Wait, you don't want to have some fun?" Ray asked with a disappointed tone; he had looked forward to sleeping with Katarina for days.
Katarina shrugged. "Well, in the impact, I'm all yours, for now. You should focus on your new cult."
Ray winked at her, "See you then."
The dungeon has been cleared; the last remaining team shall return to earth.
As Ray opened his eyes again, he was in his bedroom, with his clone sleeping in his bed.
He massaged Jade to destroy the clone as he jumped on the bed; many new questions had risen, but he was too tired to care.
All the things that his clone had gone through in the past few days transferred into him. "Marian is on a vacation too? That's weird."
His ship with Alexandria had become the number one hot topic in the world, with already many books written about them.
"I wonder how the world would react when none of the duo teams return from the dungeons." There was no tie between him and the dungeon, and with his plan and Jade, everyone's attention was going to be elsewhere.
A long sleep awaited him.