The Mastermind

It would be a gross understatement to think that Axiolypito was pleased with how things were going, he was escatic, over the moon, one could even say.

His expression had never been more relaxed, he almost didn't look like an eyesore, a satisfied smile adorning his lips, he just had to wait for the main event.

The event that included him as the protagonist.

All of the ministers and powerful non-monsters were taken care of, not all would die in their battles but it was certain that none would have what it takes to even try and confront him.

Solitar, Roderman and Faceless Lord may not even be done with their fights by the time Axio had reached his goal.

The four weaklings and Sovereign Of Flesh couldn't do anything even if they wanted anyways.

Blouvier and Reduvia were going to be locked underground even if one managed to defeat the other without any problem.

"Everything is going exactly the way it should, aren't you satisfied about this, Scourge?" he spoke aloud, no one capable of responding to him.

Faceless's temporary memory loss had, in fact, been caused by The Scourge, it was nothing too extravagant, Axiolypito had already fooled everyone else, nothing difficult about tricking the bodyless monster as well.

It didn't have any idea of what was going on since Axio had designated them as a possible traitor from the very start, as such, he was able to simply tell them something completely different.

That instead of The Condemned and itself, the traitors were actually Cradled Lich and Faceless Lord.

It wasn't as simply as it sounded, those two were obviously the least likely to be traitors, but The Scourge was loyal to a fault to the the Obsidian Queen, with just a bit of pressure, the minister couldn't help but comply on the minuscule chances that Axiolypito was right.

Messing with Faceless Lord's memories wasn't anything much either, Scourge had done this when Faceless had transported them far away from everything as was agreed with Reduvia.

Removing the short encounter with Sir Solitar was nothing much, a distraction, what had truly been buried in his mind was much more important, he would eventually remember it.

It was more a failsafe to ensure Axio's plan went without a hitch.

'It's been a while already' just as he thought this, the ground behind him rumbled.

His nearly good-looking expression was thrown to the gutters as he reverted to his detestable appearance.

"Hello, Queen Of Monsters" he greeted the new arrival.

_____________________

Faceless Lord's rapid warps completely distorted the environment, his figure appearing and vanishing all around the duo.

The monster tried to do feints by appearing next to them and moving as though he was going to attack but his attempts failed miserably.

Such little tricks done by an amateur of combat couldn't trick two veterans like them.

Even if severely outclassed in the experience department, Faceless still had the benefit of having the most diverse toolkit at his disposal.

Solitar and Roderman were very down to earth melee combatants, no laser blades or beams would be coming from them at any point, their bodies and weapons were their main power.

Compared to the monster with teleportation, slight reality control and domain, they basically had no tricks up their sleeves.

This was exactly why Faceless was so wary of them however, he knew that their attacks, if they landed would deal excessive damage to his meager frame.

Solitar had already managed to slash his chest, the blade had went through him like he was made of nothing but air, he might not look like it, but the minister wasn't exactly easy to damage.

His skin was thicker than it appeared and due to the fact that he had no organs to damage, most lethal blows would mean nothing to him.

However, dismembering him would be effective and he had no doubts that both of them would cleave through his body with minimal effort.

Were he to make a poor judgement and warp away instead of diverting an attack or the opposite, he would be punished for it without a place for luck.

This was without accounting the fact that both of them displayed something he didn't understand.

Roderman's blue energy was a no brainer, unknown energy was dangerous to play with.

'The swordsman in black is off, but what is it?'

'I already know about his lack of energies, but something else troubles me... I won't attack again without knowing' he quickly arrived at this choice, it was too dangerous.

'It's like something else is missing from him, something even more important than energies, something everyone and everything should have!' he kept on warping around, feeling no strain from repeating this action over and over.

He was casually putting more and more distance in between him and the two humans.

'Think, Faceless! Think!'

'The queen would have already figured it out!' he did his best to force himself to reach a conclusion.

'Something... We all have...' taking another look at the swordsman, it seemed obvious now.

'You... You are completely cut off from the system?' voicing his thoughts inside of everyone's mind, he simply couldn't fathom this fact.

"I need nothing other than me and my blade to achieve strength, so I disabled the link between me and the system" Sir Solitar willingly confirmed the monster's idea.

This meant that the stats, skills, everything the system granted an access to were barred from him.

Meaning that this overwhelming power, resistance to mental attacks and incredible skill with the sword was all made possible by nothing other than himself.

If he had a link with the system with this sort of physique, his power would soar even higher.

Thankfully for Faceless Lord, once the link had been severed, it couldn't be reestablished.

For how much he spoke of his dislike of Mov and how he believed his old companions usage of the crystals was wrong, it was quite hypocritical of him to be using the exact same method as Slaughter Lord.

'Then...' Faceless now knew what was off about him and it allowed him to craft plan based on the fact that he now knew that Solitar didn't have access to skills and such, on top of having no access to magic and the likes.

'At most, he had some battle arts-' he warped again, this time, a distance behind Sir Solitar.

Only to be met with the realisation that his utter focus on figuring out Solitar had led him to miss out on when Roderman had vanished.