Grim Reaper in the Apocalypse: Reaping Immortals

The gray fog soon lifted, finally giving Ninth and the rest of her team a vision of their surroundings.

They were completely clueless about what happened throughout the whole ordeal.

One second, they were fighting floating teacups, forks, and knives, and the next second, they were enveloped in a gray fog where they couldn't see or hear anything besides their thoughts.

It was a scary experience for most of them. They thought that the Beast would somehow find them amid the fog and kill them one by one.
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As the seconds passed, still, nothing happened. But instead of feeling a sense of relief, they instead felt even more paranoid. After all, what if they were suddenly swept up into an anomaly and got sucked into an abyss? What if they became like Belle, who was stuck in the Remedium for thousands of years?

Ninth was the only one who kept her calm.

When the fog first came, she was fighting the Beast. And even as the grey smoke fully descended, the Beast and her never stopped dueling for supremacy.

But as the fight was heating up, the Beast suddenly backed away from her and disappeared.

This was uncharacteristic for the Beast. After all, he was renowned for being a fight junkie, always wanting to clash fists with anyone and everyone he met.

And if the Beast backed away for a surprise attack, that would be even weirder. The Beast disdained that kind of fighting style.

With the Beast gone, Ninth kept making her way through the fog, hoping that she would hopefully stumble into one of her teammates.

She especially wanted to find Atlan. After all, he was the one who had full communications with Carmine. He was the only one who could figure out how to get out of this fog.

But as she walked, she suddenly felt a subtle change in the air. It became…heavier.

Her heart started palpitating, almost beating out her chest. When she fought the Beast, her heartbeat barely raised above her normal range. Even when she fought the six puppets of the White Canzer, she barely even felt nervous at all. But this was different. This subtle feeling of dread overcame all her training and made her feel scared.

There was only one creature who could make her feel this way.

She was sure. Even if she couldn't see or hear it, she knew. She knew that the Dragon was here.

That realization hit her like a high-speed truck. She slowly backed away.

As the leader of the group, it was her responsibility to keep her teammates safe.

The Dragon could be killing one of her teammates right now. It could be killing one of her friends.

Yet, she kept backing away. No matter how much she tried to fight it, the fear of the Dragon overcame any of her affection for other people.

As she backed away, she suddenly tripped on her own leg.

She was going to fall to the ground, but then, someone caught her just in time.

Ninth looked back and saw Atlan supporting her. He pushed her up and let her stand on her own.

Slowly, the fog dispersed into the air and she could finally see her surroundings.

"Atlan…" she muttered. "The Dragon!"

She quickly looked around, and they were still at the Beast's castle. But instead of seeing the high ceiling of the room, she only saw a large opening as if the roof had been completely torn off.

She looked around and saw her teammates sprawled around the room. They were confused, but they were safe. They didn't look injured at all.

"What happened?"

"I couldn't see through the fog! It was endless…"

"Ninth! Did you kill the Beast?"

All of them converged onto Ninth and Atlan's positions. And when they looked around the room, they suddenly saw the gruesome corpse of the decapitated Beast and the dead Belle right next to him.

They all drew a cold breath.

"I didn't kill him…"

Ninth's words drew confusion to her team. The last time they saw her, she was fighting the Beast all on her own. If there was someone who could kill the Beast, then it would only be her.

"Wait! Look at its neck. The head didn't look like a clean slice…it looks like it got bitten off…" the Scout reported.

Ninth's weapon was a sword, so if she was the one who cut the Beast's head, then it would be a clean cut.

"Ninth didn't kill him. Another Canzer did."

Once the camera reconnected, Carmine and the rest of them back in the real world finally got a glance at what happened in the castle.

"Another Canzer? We didn't see anything like that," the Scout said.

"I haven't even finished giving Atlan the code for the construct. It wouldn't have died from a human's attacks. So, the only conclusion would be that another Canzer killed the Beast. A Canzer doesn't need a construct to kill another Canzer."

Atlan and Ninth were the only people in the room who knew that the Dragon was here in the castle.

Atlan's reason for keeping it a secret was obvious. But for some reason, Ninth couldn't bring herself to tell the team that she felt the Dragon's presence.

If she did, then she would have to confess that the Dragon scared her so much she backed away.

"What the hell happened here? The Beast is dead, and so is Belle. What should we do? Do we bring her back to the real world?"

The protocol for these kinds of situations was exactly as the Scout said. Anyone who was found missing in the Remedium would be returned to their territory.

But Belle was a different story. She committed a sin worthy of being cast out into the Unclaimed Lands.

"We should let her rest here," said Atlan.

She would die without the protection of the Gods anyway. So, it was much better to let her final resting place be in the Remedium. That way, she could still be considered as a soldier who fell into active duty.