-Leo's POV-

  It was night-time and I had left my Guild’s office and just arrived at the parking lot when my secretary approached me.

  "Boss, it's done. The target is currently on the road and our men are following them." Said my new secretary.

  "Good. Move forward with the plan and get the documents ready, I'll be going over to that place now. Make sure that there are no additional problems." I said to him and got in my car. This plan would certainly raise that woman’s reputation before I give her a major hit to her reputation.

  -Liz's POV-

  The both of us were on our way to a famous restaurant for our date. But alas, fate had different plans, our first date in centuries was going to be ruined by an idiot.

  I had already spotted at least four vehicles following us.

  Two cars stopped in front of our vehicle, and the other two were at the back, making it impossible to escape even if we wanted to. We could kill them all and go on our way to the restaurant but the problem was, they were cops. Not the regular ones though. They were a special team made of high level people by the government of New York, to maintain law and order. Their sirens were off meaning someone had already premeditated this.

  "That's them right?" I asked Reinard as we saw the cops coming out of the cars and one of them was walking towards our car carrying a gun.

  "Yeah, it's them and that gun they have can neutralize even A Rankers. I still don't know who invented it but if that person can make such a gun, there might be other weapons too." Reinard said and the cop reached our vehicle and knocked on the window of the driver's seat.

  "Sir, I need you to come out of the vehicle." The cop had a hard look on his face, like he was forced to do this against his will.

  "Sure thing. But may I ask what the problem is?" Reinard said as he got out of the vehicle. The cop didn't answer him and just took Reinard and put him inside his car. I was about to get out of the car to question the cop, about why they were doing this but two of the cops from the car who blocked our way back, approached me and made me sit inside the car, not letting me out. "Stay inside, we'll be taking you to the station." One of them said as he kept a gun pointed at my head while the other one took the driver’s seat and drove us to the station. There were no talks, no comments, nothing. The way to the station was as silent as the night outside the car. The streets of New York which were always busy were silent. It was as if the route was already cleared out to take us both, like a premeditated plan by some highly ranked official.

  The car stopped and the three of us got out with the gun still pointed at my head and we got inside the station. We walked inside the interrogation room passing through a hallway and the face that greeted me was not someone I was expecting to see tonight. I was angry but I didn’t want to do anything that could damage my reputation more than this guy had already done. It was not like I could just kill them all and erase everyone’s memories of this. There might be someone who would know about this and they could easily exploit us.

  "Look who we have here, Miss Scarlet the great. The Guild Master of Hermes Trading Guild. My one and only fiancée and the love of my life. Why don't we have a talk, Darling?" Leo said and motioned for the cops to leave. I sat down on the chair in the middle of the room as Leo sat in front of me.

  "What do you want?" I asked him curtly, not caring about the play he was putting on. I had more than one reason to be angry because this guy had to go and ruin my first date with Reinard after recalling my memories.

  "Hey ! Just chill down babe, I have a present for you." Leo said and took out his phone and passed it to me.

  "Just look at that video and tell me if you like it." I took the phone and looked at the video he wanted to show me.

  In the video, I could see two people who looked just like me and Leo. Sitting in a room with a whole lot of people, doing an interview.

  "Sir Leo, how did the two of you meet?" A reporter asked. There were at least twenty of them with about thirty to forty people behind them, as the audience.

  "The two of us met a long time ago. It was when Scarlet was in an accident. I was on my way home when I spotted a car crashing right in front of me. I rescued her, took her to the nearest hospital and stayed with her until she woke up and took care of her while she recovered from the accident. We became friends and later on that friendship evolved and developed into a relationship." Leo gave a short reply as Scarlet and him both looked in each other's eyes as Leo caressed her hands.

  "Are the two of you really in love with each other?" One of the skeptical reporters asked. This prompted others to nod their heads, demanding answers.

  "Yes we are and we will continue to be for the rest of our lives." The Scarlet in the video said as Leo and her kissed to prove that they were in love with each other and this was not a publicity stunt at all.

  "Alright, now that we have answered your questions. I have an announcement to make." Leo said and quietened down. Building up a long silence and, before anyone could ask what the announcement was, he spoke, shocking the reporters and the audience.

  "Scarlet is my official fiancée from today onwards and both of us are happy to announce that our marriage will be held in a few months." Leo said as Scarlet and him stood from their seats and showed rings on their fingers and right after seeing that Leo took the phone from my hands.

  "So do you like it? Won't this make great news when I finally destroy your reputation for being a bitch and leaving me. I have a lot of plans for you Scarlet. I know that you may dislike this and that boyfriend of yours, Reinard might even want to fight with me over this but, you see I have the government under my thumb and your boyfriend can't do shit or else he will have a whole lot more to face than just me." Leo said while looking at me calmly.

  "Are you done now, or do you have more to say?" I asked him but the only reply I got was a laugh from him.

  "You still don't understand your situation do you? I am your fiancé and the whole world knows it now, you can't deny that because if you do, your reputation will take a hit that you can't afford right now." Leo said plainly.

  "What do you mean?" I asked him because I was genuinely confused. The video he showed me was not real at all, but why was he so confident about my reputation hitting rock bottom?

  "You don't get it do you? The video I showed you was shooted live just a few hours ago." He said and laughed some more.

  'Fuck !!' That is a goddamn nice plan he laid out. The timing was also just right. We were in that Dead Realm when this occurred, so we didn't have any idea about this.

  "So what do you want me to do? Act all corny and chummy with you in front of the public and follow your every word?" I asked him curtly, with a hint of anger in my voice. I was pissed at this piece of shit, he wasn't even someone I considered worth looking at. But now that he had made me look at him, he won't be able to escape unscathed.

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  "Yes I do. And every one of the words that comes out of my mouth is the law for you from now on. You see I'm a nice guy, if only your boyfriend hadn't crossed me and killed my secretary, things could've been different." Leo said as he reached out his hand to hold mine but I swatted it away.

  Leo sighed and got up from his chair and walked up to the T.V that was in the room and turned it on and without even looking at it, he turned towards me.

  "You see, I have your boyfriend here and if you don't follow what I say, he will have to face the consequences. How about I take one of his hands for what you did just now." Leo took out his phone and dialed a number but the call never reached. He was still facing towards me with his back to the T.V.

  "I guess there is a network issue. How about I go there and personally chop one of his hands?" Leo said and turned towards the door to go to the room where he had held Reinard.

  "How about I kill you right here and now? I already told you to not get in our way but I think you are having some issues with what I had said." Reinard said while leaning on the door and Leo just looked at him dumbfounded, he couldn't believe how Reinard had escaped his people. His people could put down even A Rankers and Reinard certainly was below A Rank from the information he had got. Even if he could not identify Reinard, the information provided to him certainly pointed out Reinard’s low Level.

  "Well, even if you could take out my men. You certainly will have issues with the government because they do not appreciate their skilled men being killed off while working. Also there is the issue of Scarlet and me being a thing spreading all around the world. So it's best if the both of you just followed my word because if not, I'll have to let the government know about two monsters hiding in the skin of humans. So what are you gonna do now?" Leo said as he sat back on the chair. He didn't care if Reinard got out because the announcement he made was still going around. The government would also not appreciate that their people were killed by some adventurer.

  "Well I have a lot of things that I could do to you. How about we start with torture for eternity." Reinard said as he moved so fast that Leo couldn't even comprehend what happened.

  -Leo's POV-

  I sat on the chair while thinking about other alternatives to the situation but before I could even do or say anything, that Reinard bastard was standing in front of me, I couldn't even see him move, like he just teleported in front of me and the next thing I knew was my mind went blank.

  -Liz's POV-

  “What about the cops?” I asked Reinard, who was standing beside me with unconscious Leo hanging on his shoulder like a sack of rice.

  “I altered their memories and also erased the CCTV footage from the route we took to get here and also the footage inside the station.” Reinard said as he casted a teleportation spell on the three of us.

  A second later, Reinard and I were back in the penthouse sitting in the lounging area. We also brought the guest, who was currently being taken care of by Vorgrim.

  "So what now?" Reinard asked me even though we both knew that this issue was not that big of a deal. We could either play by the rules or make the rules. Both of these ways had their own advantages and disadvantages.

  "You know what I am thinking? This may cause a lot of problems in the Guild but this is one of the ways forward. I can erase that announcement from everyone's mind but that will take a toll on my own mind. That spell has one hell of a drawback if casted on the whole population of the World. So, let's just change the owner of the Guild and kill off Scarlet in an accident. This will prevent the Guild's fall and also preserve what we have. The second way is, we can just go and announce to the world that what Leo said was not true and that Scarlet in the video was a fake one." I explained to Reinard.

  "Yeah, I know what you're thinking. How about we go with the second plan, this will provide us the opportunity to damage Leo's reputation." Reinard said.

  "Right, that will give us the opportunity but do we have enough evidence to do that?" I was a bit skeptical about that second plan because if we didn't have enough evidence, our plan could backfire and force us to discard a useful pawn, like the Merchant Guild. Even if we could just operate it from the shadows, there will come a time when we would have to face the World, regarding the World Update.

  "Yes we do Honey. While Leo was busy scheming against us I had planted a few spies amongst his people. I wanted him dead the moment he uploaded those photos of you and him but I held myself back." Reinard said while showing me photos and videos that he had collected while I was getting over the grief and doing the dungeon runs.

  -Leo's POV-

  "Well well I finally got to meet the guy who had the guts to upload those photos with my Master." I heard a voice and looked at where it was coming from. I saw a blue haired man standing right in front of me. I tried to move but I couldn't, I was sitting on a chair. I wasn't tied down to it though, so I tried to move again.

  "That is not gonna work man, how about you stop squirming in the chair and have a nice little chat with me. " The blue haired man said as he summoned a chair in front of me and sat on it.

  "Who the hell are you !!!" I said while still trying to move out of the chair.

  "Me? I'm just a guy who has the honour of torturing the hell out of you." He said and summoned a knife from god knows where. I didn't know until afterwards that I had messed with the wrong person.

  “Let’s start with removing those nails first and by the way you can call me Vorgrim, if you want.” Vorgrim said as he shoved the tip of the knife in my nails. This amount of pain was not something that could make me beg and give up.

  I held myself from screaming out as Vorgrim removed my nails, he was slow but it was bearable.

  Vorgrim then casted a spell on Leo. This spell could make the body highly sensitive to almost everything.

  -A Few Minutes Later-

  “Now onto the next part.” Vorgrim said as he took out a chainsaw from his dimensional space. He held the chainsaw before Leo’s arm and turned on the machine. “Grrrr…Grrr…”. He then proceeded to Saw through Leo’s flesh.

  “Arghhhhhh…….” Leo screamed, his highly sensitive body could not handle the pain of a chainsaw going through his flesh, blood spattered all around as Leo kept screaming.

  “Scream as much as you like. I would not stop before your mind breaks from the pain and the only thing that you want would be death. Even then I would not grant it to you.” A cruel smile visible on Vorgrim’s face as the chainsaw cut through Leo’s flesh and reached his bones, it sawed through the bones roughly. The unevenness of the cut and the rough process made Leo faint from the pain.

  But Vogrim was not a casual torturer. He had done these types of tortures on Astria at the command of Arel and had soon become an expert in it. He knew where the pain points on a human body were, but he decided to take a new approach and started torturing Leo in various and wild ways.

  Vorgrim slapped Leo’s face, almost breaking his jaw. Leo who woke up and looked around confused, soon remembered what was happening. Pain shot through his nerves, signaling his mind about the loss of an arm.

  “Argghhhh……mot…her..fucker.” Leo screamed and cursed as he spit blood from his mouth, but it was of no use, as Vorgrim cast a Spell on Leo.

  Flesh grew from the once amputated arm and soon took the shape of an arm. Regenerating the whole arm anew.

  “Pleasee….just leave me…” Leo said as tears started to form in his eyes at the thought of going through this torture once again. His mind was already on the verge of breaking.

  “No can do. You hurt my Master and this is the punishment you’ll receive.” Vorgrim said.

  The next hours or so went by with Vorgrim severing Leo’s limbs and regenerating them over and over, using different tools each time. The pain that Leo was going through was the worst kind he had ever faced.

  The room was filled with lots of blood and hundreds of severed limbs. If one enters the room now, they would faint at the scene of arms, legs, flesh spread across the room filled with blood, making it impossible to not feel disgusted at the scene.

  Leo was tied to a bloody chair. His limbs amputated, his face disfigured, his eyes lost their usual color. He wished for death more than living, his mind broken and his thoughts only filled with pain. From the start of this torture, he cursed himself for messing with the wrong people. He had begged Vorgrim for relief from this pain but alas Leo had certainly invited this on himself.