The purified demon corpse that laid in front of him was none other than the SS ranked Spatial Magus, Merlin.
Although the young man's skin was red and that he had two small horns protruding out of his messy hair, Ryuda could still recognize the arrogant yet humbling expression Merlin wore when he first met Azure Monarch.
Only that brat could pull off such a conflicting expression.
Thinking so, Ryuda couldn't help but reveal a somber expression.
'I'm wondering what you went through to reach this point, young man…'
The Thousand Path Sage proceeded to form hand signs while he chanted an ancient language.
A cup of tea's time later, hundreds upon hundreds of golden runes materialized in front of Ryuda like a tsunami.
They then flew towards Merlin's corpse like moths to a flame, wrapping the corpse in layers upon layers of golden runes.
When the final golden rune landed into place, the golden rune formed casket started to flash repeatedly while the space around the corpse started to distort and collapse in multiple places.
The surrounding atmosphere even dropped a few degrees celsius when the golden rune casket was formed.
Looking at the ominous scene, Ryuda remained calm.
"Osiris' Coffin…Magnificent as always…"
The Thousand Path Sage then formed another hand sign and casted several magical barriers around the golden rune casket.
'Merlin oh Merlin. I know that sorry has no meaning now. I was the one who instructed my disciple Azure Monarch to take you in and give you pointers. I was the one who saw the potential in you to become something greater. I was the one who failed to recognize the potential dangers of the heart demon that formed after Azure Monarch took you in. With that, I now also regret that I will be the one to pull you out of the afterlife. Your life has been too short and meaningless. And I am the perpetrator who caused it.'
Ryuda took one final deep breath as the golden coffin in front of him shook violently.
"It is too soon for you to enter the final destination of life. Since you have caught my eye, I will do everything in my power to keep you alive. Be it by extracting your soul or by keeping your name alive, o' young Merlin."
When the golden rune coffin shook one last time, countless cracks appeared and soon, a bright explosion occurred.
"BOOM!" The golden rune casket shattered into a million pieces, but the blast was successfully contained within the multiple magical barriers set up by Ryuda previously.
"Seems like it's done." Ryuda saw this and revealed a slight smile.
After the golden rune casket shattered, a golden crystal orb was left behind.
"Well then, my job here is done." Ryuda muttered to himself. He then picked up the crystal orb and teleported away.
Back to the present…
The current skinny and sunken cheeks Merlin continued to remain silent. He knew that the person in front of him was both his benefactor and enemy.
A piece of shit that kidnapped him using the pretext that he would make Merlin grow stronger. But when Merlin succumbed to his inner demons, the said piece of shit let his disciples beat him up and kill him.
What's worse, the piece of shit refused to let him go even after death. No, it was more accurate to say that Ryuda pulled him back from the underworld to resurrect and seal him in an abandoned church of a destroyed town.
Oh, to top it all off, the piece of shit even stole his identity and went ahead to accept a new disciple called Arthur.
The piece of shit was really a piece of shit.
Ryuda Chaos was THE piece of shit.
As for Ryuda, although he did have plans to use Merlin after resurrecting him, the teacher scrapped the plans and gave up.
In his mind, although Merlin had nearly achieved the SSS ranked Spatial Archmage class, his heart was still unstable.
The young man retained too much hate within his heart.
His hate for his own incompetence, his hate for Azure Monarch abandoning and killing him, and his hate for Ryuda who promised to make him stronger.
Yes, Ryuda was well aware that Merlin hated his guts.
So much so that after Merlin was resurrected and placed in a new body, the SS ranked Spatial Mage went on several more killing sprees in other continents.
Be it the Heavenly Martial Continent or the Moonlight Continent, the hate filled Merlin killed enough people to form rivers of blood just to smear Ryuda's reputation.
Whenever Merlin wiped out a town, he would write 'Merlin of School' using the blood of innocents.
This caused the School of the Sun Land Continent's reputation to take unneeded hits.
Ryuda had even started several wars with these continents to prove that he and School were innocent.
On the day Merlin was caught, Ryuda extracted his soul using Osiris' Coffin and burned it using Divine Samadhi Fire as punishment. Merlin remembered the searing hot pain that reached the depths of his soul.
The Moonlight Tower's X ranker chipped in with their Purification Beam technology. It was basically a steampunk version of a railgun hooked up to 99% purified mana stones.
Just a whiff of the Purification Beam would send high ranking demons back to Hell.
So after Merlin's soul was burned using the Samadhi Divine Fire for a year, Ryuda brought Merlin to Moonlight Tower to receive his second punishment, using pure energy to erase his hatred for Ryuda.
An incredibly horrible and inefficient method of that time indeed.