Scarlet

"The Royal Guard..." Ye Yu watched a group of monsters surround him, his expression utterly unchanged.

With a single effortless slash, he wiped out the entire group of canine monsters.

In an instant, dust covered the ground.

"You really are a troublesome thing." An icy voice rang out nearby.

Someone resembling Little Red Riding Hood stepped out from behind a pillar, though a closer look revealed that she seemed to be a doll.

The Royal Guard's deputy captain, Scarlet (also known as Red, from Undertale Red).

Ye Yu had no interest in wasting words. He slashed Scarlet apart, scattering the stuffing inside her doll body, only for it to gather together again.

"Ha, undoing the fusion beforehand really was the right call." With a helpless sigh, Scarlet stuffed the last few tufts of cotton back into her belly.

Ye Yu was considering how to deal with her. Thanks to the Subsystem's hint, he already knew that she was a ghost possessing a doll.

While perfectly fused with her body, she could still be hurt by physical attacks. But Scarlet had undone that fusion, so defeating her would require magical attacks.

That was precisely the problem: Ye Yu had no soul at all, making it impossible for him to use magic.

"You look like a human drained of all color," Scarlet said softly, studying Ye Yu closely. "And yet, you can't possibly be human. You're fundamentally different from them."

Ye Yu remained expressionless under Scarlet's scrutiny.

Seeing his reaction, Scarlet continued, "You have no soul, which means you can never truly feel those emotions..."

But before Scarlet could finish, Ye Yu suddenly swung his knife without warning, slashing more than twenty times in a single second.

In an instant, Scarlet was cut to pieces. Even the cotton that made up her body was nearly reduced to dust.

Yet the scattered cotton could still reassemble into Scarlet's form.

Scarlet's expression darkened. She looked at Ye Yu and snorted coldly. "Looks like I was overthinking it. There's nothing to say to someone like you!"

With a wave of her hand, two magical puppets shaped like the Delta Rune appeared behind her.

Ye Yu dodged her physical attacks while trying to devise a way to defeat her, but this seemed to be an unsolvable predicament.

Scarlet was using physical attacks too, leaving him no way to borrow any magic.

Suddenly, the Subsystem's panel appeared before his eyes, displaying only a single word-

[Determination]

Determination? Realization dawned on Ye Yu. Of course he knew how powerful the extraordinary force that had brought him this far was. So it could be used here too...

Trusting the Subsystem, Ye Yu did not hesitate. He immediately tried to defeat Scarlet with determination...

Then the two gears flying toward him sliced him to pieces.

In the Void Space, Ye Yu did not reload immediately. Instead, he began studying the power of determination.

Ye Yu discovered that determination seemed far harder to control than he had assumed. It was immensely powerful and appeared capable of serving as a vessel for anything. Controlling it required extraordinarily strong willpower.

Only after he roughly understood the principle did Ye Yu ask the Subsystem to reload for him.

This time, he dodged Scarlet's gear attack without incident.

Scarlet was genuinely surprised that Ye Yu had evaded it. She had noticed him getting distracted just a moment earlier, which should have made dodging the surprise attack nearly impossible.

But she soon understood. There had to be something special about him, or the king would not have treated him as such a grave threat.

Just then, she abruptly felt a strange force lock onto her true form.

A strange energy radiated from Ye Yu's hand, wrapping around Scarlet's ghostly form and severely restricting her movements.

"Damn it... so you do have a way to deal with me..." Scarlet cursed helplessly, then smiled.

"Do you really think defeating me will end this? No. Everything I've done was just to buy time until Captain Undyne arrived.

"She's nearby now... You won't escape. Repent in a hell of blood and spears!"

The power of determination pressed in on Scarlet from every direction, leaving her unable to breathe. Ye Yu remained expressionless.

Scarlet saw the red light flash through his eyes and knew that, however noble his motive for the slaughter might be, LOVE would soon consume him, turning him into a demon who killed for the sake of killing.

While fighting Dalv, he said he was carrying out this slaughter at someone else's request. Whoever was using him must have intended to treat him as expendable...

As she stared at Ye Yu's cold expression, her smile grew somewhat strange. "You really... are... a fool..."

Then the power of determination crushed Scarlet's ghostly form from every direction, tearing her to pieces.

The Little Red Riding Hood doll fell to the ground, stripped of its former vitality. It had become an utterly ordinary doll.

Ye Yu's LOVE rose dramatically, bringing him to LV 10. He could feel an immensely powerful urge to kill the monsters, but instinctively saw nothing wrong with it.

Just as he was about to continue slaughtering the monsters in New Home, fierce winds suddenly erupted around him...

At the Throne, Toriel and Asgore stood before the Six Human Souls.

Asgore opened the containers.

"Children, I know you can hear me. I'm truly sorry for doing this to you, all for the supposed sake of monsterkind...

"None of this had to happen. It was all because of my foolish decision..."

"Enough, Gori. Let me...

"Children, do you remember me? Toriel, the caretaker of the Ruins. You... you were all good children. You should have been able to live your own lives...

"But I hope you'll listen to what I have to say. A demon that emerged from hell has begun slaughtering everyone in the Underground, gathering LOVE.

"That demon will never stop here. With enough LOVE, he'll inflict tremendous harm on the entire world, on humans and monsters alike!

"So... children... please hear this cowardly mother's plea. Help us. Lend us the power of your souls so we can destroy that demon!"

The six souls shimmered with light, slowly rising from their containers...