"...." Rey was speechless.

What could he say in his defense? What words could he utter that wouldn't be shut down by Adrien? How could he defend his worldview?

He knew within himself that it was intrinsically wrong to kill the Elves, and that what Adrien was doing clearly bordered on the morally evil end. Yet why couldn't he argue against his logic?

'If I refuse to accept his moral positions, I'll be a hypocrite.'

Rey would simply be asserting that Adrien was wrong because he didn't agree with his methods and actions.

That was arbitrary at best.

"Be honest with me, Rey" Adrien interrupted his thoughts before he could go even further with his introspection.

"Why are you helping the Elves? Why are you so against me? You must have already known I was involved long before this meeting, so why didn't you just turn a blind eye?"

Rey felt something coiling around his heart. Was it guilt? No, not quite.

It was the feeling one had when they had been caught, or when someone saw right through them, despite their best attempts to hide the truth.

"You are benefiting something from them, aren't you? In essence, this isn't a moral clash, but a conflict of interests." Adrien sat back in his chair and smiled at Rey, whose mood was now completely ruined by the former.

When this meeting first started, it was clear who held the advantage. However, in only a few moments, the pendulum had shifted, and now Adrien seemed to be the one with all the cards. Rey didn't like that.

Still, he didn't want to become antagonistic towards Adrien just because he didn't like what was being said. If he did that, then he would just be a hard-headed person who was obstinate about his own beliefs without need for reform.

Because of that, Rey kept listening "The Elves are cruel, Rey. They're a racist, savage, and hateful bunch. You've interacted with them too, haven't you? You have to understand what I'm saying." Adrien sighed. "They're not the kind of people you should feel empathy for."

Memories of how they treated Esme, and how they addressed him and the rest of the humans came to Rey's mind. He remembered Ciela, and the horrid punishment inflicted on her. Then the image of The Oracle flashed in his mind.

He knew within himself that a lot of them acted horribly. But

"... I don't think they deserve to die. It's funny how you have to make them out to be monsters just so you're okay with killing them."

"I never said they deserve to die. They don't deserve to die as much as Monsters, or even humans don't deserve to. But for the sake of my goals, I am willing to kill them, the same way they will be willing to kill me if it calls for it."

"The only reason they'd want to kill you is because you slaughtered thousands of them, Adrien."

The moment Rey said this, Adrien chuckled to himself.

The former couldn't understand this. They were having a somewhat serious conversation until now, and it seemed Adrien just found something hilarious in what was just said.

"Something funny about what I said?"

Adrien slightly shook his head and laughed a little more before quieting down. "My bad, my bad. It's just I remembered something just now."

Rey gave him a blank smile as he said this, his demeanor showing interest.

"What is it?"

"You mentioned that the only reason the Elves would want to kill me is because I struck first, right?"

"Yes, that's correct." Rey replied.

He already knew Adrien could use the whole 'monsters' narrative against him again, but Rey was prepared this time. He simply awaited the next words that would come out of his lips.

"The Elves don't normally kill. You know that, right?"

Rey raised a brow and nodded slowly. "Yeah."

In all honesty, this feature of the Elves proved incredibly fatal to Adrien's cause. After all, even when Monsters injured, or even devoured Elves, they would never harm them in any instance. Rey found this naivete to be particularly unsettling, but it also went to show how innocent they were in certain respects.

Almost like children.

Yet, Adrien compared them to Monsters and justified his slaughter of them.

"Why do you reckon that they kill the Dragons? Unlike with other entities, they actively kill the Dragons. Why?"

Rey didn't respond for a few moments. He didn't do this because he didn't know the answer, but because Adrien should have already known the reason if he knew so much about Elves already. The whole thing felt like a leading question to Rey.

Still he chose to respond.

"... Because their Oracle says that they should."

"Indeed! But why?!"

"Because The Dragons are a threat to the world?"

"Yeah there's that reason, but the Elves have made it clear that they would never harm anyone or anything, even if it means their demise. There has to be something special about the Dragons that make them a unique target."

"...." At this point, Rey could only look at Adrien with raised eyebrows as he sat in silence.

"I conducted an experiment with the Elves not too long ago."

"Adrien"

"Just five of them. I've already killed so many of them, so this is just icing on the cake, isn't it?"

Rey found himself glaring at Adrien as he uttered those words, but the latter didn't seem to care. He seemed convinced that Rey would change his disposition once he heard what he had to say.

"I was curious to see if this no-kill policy had any real consequence, so I made one kill another Elf to see what would happen. Want to know what happened?"

"What?" Rey responded grudgingly, to which Adrien broadly smiled.

"The Elf's skin grew dark, and her hair became blackened. She became a Dark Elf." The moment Rey heard this, his thoughts went to Ciela, Esme's mother, who also had features akin to what Adrien just described.

"I couldn't draw my conclusion on that alone. After all, perhaps this was simply the cause of an Elf killing a fellow Elf. So I had another Elf kill a Monster. Guess what happened?

"...." This time, Rey said nothing.

"The same thing happened! She became a Dark Elf too."

This was even more of an assurance to Rey that none of the Elves he experimented with ended up killing anything or breaking their code. If they did, they would also transform into Dark Elves.

'It seems the Elves don't actually know of this cause and effect, though. Well except the Esteemed Elders, maybe?'

If the others knew, they would have been able to see through Rey's bullshit game from the start.

"As for the last two Elves, I had one kill a Dark Elf, while I made the other kill a Dragon. What do you think happened this time?"

Rey could already guess the answer, but he let Adrien answer it.

"The one who killed the Dark Elf became a Dark Elf herself, but the one who killed the Dragon didn't change at all."

That meant, just as Adrien postulated, there had to be something unique about killing Dragons.