Chapter 1000: Soul Surgery
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Temporary Healing Facility
Unnamed Planet
Abyss Labyrinth
December 25th
Year 1151
"Are you all ready? If you are, then let’s get this underway."
Those were the first words Arthur spoke the moment he stepped out of the cosmic gate that brought him into the building. He took off his jacket and tossed it into his subspace as he walked toward Alexia and Kelly, completely ignoring the gazes of Alexia’s subordinates who were present.
"Hold on a bit, Arthur," Alexia said, her eyes focused on the transparent tablets floating before her. "We’re running the final checks on the capsule."
At that response, Arthur turned his attention to the transparent glass capsule at the centre of the room.
It was about 2.5 metres long and a metre wide, with a white soft bed inside for someone to lie on, along with a pillow for them to rest their head. The capsule was supported by a single pillar-like stand about a metre above the ground, and from the gears and springs along its side, it could be lifted from its current flat position into an inclined angle.
Covering the glass surface of the capsule were hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of spell circles, with the lowest Arthur could perceive being Tier 8. Every one of those spell circles served a different purpose, ranging from time acceleration to amplified physical and spiritual regeneration, with dozens of redundant spell systems in place repeating those same effects.
Each time Alexia touched one of the tablets before her, a connected arrangement of spell circles and runes lit up with a dull glow, drawing in some of the heavily concentrated ambient cosmic energy to function.
’I see. So that giant Tier 13 spell circle in the sky has a cosmic energy gathering function as well. And this hall...’
Arthur looked around at the pillars of the massive hall, runes lining them from top to bottom, before nodding to himself.
’This hall is basically one enormous battery of cosmic energy. The concentrated energy has seeped into the reinforced metals to such an extent that I’d need to use Lostvayne if I even want to leave a dent in these walls.’
At the thought of Lostvayne, Arthur summoned the sword and placed it on his shoulder as he looked at Alexia and said,
"When you’re done, let me know. I’ll be out gathering souls."
With those words, he vanished from the building, teleporting off the planet and into deep space, completely beyond the gravitational field of the nearest stars.
’Can’t have a repeat of what happened with Luka, where I couldn’t use Soul Devouring Oblivion again, so I’m going to gather as many souls as possible.’
The amount of Lostvayne’s true power Arthur could wield was limited by his own Existence Realm, and since becoming a High-Tier Deity, not only had that power’s upper limit practically tripled from what it was before, but the number of souls that could be stored within the sword had also increased exponentially.
Arthur had spent the past few weeks hunting the creatures of the Abyss Labyrinth as much as possible, but he hadn’t managed to gather enough to fill the sword’s storage.
The fact that he was targeting only Mid-Tier Deities and above was also an important factor, since the higher the quality of the soul, the more power he could gain from it.
His hunt continued for about an hour until he received a call from Alexia and returned to find that Artemisia had already arrived and was being handed an artifact by Kelly, one that would allow her to withstand the immense cosmic energy gathered in the room without feeling lightheaded.
Even if she couldn’t perceive cosmic energy, its effects were still present.
"Hey, Artemisia. Are you ready?"
The woman silently nodded at Arthur’s words, and seeing this, he unsummoned Lostvayne before walking up to Alexia, who was now sitting on the capsule’s bed.
"Are you ready?"
"...can’t say. I’ve prepared everything, but it still doesn’t feel real," she replied.
Hearing that, Arthur raised an eyebrow, removed his concealment ring, tossed it into his subspace, and said, "So you’re not ready then? Good, because neither am I."
He removed the Cosmic Teleporter from his right hand next before continuing, "But we’re gonna do this anyway because if we keep waiting to be ’ready’, then we’ll never be ’ready’."
With those words, he removed every other artifact on his person and placed them in his subspace, then cracked his knuckles and said to Alexia.
"Onto the operating table, Miss. It’s time to begin removing your infection."
He glanced at Kelly and Artemisia, the only other two in the hall, and in response, Kelly walked up to Alexia and whispered something into her ear.
Somehow, despite standing right next to them, Arthur didn’t hear a single word, but whatever Kelly said made Alexia smile and chuckle.
anything else. Just rephrase.
Arthur could visibly see the tension leaving her shoulders, but chose not to comment on it and instead turned his focus to Artemisia.
No matter how much Alexia had seen of the future, no matter how much she had planned and prepared for this, it still didn’t change the fact that she was placing herself at existential risk, so her tension was only natural.
And Arthur certainly wasn’t close enough to her to help ease that tension.
"You won’t activate your Authority from the start. Only when I locate the curse’s core," Arthur said to Artemisia, who nodded.
Turning back to Alexia, he clapped his hands and asked, "Shall we begin?"
"We shall," she replied as she lay down on the capsule’s bed, and the moment she did, several of the spell circles inscribed into the pillow activated.
’Anaesthetic and serenity inducement? Well, she’ll definitely need the serenity.’
Arthur took a deep breath, channelled cosmic energy into his hand, and then placed his palm against the centre of Alexia’s chest, pouring his cosmic energy into her body.
"Permission, please?"
"..."
Alexia didn’t answer with words, only silently lowering her own defences to allow Arthur’s cosmic energy to flow through her energy circuits without obstruction, from her body straight toward her soul.
The thick barriers of cosmic energy surrounding her soul flickered dangerously before losing their intense cosmic light, allowing Arthur’s energy to make contact with her actual soul.
"!"
Alexia flinched from the foreign energy, nearly reflexively forcing it back, but Kelly reached out and grabbed the sides of her head in silence, using magic to ease her discomfort.
She inhaled deeply, then stopped resisting Arthur’s energy, allowing it to slowly permeate her soul, seeping in through the dense mass of spiritual matter.
Arthur silently closed his eyes and deepened his focus, while Kelly’s eyes stayed wide open, tracking every strand of cosmic energy he was channelling into Alexia’s body.
Suddenly, Arthur’s flow of cosmic energy came to a halt, remaining still for several seconds.
’Alright, Arthur. Your target is her curse. You’re not here for anything else. You don’t need to know the full structure of her Soul Realm. All you need to perceive are the areas surrounding the parts infected by the curse.’
Arthur used colours to distinguish everything he could perceive through his energy, and surrounding his silver energy on all sides was a world of endless blue.
Some areas were a blue resembling the ocean surface, some others were a lighter shade resembling an average sky, and there were those that were so dark they resembled the depths of the ocean.
’An ocean. My Soul Realm resembles a Star System, but hers feels like an ocean...’
Arthur silently resumed the movement of his energy, continuing to descend deeper into this ocean until he came across something that didn’t belong in its depths.
’Purple.’
If the water was a vast flowing current, then this purple was a viscous substance that mixed with it as well as oil did.
It was crooked and uneven like tree branches, and Arthur followed the purple downward as far as possible, tracing it to its source on the underside of one of the islands above the ocean.
From beneath that island, it had stretched outward and spread in every direction, extending into the depths of the ocean and reaching virtually every corner.
The path of that malignant purple energy resembled many balls of yarn scattered across the vast ocean, all tangled together.
Arthur began wrapping it with his cosmic energy, thread by thread, starting from the core hidden in the dark underside of that central island that seemed so filled with smoke that visibility was nearly lost.
He took his time, moving inch by inch until he had carefully wrapped every part of it with his cosmic energy, all while making sure his energy never came into contact with it.
Arthur didn’t know how long it took, but by the time he opened his eyes, he was drenched in sweat from the strain, and so was Alexia, who had to constantly keep her spiritual defences lowered while enduring the pressure of a foreign presence moving through her soul.
"...Artemisia."
"On it."
Artemisia immediately roused her magic power, placing her hands on Arthur’s back as she muttered in her True Voice.
|Royal Evolution Authority.|
Her golden eyes began to glow, and within seconds her magic power dropped to dangerous levels, but Kelly immediately started transferring magic power into her body, replenishing the energy in her divine spark as fast as it was spent.
The process had some inefficiencies, with large amounts of energy lost along the way, but Artemisia didn’t have the clarity of mind to focus on that as she concentrated solely on infusing Arthur with enough of her magic power.
|Ally Designation. Evolve Ally: Soul.|
Artemisia’s entire body began to glow gold, and some of that golden light extended around Arthur as well, her breath gradually growing heavier as she continually worked to bypass Arthur’s innate resistance to anything done to him by existences with a divine factor and properly enhance the power of his soul.
"Alexia," Arthur said quietly, and as the woman opened her eyes in response, he met her gaze and apologised.
"Sorry, but this is going to hurt. A LOT."
