Chapter 1001: Total Erasure
"Sorry, but this is going to hurt. A LOT."
Arthur didn’t dare sugarcoat it, as the sheer scale of Alexia’s soul and the depths where the curse had entrenched itself were far beyond what he had expected.
Faced with that apology, Alexia had only one thing to say.
"Get on with it already."
Arthur chuckled at her response, dominated the ambient cosmic energy in the hall, and funnelled it directly into the mass of destructive power within his soul.
|First Concretization: Aspect Manifestation—Selective Destruction.|
Arthur’s silver cosmic energy wrapped around every layer of Alexia’s curse within her soul, gradually taking on a silver tint as he ’Selected’ it, the process moving far faster than when he had first wrapped her energy around her body.
He closed his eyes and carefully guided the power of destruction, and once he had successfully surrounded every inch of the curse’s power with his crimson silver energy, he began to chant.
|Everything began from nothing, and everything would eventually return to nothing.|
Kelly’s gaze on him turned strange upon hearing his words, but right now Arthur couldn’t even sense that gaze as he continued speaking.
|My power simply accelerates this natural process.|
Opening his eyes, he softly muttered a single word.
|Begone.|
"GRAAAAAAAARGHHHHH!!"
Alexia couldn’t hold back the scream that escaped her lips the instant Arthur’s energy erased a large portion of her soul core, the section of the ’island’s underside’ where the malignant purple had taken root.
Streams of blood seeped from the corners of her closed eyes, and even though Kelly increased the output of her magic to the maximum she could manage in her sealed state, it still wasn’t enough to fully ease the pain she was feeling.
Arthur silently clenched his fist, intending to dial back his power, but the instant that thought formed, his eyes widened as he sensed the now-rootless curse trying to regrow itself and take hold in another part of her soul core.
’Oh, no you don’t!’
He poured out as much cosmic energy as he could, the silver power wrapping around every thread of the curse and constricting it before erasing it from existence, along with the portions of Alexia’s soul that had already been infected.
His expression contorted as he heard her scream of pain, but suddenly he felt two palms press against the sides of his head, and with that came the loss of all external sound.
Arthur’s eyes widened at the sudden silence, and immediately, Lostvayne’s voice echoed in his mind.
[Focus, Master. If you lose focus for even a second, the curse will regenerate and form new roots.]
"..."
Arthur took a deep breath, focusing solely on erasing every trace of the curse, the silver power of his Null coursing through Alexia’s soul and turning sections of it into dust.
Each portion erased brought Alexia unimaginable pain, so intense that she didn’t even have the option of slipping into unconsciousness.
Sweat dripped down Arthur’s brows and into his eyes, so he closed them, deepening his focus to its limit, bending the power of nothingness to his will while keeping it confined within his ’Selected’ target area alone.
The curse’s power fought against that confinement, but Arthur didn’t allow it, using as much cosmic energy as possible to hold it in place long enough for Null to fully erase it.
However, the curse didn’t go down without a fight.
It struggled like a living thing cornered by extinction, writhing through the endless blue of Alexia’s soul as it desperately searched for even the smallest untouched space where it could root itself again, but Arthur’s power had already closed in from every direction.
His entire body trembled under the strain and Alexia’s body convulsed violently, blood pouring more heavily from her eyes, her nose, and the corners of her mouth, staining the floor beneath her chair, while Kelly’s expression darkened with rising alarm as she poured more of her own power into both Alexia and Artemisia simultaneously, forcing their bodies to endure what should have long exceeded their limits.
Artemisia’s knees nearly gave way. Her lips had gone pale, her breath ragged, but her glowing hands never left Arthur’s back.
|Evolve Ally: Soul.|
Again.
And again.
And again.
She continuously invoked her Unique Authority, reinforcing Arthur’s soul every time it began to strain under the monstrous burden of controlling nothingness this delicately.
Arthur, on the other hand, felt everything around him with full clarity.
Alexia’s agony. Artemisia’s exhaustion. Kelly’s rising tension.
But he couldn’t stop. Not when total success was close at hand.
Within Alexia’s Soul Realm, entire sections of the dark underside beneath that island had already vanished into nothingness, leaving behind horrifying empty gaps in her soul core that should have been catastrophic under normal circumstances.
But the hundreds of magical formations inscribed on the capsule bed she lay on glowed brightly as they drew in ambient cosmic energy, keeping her soul intact.
The pain she was experiencing was beyond reason, but it wasn’t meaningless, as Arthur’s energy had already erased all but a few strands of the curse.
Arthur began to speed up the process to end it as quickly as possible, but in return for that haste, his precision dropped for an instant.
And in that instant, one strand of the curse slipped free, shooting upward through the ocean depths and aiming directly for another island above.
It didn’t matter that it wasn’t her soul core. Even if it was just one of her many Authority Origin Cores, it would do.
As long as it found a way to remain in her soul.
Arthur’s eyes snapped open, divinity flowing from his palms into Alexia’s soul, straight toward the escaping curse strand, wrapping around it and confining it before it could infect any part of her soul.
|Begone!|
By his command, all the remaining fragments of the curse were reduced to nothing in an instant.
"—!!"
Alexia’s scream this time was soundless to Arthur, her body arching upward as her bloodshot eyes snapped wide open.
And then... silence.
Arthur didn’t remove his hand from Alexia’s body as he swept through her soul again and again, checking for any remnants, but he found nothing.
The curse was completely gone.
The moment that realisation settled in, his concentration shattered, and his body collapsed forward.
Artemisia barely managed to catch him before he fell onto Alexia, but she herself immediately dropped backwards from total magical depletion.
Kelly moved both hands at once, placing one above Alexia’s chest while using the other to telekinetically shift Arthur and Artemisia away.
Her expression turned dark as she poured her cosmic energy into Alexia, and for several seconds, Alexia didn’t move, her breathing completely absent.
Then, a pulse of soul power erupted from her unconscious body, spreading out in every direction.
Seeing this, Arthur raised his hand and wiped the sweat from his face, glancing at Artemisia beside him.
"You’re up," he said.
Artemisia exhaled loudly, pushing herself back to her feet before responding.
"You guys are paying me double."
Stepping forward, she reactivated her Unique Authority, the divinity in her body erupting with immense force and pouring directly into the barely breathing Alexia.
|Royal Evolution Authority. Ally Designation.|
Kelly immediately began refuelling her with energy as it was being consumed, and with the replenished energy, Artemisia placed her hands on Alexia’s chest.
"!"
She immediately felt the true depths of Alexia’s soul, her own instinctively shrinking back in fear, but she bit her lip and forced herself to remain composed before muttering.
|Evolve Ally: Soul.
Adaptive Regeneration: Spiritual.|
Artemisia’s power flowed into Alexia’s unconscious body, and after several minutes of continuous infusion, her faint heartbeat grew stronger, and her breathing evened out.
She lifted her hands from Alexia, and Kelly immediately used magic to clean off all the blood, then closed the capsule. The spell formations inscribed on its cover activated with low hums, and within seconds, the ambient cosmic energy concentration in the hall dropped by half.
The Tier 13 Spell Circle hovering in the sky above began spinning faster, drawing in more cosmic energy from outer space and funnelling it into the hall, where it was absorbed by the spell formations, enhancing Alexia’s soul recovery and accelerating the flow of time within the capsule.
Kelly checked Alexia’s condition once more after sealing the capsule, then exhaled deeply in relief at the result.
"It’s gone. Completely," she muttered.
The curse that had haunted her for over 50,000 years had finally been erased, and her soul now belonged entirely to her.
And somewhere far beyond Valmone’s borders...
Roseborn Vladi turned his head.
Because he’d felt it too.
