Chapter 492: Soul Purge
Demons attack Plomux-East!
’Demon of Light’ slays ’Yedrist of Chatane’.
’Silver Summoner’ strikes again, defeating Great Leviathan of the Seas.
"Damn, I think I should become a part-time Prophet."
McEnda spoke as he looked at the news headlines in the Aramisian newspapers, chuckling lightly when read the articles under them.
He turned towards the two people whom the headlines mentioned, and couldn’t help but sigh softly.
Alvey was busy dealing with the damage and casualty reports of the previous day, having just concluded a conference call with ’Five Star General’ Cruz Orkorin and the Fourth Four-Star General.
As for Arthur, the boy had a portable game console on hand, rapidly tapping at its keys as he fought against the very irritating video game boss on the screen.
"Damn, you’re the ’Last Giant’. Stop being a nuisance and go join your brethren in the afterlife!"
He half-screamed out as he finally managed to get the boss to 50% health, however, Evan who was nearby suddenly spoke up.
"He’s about to fall, roll out or he’d one-shot you with his weight."
Arthur didn’t hesitate, moving his controls to do as Evan said to avoid being one-shotted by the Boss. Nevertheless, that wasn’t the end of his worries.
"You’ve got him to 50%, he’s about to remove an arm and use it like a club. Make sure to stay behind him or the club would sweep your HP to 0."
"The fuck?!"
Though he cursed, he still did as Evan said, following the grey-eyed boy’s instructions and successfully felling the boss.
"I did it!"
Arthur celebrated his victory with a guts pose, and Evan silently collected the portable console before moving on to the next level.
"I’m curious..."
"?"
Evan turned to McEnda who suddenly spoke, and the man voiced out a very concerning question.
"How do you know about the game Arthur is playing? I doubt the same games would still be around 10,000 years in the future.
What’s more, Arthur brought that game from the Hell Universe..."
When he said this, even Alvey who was only paying half attention to his surroundings had his interest piqued.
The game Arthur was playing, ’Souls of the Dark: 2’, was one that Evan had played and completed in the past, hence why he knew about the boss patterns.
But he was from the Valmone Universe, while Arthur was from Hell. It made McEnda wonder if the game was just that transcendentally good that it’d have players across universes, even 10,000 years later.
"Oh, it’s a game my mum got for me from a replica Earth and Evan’s from one as well."
Alvey and McEnda had their eyes widen in surprise when they heard Arthur’s casual reply, and Evan was also surprised as he hadn’t considered why Arthur had the same game he played in his childhood here.
Since ’Replica Earths’ were all carefully influenced behind the scenes to have very similar histories to the original Earth until a certain point, it made sense that they’d have the same games on each one.
It also meant that ’Earth V’ which Evan claimed he was from, was a relatively ’New’ Replica Earth.
"You guys know about ’Earth V’?"
"Hmm? Ah...that’s the recently discovered Replica. I see..."
McEnda seemed to realise something while Alvey was still very curious about the time difference, however, it wasn’t something important so he dedicated his brainpower to the important things on his table.
The time was 12:04 pm, and the date was May 14th.
It had been four days since the Gozonian Armada made landfall on Plomux-East, and they were just about rounding up their conquest here.
Alvey and Arthur had not made any moves since then, but rather than be relieved, the Aramisians were scared of whatever they could be planning.
Unlike their expectations, Alvey was swamped with logistical work while Arthur was playing video games.
McEnda and Barron were the ones who assumed supreme command of the Army, leading the Gozonians to victory as they swept across the East, using the momentum gained on the first day of the attack to press on and conquer Plomux-East.
The Demon King’s son did not hold back his power, easily taking down the Inferior Transcendents who were in the East with ease.
His toughest opponent so far, was a Level 950 who quickly met death when Barron’s Seven-Headed Hydra swooped in and ripped him to shreds.
As the Fourth Four Star General told Alvey and McEnda to beware of the ’Slayers’, Alvey sent out his shadow demons, and working together with the Gozonian Army’s intelligence division they uncovered the existence of the Dragonslayers in Plomux-Central.
They also found that one of the Aramisian Heroes who was somewhere else and had only just returned the day before.
While they were working to uncover where the Hero was before—which was Zefesh since he thought Arthur was there—they also infiltrated as deep as they could to find out more about the Aramisians’ otherworldly reinforcements.
All the valuable intel was brought back and after going through it, Alvey was now formulating a base plan of action which he was to present to the other Generals in a meeting later in the day.
As for Arthur, the boy said he wasn’t gonna participate until they were marching in on Plomux Central’s High Command, so he wasn’t going to do anything other than give them a few Anti-Divinity missiles.
That alone was already a huge help as these missiles, when intertwined with the Demonic Energy of the High-Rank Demons, gained enough power to severely wound Aramisian Transcendents.
Specifically, they were used to kill gods.
Mid-Ranked gods, the divine equivalents of High-Ranked Demons were naturally deployed to help defend Plomux-East, and the battles against them which should have been hard fought ended pretty easily thanks to Arthur’s Anti-Divinity.
When mixed with Demonic Energy, those things turned into something like a coronavirus, but for gods.
◇ ◇ ◇
While everyone, including Alvey and McEnda, assumed Arthur’s absence from the battles stemmed from a lack of interest—something not unexpected from the teenager who lived guided by his pleasure and displeasure, the reality was far graver.
Arthur was dealing with a serious Soul-based issue.
He had A LOT of impurities in his soul, and he wanted to get them out before he absorbed any more EXP.
After all, the EXP used to ’Level Up’, consisted of the ’Existential Records’ of the person killed.
The culmination of their life’s achievements, acquired power, energy, and even tiny fragments of their souls!
Upon killing someone, the killer ’devoured’ these Existential Records in the form of EXP; hence why the system was called a ’Devour Class’.
For Arthur, his main concern was the Soul part.
His innate ability, unfortunately, was one that had a significant drawback in the fact that on each use, he accumulated Impurities in his soul.
His ’Core Absorption’ enabled him to absorb a portion of a being’s ’Core’, with a chance of gaining one random ability that being possessed.
It was powerful, and because of the Laws of Equilibrium that governed the Cosmos, it had this drawback regarding impurities.
Arthur had discovered this ability six years ago, however, the number of times he had used it could be counted on two hands.
Just as he instinctively understood how to use it, he instinctively understood its drawback, and that it was something he could not afford to ignore until he became a Deity and gained a Deity Soul.
He called it ’Core Absorption’ because he believed he absorbed a portion of his target’s Energy Core.
That’s what he used on Owen during the Monsterization incident granting him the ’Dragon Breath Rune’ he possessed, the Gorilla Monster Lucifer killed, and Crarox, a few days ago.
He believed this portion of the Energy Core he absorbed was what contained the ability he was gaining from the target.
But when Arthur comprehended laws and gained a deeper understanding of his own soul where the power of the laws coalesced to form an Origin Core, he quickly understood his understanding of this ability was fundamentally wrong.
He wasn’t absorbing a portion of the target’s Energy Core like he thought, but a portion of their Soul Core.
The same thing that was the reason why Lucifer’s Vestige nearly faded away, and the same thing the Eternal of Space had given him, allowing him to continue his existence.
If the Soul was the Origin/Root of one’s Existence, then the Soul Core was the Root of their Soul. It was as simple as that.
As for why Arthur’s ability absorbed a portion of his target’s Soul, it was because the ability he was taking was in the Soul!
Take the Valmone Universe’s levelling system for example. Skills were Runes on one’s soul, and since the Soul was connected to one’s body, the powers of these Runes on the Soul were then exhibited through the body.
Continuous usage eventually imprinted these skills onto the body as well, however, it did not change the fact that these skills were in the User’s soul.
In other words, a power that made someone lose a skill affected the Soul first, and the effects on the soul were then reflected on the body through various means.
Arthur’s ’Core Absorption’, as he termed it, directly absorbed a portion of the target’s soul.
This alone, wasn’t a problem.
The problem was that for Arthur to gain an ability from his target, he had to assimilate the absorbed portion of their Soul into his own!
He had to take in a piece of another person’s Soul, a ’Foreign Entity’ into his soul.
This ’Foreign Soul Piece’ was an ’Impurity’, and having Impurities in his soul was the last thing Arthur wanted.
The problems that excess impurities could cause Arthur were a lot.
For starters, since a portion of his Soul was affected by Impurities, he wouldn’t be able to properly utilise the power in that portion of his soul.
So, Arthur’s MASSIVE power capacity that allowed him to wield Sovereign Realm power despite being an entire Realm below, would be limited depending on the level of Impurity.
His energy quality—which was around 6-7 times better than people on his level, making him spend 6-7 times less energy to achieve the same results as others—would be reduced.
The Space in his Soul would also be reduced.
This Space was where Arthur’s own skills and abilities were stored. His Extreme Nothingness, Arcane Blessing, Pseudo-Authorities and the like.
Arthur’s Soul had a LOT of space, so much that a few impurities wouldn’t impact it much, but Arthur would rather have none.
These were just some of the drawbacks to directly absorbing part of another existence’s Soul into his own.
Not refined by the System like in EXP, but the raw Soul fragment.
As he grew stronger, his Soul would gradually force out these Impurities. Arthur could also use his own energy to do this, but these methods were time-consuming.
The Soul was a delicate Existential Aspect, so he had to be careful not to accidentally wound himself while trying to absorb the useful soul power and expel the waste he did not need.
With this now explained, the reason why Arthur had sat out the battles for the past four days was clear.
Leaving aside the fact that he had now reached Level 793 and raising his Level was seemingly becoming a Herculean task, he was expelling the Impurities he had gained when he absorbed Crarox’s soul on the 10th.
