Chapter 2216: The Arkalonian way
A few seconds earlier...
"...the heavens are about to rain shit all over your heads today!" Arkalon shouted toward the largest space beast before him, his voice echoing violently across the battlefield while the gigantic golden eye above illuminated the surrounding void like a miniature sun. Then he freely began channeling the overwhelming soul force entrusted to him through Seraphim.
The pen itself began trembling faintly inside his hand.
As though excited.
As though alive.
The quill pen really wanted to do this too!!
"RAAAAAAAAAWR--"
The space beasts immediately began charging toward him at terrifying speed. It was impossible to tell whether they had actually heard him or not, considering they had already been tasked with killing his master regardless.
Hundreds of thousands of monstrous bodies surged forward simultaneously.
The sight alone was enough to crush the courage of entire civilizations.
As for Arkalon, he slowly exhaled before that majestic scene, a scene he had never once imagined during his lifetime that he would one day witness. Then he raised the pen.
"Come on, you miraculous pen... I have longed to test you ever since the first moment I saw you!"
Then he began writing something across the air at incredible speed until his hand itself seemed to disappear completely, while something before him rapidly began appearing and expanding.
Woosh Woosh
Golden lines filled the void.
Massive symbols intertwined with one another.
Soul force itself twisted and compressed under the movement of Seraphim.
In the blink of an eye, a gigantic array formed before Arkalon, an array written entirely using soul force itself.
"Amazing..."
Even Arkalon, the soul creature himself, was astonished by what his own hands had created.
He had been correct about that miraculous pen...
It had taken ordinary soul units and simulated the inks required to construct the array!!
The soul force consumption required to achieve such a feat was horrifyingly high, but in exchange, he could now use any array he had ever learned or created without any prior preparation.
That alone was terrifying!!
No materials.
No setup.
No formations prepared beforehand.
Just thought... and creation.
And beyond that...
The array’s threads glowed with brilliant golden light similar to the aura emitted by the gigantic eye above, granting the array strange power, along with an overwhelming sense of mystery and dread.
The moment the array stabilized, several nearby beasts instinctively slowed down.
Their instincts screamed at them.
"Haha, this is truly going to be entertaining!" Arkalon laughed loudly, his long hair dancing wildly around him, then shoved the completed array forward accompanied by a thunderous shout:
<The Arkalonian Array of Cast Bones!!>
Da-Daam
The golden array activated and began spinning violently, after which countless threads extended outward and drilled themselves into the corpses of beasts previously killed by the Purgatory Flame or by the other beasts themselves before disappearing completely inside them.
Jooom
The soul units within those threads replaced the shattered soul domains and sealed their fractures, while the commands and information carried within the threads themselves became the new souls controlling the bodies.
Disturbance
Roughly seventy thousand beast corpses had been floating aimlessly throughout the battlefield without direction or purpose, yet suddenly their eyes lit up gold before every single one of them charged directly toward Arkalon.
But for a different reason—
Bam
Every time one of the controlled corpses approached a living beast, it violently rammed into it or opened its enormous maw and tore away chunks of flesh.
It was as though those controlled beasts possessed a compass specifically pointing toward danger itself.
Huge numbers of them rushed directly toward the ancient space beasts in particular and began colliding with them, and not randomly either.
Nearly every collision came from a single side near the head, deliberately attempting to force the enormous beasts to alter their trajectories or halt entirely through brute force.
The controlled corpses possessed no awareness of danger and no sense of pain whatsoever.
Within moments, they had already crashed into everything nearby and torn flesh from every target their teeth could reach.
Some corpses lost half their bodies and still continued charging.
Others were split apart mid-flight yet continued biting while dragging themselves through the void.
The battlefield itself began transforming into something grotesque.
Then they formed an outer ring surrounding the Tree Father.
A second protective layer.
A shield of flesh containing Robin, the executioner, and the remaining humans within it.
"AAAAAAOOOH--!!!"
One of the adult space beasts released a devastating roar before opening its mouth and unleashing thick black flames resembling flowing liquid.
Instantly, dozens of corpses blocking its path melted away... yet in the very next moment, more arrived and filled the gaps once again.
Another adult beast swung its tail and shattered hundreds apart.
Then more replaced them.
And more.
And more.
The controlled corpses did not fear death because they had already died once.
"Excellent." Arkalon began spinning Seraphim excitedly within his hand, a massive grin stretched across his face. "The first step is isolating the owner’s battle from his opponent, and that part is complete."
Then the fire within his eyes intensified.
"And now... it is time for some genuine excitement."
KRRRAAAK
"Hm?"
Arkalon looked upward after sensing movement behind him, only to discover one of the Tree Father’s branches rapidly extending toward one of the corpses. The branch pierced through it from behind as though performing the most polite action imaginable, then withdrew once more while carrying a large crystal wrapped within its center.
A beast crystal.
And not a weak one either.
"You little thief..."
Arkalon glanced toward the Tree Father, which had begun acting on its own accord, but quickly ignored it and returned to observing the battlefield while raising the pen once more.
"Well, they do not need them anymore anyway."
Then his grin widened further while countless ideas rapidly passed through his mind.
Soul freezing arrays.
Mental collapse arrays.
Gravity distortion arrays.
Massive spiritual bombardment formations.
For the first time in a very long while...
Arkalon felt truly alive.
"Now then..."
He slowly raised Seraphim toward the battlefield once more.
"Which soul array should I test on all of you next?"
"Ahaaaa!" His eyes lit up the moment an idea struck him, then he extended his hand and immediately began writing across the void with manic excitement.
Kk—
The pen drew a single extremely thin line before suddenly stopping.
"Hm?"
Arkalon pulled it back and looked toward the pen’s tip, then let out a long sigh.
"So the juice is finally gone..."
The golden glow surrounding Seraphim had weakened considerably.
Even the miraculous pen seemed exhausted after the absurd amount of arrays forced through it within such a short period of time.
Then Arkalon cast a sideways glance toward Robin, who at that exact moment was tossing several dark spheres into the air while bleeding heavily from every opening in his face.
A gaze filled with blame...
Blaming the owner for not possessing enough units to continue sustaining this final battle.
And filled with farewell as well...
Arkalon was not afraid of the beasts breaking through the barrier or of death itself. He had already died once before and now existed merely as a soul creature.
No...
What he was truly doing was bidding farewell to that strange relationship between himself and that even stranger human, the human who allowed him to accomplish achievements he had never managed to reach even while alive.
The human who gave him a second battlefield.
A second purpose.
A second existence.
"Just a little more... if only you had a little more remaining, you would never need to worry about this front again, but..."
Arkalon sighed before turning back toward the beasts while raising both fists.
"Well, it was a good second life."
For a brief moment, his expression actually softened.
Then—
Hooooooh
"Hm?"
Suddenly, Arkalon felt an overwhelming force, a flood of soul units surging violently through his body like an exploding ocean.
His eyes instantly widened.
"Hahahaha, POWEEEEER!!!"
He burst into loud laughter as his aura exploded violently once more, then quickly looked back toward Robin, who had already begun threatening his opponent with the Guillotine.
Immediately, Arkalon moved the pen once more at insane speed.
"Come on, come on, before he burns through everything again!"
Woosh Woosh
Golden trails erupted everywhere around him.
His hand became invisible once more from sheer speed.
Soul force poured from his body like rivers while gigantic symbols rapidly formed themselves throughout the void.
Within only a few seconds, Arkalon completed another massive array no smaller or less complex than the one previously used to control tens of thousands of beast corpses!
Even the nearby adult beasts instinctively slowed down after sensing the terrifying complexity hidden within the formation.
Finally, he withdrew the pen and drew a seal across the center of his palm before slamming that palm directly against the middle of the array while shouting in a low voice:
<The Arkalonian Array of Hidden Souls.>
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
It was as though the void itself trembled for a brief instant.
The battlefield darkened slightly.
Then waves of soul units and primal souls belonging to the slain space beasts immediately began surging toward the array like a flood, drawn into it with unstoppable force.
Thousands.
Tens of thousands.
An endless tide of death.
And upon arriving, they started rotating above the array like an endless cosmic vortex.
A vortex that gradually turned golden.
The natural hostility and savage impurities of the space beasts suddenly seemed like nothing more than rumors.
The vortex contained nothing except gentle soul units.
Pure.
Silent.
Docile.
The sight itself was surreal.
Even the nearby beasts became visibly disturbed after sensing their fallen brethren being processed in such a manner.
KRRRRR
With another movement, Arkalon created a second, much smaller array beside the first one.
That array immediately began launching tiny blades toward the primal souls of the beasts, slicing them apart and producing terrifying amounts of power... yet regardless of how enormous that power became, not a single particle escaped from the gigantic vortex!
Everything remained trapped inside.
Compressed.
Recycled.
Refined.
Arkalon’s eyes slowly widened as he realized what he had accidentally created.
"...Oh?"
For a brief instant, even he became stunned.
He had essentially created a temporary soul refinery.
A battlefield engine.
Hoooosh
That power immediately began distributing itself across the beast corpses forming the protective barrier, strengthening them further, while another portion continuously poured directly into Seraphim itself.
The pen immediately regained part of its brilliance.
Meanwhile, the beast corpses reinforced by the new energy became noticeably harder and faster.
Some even regenerated partial flesh.
"Now..."
Arkalon revealed a massive grin.
"You may consume your units however you please, owner."
Then his grin widened further while violet flames reflected within his eyes.
"I made some for myself too, Ahehehehe."
