The Uniqueness of the Death Pathway is here! Is this the resurrection contingency left by the former Death for himself?
Salinger? The Death who once ruled the Southern Continent? And who is this person who suddenly appeared? Why did she suddenly appear here? She sounds like she has a very high status. Judging from Mr. Azik's tone, his first reaction upon seeing her was confusion and surprise, but he quickly recovered.
As thoughts flickered, Klein instinctively asked the doubt in his heart:
"Can souls also be repaired?"
"Yes, the Death Pathway inherently specializes in the Death Domain. Problems with the soul are relatively simple for them. If it were an ordinary person, a soul torn in half would have collapsed and gone mad long ago."
Leyton calmly answered Klein's question, his gaze fixed on the enormous Feathered Serpent that the Evernight Goddess had concealed. It seemed to sense an unfavorable change and frantically tried to actively devour Azik, but it couldn't touch them at all, as if living in another world.
Azik calmly watched the enormous Feathered Serpent, which was both real and illusory. He saw it open its huge mouth, revealing dark red flesh and fangs stained with faint yellow grease, and spitting out a black, forked tongue and an eerie green viscous liquid.
After a long silence in the unsettling atmosphere, Azik suddenly raised a hand and rubbed his temple, his tone calm:
"People always change. The current me has grown accustomed to this peaceful life, or rather, I've gained more humanity. I don't want to give up this humanity, even if it's not entirely a pleasant experience."
He looked directly at the Evernight Goddess, who had descended upon 0-17, and his tone suddenly lightened considerably:
"I choose the second option. Half of the soul remaining outside is, after all, an unpredictable factor."
"After his memories and emotions are washed away, I will merge with him. At that time, I am confident that I will not be affected by the divinity and madness carried by the other half of the soul."
0-17 nodded gently, then reached out and tightly clutched the bird-shaped golden ornament that had emerged from Azik's forehead. Then, she slowly pulled her arm back, extracting it from Azik's forehead.
Intense pain distorted Azik's expression once again. From every piece of his flesh, a pale white spirit diffused, intertwining into a translucent soul body.
This soul body was half pale white and half golden yellow, possessing a rustic beauty, yet appearing extremely uncoordinated.
As the bird-shaped golden ornament was extracted, the golden yellow portion of Azik's soul body began to collapse, cracking and shattering little by little.
Hoo~ Hoo~ Hoo~
Azik's throat emitted a non-human gasp, like the loud friction of air, with an unspeakable pain mixed in the sound.
This state did not last long. As the golden ornament was completely extracted by 0-17, Azik's soul body also split into two halves. One half transformed into a golden stream of light and entered the bird-shaped golden ornament, while the other half returned to his body and merged with his flesh.
As his own portion of the soul body returned, the two pale flames in Azik's eyes gradually extinguished, and the scales and feathers that had grown on his skin rapidly fell off and receded.
0-17 turned with an indifferent expression, looking at the enormous Feathered Serpent. Deep darkness surged beneath her, engulfing it like a tide.
The enormous Feathered Serpent, both real and illusory, seemed to sense danger. Its massive body distorted uneasily, its broad, heavy wings constantly flapped, and its dark red maw opened wide, letting out a roar.
The power of Death erupted at this moment. The entire mausoleum began to weather, at a speed so rapid it was as if it had undergone thousands of years of erosion in just one or two seconds.
They quickly became mottled, constantly dropping fragments or being stirred into dust by the wind, and tiny, pale white downy hairs grew in the crevices.
These downy hairs, in just the blink of an eye, grew into white feathers, their surfaces seemingly soaked with faint yellow grease.
All of this happened before their eyes, yet it was as if it was very far away, in a different world, completely beyond the reach of Leyton and the others.
The surrounding darkness surged like a tide, carrying intense fear and slumber, inch by inch engulfing the Feathered Serpent's massive body, dissolving it, and turning it into part of the tide.
0-17, carrying the will of the Evernight Goddess, suddenly stepped forward. The surrounding darkness gently encircled her, praising her, like a wide skirt. This scene seemed eternal.
No wonder the Evernight Goddess's honorific title includes descriptions like "Stands higher than the cosmos, more ancient than eternity." I thought it was just flattery from her believers... To some extent, darkness is indeed the dominant color of the universe. Leyton gazed at the Evernight Goddess, whose aura had completely erupted, and suddenly sighed in his heart.
After approaching the enormous Feathered Serpent, 0-17 reached out and drew a bone longsword covered with strange patterns from the darkness surrounding her.
This longsword was not eye-catching, but just looking at it made Leyton, who was standing by, feel an extreme danger. It seemed to symbolize the danger within darkness, symbolizing silent destruction and disappearance.
0-17 calmly wielded the longsword in her hand. With each movement she made, the surrounding darkness deepened further, as if rippling outwards like water. Upon closer inspection, it also seemed as if nothing had happened.
The enormous and exaggerated Feathered Serpent continuously shifted its body, shedding pieces of feathers stained with faint yellow grease. It distorted its elongated body into an extremely complex and mysterious three-dimensional symbol, emitting an unimaginable aura of Death, resisting the deep darkness around it.
This confrontation did not last long. The figure of 0-17, bearing the will of the Evernight Goddess, flickered. She appeared above the Feathered Serpent's head and easily plunged the bone longsword in her hand into the face that was identical to Azik's.
The human face on the Feathered Serpent became painful and distorted, erupting in a violent shriek that seemed to tear the soul apart.
This sound did not travel far before it was drowned out by the surging darkness around it, disappearing into nothingness.
The deep darkness around it invaded the Feathered Serpent's body through the point where the bone sword had pierced, disintegrating it little by little from within.
Soon, nothing could be seen in the darkness below the mausoleum, only occasional flashes of eerie green or pale white light, indicating that the Evernight Goddess had not yet completely resolved the Uniqueness that had merged with Azik's soul.
It seems that completely extracting Mr. Azik's soul from this Monster is more difficult than directly destroying it. As thoughts flickered, Leyton turned to look at Azik, whose face was still pale, with a translucent quality. Beneath his surface skin, one could still see faint shadows of eerie green and dark scales.
Leyton gently rubbed his fingers, and specks of starlight fell, outlining strange Door symbols around them.
A pale blue starlight flashed, and they moved directly from the bottom of the mausoleum to the very top of the tiered staircase.
Azik looked tiredly at Klein, who still had his eyes closed, and said with a slight smile:
"You can open your eyes now."
Hearing the sound, Klein quickly opened his eyes and scrutinized Azik for a moment. Seeing no obvious signs of loss of control or madness on him, he finally relaxed.
Then he looked towards the bottom of the mausoleum. It was completely dark there; nothing could be seen, nothing could be heard, only an occasional faint glimmer of eerie green light flickering.
"That... she's still down there?"
Klein opened his mouth, but found that he couldn't utter the name Amanesis at all. Upon closer thought, it seemed that the memory of that name in his mind was fading. He had to change his words and use 'she' instead, continuing to speak.
Azik nodded, chuckling softly:
"It seems she doesn't want you to know her name, nor does she want us to discuss her."
She doesn't want me to know her name, so I can't say it, and even now the memory of that name in my mind has become blurry. This has already surpassed the influence of an Angel. Neither Mr. Azik nor Arrodes can do such a thing. It's a bit like a different kind of 'Whatever is said, shall be known.' That is a special King of Angels, or, a True God!
Klein's expression changed. He turned his head to look at Leyton, wanting to confirm something, but in the instant he turned, he saw a young, black-haired woman wearing a black classical robe and a hood.
He was very familiar with her appearance: the Angel dispatched by the Church of the Evernight Goddess at the end of the Great Smog of Backlund incident, the Angel who easily resolved all matters!
Knowing her identity, Klein was even more shocked. This, how could this be? Is she also a King of Angels? Impossible. With the Evernight Goddess's existence, this Pathway can at most reach Sequence 2. But the strength she displayed seemed to have already surpassed that of an ordinary Angel; she could easily resolve things that Mr. Azik and the others couldn't.
0-17, with vacant eyes and no expression, returned Klein's gaze. Her lips seemed to curve slightly, almost imperceptibly, with a very small arc.
Is she smiling at me? Klein blinked uncertainly, then looked again, and her face was completely devoid of expression.
0-17 extended a hand towards Azik. In it, she held a pale white, translucent soul body. The light on the soul body was somewhat dim, and its surface was covered with a profound, serene darkness, carrying the power of slumber.
Just by looking at this soul body, compressed into a sphere, Azik felt a stirring from the depths of his heart, making him instinctively want to devour it and become whole again.
Taking a deep breath, he suppressed his instinctive urge, reached out to take the soul body, lowered his gaze to examine it for a moment, and let out a soft sigh.
Pale white light instantly flickered, outlining layers of mysterious patterns around it, finally forming the shape of a double-door, imprinted on the other half of the soul body that had fallen into slumber, simply sealing it.