The sharp smack of Arthur's palm striking the bare collarbone of the Headmistress echoed like a gunshot in the silent and frosty office.
Sylvia Thorne's glacial blue eyes widened in pure outrage. For a fraction of a second, the air in the room warped. Her terrifying Arch Mage aura flared up, ready to instantly freeze this audacious slum rat into a pillar of shattered ice. How dare a mortal touch her?
But before she could even say a single syllable of a spell, the sound of the system chimed like a choir of cash registers in Arthur's mind.
[Ding!]
[Target 'Sylvia Thorne' Bound.]
[Initiating System Feedback Loop.]
Arthur didn't just touch her. His palm pressed firmly against the squirming, black, necrotic veins of the Apex Curse that branded her pale skin.
[Passive Mana Regeneration detected from Bound Target: Sylvia Thorne (Arch Mage).]
[10,000x ROI Multiplier activated!]
"Holy shit." Arthur grunted and his teeth clenched as his eyes rolled back for a split second.
It was like standing under a waterfall, but the water was made of liquid and hyper dense starlight. Sylvia's body naturally drew in and refined ambient mana at a terrifying rate just to survive the parasitic drain of her curse. Multiplied by ten thousand, that passive trickle became a raging cosmic storm flooding directly into Arthur's newly forged Master Tier core.
His body violently seized. The pure blue light radiating from his chest turned a blinding and scorching white. The frost on the windows instantly boiled into steam.
[Warning! Host's mana capacity has breached the Master Tier.]
[Host has breached the Grandmaster Tier.]
[Host has reached the absolute peak of the Mortal Realm limits.]
[CRITICAL WARNING: Further expansion will violently shatter the dimensional barrier of The Mortal Domain. Host's physical vessel will detonate.]
"I'm not dying today." Arthur snarled through gritted teeth. His towering frame vibrated with enough raw power to level the entire Vanguard Bastion. "System. Fix it. Compress the capital."
[Ding!]
[Initiating 'Realm Compression'. Densifying power to establish foundation for Dimensional Ascension.]
The agonizing expansion stopped. It was instantly replaced by a crushing gravitational implosion within his own soul. His mana core didn't grow larger. It grew heavier. The white hot energy condensed, folding in on itself over and over again until his mana felt less like a gas and more like liquid mercury coursing through his veins. His bones hummed as they absorbed the overflow, turning harder than refined titanium.
For one brief and terrifying microsecond, Arthur's aura completely bypassed his physical restraints.
Sylvia choked on a gasp, the breath physically stolen from her lungs. The sheer weight of the aura bleeding off the man standing over her was incomprehensible. It completely eclipsed hers. It felt ancient, predatory, and infinitely deep.
'He wasn't bluffing.' Sylvia realized as her mind reeled in absolute shock. 'What in the name of the Gods is he?'
Arthur's eyes snapped open. The blinding light faded, replaced by a dark and fathomless calm. The violent storm of mana was perfectly suppressed beneath his skin. He looked down at the icy Headmistress with a predatory smirk playing on his lips.
"Now," Arthur whispered as he stepped fully into her space. He didn't pull his hand away from her collarbone. Instead, his left arm snaked around her narrow waist, pulling her flush against his solid chest. "Let's fix this bad investment."
Sylvia stiffened, a flush of anger and something entirely unfamiliar rising in her cheeks. "Unhand me.."
"Shut up and breathe," Arthur ordered.
He channeled his newly compressed and system purified mana directly through his palm and into the Apex Curse. The brand was a tracking method, a vile parasitic leash used by the Higher Realm entities to keep their cauldrons in check. It thrived on mortal mana.
But Arthur wasn't feeding it mortal mana. He was feeding it compressed and multiplied God tier poison.
The black veins on Sylvia's collarbone shrieked and literally sizzled as Arthur's overwhelming energy flooded the curse mark. The brand tried to devour the energy, but it was like a mosquito trying to drink from a firehose. The curse bloated, fractured, and violently dissolved into harmless ash that drifted away into the steamy air.
"Ah..." Sylvia let out a soft gasp as her forehead dropped against Arthur's shoulder.
The chronic and soul tearing agony she had endured for centuries simply vanished. The pain was so constant it had become a part of her identity. The overwhelming relief left the usually untouchable Arch Mage entirely pliant in his arms. Her legs trembled, and Arthur held her up effortlessly, his hand resting comfortably on the curve of her waist.
"See?" Arthur murmured, his voice a low rumble against her ear. "Just a minor restructuring."
[Ding!]
[Apex Curse erased. Host has effectively stolen the target's fate.]
[Sylvia Thorne's status has been upgraded to 'Bound Consort'.]
[Bound Consort Mechanic Unlocked: Target will now receive a passive 10% feedback loop from the Host's own overall growth. Target will never become irrelevant to the Host's progression.]
Arthur smiled. A self sustaining asset that grew with the company. Perfect.
"BOOM!"
The sheer output of energy from erasing the curse finally expanded outward violently. The massive enchanted glass windows of the Headmistress's office exploded outward in a shower of glittering shards.
Warning sirens began to wail across the sprawling campus of the Vanguard Bastion.
[Ding!]
[System Reward: The Ebonheart Cube.]
A small and shifting geometric mass of pitch black metal materialized in the air beside Arthur. It hummed with a strange and dark sentience, orbiting his shoulder like a loyal hound. A shapeshifting weapon nexus. He didn't need a rusted cleaver anymore.
Sylvia pushed herself back slightly, her breath coming in ragged pants. Her icy facade was completely melted, replaced by a flushed and intensely complicated stare as she looked up at him. She was free. Because of him.
Before she could speak, the ambient light in the room died.
The sky outside the shattered window turned the color of bruised flesh. Arthur released Sylvia's waist and stepped toward the ruined balcony as his eyes narrowed.
High above the Vanguard Bastion, the clouds were violently torn apart. A massive dark portal ripped open in the sky, bleeding purple lightning and a foul metallic stench into the atmosphere.
Sylvia moved to his side, her magical aura flaring back to life, purer and stronger than ever before. "The Cult of the Ascendant," she gritted out, her voice laced with venom. "They sensed the curse breaking. They're here."
Arthur stared at the portal, watching massive and twisted silhouettes begin to drop from the tear in reality. He rolled his shoulders as the Ebonheart Cube spun rapidly beside his head.
"Good," Arthur said coldly. "I was just looking for an excuse to do some downsizing."