1679 Shattering The Myth
"Once I kill you, I'll not erase your cognition." The Spirit King said in a gentle voice, a creepy smile forming on his featureless face. A flower bloomed on top of the Spirit King, glittering with blue starlight.
At that moment, all the souls wandering in Nirvana froze before turning their gazes onto Varian.
Forming thousands upon thousands of concentric formations, they locked onto Varian. It was a suffocating pressure and if he faced this the first time he challenged Nirvana, he might've not challenged it for the second time so fearlessly.
Varian gritted his teeth, trying his best to withstand the pressure. But his bones breaked with his soul barely withstanding the violent pull from the forces.
One moment of carelesness and he'd be at the point of no return.
"You have annoyed me too much during these years. I'll let you live for billions of years with me…until this universe inevitably gets destroyed. Until then, accompany me in the cruel flow of time and go crazy with me."
The Spirit King clenched his fist and the flower over him grew into a giant stretching into infinity.
Varian had always been cautious of the Spirit King's power. In the back of his mind, he suspected that this being wasn't using his full power.
His fears turned out to be true.
"Come out!" With a violent pull with his hand, Varian's soul began to break out of his body. Looking back at his physical body which was beginning to wobble, Varian desperately tried to gain back control. But even the increased powers were not helping. If at least these souls didn't gang up, he might've withstood the offensive a little longer.
"No."
The Spirit King spoke as if he was reading those thoughts. "Truthfully, you never stood a chance." "Arghhh!" Varian controlled the lotus and pulled back his soul.
"Not a chance!" The Spirit King pulled his soul with even more power. Varian tried as hard as he could using the slivers. "Give up! Become my slave!" The Spirit King roared. "Never!" Varian roared back, putting his everything to pull his soul back.
"You can't stand this!" The Spirit King said with anger.
"I don't care!" Varian's body began to tremble violently and lines appeared on his skin from head to toe. His soul itself began to crack.
"Arghh! Arghh! Aaaa!" Pain beyond measure struck him, pushing him to the brink of insanity.
Even in that instance when everything was fading into the dark, Varian kept pulling his soul back. The rope was pulled by both sides to the point of being taut and now, it was pulled even further.
The pressure his soul was under increased exponentially with each passing second unti suddenly—
Boom! Boom! Boom!
With a violent bang, Varian's body exploded at the backlash and his soul crashed into the blood and flesh.
Compared to his body, his soul was in a worse state. Like a delicate glass vase with full of cracks, it was about to shatter.
"Tch, tch, tch." The Spirit King stepped forward, his eyes looking at Varian's soul with pity. "Even I can't save you now."
Ignoring his state, the Spirit King glanced at the black and white circle that was beginning to fade.
"How did it even fuse?" Muttering with a frown, he turned to the blurry lotus of life and death. "Haaa!" A sigh of elation and relief rang from him. Stretching his arms forward, he reached for the slivers of life and death. "Now the slivers won't be fused anymore."
Boom!
The lotus shot away from his arms and descended into Varian's shattered soul. The sheer impact shattered his soul into fragments. And as it did, the explosion splintered the two slivers into various fragments.
"What a mess!" The Spirit King frowned before he noticed something. Even though the soul was broken into fragments, a hazy consciousness was present in all the fragments, keeping them all connected.
This consciousness was at its weakest state, present thanks to the combined existence of so many soul fragments.
And using this chance, the soul fragments were digging into the splintered slivers.
The splintered slivers got together and with them, the soul fragments.
What was previously a broken soul was reconstructed back in a moment. "Death and Life through Soul!" The Spirit King hurriedly poured out his power, intending to destroy this soul. But as if it had already anticipated this move, the slivers of Order and Chaos pushed away the soul.
The dazzling soul shot high and began to burn brighter and brighter. The red and green lotuses symbolizing life and death couldn't merge until now. They couldn't merge because the link of soul was missing.
Even if understanding of soul was present, soul itself was not present.
And now, Varian's soul itself acted as the bridge for the slivers to fuse.
"No! Stop it!" The Spirit King swept his hand and a powerful soul storm swept the region.
Varian's physical body which just formed and was about to reach his soul exploded.
The pale blue storm destroyed everything in sight, including tens of thousands of souls which were caught up in it.
The Spirit King heaved a sigh of relief and stepped forward. But as he did, the storm which was still raging suddenly froze. The storm was blue. So was the whole region it covered. It looked like a painting of blue sea.
In the sea of blue, a pair of red and green eyes opened.
"Haaa!" A sigh resounded from all corners of Nirvana. Then the soul storm vanished without any sound or resistance.
A brilliant golden soul descended from the heavens, looking down at the Spirit King with a cold gaze.
"You! You! What have you done?!" The Overlord of Nirvana had lost all his bearings in panic. "The slivers should not be fused! They should never be fused!"
Varian clenched his fist and tilted his head. "Is that so?" "You have brought upon the destruction of the ent—mfff!" Varian punched him in the face. The Spirit King's body exploded for a moment before it glued itself back. It was the first attack since the dawn of time that he was beaten like this. And even though he did recover, the attack itself did quite a damage. "You are a traitor to this univer—mfff!"
Varian didn't care about what the old bastard wanted to say. "You have sinned! You sin—mfff!"
The golden lotus restricted the power of Spirit King while simultaneously strengthening him. The boosts from sacrificing the medallions pushed him to [25/1000] and the fused slivers pushed him to [50/1000].
The Spirit King fell from [100/1000] to [25/1000].
It shouldn't have worked this well. But for some reason, the fused slivers had a great restraining effect on the Spirit King. They were in fact more effective on him than they would be on any equivalent rank 2. Varian didn't know why. And he didn't care. His golden soul, powered by the slivers themselves, grew stronger and stronger with each passing second. The silver soul of the Spirit King dimmed. "Help! Help me take him down!" The Spirit King screamed. The army of a million mindless souls activated in an instant, locking onto Varian.
"Halt!" A golden lotus bloomed in the sky and its brilliant rays touched every single soul in Nirvana.
The corruption of their soul which kept them in enslavement burned away under the brilliance of the slivers.
"I…what am I doing?"
"S-Save me…huh? I…I was here for so many…"
"H-He could've just killed me…" Even the whispers of a million sounded like a thunderous roar in the ears of the Spirit King. Varian grabbed the Spirit King with both hands and threw him up. A golden lotus bloomed from the void and captured him on it. Turning to the millions of clueless souls, Varian said. "Kill him."
"No! No! Stop!" The outburst of millions of souls on a broken Spirit King was terrible. For the next few days, the Spirit King's soul was put under tremendous pressure and shattered multiple times. Even though it kept stitching together, it grew weaker and weaker. However, it never truly died. Despite everything, he was still a rank 2. Varian stripped him from his offensive powers. But his defense, however tattered it was, managed to keep him alive.
Varian grabbed the dim silver soul with gray patches and crushed it without hesitation. "Nirvana is conquered."