Magical Soul Parade

Chapter 379: Veil

Fueled by the makeshift divine power that was struggling to take hold in that bleeding pocket of space, Finn surged forward with his black blade, bringing it down to actualize his decree.

When the two attacks met, what followed was pure obliteration.

It was a clash of two entirely opposing systems of logic. One was an authority completely alien to this plane of existence, while the other was a congregation of all the power this world had ever born and accommodated. Mana, soul energy, and physical power combined into Himothy’s single strike, rising up to prove their superiority over the foreign divinity Finn was trying to force into the world.

The actual impact between the two forces was entirely silent, but the immediate effects were devastating. Even the Transcendents in the air had to brace themselves, fear writing itself into their eyes as the wave of annihilation spread outward from the epicenter.

Down on the battlefield, people died in droves without ever knowing what had killed them — the Arcanists in particular. Their weaker soul densities offered absolutely no protection against the fallout of the clash. The moment the shockwave passed through them, their souls felt as though they were being forcibly reverted back to their base human form, stripped of their density until they could no longer even perceive mana at all.

It was as if the world itself was desperately trying to squeeze out every single drop of energy it could find to fuel Himothy’s strike, and it was openly draining the surrounding army to do it.

The same terrifying drainage rippled through the Transcendents and the Ossuarists on the wall. Because their baseline soul densities were much higher to begin with, the fallout didn’t kill them, but it dragged their reserves down to terrifyingly low levels.

For beings who had held absolute power for centuries, individuals who had completely forgotten what it felt like to be weak or vulnerable, the sensation was horrifying. That sudden, naked vulnerability shook them with a heavy dread they had never experienced in their lives. Any common fighter could have ended them right then and there.

The Arcanists on the other hand, were wrung out entirely until their souls had nothing left to give, and once their soul energy was completely dry, even their physical bodies were consumed as fuel to power the clash.

The Transcendents and the high-tier Ossuarists struggled against the siphon, gritting their teeth and pushing back with their dense soul masses, praying that the cataclysmic impact would come to an end before they succumbed to the same annihilation effect.

Finn and Himothy, however, had no mental room to pay attention to the devastation occurring outside of themselves. They were the twin sources of the cataclysm. They were pushing back with everything they possessed — Finn anchoring himself with his divine energy, and Himothy pressing down with the collective weight of the plane.

But under the absolute pressure of a world’s rejection, the effect of Finn’s judgment declaration was the first to show cracks. The alien domain began to lessen with each passing second, its authority fraying as Himothy pressed his fist downward, looking like an incarnate version of judgment himself — one this world accepted, and one it was using to destroy the Error Bearer.

Finn gritted his teeth and forged on regardless, even though the situation looked bleak and inevitable. This was the true might of the world itself.

He was fighting against the collective weight of an entire plane of existence with nothing but a measly enhancement drawn from the blood of his believers and their vengeful souls. The matchup was not even worth discussing. The fragile tether of faith had only been able to create this small pocket where he could actualize some essence of divine power.

In fact, with how little effect the vengeful cries of his pious had, one would even question how he was able to match up against the world’s rejection for this long.

But in reality, from the moment the clash occurred until the present, barely three seconds had passed. It was just that to beings like Finn and Himothy, three seconds was something like an eternity.

In this kind of high-stakes battle, with this kind of raw energy rolling off the epicenter, time diluted. Most especially for the Transcendents and Ossuarists who were struggling to hold onto their soul densities, those three seconds felt like an excruciatingly long time.

Their soul reserves had dropped to terrifying levels, continuing to be siphoned out of their bodies to fuel the attack of the Glory Bearer, and every single second that ticked by felt even longer.

Their wide, panicked eyes seemed to be urging the Error Bearer to just give up. This was a clash that had looked entirely decided right from the onset.Finn’s domain was being eaten into by Himothy’s fist without stopping. There was nothing that could change the situation...

At least, that was what everyone thought.

Right at the final moment, when Himothy’s fist was finally about to shatter the small domain into nothingness, Finn made his move.

Because of how concentrated the will of the world was onto this particular point, and because of the sheer level of energy and exertion being used to fuel the rejection, the boundary between dimensions had thinned out significantly. The neighboring planes of existence, rubbing against the fabric of this one, began to press heavily into the veil of this world.

The friction was so intense that a sufficiently powerful focus could puncture a hole between the veil of both worlds again.

And that was exactly what happened.

Just as it seemed the Error Bearer was about to perish under the might of the world, the veil between this plane and the adjacent reality punctured open. A passage cracked through the fabric of space, unlocking a path to a plane that was all too familiar to every ancient Transcendent present...

The plane of Gods.

The same plane Finn had gone to in the past. The same plane that was linked to the very reason why he was even in this world in the first place.

The moment that passage was opened, a tidal wave of pure divine energy flooded into this world from the next. Instantly, Finn’s fraying reserves of the meager divine essence he had conjured through the sacrifice of his Anaelle believers surged to terrifying levels.

The green glow in his eyes, which had dimmed due to his extreme exertion and the burning of his soul essence, burned brighter than ever, glowing with a brilliant, iridescent green light.