Chapter 1004: New Soul
The golden circle expanded, its molten edges rippling like liquid fire as Northern channeled the full might of his Solar Ascension. The altar of purple-dark flames atop his head suddenly erupted, soaring to form a colossal halo that blazed with renewed intensity, casting an ominous glow across the devastated soul world.
The summoned sun materialized slowly at first—a pinprick of brilliant light within the golden circle. But as Northern poured more essence into it, the miniature star swelled, its surface churning with solar storms that defied the laws of the Leviathan’s reality. The heat radiating from it began to warp the very air, turning the grey ash clouds into writhing vapor.
The Evil Dragon, despite its feral state, seemed to sense the approaching apocalypse. Its remaining eye—the other had been torn away during one of Northern’s devastating strikes—fixed upon the growing sun with what might have been recognition, or perhaps terror. The creature’s massive form shuddered as it attempted to channel its will into one final defensive measure.
But the soul world was already too fractured. The tornadoes continued their relentless assault, each one carrying fragments of dread that devoured the foundation of the Leviathan’s existence. Where fire tornadoes had passed, the landscape bore scars of melted reality—twisted valleys where the very concept of distance had been incinerated.
Northern felt the familiar searing pain as his hands began to smoke from controlling such immense solar energy. The sun within the golden circle had grown to the size of a building, its gravitational pull beginning to distort the remaining mountains. Chunks of stone and crystallized soul-matter were drawn inexorably toward the artificial star.
"Are you ready?"
Northern’s voice somehow carried across the chaos despite the howling winds and crackling flames.
The Leviathan made one last desperate attempt to rewrite the laws of its domain. Reality flickered around the monster as it tried to simply erase Northern from existence, to declare that he had never been, that this invasion of its sacred space was merely a nightmare. But Northern’s left eye shimmered with red light. The moment he sensed it, he poured more essence into Oblivion’s Mark, strengthening the Nullify ability so much that one clone—full of essence—was exhausted, and the creature’s efforts crumbled like sand.
Northern raised both hands toward the sun he had created. The golden liquid responded, forming intricate patterns in the air—geometric shapes that seemed to fold in on themselves, defying perception. With a gesture that felt like tearing apart his very soul, he hurled the miniature star directly at the struggling Leviathan.
The impact was more than an explosion—it was an unmaking. Where the sun struck, reality simply ceased. The Evil Dragon’s roar cut off mid-scream as portions of its body were consumed not by fire, but by the absolute authority of solar judgment. The very concept of the monster began to unravel, starting from the point of contact and spreading outward like cracks in glass.
The soul world convulsed. Mountains that had stood since the Leviathan’s birth crumbled into nothing. The crimson ocean boiled away into nothingness. Even the crimson sky began to collapse inward, as if the universe itself was folding up like a discarded map.
Northern watched as the creature that had threatened an entire island writhed in its final moments. The Eclipsing Dread above him pulsed with dark satisfaction, feeding on the terror and despair that emanated from the dying monster’s essence.
But Northern felt no joy in this victory—only the grim satisfaction of a necessary task completed.
As the last echoes of the Leviathan’s death cry faded into the collapsing emptiness, Northern began his own transition back to the physical world. The soul world was dissolving around him, taking with it all traces of the ancient evil that had lurked beneath its waves of reality.
But even as victory seemed assured, Northern could feel something else stirring in the depths of the dying soul world—something that had been hidden beneath layers of the Leviathan’s consciousness. Something that whispered of older hungers and darker purposes.
The wrong and twisted chaos he had witnessed in the monster and its soul world was difficult to shake off. Something had to be wrong—he could feel it in his gut.
He just couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong, and that was frustrating enough.
The soul world crumbled into nothingness, and Northern found himself floating amidst the bright sky. He saw the notification display appear before his eyes.
[Congratulations, you have slain a Catastrophic Leviathan, Chaos Dragon.]
[You have slain the remnants of a Tyrant]
[You have gained +1,000 talent fragments!]
Northern stood midair, watching the display. He was expecting more, but there seemed to be a pause—a pause that caused him to raise his brow.
’That’s all?’
Suddenly, in that moment, he felt his entire soul buckle. Then tighten.
Northern clenched his chest hard, groaning with labored breathing. Each attempt to breathe felt like carrying the weight of the world in his soul.
Something had entered his soul—he knew it, and he could most likely guess what it was. Whatever the damn thing was, it was causing his soul to change, though Northern had no idea what sort of change this was.
[Your soul has absorbed a tremendous amount of corrupted chaos]
His eyes widened.
’So that was what it was?’
[Corrupted Chaos is being purified in your soul]
The pain intensified so much that Northern couldn’t hold it anymore. He tried, but the agony assaulted him with a thousand burning swords, cutting at the flesh of his soul a thousand different times with each blade.
Alas, he couldn’t maintain flight, and he plummeted through the clouds, crashing into the ground and causing enormous shockwaves to roll outward through the earth, devastating everything.
Other survivors could see clearly that the Leviathan was gone. They had witnessed Northern fall onto the island, far from where the academy stood.
In fact, Annette, who had been a stark witness, was already racing toward his location. Several others followed, their minds shattered yet filled with mixed awe and intense joy that the abomination was indeed eradicated.
Northern, meanwhile, curled on the ground in the middle of the crater his fall had created, groaning painfully and clawing at the soil as his soul continued to tear through the walls of its limitation, forcing out a fundamental change.
The transformation surging through Northern was violent—it wasn’t supposed to happen, but it was happening anyway. His soul was evolving, but this wasn’t the same evolution.
There was something twisted, wrong about this particular evolution, something that should never have occurred. Something was growing out of his soul, and it was lethal.
[Seed of Void is undergoing a crude transformation]
[Chaos is overpowering void]
[Seed of Void is slowly becoming seed of Chaos]
[The seed in your soul is forcibly germinating]
As the notifications continued, so did Northern’s torment. He groaned hard, clutching his chest as his soul fought against him like it never belonged to him