The Grim Reaper didn’t know how to explain what was happening! It felt as though something was trying to rip the soul it was about to claim from its hands! The Grim Reaper stared at Jason from a distance, and it noted how Jason was staring right back at it without a care in the world! It almost looked like Jason was no longer afraid of him! No! The Grim Reaper refused to allow Jason to slip from its hands! This was its right! It was the harvester of souls! The consumer of destiny! This was its ultimate purpose! The Grim Reaper pushed itself to move forward even faster! Since Stella was no longer pouring mana into Jason, the darkness had started to move once again, so the Grim Reaper only poured more mana into the darkness to force it to forge ahead! But the Grim Reaper sensed another power holding it back, and the Grim Reaper looked up as it recognized the power as Qi. Someone was using their Qi to preserve Jason’s mind and make sure the darkness couldn’t consume it!
But it didn’t matter! There was no escape! The Grim Reaper always arrived in due time! You could run! And you could hide! But there was no escaping the harbinger of death! The Grim Reaper’s lips nearly split into a smile as it finally arrived at Jason’s location, and it stretched its hand out just as it felt Jason’s life force starting to dwindle! The Grim Reaper would rip Jason’s soul from his body the moment Jason died! Just another second longer! Just one more second –
Jason’s heart finally beat for one last time, and Jason’s body died and went still!
The Grim Reaper launched towards Jason with a mad howl, but the Grim Reaper felt as if he was trying to wade through thick honey to reach Jason! Even though Jason was already dead, there was still a life force moving within him, and the Grim Reaper realised that it was the Qi! The Qi the Grim Reaper had felt before was keeping Jason’s Qi active, and that meant that even though Jason’s body was dead, he still had a few seconds of life left in him!
"NO!! NOOOO!! YOU’RE MINE! HOW DARE YOU!?"
The Grim Reaper let out a horrifying roar as its mouth widened into a massive black abyss that threatened to swallow Jason whole, and Jason’s lips split into a grin as he spoke one word authoritatively.
"Resurrect!"
DOOONNN!!
Jason’s Alternate Dimension suddenly rumbled with a massive tremor that shook it to its foundation, and Jason’s grin widened into something twisted and wicked as the Grim Reaper suddenly began to vanish from this world! Jason hadn’t known at all if this would work or not! Trying to resurrect your own soul was something that no other wielder of the necromancer system had done before, and even the system hadn’t known if Jason would be able to succeed! But Jason knew that this was his only chance to save his soul from falling into the hands of this fucking bastard! If the Grim Reaper got hold of Jason’s soul, then there was no doubt that Jason would suffer for the rest of eternity! But now that Jason had called on his own soul, he had ripped it out of the Grim Reaper’s grasp!
In truth, Jason’s plan was not supposed to have worked at all. The process of trying to maintain control of your own soul after death was simply unreasonable! It was like trying to have your cake and eat it too! And if this had been any other situation, then Jason’s plan would have failed since he would have died before he could resurrect his soul! But Jason also understood this fact, and he had been banking his entire plan on the window of opportunity granted to him by the Vympire toxin spreading through his veins! Vympirs were known to be soulless beings, and yet they still moved around and lived like regular creatures! So if Jason killed himself and called his soul back at the same moment that the toxin took root inside him, it would have been as though nothing changed at all!
A mad screech suddenly echoed through Jason’s Alternate Dimension, and the Grim Reaper screamed like a Banshee as it struggled against a mysterious power!
"I’LL KILL YOU, JASON MARC! MARK MY WORDS! ALL THINGS FIND THEIR WAY TO ME EVENTUALLY, AND YOU ARE NO EXCEPTION! YOUR SOUL WILL BE MINE! AND ON THAT DAY YOU WILL KNOW TRUE SUFFERING! I WILL MAKE IT MY SOLE DUTY TO ENSURE YOU SUFFER FOR ALL ETERNITY!"
The Grim Reaper reached out with bony hands and tried to grab Jason as it felt its presence in this world vanishing! Since the Grim Reaper no longer had a soul to harvest here, it no longer had the right to exist within this world, and that was why it was vanishing! Jason could feel the sheer hatred in the Grim Reaper’s tone, but Jason refused to look away, and he just narrowed his eyes and watched as the Grim Reaper eventually vanished into the abyss! Once it was gone, Jason let out a sigh of relief, and he looked down at his hand curiously! Now that Jason had gained control over his own soul, it felt weird because it was almost as though he both had a soul and didn’t have a soul at the same time. Jason could feel the connection to his soul because it was still within his body, but it felt like something very far away from him. The soul had moved away from existing in one position in Jason’s body, and now it was just floating randomly like a phantom all around Jason. Jason might not have lost his soul to the Grim Reaper, but that doesn’t mean he had saved his soul either!
’I guess I shouldn’t ask for more than this. Just the fact that I don’t have to suffer at the hands of that bastard is a win in my book. Now, I should focus on bringing my body back to life–’
Ba-Dump!
A heavy tremor suddenly echoed through Jason’s Alternate Dimension, and Jason turned around sharply as he saw the darkness surging forward to meet him once again! Jason’s eyes widened, and he quickly shouted!
"Esdath! What the hell are you doing!? Just hold it for a little longer!"
’I can’t!’
Esdath shouted right back as he tried and failed to hold back the darkness! Jason knew that removing the support from Stella and Gina would make the darkness approach him faster, and he had put Esdath in charge of making sure the darkness was held back from completely taking over his body until he could find a way to defeat it! But Jason had seriously underestimated the darkness! The only reason why the darkness had been moving so slowly in the past was because Stella’s mana was so identical to Jason’s mana that it provided more than three times the regular support that any other TITAN Rank’s mana would give! If Gina had been giving Jason her mana, then it wouldn’t have done even half as much good as Stella’s own! So now that Stella’s mana was gone and it was instead replaced by Esdath’s Qi, which was completely unrelated to Jason’s body at all, the darkness finally tightened its grip on Jason’s mind and body, and it began to consume Jason’s world at a rapid pace!
Jason immediately called out to the system for help, but the system responded immediately!
[The system is already exerting all its power to attempt to preserve the user’s mind. But the fluctuations in the user’s mana are preventing the system from setting up a proper defence. The system will continue to try its best!]
Jason cursed at this answer!