"..."
Nyssa had no more words to say, glancing at her kneeling colleagues. Honestly, she and the others did not know what to think.
From the very moment he appeared, Alexander carried an unstoppable momentum.
For the first time since they became fully realised Veilwalkers, the Enforcers were unsure of themselves.
They were weak before a 'small-time' Veilwalker, and had no way of refuting his words.
"One last chance…" Alexander pointed a right hand at the closest kneeling angelic Enforcer, his palm glowing a radiant white. "Show me you're redeemable."
"I don't know what to tell you, Alexander." The angelic being answered, sighing. "But you're making a mistake. You claim we are corrupted, yet here we are, not reacting to your light. What more proof do you need?!"
"You don't say…" Alexander muttered and turned his palm upwards, extending two fingers at the angelic being.
With a lifting gesture of his fingers, the angelic being was made to float a few meters off the ground.
"Ugh…!"
The angelic Enforcer clenched his fists and gritted his teeth as he struggled to break free.
Yet, no matter what he tried, he could not free himself. He could only afford to extend his arms out and pop his six radiant wings out, exuding a serene and divine energy.
'Wow…' Julia muttered in a daze. 'So this is what their wings look like. I have to say… they're beautiful.'
As impressive as the angelic and divine revelations were, they could not compare to seeing Alexander's broad shoulders and back.
Seeing her man suppress so many powerful beings aroused deep feelings within her.
'What does it matter…?' Ross chimed in. 'They are just living beings like we are. The only difference is that they are from a high-level universe and we're from a low-level one.'
'Yeah…' Cassandra agreed.
'The reason we have such myths back home is because their records somehow find their way into our records. Light and darkness are just two of the many forms of energy flowing through the multiverse.'
"Let's see how long you can keep this up…" Alexander stated and sent a small ball of light towards the angelic being.
The ball of light, no smaller than a ping pong ball, disappeared into the angelic being's forehead.
The continuous muffled groans and curses died down as everyone looked on, waiting for something to happen.
For several seconds, nothing out of the ordinary happened. The angelic being continued to struggle, the divine glow around them flaring intermittently, now mixed in with Alexander's radiance.
"Ugh…!"
A sudden groan, this time signalling pain, escaped the Enforcer's lips. Following that, their golden glow around them began increasing in intensity, bathing the surroundings in their radiance.
"STOP…!!!"
The Enforcer yelled, their cry generating a strong gust of wind that blew past everyone, wildly flaring their robes.
"!!!"
The gust would have been dismissed if it were a normal wind generated from the angelic being's bellow.
However, something else accompanied it; something the majority of the gathered Enforcers did not dare believe.
"A-Azarion…?"
Someone muttered amidst the Enforcers, the disbelief in their eyes palpable. What had accompanied that loud cry was the hard-to-miss, repulsive feeling that accompanied the corrupted essence.
Moreover, as soon as the gust died down, the golden glow around the angelic being, now identified as Azarion, became tainted with something dark.
It began as a slight distortion around Azarion and slowly increased in density.
Starting with the angelic glow around Azarion, the dark and corrupted essence began taking over his body, slowly changing it from the fair and white skin to a revolting black.
The dark essence climbed from Azarion's limbs all the way to their head, into their eyes and finally to their wings, turning them a murky and inky black.
"The boy was right…" An Enforcer expressed with disbelieving eyes. "They have been corrupted. H-How…?"
The one question expressed more than just one intent. How was it possible for a being of positivity to be corrupted?
How had they been unable to tell something like this had happened? How long had they been corrupted? Many questions swam in their heads.
Alexander calmly looked at the blackened Enforcer and stated, "Looks like you're far gone."
"Haha… Hahaha…"
Azarion did not reply, his gaze focused upwards as he laughed maniacally, making Alexander furrow his brows.
The moment the last of the corruption engulfed the angelic being's body, he lost his connection with the radiance he sent into him.
'That can't be good.'
The immediate space around the angelic being was slowly slipping out of his control. His Nexis Radiant was being devoured, and fast.
His eyes turned to the others kneeling before him, realising they were shedding their pretence, the corruption gradually crawling up their person.
Without hesitation, Alexander took a step back, glancing in Drakmor's direction. He tried to reinforce his hold on the space around the corrupted Enforcers.
However, he was losing his hold as fast as he was reclaiming it.
'Fuck… I'm no longer dealing with a passive essence.' Alexander realised grimly, signalling to Drakmor to prepare. 'They are capable of fighting back my essence with theirs.'
Fortunately for him, Drakmor and the others were quick to get the message. 'Prepare to act at a moment's notice.' The dragon sent through the connection. 'Azarion and his colleagues are about to make a move.'
'What about us, damn it?!' The others were still under the suppression Alexander put on them.
'You'll be released… soon.' Drakmor replied, not quite sure.
'Cassandra, Ross, Julia.' Alexander sent to his friends, his eyes glued to the floating Azarion. 'I'm going to have to put you guys in my inner—'
"Oh, shit…!"
Before Alexander could finish his words, Azarion lowered his gaze and mischievously grinned in Alexander's direction, black essence condensing towards him at speeds visible to the naked eye.
The eyes of the Enforcers widened in horror as they realised what was about to happen.
Alexander turned around and leapt towards his friends, right hand stretched in their direction.
Right on cue, all three of his companions disappeared in a flash of white light, taken away before they could even react.
BOOM…!!!
A devastating dark explosion with more than enough power to swallow everything erupted with unstoppable momentum.
As a release of power from an Enforcer with hundreds of universe cores in their being, the universe and its occupants stood no chance.
One moment, everyone was minding their business, and in the next, they were swallowed in a flash of black too swift to react to.
The universe trembled and shook violently, Veil Tears rapidly spreading everywhere at unimaginable speeds, resembling cracks in a piece of glass.
Fortunately for the Enforcers, the suppression disappeared in the nick of time, allowing them to merge with space and disappear.
Knowing what beings at their level were capable of, the Enforcers did not stop at merging with space.
They acted so swiftly that barely a picosecond had elapsed when they escaped the bounds of the universe, reappearing in the true void, just in time for the second explosion from the unstable universe itself to go off.
BOOM…!!!
"Unbelievable…"
The Enforcers spread themselves out in the void, far away from the corrupted essence and watched as a high-level universe broke apart.
An uncountable number of lives were extinguished without hesitation.
In the vastness of the true void, an endless mass of dark essence gushed out of the heart of the universe, seamlessly mixing with the surrounding void energy.
Had it not been for its repulsive nature, it would have been difficult to sense or see.
"HAHAHA…!!!"
From the heart of the corrupted essence, the Enforcers heard the maniacal laughter of their corrupted colleagues suffusing the surrounding void.
'Quick, lock the surrounding void! We can't let them escape!'
Drakmor's voice echoed in the minds of all Enforcers, snapping them out of their shocked state.
Without hesitation, they all acted from their positions, sealing the void and all escape routes.
"Hah…"
The laughter died down after what felt like an eternity, a sigh echoing in its place.
Gradually, the figures of the fourteen corrupted Enforcers became visible, allowing everyone to take in their new appearance.
Grace and positivity were gone, replaced with a revolting appearance and feeling that made the watching Enforcers uncomfortable.
Once called colleagues, the Enforcers were now a shadow of what they once stood for.
"Things weren't supposed to go this way…" Azarion's voice echoed through the void, loud and domineering, as if he were standing before everyone.
"Who would have thought a little human boy would force our hand?"
"Such is the way of reality…" Another corrupted Enforcer added, sounding feminine. "Expect the unexpected."
"The plan was a beautiful one…"
"Slowly take root in the hearts of the defenders…"
"Chip away the confidence they have in their power…"
"Show them there is only one path for all of reality…"
One by one, the corrupted Enforcers expressed with a degree of creepiness and calmness that made the other Enforcers frown deeply.
The more they spoke, the gloomier their expressions became, their cores throbbing anxiously and spines running cold.
"So you're a shared consciousness…"
Out of nowhere came Alexander's voice, drawing everyone's attention. They turned to the direction the voice came from, sensing the void in that region twist and turn before revealing his figure.
The casual air he carried earlier was gone, now replaced with a deadly seriousness that mirrored his black armour with white detailing.
These details hummed with power and purifying radiance, subtly making the void around him tremble.
"Would you be so kind as to share with us what that path is…?" Alexander asked, though he felt he already knew the answer. "There has to be a reason for all of this, no?"