NOVEL NEXT Chapter 49: Your Fate Is Sealed
The Macabre Child was a unique entity that had a living body, but was controlled by many hateful souls; it was an abomination of life and death. Generally, Yang Yang's spells would be able to destroy demons and heal humans.
He first tried to crush the Macabre Child with Life Magic, but it turned out that it only made the monster stronger. The life force would be directly eaten by the grotesque creature and it increased in size and strength.
His second approach was to burn the Macabre Child with the Flame of Purity and cleanse the millions of hateful souls inside it. Although the Flame of Purity would cleanse some souls out of their hatred, there were far, far too many hateful souls at play to fully cleanse them all at once. The hatred would corrupt the cleansed souls again and a never-ending battle would take place while the Macabre's Child grew stronger from more life force.
This was a creature that completely used his own powers against him, a near-perfect creation to counter him; the only flaw was the soul of the Sacred Master controlling the monster. Life Magic and the Flame of Purity would clearly harm the Sacred Master, but the abundance of hateful souls aided him with spiritual recovery. However, the pain to the Sacred Master's soul did not lessen in anyway.
Eventually, Yang Yang told himself, "Screw it. I'll just hit it until it dies."
The Macabre Child may grow stronger with each attack, but the Sacred Master would be driven into madness from the pain he felt. It was the only effective method Yang Yang thought of, to grind the damned thing down.
In the doctrines of the Life God, sinners were classified to seven tiers, with tier-zero sinners being the most innocent and tier-six sinners being the most wicked. Babies were considered to be tier-zero sinners since they are new beings to the world, but would steadily rise in the ranks and generally become the most common sinner at tier-one when they gain greater intelligence.
Tier-one sinners could be cleansed by the Flame of Purity and were usually morally just people who would only commit an evil deed for a justifiable reason, something most people have done at least once in their life. Tier-two sinners, such as the archbishops, could be cleansed by the Flame of Purity, but need a much longer time to be fully cleansed. These people's wickedness were engraved in their sea of consciousness and require extra punishments, such as with the Immortal Lantern.
As for tier-three and above sinners, their wickedness were profoundly engraved in them. For sinners at the third tier, cleansing was extremely difficult and would required the choice and introspection of the sinner to "turn over a new leaf" or suffer. Tier-four sinners were wicked to their very soul and would remain evil for a many, many lifetimes while tier-five sinners were fiendish figures and not even the cycle of reincarnation could dispel their nature.
A sixth tier sinner's existence was a cosmic disaster to the universe; even if such a person's soul was destroyed, he or she could never be saved from damnation.
The Sacred Master was a tier-four sinner, and Yang Yang could only send a flurry of attacks to tear the Sacred Master's soul to bits and pieces as a way to cleanse him. They had been battling for days, with very little result to victory for each side. Yang Yang was exhausted from energy drainage, while the Sacred Master was crazy from perpetual torment.
At some point, the Sacred Master lost control and the myriad of hateful souls took over the Macabre Child to escape the onslaught. Yang Yang chased after it, despite a great depletion of his overall power. In this fight alone, he had used over a half of his faith reserve. While he could use Life Drain on the creature, it could result in the death of any of the hateful souls, maybe even the death of the legacy students by any chances. This was still a living creature, and thus, Yang Yang could not allow himself to kill it or take any chances to let a single soul into the hands of death.
Even when he told the creature to die after saving the chiliarchs, he only referred to the Sacred Master. Time was essential because there were only two outcomes of the battle: Yang Yang completely deplete his reserve of any energy or the Sacred Master's soul get destroyed.
"You can not defeat me, Scion of Life!" The Macabre Child roared in a taunting manner. "Nothing you do can possibly destroy me. In this world, I am invincible! Under this sky, I am unparalleled! Go on, use your trump card! Use whatever pitiful faith you have left! I dare you! I double dare you!"
A gargantuan hand of flesh and bones appeared once again, but it reached toward the warship. Compared to the hand, the warship was like an ant. Like five heavenly pillars, the finger closed in on the warship and was prepared to close. The powerful aura of the hand was so immense that it shook the chiliarchs’ sea of consciousness and knocked them out.
"Shit!" At the current distance, there would be no way for Yang Yang to retrieve the warship. In less than a breath time, the warship and everyone on it would be crushed. "Hah... I guess there is always that. My body should theoretically be able to maintain that much stress."
"Life Magic: Self Sacrifice..." A Wheel of Life appeared behind him. Unlike the first time he summoned it, this Wheel of Life flowed with a hundred years worth of life force. The Macabre Child stared at the Wheel of Life in excitement.
"This is it! It's all going..." Another Wheel of Life appeared Yang Yang, and then another. Wheels of Life appeared rapidly behind him, all flowing with a century of life force. Soon, there were ten-thousand Wheels of Life. "...according to plan?"
“Ten-Thousand Wheels of Life, merge into the Blood of the Immortal. With my sacrifice of a million years of life force..."
Yang Yang gritted his teeth. The wheels of life overlapped each other into a drop of jade-green blood. He could feel the Everlasting Insanity curse flaring once again, but he ignored it.
“...I hereby sentence you..."
For a single instance, a tiny fraction of a second, the entire world changed every color into a jade-green. Millions of streams of faithful energy, magical power, and life force transferred to the jade-green blood. It shot to the sky like a firework and transformed into a spear of green light that pointed straight down at the Macabre Child's bone spur. The spear appeared simple, but it exuded exalted holiness and supreme power as though it contained the full fury of the Overworld itself.
"...To extermination."
The spear descended like a bolt of Tribulation Lightning and struck the infant's face. Rifts expanded across the fiendish creature's body that began to drooped. Howling with rage, the Macabre Child melted into a pile of flesh and bones. The millions of hateful souls returned to fleshy earth and assimilated back into the world. None of them were harmed, and the Sacred Master's soul flew out and was suspended in midair. The intact bodies of the legacy students were also safe and the warship was also unharmed when the titanic hand melted as well.
Yang Yang had ultimately saved everyone present, excluding the Sacred Master. However, a large portion of his black hair had turned grey while the skin on his left hand had turned into a darker color, almost pitch black. He kept a stern expression with furrowed eyebrows and a clenched jaw, but sweat was sliding down his face and his nose breathing increased in a nuance pace. Even his face showed traces of aging, though, he was still young looking.
After using Palm of the Guardian to retrieve the legacy students' bodies, Yang Yang flew next to the Sacred Master. The appearance of the Sacred Master's soul looked just like his demon form. A green spear was lodged in the center of his soul and green cracks spread all over. Starting from his legs, the Sacred Master's soul was crumbling away like dust.
"This is..."
"The Light of Purification." Yang Yang wiped away the sweat from his forehead. "This is spell used at the Enlightened Sage level, but I have my means to use it early. With this spell, your soul will experience purification. Although it will take a long time before you are completely purified, in the next life, your soul will be spotless after going through the cycle of reincarnation and you will live a peaceful life. Maybe even as a human."
The legs of the soul had completely faded. Next were the arms and the lower region of the torso."Did you do this to-"
"No, I did not do this for your brothers. Your brothers are what I considered tier-three sinners, and although they need help, I would rather let the cycle of reincarnation strip away the wickedness of their soul. It is better to let the laws of the universe to its work. If they reincarnate as a human, or as any Overworld creature, that would be great. If they reincarnate as an Underworld creature, then I'll slay them over and over again. They can be saved, but you are a different case. Tier-four sinners like you are ultra rare and practically a lost cause. At least, it would've been a total lost cause if the Light of Purification had not exist."
The demon looked down at his crumbling state. By now, the only part of his soul left was his head and chest. "Do you expect me to thank you?"
"Certainly not in this lifetime," Yang Yang said, "So you should go reincarnate peacefully."
The demon's chest had faded. "Scion of Life, you should have used your remaining faith to end me instead. This Light of Purification is useless to me... You will regret this... harming yourself in a showy act of selflessness..."
"You’re welcome." Yang Yang's expression was indifferent as he stared at the demon's disappearing mouth. As for the Sacred Master, he closed his eyes as his soul crumbled away into green dust that drifted to nowhere. As the Light of Purification vanquished his soul, the demon thought for the last time in this lifetime.
"The results are even better than I expected... Foolish Scion of Life... Your fate is sealed..." The last speck of the demon's soul faded away along with the Light of Purification. Like a dying firefly, the last speck drifted in the wind, shining brilliantly for a final moment of glory, and then disappeared.