Chapter 272: The Price of Victory

The warning did not surprise Ravian.

He had personally experienced the immense power contained within those spiritual imprints, and he knew his current body and soul could never withstand absorbing them directly.

Fortunately, direct absorption was not what he intended.

Rather than attempting to incorporate the foreign power into himself, Ravian used Sovereign Pride to isolate the Records that could be separated from the intruder’s control.

Some of the black inscriptions began transforming into faint gray traces, which were drawn toward the book before disappearing inside it.

The process was slow at first, but as Ravian continued using the Law of Void to sever the remaining connections, the extraction gradually accelerated.

The tall creature attempted to retreat, only to discover that part of its spiritual manifestation had already been severed from the authority allowing it to move.

The small faces hanging from its body disintegrated one after another, becoming spiritual traces that surged toward Sovereign Pride.

The bronze creature suffered a similar fate. When the connection sustaining the metal rings around its chest was severed, it stopped moving, and its enormous form gradually collapsed.

The creatures were not dying in the same sense as their original existences. The manifestations summoned by the intruder were simply losing their ability to remain within Ravian’s consciousness.

And with every manifestation that collapsed, the Records it carried became available for extraction.

“Stop this!”

The intruder’s voice rose to a pitch Ravian had never heard before.

“Stop this now!”

Ravian ignored it.

He continued severing the connections he could accurately identify, taking advantage of the fact that the invading force was now compelled to defend itself rather than expand.

That did not mean the situation had become safe.

Every time he used the Law against a deeper portion of the network, the possibility of damaging his own soul increased. He had already lost a memory during the confrontation, and now he could feel others beginning to fade.

He could not tell which memories were disappearing, much less determine whether he would ever be able to recover them.

But interrupting the process to examine the damage would give the intruder an opportunity to restore its authority over the connections he had severed.

Ravian had to choose between risking what remained of his consciousness and allowing his opponent to regain control.

The decision was not difficult.

He continued his assault.

…

The intruder did not fully comprehend what was happening until it had lost most of the spiritual imprints it had deployed.

It had spent weeks attempting to possess the soul of a Ninth-Rank human, convinced that the difference between them was too vast for such a person to resist it indefinitely.

Even after discovering that Ravian possessed a trace of the Law of Void, it had never expected him to use it in a way that could threaten its existence.

Regardless of how powerful the Law might be in principle, the person wielding it possessed a weak soul that had not even reached the Fourth Rank.

The danger, however, had never come from Ravian’s raw power.

It was the precision with which he employed that insignificant trace of the Law, combined with the strange book whose origins the intruder had failed to identify.

The fragment had witnessed countless spiritual paths, and its memory contained traces of modifications made by the Taboos throughout the ages. Yet none of that knowledge could explain what was happening before it.

Sovereign Pride was doing more than protecting the center of Ravian’s soul. It had begun extracting the Records carried by the intruder itself, even though those Records belonged to knowledge older than most known spiritual paths.

For the first time, the fragment realized that it could not understand the mechanism threatening its existence.

“That book…”

Its voice faltered.

“What… is it?”

Ravian was no longer paying attention.

He had finally reached the deepest portion of the connection, where he sensed a dense spiritual mass unlike any of the imprints he had extracted.

It was not an ordinary concentration of energy.

It was the conscious fragment that had entered his soul through the Golden Scriptures.

What remained of its authority was gathering around that mass, attempting to preserve its existence after the loss of most of the extensions it had previously controlled.

‘Finally found you.’

The intruder attempted to retreat into the distant black territories, only to discover that the connections allowing it to move between them were no longer stable.

Large portions of the network had become separated from its center of control.

With its escape routes failing, the fragment had only two choices: attempt to penetrate the center of Ravian’s soul directly or risk losing what remained of its existence within his body.

It, too, chose to attack.

An enormous mass of black inscriptions surged toward Ravian’s Soul Crown, exerting such pressure that cracks began spreading along the edges of the gray territory.

Ravian felt his consciousness approaching collapse.

He did not attempt to confront the entire mass. Instead, he focused on the point connecting it to the intruder’s authority and directed what remained of his control over the Law of Void toward that precise location.

The attack was insignificant in magnitude compared to the force advancing toward him, but it struck a connection the intruder could no longer protect as effectively as before.

The black inscriptions began fading from the front of the advancing mass.

The intruder attempted to reconstruct them, but failed. The authority allowing those inscriptions to remain established within Ravian’s soul was gradually disappearing.

With every extension erased, the conscious fragment became increasingly exposed to the extraction process Sovereign Pride had already begun.

The intruder screamed.

“You don’t understand! If you erase me, you’ll never learn anything about the Golden Scriptures!”

Ravian did not stop.

“I can tell you secrets no one in your world has ever heard! I know the names of beings even those who wield Laws dare not mention. Every name you come to understand will open an entire world of abilities and the powers of the Taboos to you! No one will possess greater knowledge than you!”

Its voice continued changing as its existence diminished.

In the outside world, Ravian blinked calmly.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I know perfectly well that above every heaven, there’s an even greater heaven.”

He continued addressing the creature struggling within his soul.

“So tell me, you parasite, which heaven are you in?”

“I AM THE HIGHEST!”

“You’re overrated. I don’t believe you.”

“Wait! We can make a deal!”

“I don’t think so.”

“You have no idea how valuable the knowledge I possess is!”

Ravian smiled despite the pain.

“Perhaps. But I know the value of what you’re trying to take from me.”

He redirected the Law toward the final portion of the connection.

The intruder attempted to defend itself, but the power it had committed to the assault was now separated from most of the network, leaving it unable to use that power as intended.

In its final moments, the enormous eye appeared once more within the darkness.

It was not staring at Ravian.

Its gaze was fixed on Sovereign Pride.

“Who created you?”

The question was not directed at the young man.

“How can something exist without having an origin within the path?”

No answer came.

Sovereign Pride showed no change whatsoever to suggest that it cared about the intruder’s words. Nevertheless, the invading consciousness attempted to reach it one final time.

“If you’re a new path, then surely…”

Its voice was cut off before it could finish.

Ravian had used the Law of Void to erase the final connection granting the intruder authority within his soul, then allowed Sovereign Pride to extract what remained of its spiritual essence.

There was no enormous explosion.

The black inscriptions simply began losing their cohesion, dissolving into scattered traces that were gradually drawn toward the book.

Moments later, the enormous eye disappeared.

Silence followed.

Ravian remained standing within his consciousness, waiting for any new sign of the intruder. He had spent too long struggling against it to assume that its disappearance meant the danger was over.

But no matter how carefully he examined his surroundings, he could sense nothing of the foreign consciousness.

The black territories that had covered most of the space were gradually fading, revealing the gray ground beneath them once more.

Not every damaged region had returned to its original state, but the consciousness that had imposed its authority upon them was gone.

The System interface appeared.

[Foreign consciousness eradicated.]

[Spiritual Records extracted successfully.]

[Law of Void — Comprehension: 0.01042%]

[Note: You are the first to reach this understanding of a Law at the Ninth Rank.]

Ravian read the notifications slowly.

Then he felt his spiritual body relax.

Only after the pressure disappeared did he realize just how much of it he had endured throughout the past month.

For the first time since reading the inscriptions on the stone tablet, he no longer had to concentrate on preventing another consciousness from taking control of his soul.

He had survived.

Before he could finally rest, however, new notifications appeared.

[Warning: Extracted Records exceed Host’s current assimilation capacity.]

[Warning: Spiritual structure approaching critical instability.]

[Immediate stabilization required.]

Ravian raised his head with difficulty.

Sovereign Pride had extracted an enormous quantity of spiritual Records, but the power contained within them was beginning to exert pressure on his consciousness despite not having been directly absorbed.

And raw power was not the only problem.

Some Records contained traces of Laws and entities entirely unknown to him. Their mere proximity to his soul threatened to corrupt the very spiritual structure he had spent the past month struggling to protect.

‘Damn it.’

He tried regulating his breathing, but the pain suddenly intensified.

He had succeeded in eliminating the intruder.

Now he had to find a way to prevent the power he had wrested from it from destroying his soul.