Magical Soul Parade - Chapter 360: Victory...?

The fabric of reality began to squeeze like a cloth being twisted by invisible hands, the mountains, the ruins, and the sky itself being dragged toward his singular point.

He had become a singularity, a void of golden energy that was drinking the world to fuel its output. The pressure was so immense that space itself seemed to groan, the immeasurable distance she had felt before collapsing into a tight, suffocating knot around them.

The energy reached a peak that surpassed anything the human form was meant to endure. Althea felt the Order within her being overwritten by a volume of power that simply refused to be balanced. Her consciousness flickered, the twin voids of her white eyes losing their spark as the strain of bombardment reached a peak.

Althea had reached her breaking point, and her body simply… stopped.

She entered into a sudden, limp vegetable state, her mind retreating into the deepest recesses of her soul to survive the bombardment. It was only then that the Holy Son finally let go, and she slumped to the ground like a doll with its strings cut.

The moment she dropped to the ground, the pressure vanished.

Reality seemed to snap back into place with a jarring, silent correction. The cloth of the world smoothed out, and the horizon returned to where it belonged.

The Dead Calm was gone. The stillness was replaced by the natural, stagnant air of the blackened plains. But the battlefield was empty. The recursive demon creature was no more, erased by the very energy that had birthed its evolution. The Undying Flame and her red dragon were also gone, obliterated so thoroughly by the singularity that not even a spark of her white fire remained.

Only the Holy Son remained standing.

He was heaving terribly, his chest rising and falling in ragged, desperate gulps. His body was shivering, a tremor running through his limbs that he couldn’t seem to control. It was a mix of total physical exertion and a deep, primal fear that he couldn’t hide. He looked like a broken man, his golden radiance dimmed and his clothes torn to rags.

He looked down at Althea’s vegetable form, and then he looked at the ruins around him. A low, wheezing sound escaped his throat. It built into a dry chuckle, and then into a full, manic laughter that echoed across the empty expanse.

“I won!” he yelled, his voice cracking with hysteria. “I won! Do you see? I am the Holy Son! I am the one who remains!”

He laughed like a madman, his eyes darting around as if looking for an audience to validate his victory. His laughter was filled with mania, showing just how terrified of Althea had been. Of the possibility she represented. Of how close his “unlimited” power had come to being snuffed out by a world of order.

But his manic celebration was short-lived.

A sharp, metallic hum vibrated through the air, freezing the Holy Son in place, his laughter dying in his throat as panic colored his face in an instant. He spun around, his hands coming up in a weak, defensive posture as he saw the Errant Sword rise from the dirt.

The blade rose to a steady height, then floated above Althea’s slumped body for a moment, its green glow at its edges pulsing like a steady heartbeat.

The Holy Son watched it with wide, fear-struck eyes, his breath hitching in his chest. He didn’t know if he had a single drop of energy left to defend himself if the sword chose to strike. He stood there, trembling and helpless, waiting for the killing blow.

But the sword didn’t attack.

After hovering over Althea for several seconds, as if checking on its master’s companion, the Errant Sword suddenly shot up toward the sky. It moved like a bullet, piercing through the dark clouds and disappearing into the heights within a heartbeat, heading toward a very specific location.

The Holy Son watched its trail, his expression frozen. Then realization hit him, and the hysteria returned, but this time it was fueled by a different kind of desperation.

He knew where that sword was going.

He knew who was waiting for the report…

The Error Bearer.

The Holy Son forced himself and scrambled to his feet, his legs shaking as he stood over the vegetable Althea. He reached down and grabbed her by the shoulder, dragging her limp body to sit up.

He looked up at the clouds where the sword had vanished and began to yell at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing with a mixture of urging and terror.

“Come get me!” he screamed into the sky. “Come get me now!! What are you waiting for?!!”

From the distance, a floating figure could be seen heading quickly towards him on what looked to be a flying bison soul mass of some sort.

“Why were you waiting for me to call out to you!!” The Holy Son yelled, his hair scattered and his expression frazzled. “Do you wish to die!!”

“I’m sorry Lord. The space around here is not stable enough for passage. I had to open a gateway a fair distance away and travel from there.” A white-haired, dark skinned lithe woman descended with the bison and apologized before her feet even touched ground.

“Get me out of here!!” The Holy Son leaned into her face and yelled, dropping Althea’s body like a log of wood and moving to climb onto the beast himself.

“The order bearer, Lord?” the dark skinned woman let out a yelp of pleasant surprise. “I didn’t doubt for a second that—”

“Quit talking and let’s go!!” the Holy Son looked like he was about to murder the woman right there and then, his eyes practically burning with flames.

The woman nodded curtly and quickly hefted Althea onto her back before leaping gracefully onto the bison’s back and taking off to where she had come from.

All that remained of the battlefield was the dead silence and black earth. The Holy Son had won the battle in the end…

But it remained to be seen just what kind of ripple effects his victory would cause…