Chapter 39: The Song of the Void

With his consciousness partially embedded in his mindscape, Wang Yu successfully moved his mental domain, a worn-down, broken door.

It was weightless; moving things in his mindscape didn't seem to be particularly difficult.

Once he confirmed that he was able to move it, he withdrew his consciousness and returned to physical reality.

"Avia, I can strip the traces of the evil god from the void energy in our surroundings, but I'll need to be fully immersed in my mindscape to do so. My body will be immobile at that point. You'll have to face that monster alone. Can you handle it?"

"Hm?" Avia frowned. She had been ready to face death on her lonesome, but Wang Yu had just offered her a way out.

She smiled and tapped Wang Yu on the head. "Of course! Believe in me. I'll be fine."

"Alright. Get ready. Once we shake it off a bit more, I'll make my move," Wang Yu warned. He increased his pace.

His fighting spirit began to circulate around his body as he pushed his body to its limit, heedless of the damage it might incur in the process—this was a do-or-die moment.

As he sprinted through the corridor, wounds all over his body, which had just begun to heal, tore open once more.

Blood trickled from his skin as his injuries flared, but he was now moving faster than ever before. His face remained calm as he carried Avia on his back. He headed straight toward an open hall in the villa, the perfect place for her to unleash her powers.

Avia's gaze remained fixed on the glowing sphere in her hand. She channeled her magic and surrounded the complex spell model with her mental energy. This was the first time she had tried anything of the sort. Was it going to work? She wasn't sure, but there was no other choice.

Wang Yu's foot struck the ground hard as he turned the final corner into the hall. He had arrived at his destination.

"Get ready!" Wang Yu shouted, holding Avia tightly as he skidded to a stop. He slid against the wall to reduce his momentum as his consciousness plunged into his mindscape. Avia hit the ground running, holding the specialized dagger in her hand. Her eyes firm, she faced the entrance of the hallway.

A grinding sound echoed down the corridor as the grotesque creature forced its way into the hall, shattering the walls and turning what seemed like half the villa into debris.

The monster had transformed even further as the void density in the villa increased. It was now an enormous mass of writhing muscle, a towering mountain of flesh.

It surged forward, pressing toward Avia like an unstoppable tide. "Such an amusing little magician you are... now, become part of me!"

The creature's distorted voice seemed to swell in her mind, reverberating painfully. The projection of an evil god could damage beings of physical reality by proximity alone.

Avia gritted her teeth against the sharp pain in her head, then focused and began to draw void energy from her surroundings. She didn't know how Wang Yu would dispel the evil god's mark, but she trusted that he would succeed.

Avia's exceptional void affinity took effect. Despite the fact that all the void energy in her surroundings was imbued with a trace of the Undying Lord, it couldn't resist the pull of her void affinity. It was drawn irresistibly toward her.

"How fascinating," the monster said again. "I can't wait to see what will happen once I absorb you." Its voice deepened with interest at her exceptional void affinity.

The mass of quivering flesh paused before her. The evil god was intrigued by her talent.

Her void affinity was so high that he might well have mistaken her for one of his kind under ordinary circumstances.

The Undying Lord glanced at the spell that was taking form in her hands, which gave off the impression of being chaotic and disorderly. It reminded him of the void. What was she going to do?

The projection of the evil god commanded the pile of flesh to stop instead of charging forward.

Not knowing that the Undying Lord himself had taken interest in her, Avia fought through her growing headache as she drew more void energy into her mind.

In his mindscape, Wang Yu stood with the door leading to his mental domain before him.

The castle that represented Avia's mental domain was visible atop the lake. Wang Yu had moved his mental domain right next to it, a feat so astonishing no one but him could have done it.

He stared at her castle. A crack appeared by the surface of the lake, and starlight began to stream into it.

The usually pitch-black void energy was faintly tinted red. Wang Yu wasn't certain what the red impurity was, but it certainly didn't bode well.

The crack was naturally the avenue by which Avia drew void energy from her surroundings into her mindscape. It would be channeled into her mental domain and converted into her energy for fuelling the demanding spell she was casting.

Before that, however, the void energy had to be purified. Wang Yu lifted his door, walked over, and placed it in the path of the energy.

He flung the door open, allowing the stream—now river—of void energy to gush in.

He immediately felt his mental domain swell to its limits. His void capacity was too limited; just a small fraction of the stream was all he could handle.

The void energy then filtered out of Wang Yu's mental domain toward Avia's castle.

This time, however, the red impurity was completely gone. It was obliterated, just like anything unwated that entered his mindscape.

Untainted void energy streamed into Avia's mental domain, causing it to glow faintly with light.

In the physical world, Avia felt a surge of clean void energy entering her mental domain, which she immediately channeled into the magic in her hands.

The injection of void energy brought thousands of runes to life all over the complicated spell model.

The runes manifested for only a short moment before they started to clash with one another, resonating, harmonizing, and then splitting apart and separating in barely harnessed chaos that threatened to tear the spell apart. Miraculously, however, the spell model survived the turbulence thanks to the presence of an unbroken line of stabilizing runes by its outer surface.

Within the spell model, the chaotic clashes and collisions between runes continued, giving way to a primal chaos.

In time, the once-luminous spell model in her hand darkened. It began to absorb all light like a black hole.

Avia's hand seemed to hold the void itself, a starry night encapsulated in physical reality. She thrust her dagger into the black sphere.

Like lizards climbing up a wall, the black void crept up the surface of the blade, like the black foundation that formed the background of the starry sky.

Was this truly a physical manifestation of the void?

"How interesting!" the evil god's voice exclaimed. By then, the pulsing mass of flesh in the hall had stopped moving entirely. The evil god focused on the captivating scene in the young woman's hands.

Just what would she be able to do? He was more than willing to risk a projection to find out. It had been years since he had seen something so fascinating, years since that ridiculous conjuration of golden light.

The manifestation of the void surged into the blade of Avia's specialized dagger.

Perhaps this black substance didn't fully embody the characteristics of the void, but she just needed a certain property: destructive force.

Though the black liquid looked smooth and harmless, it was actually a terrifying grinder that disintegrated everything it touched.

Avia didn't know what could possibly contain this magic except for the strange, chaotic material that Wang Yu had somehow produced, and which she had forged into a dagger.

The manifested void clung to the dagger's blade, causing it to tremble at high frequency.

Despite the unique material that made up the dagger's blade, it too would be destroyed by the void sooner or later. The vibrating dagger emitted a hum with a peculiar rhythm—something that sounded, to her surprise, somewhat pleasant.

"I'll call you Voidsong, then," she murmured. Her gaze was firm as she gripped the hilt of the dagger and aimed it at the mass of flesh before her.

Her keen insight into the void allowed her to identify where within this sea of flesh the void energy was densest. That would be the core, the anchoring point for this projection of the evil god.

Her goal was to destroy this core and thereby expel the projection.

Avia took off her Twinned Star glove and wore it on her left hand, revealing her virtualized right hand.

Without any hesitation, she gripped the void-imbued dagger. Surprisingly, her right hand, which had caused her so much trouble in the past, now allowed her to grasp the void directly.

Her mana surged as the Twinned Star glove on her left hand shone brightly. Wind's Blessing, Gale's Path, Zephyr's Swiftness—she invoked all manner of agility-enhancing spells one after the other.

Her mana was instantly depleted, and her mental energy dipped precipitously. Her vision blurred and a wave of dizziness washed over her.

She gritted her teeth and forced herself to endure the discomfort. Holding onto Voidsong, Avia began to charge toward the evil god.

The threefold agility spells temporarily granted Avia a burst of speed akin to a knight's. Breezes swirled around her, causing a path forward to unfold.

Her gaze homed in on where the void energy was most concentrated in the mass of pulsating flesh, the target she had to strike at any cost.

It wasn't far away. Given her augmentation, the target was almost within reach.

Swift as a breeze, Avia sprinted across the hall straight for her target. She didn't know why the evil god's projection had paused, but she would take whatever advantage she could get.

"Forget it. Merge with me," the eerie, bizarre voice commanded. The projection's unpredictable nature was as chaotic as the void itself, as were its thoughts and emotions.

Bulbous flesh formed a giant, muscular arm that swung horizontally toward the charging Avia.

The void energy in the surroundings was far more chaotic and dense than before. The giant hand was even more massive than the monster Decaphon had transformed into at the start of the fateful night.

Whirling winds lifted Avia airborne. With her toes skimming the ground, she leapt up and evaded the massive hand.

The next moment, void energy blazed. Another giant hand formed out of thin air and slammed down, leaving her no escape.

Though Avia's spells enhanced her agility, they didn't grant her flight. In mid-air, all she could do was glide with the wind's assistance, nothing more.

As the giant hand descended, though, Avia didn't panic. She wasn't alone any longer.

With her spell complete, she needed a far more limited supply of void energy, freeing Wang Yu from immobility.

Void energy twisted. Wang Yu's mindscape suddenly drained of void energy as an invisible foothold manifested beneath Avia's feet: Air Platform.

Her foot pressed down on what appeared to be solid ground. Her enhanced agility made up for her lack of practice with the technique.

Thanks to the foothold that Wang Yu had created from a distance and the breeze that continued to support her, she evaded the descending hand.

She grew ever closer to the pulsating mass of flesh. The evil god's core was within reach, just a few steps away, but void energy filled the space she still had to cross.

The evil god's projection was strongest at the core. Flesh twisted as multiple arms reached across space, blocking her path forward.

The young woman smiled. This was enough. She had done it. She was close enough to stab the pulsating mass of flesh with her dagger.

Her virtualized right hand crushed the unstable Voidsong. With a clear, ethereal chime, the dagger shattered.

A pitch-black form appeared where the dagger had broken, a blade of solidified darkness of exactly the same shape as Voidsong. It was pitch-black and seemed to absorb all light.

Grasping the hilt of the blade with her virtualized right hand, Avia gave it a light push. It pierced through every obstacle in its path without any resistance whatsoever.

It passed straight through the giant hand of flesh as if it were nothing more than air. The next moment, it struck the core of the evil god's projection.

Avia felt a slight resistance, akin to the sensation of driving a knife through flesh.

Indeed, to the void projection, being pierced by this void-manifested blade was akin to a human being stabbed by a physical blade. It would deal severe, permanent damage to the projection.

An odd shriek erupted from the core of the evil god's projection. It felt a sudden surge of pain, one far more real than anything rooted in physical reality.

Chaotic void energy began to spread in all directions, boundless and uncontrolled. The projection was collapsing from its core.

Having delivered a lethal strike, Avia fell to the ground, drained of stamina, her mind foggy. The exhaustion of expending her mental energy, mana, and stamina all at once finally overwhelmed her.

However, as she looked at the disintegrating sea of flesh around her, a weary smile appeared on the young woman's face.

"How interesting. I've marked you. I'll be back..." the evil god whispered.

The true form of the evil god, the Undying Lord, didn't seem to care about the destruction of its projection at all. He was far more interested in the young woman before him.

A mark emerged from the collapsing void rift and flew toward the immobilized Avia.

Avia's eyes widened in horror. She had already been marked once; she certainly didn't want to be marked again!

There was no way to stop it. The evil god's mark burrowed into her mindscape and toward the castle that was her mental domain.

The mark, sustained by void energy, would persist indefinitely and couldn't be dispelled. Once she was marked, the evil god would be able to observe her every action at any time.

However, Wang Yu's door was still in place right before Avia's castle. The evil god's mark found itself blocked by the door on the way to Avia's castle—and dissipated without a trace. Wang Yu's void capacity increased slightly.

As the evil god roared in outrage and disbelief, as Avia blinked in surprise, the void rift closed. The projection dissipated into thin air.

Finally, everything was over.