Magical Soul Parade

Chapter 366: The Ossuary vs The Errant (III)

The mountain peaks... Behind the grand, stretching wall of ice...

At these extreme heights, the winds howled with a biting frigidity. The air was thin and merciless, carrying enough cold to cause severe frostbite to any exposed skin within a matter of minutes if a person was not careful.

However, for the elite figures who stood on the snowy ledge, overlooking the grand wall and the massive blocks of black clad regiments on the battlefield far below, the frigid cold was of no concern. Their extremely dense souls released more than enough passive aura that naturally repelled the elements, treating the freezing gale as nothing more than a gentle breeze.

"Waa! What a once in a lifetime honor it is for me to be among legends like these." A familiar female voice cut through the whipping winds. It was filled with a signature sickening glee and excitement, echoing across the snowy peak. Except, this time the enthusiasm didn’t actually feel forced.

From the raw pitch of her voice, Sue truly felt awed, if not entirely giddy, to be standing in this specific circle.

"Egon Callahan, or should I say Casmir, the enigmatic Space Transcendent himself, here in the flesh."

She directed her words toward a small, white-haired, stoic figure standing at the front and to the extreme left of the gathering.

Dozens of eyes immediately turned toward the Space Transcendent. There were old, familiar eyes belonging to those who had fought alongside him in past eras, and there were also new ones, individuals who had only ever heard of the Space Transcendent in ancient records but had never seen him themselves.

Their gazes swept over his small, unassuming figure. The older Transcendents looked at him with a tinge of nostalgia and quiet acknowledgement, remembering the absolute authority his space concept commanded. The newer fragment holders looked on with a volatile mixture of intrigue, haughtiness, challenge, and simple, quiet assessment, depending on the personality of the observer.

Despite their varied assessments, none of the newer Transcendents dared to say anything aloud. They simply observed from a distance. Assessing a legend in your mind was one thing, but being dumb enough to blatantly show a lack of respect outwardly was a different matter altogether.

They watched in silence as a young blond woman with sharp streaks of red in her hair walked up to the small man. She placed both of her hands on his shoulders with an easy familiarity, leaning down to whisper something fondly into his ear. The heat radiating from her body was immense, visibly melting the falling snow before it could even touch her skin.

Casmir didn’t flinch, instead he simply placed one of his hands over hers, giving it a light, reassuring press, completely uncaring of the audience watching.

"And how would I forget the Transcendent of Combustion, Lyris," Sue continued her eloquent, self-appointed introduction, gesturing dramatically toward the woman who had gone to meet Casmir.

Sue turned to the side, her boots crunching lightly in the deep snow as she moved to the next person in the lineup. A tall, imposing figure clad in a heavy, black, shadowy cloak that fluttered around his body like a living wraith.

The tall man stood entirely alone at the center of the peak. No one was willing to stand within ten feet of him, and that isolation likely had everything to do with the heavy, suffocating unease that everyone felt by simply being in close proximity to his presence.

It felt as though your own consciousness would be pulled out of your body if you stared into the darkness of his hood for too long.

"In the center, we have the most elusive, and possibly the most sought after Transcendent in the world right now. The Soul Transcendent himself." She paused, tilting her head to the side as she tapped her chin. "Err, sorry, I don’t actually know your real name."

The Soul Transcendent said absolutely nothing to fill the silence. He didn’t move an inch, showing not even the slightest change to his silent, brooding pose despite being directly addressed in front of the most powerful beings on the continent.

Sue quickly moved on, her tone remaining giddy and sweet with excitement despite the small hiccup. She was not the type to let a lack of manners ruin her fun.

"Well, the Truth Transcendent would have been very welcome in this situation, but he remains the scheming, double-faced dog he has always been and has run straight to the Error Bearer," she said, letting out a loud, mocking snort. "So in his place, we have two brand new additions to the grand line up."

She turned her attention toward two tall figures who stood side by side a few paces away. One was male and the other a female. They were clearly human in shape, but there was an unsettling quality about them that immediately indicated something was deeply wrong with their biology.

Their skin looked dull, grey, and entirely unhealthy, as if they were suffering from a terminal sickness of the blood. But the sheer energy in their posture, combined with the fierce vigor and ancient life burning in their eyes, told a completely different story.

"Nocturne and Storm!" Sue yelled out like a theatrical ringmaster. "Fellow Transcendents, old and new, you are looking at two figures who were once true gods. Beings from a different world and a entirely different time, helped back to the land of the living by our most sought after Soul Transcendent here, and..."

Her voice trailed off slightly, her dramatic flair faltering for a split second as she glanced back briefly over her shoulder.

Her eyes swept over the figure of a dark skinned woman with white hair who was standing just a few feet behind the main line. The woman had a soft, permanent smile resting on her face. Even Sue, who was no stranger to weird smiles and psychotic expressions given her role as an Enforcer, still felt genuinely weirded out by the look on this woman’s face.

It was the smile of someone who had completely emptied her own mind to become a vessel for another.

The white-haired woman took over the narration smoothly, completing Sue’s statement without a single drop in momentum.

"...and the direct help of the only real, live, true God of this world. The Great Sage Limitless." Her voice was thick with an unnatural reverence. It vibrated with an emotion so full of absolute conviction that it seemed completely devoid of the slightest bit of human doubt. To her, the statement was not an opinion or a title, but a fundamental truth of reality.

Even more surprising than her fanaticism was the reaction of the crowd. No one refuted her words. Not one of the Transcendents on the peak, whether they were ancient legends or arrogant newcomers, said a single word to challenge the declaration the woman had made. The heavy silence of the mountain peaks remained absolute.

The priestess went even further, her voice rising in a sharp crescendo that echoed off the frozen walls of the grand barrier below.

"It is only he who is mighty enough to gather all the disparate powers of this fractured world under his single, absolute order. At the mere uttering of his words, the centuries of hatred and bloody conflict between the noble Ossuary and the Harvester Cult was put aside to achieve his divine will!"