Magical Soul Parade

Chapter 388: Intricacies

“Limitless. Do you forget our terms?” Finn’s question sliced through the blinding radiance.

Immediately, the suffocating gaze of the Great Dao intensified, pressing down on Sage Limitless with the weight of a collapsing firmament. The upward trajectory of his ascension abruptly ceased. Just as he was about to step into the greater form he was meant to transcend into, the assimilation process was forcefully cut short.

At first, the sheer sensory overload of the transition kept the Sage from registering Finn’s words. But the moment the cosmic weight dragged him down from the peak he was heading towards, his hearing came back and he processed Finn’s words.

Coupled with the utter sense of loss, an intense bout of trepidation gripped him immediately. Somehow, he already knew that the Errant was about to pull something out of his sleeves. A variable hidden in those clauses, something he had completely overlooked during his analysis.

Yet, having already touched upon that intoxicating feeling of being omnipotent, a frantic desperation seized him. He didn’t even care exactly what it was. So long as he could get that feeling back, so long as he could ascend to the state of immortality he had been chasing for ages, he would do anything the Errant wanted.

However, Finn’s next words brought a shocking clarity to his mind, calming him down from the franticness he was feeling.

“You have not yet fulfilled your end of the terms,” Finn stated, his voice flat and completely devoid of warmth. “The Great Dao cannot allow you to ascend unless you settle the debts you owe.”

“What debts?” Limitless barked, his loud voice booming across the empty distance.

Finn responded immediately, quoting the third clause of their binding vow word-for-word:

“To allow the concept of Order to take hold without logical friction under the Great Dao, the newly unified entity must instantly absorb and reconcile the baseline state of all ambient mana currently anchored to this plane…”

Finn smirked behind his bone mask, staring the Sage dead in the eyes. “Are you not the ‘newly unified entity?’ You said it yourself, didn’t you? That your presence spreads throughout the very fabric of this reality. You are the very world itself… So you must bear the absolute burden of reconciling the state of all ambient mana within the plane.”

“What sort of tomfoolery is this?” Sage Limitless hissed. At this point, his glowing body had dimmed from the blinding levels of before, and his form could be made out very distinctly now. A deep madness flickered behind his eyes as if he could feel the single thing he’d craved for slipping out his grasp slowly but permanently.

“There is no tomfoolery here,” Finn replied evenly. “There is only your arrogance, Limitless. Like I said from the onset, you fancy yourself a God, but you truly do not know what it entails to be one. You say you are the world, but you do not want to bear the burden of the world.”

“The fact that you still haven’t realized exactly what is going on goes to show just how obliviously haughty you are.”Finn spread his arms wide, his glowing green eyes shining brilliantly behind his mask.

“Retribution!”

He spelled it out syllable by syllable, letting the word ring across the air.

“You forget, Limitless, about the souls of the many that have perished in this realm. About the many who, by your hands, by your will, by the reason of your existence, have suffered terrible fates after their death, simply because their souls couldn’t find peace…”

“Instead of allowing the last traces of their consciousness to join the stream of the universe, dispersing back into its original state, you have forced them to remain anchored to this world, latched onto the very mana they had wielded throughout their lifetimes.”

Finn pointed a finger directly at him.

“The thousands, millions, billions of lives you have prevented from finding peace… what do you think they would demand as a reconciliation from you, Limitless?”

As Finn spoke, the expression on the Sage’s face spoiled entirely. He could follow the train of logic, and the moment he saw where Finn was going with this, the true reality of the binding vow became apparent.

“The voices of a billion vengeful souls are crying out to you, Limitless,” Finn continued, his tone dropping to a dangerous whisper. “They cry out for justice. They cry out for blood. They cry out for… retribution.”

Finn chuckled darkly as he hovered in the sky. By his side, Althea looked on with a calm demeanor, as if this was no news to her. But even at that, from the sudden tremor in her eyes, it was clear that the way everything had played out according to Finn’s expectations still filled her with a thick, overwhelming feeling of emotion.

This was the one person that had plagued them for ages, the single being who had been the fundamental cancer in their world.

She kept her eyes on Sage Limitless, watching his changing expressions as he realized just how terrible his current situation was. The look on his face was entirely priceless, as if he had never even fathomed such a thing was possible under the laws of reality.

“As a bystander here, naturally this is of no true concern to me,” Finn said, his voice completely detached. “Whether the souls seek retribution, whether you are in the wrong for plaguing your world for so long, none of it matters to me…”

“What matters to me, however, is that you bared your fangs towards me,” he paused, letting the wind carry the weight of his threat. “In the crossfire between you and the transcendents, I was caught between it.”

“Of course, due diligence shall be paid by those among them who are guilty. But for you, Limitless, I will deal with you personally because you have threatened me.”

“The vengeful souls that seek retribution upon you call out to me. I will become the congregation of their unified vengeance, and I will demand their price to be paid.”

“You cannot!” Limitless roared, a maddened, feral look in his eyes as he chuckled darkly. Throughout Finn’s entire speech, he had been feeling the Great Dao continue to press down on him, bringing him down entirely from the ascendance he had been reaching up to, straight down to his normal baseline.

Right now, he could feel it threatening to push him even lower. Finn was not joking about any of what he had said; word for word, everything was true to the letter.

However, just as desperation peaked, his mind caught onto a single saving clause.

“You said it yourself,” Limitless’ loud voice boomed across the distance, filled with a newfound vigor:

“To ensure the stabilization of this plane, all external active hostility from you, the Errant Heretic, against the physical fabric of this world and this plane must cease entirely the moment the assimilation begins.”

The moment he recalled that line, he chuckled darkly, bursting into a fit of laughter despite the pressing force of the Great Dao.

“You cannot harm me! I am the world, and my debts with the vengeful souls is mine and mine alone to solve how I see fit! The terms forbid you from harming me!”