Lord of Annihilation

"Leave the thinking to later! We have to finish this battle first!" Ka'lor'ah hurriedly reminded him.

Snapping out of his thoughts, Lucius' looked at the crimson spectre floating in the air, with a sharpened gaze. Its piercing shrieks felt incredibly painful to hear, rattling his entire body.

"Your attack dealt a serious amount of damage to its soul. It will take at least a minute for it to recover."

"There's a source of life energy behind you. Quickly absorb it and recover your strength." 

Hearing Ka'lor'ah's instruction, Lucius activated [Devour]. The shadow underneath his feet expanded in size, completely encompassing the interiors of their temporary hideout.

The spot they were hiding in wasn't very large in size. With his shadow covering every inch of space on the inside, Lucius quickly discovered the life energy source that Ka'lor'ah had mentioned.

Without any hesitation, Lucius unleashed his power.

"Devour." A low growl escaped his throat.

The darkness beneath his feet bubbled, as a tremendous amount of life energy was devoured en masse, flowing into the Void. Before long, thick streams of void energy left his shadow, rushing into Lucius' starved body.

"Ah…" A quiet moan leaked from within Lucius' lips.

His skeleton-like body started to rapidly bulk up, before quickly returning to its previous glory. The tears on his muscles, the wounds on his skin, the two masses of exploded eyeballs, quickly healed upon receiving nourishment from the void energy. The source of replenishment also shrunk in size, before finally drying up.

"You, you, you… You will PAY FOR THIS!!" Just as the final wounds on his back were in the process of closing up, Lucius heard a furious declaration.

Looking up, his three pairs of eyes met with that of the floating soul. 

One looking eternally indifferent and the other, absolutely livid. So much so, that Lucius could feel tangible hatred rubbing across his skin.

"Your reckless intervention has thoroughly messed up all of my plans. Not only did you barge in here, but you also destroyed the barrier!!" the master of the labyrinth fumed.

"No, you will not die an ordinary death. I will skin you an—"

"[Eviscerate]" an almost, a careless sounding voice softly declared.

The eyes of the crimson spectre shrunk in shock as it witnessed millions of threads of soft, glowing light heard towards it once more. 

"AGAIN?!!" The anger had left its tone, replacing it with sheer shock. 

Hastily moving its arms about, the floating soul created the most basic of barriers, fueled by soul power and reinforced it. Alas…

…it made no difference.

Similar to a hot knife cutting through butter, or a heated wire cutting through foam, the threads of white light effortlessly cut through the barriers of soul power and landed on its body.

BOOM!!

Unable to hold its position in the air, the crimson spectre was thrown back with mighty force. The entirety of the underground room shook, as shockwaves of the attack, assaulted the walls and pillars within.

Thud.

Inside the small crack, Lucius' body fell to its knees once again. The muscles in his body had deflated once again, and the bones in his arms were thoroughly crushed. Unable to hold onto it, his scythe fell on the ground in front of him.

Lucius' heavily panted, occasionally throwing up mouthfuls of blood. His face looked absolutely terrible, with pain reflecting in his eyes. 

For Lucius' eyes to be able to reflect the emotion of pain…The state of his body could only be imagined.

"Did you get him?" Ka'lor'ah worriedly asked.

Due to the sheer intensity of the attack's brightness blinding her, she was unable to see whether Lucius' attack has struck the vengeful soul or not.

Throwing another mouthful of dense, black blood, Lucius wiped his mouth on his shoulder and softly replied.

"It hit." Relief and a tinge of satisfaction could be heard in his voice.

Recalling the attack in one part of his mind, Lucius used the other to control his [Void Hands] to dig into the walls of the cave to find another source of life energy. He needed to use [Devour] to top up once again.

[Dance of the Death God: Third Movement – Eviscerate], was an attack that should only be used by those with at least Stage 3 soul cultivation. 

Not only will the soul power of those underneath that level of cultivation, unable to support the activation of the attack, also one's body will also not be sufficiently strong enough to handle the backlash during its duration. 

As always, exceptions existed to everything and Lucius was a freak of nature. Not only was his soul power capacity dozens of times greater than normal, but he also had a tremendous amount of void energy to supplement the activation. This resulted in both his body and soul being near-completely drained of energy.

As for the backlash during its duration? 

Lucius' physical body during its [State of Devour] phase was infinitely close to stepping into Stage 3. However, since it wasn't entirely in the Stage 3 level, large injuries and massive amounts of pain were the only sequelae.

By now, a few minutes had passed and Lucius had recovered to a certain extent. He was only able to find a small pocket of energy and thus, was unable to recover to his peak.

With his hands having regenerated, Lucius picked his scythe and rose to his feet. He first inspected his body, estimating the level of his combat effectiveness and results of his previous attacks.

'The majority of the wounds have closed up. Soul power is at 44% of full capacity and void energy is at 31%. Combat effectiveness is at… 51%'

'If I give it my all, I can throw another Eviscerate at him. However, the chances of my survival after that cannot be accurately estimated. The most likely outcome would be my death.' 

'The condition of the opponent is still unknown, however, it can't be anything good. In the first place, Eviscerate was a move that was meant to attack the soul of the opponent, ignoring all physical hindrances. With the opponent, somehow existing as a soul entity, this attack must, without doubt, be very effective against him.'

Taking a deep breath to gather his thoughts.

'I still cannot let down my guard. This is the first time I'm facing such a unique opponent. His strengths and weaknesses are completely unknown. Worst case scenario, he was exaggerating his reaction earlier to make me underestimate him.'

'That brings up the question, what is he exactly? How can the soul exist without the containment of the body? Most importantly, how did he escape the calling of Limbo?'

Lucius pondered while frowning inwardly. 

"Do you think he's dead?" he suddenly heard Ka'lor'ah voice quip inside his head.

Shaking his head, Lucius unhesitantly replied. "Unlikely. Stage 5's cannot die just like that."

"Well, technically speaking he is 'dead'. He currently exists as an individual soul entity." Ka'lor'ah replied.

"Any idea how?" Lucius questioned.

"Nope." Ka'lor'ah instantly answered. The crystal body shook itself and continued. "This is my first time seeing something like this. Heck, I've never read or even heard anything remotely similar to this." 

Lucius did not question any further. Having finished his evaluation, he flapped his wings and jumped off of the safe cave and flew towards the location of the crimson-coloured soul's landing.

Lucius' mind held no thoughts of holding back. If the opponent was found in a condition better than his estimation, Lucius was willing to use Eviscerate once more and go down the path of mutual destruction.

'Careful. I've been scanning the area for him, since after your attack but came up with nothing. Either he's dead or he's hiding from my detection.'

'Hmm.' Lucius gave a terse affirmation.

With his left hand extending forward and his right hand grasping onto the scythe, Lucius carefully lowered his body towards the ground. 

Dust clouds covered the entirety of the air, rendering his sight useless. Extending his soul power into the surrounding, resulted in no feedback either.

'He's not dead.'

Lucius could feel his instincts warning him of the danger. His opponent was most definitely alive. 

Thud.

Landing heavily on the ground, Lucius walked closer and closer to the crater. The clouds of dust were settling, slowly revealing the scene shrouded behind them.

An empty crater.

"What?" Ka'lor'ah confused voice, inadvertently leaked.

Apart from a 30m wide and 15m deep crater, there was no one present. The crimson soul spectre, the master of the labyrinth, the unknown ex-Stage 5 existence had vanished!

Lucius monster-like head revealed no creases or frowns, but confusion and astonishment could be seen in his eyes. Since before his attack, Lucius' eyes had been constantly tracking the crimson spectre.

He had seen his opponent receive his attack, fly backwards at great speeds and crash on the ground. Exactly in the spot where he was currently standing.

'Where is he?' Just as Lucius was about to turn his head to look around, his body suddenly froze.

Not because of the cold or fear. It simply froze.

'I can't move my body!' Lucius desperately tried, but it was to no avail.

His body just refused to move.

"Lucius, why are you standing still?"

Just as Ka'lor'ah's question was heard in his ear, Lucius heard a completely different voice inside his head.

'A mere worm dares to attack my laboratory. As payment for your crimes, I shall take over your body.'

And in the next instant, a crimson soul appeared within Lucius' mindspace.