Chapter 92: Libra |
The drastic changes in the Sea of Obsession sent Yolanda, far away within the Tower of the Underworld, through an emotional roller coaster.
Her emotions shifted from initial confusion, to mid-stage shock, and finally stabilized into frantic chaos.
Before she even had time to mourn the now-empty Sea of Obsession, Kyle had already successfully activated the legal procedure leading to the final judgment.
A gate of light slowly condensed, taking shape upon the platform where Kyle stood.
“Wait! Stop! Slow down! Slow down, please!”
Yolanda’s hands danced like butterflies, countless law runes flickering unpredictably before vanishing in an instant. She needed to buy enough time to complete the maintenance and calibration of the fourth stage.
As long as the fourth-stage judgment had not yet begun, she still had a chance to interfere!
The gate of light, which should originally have formed instantly, now flickered like a broken video signal. Its outline was unstable, and the condensation process became sluggish and intermittent, like a buffering screen.
Although the consequences were severe, Yolanda had clearly succeeded.
The next moment, she found herself within a void.
There was no distinction between up, down, left, or right here. There was no sensation of time passing—only eternal silence and darkness. At the center of this void floated an enormous, ancient, and solemn scale.
The scale was entirely dark gold, forged from the Law of Balance itself. Standing before the gigantic scale, Yolanda looked as insignificant as a speck of light.
“Haa... when was the last time I saw this big fellow?”
Yolanda could not help recalling the scene of her own trial all those years ago. It had been so long that even her memories had become blurred.
“Ah! Why am I thinking about such unimportant things now?!”
She suddenly shook her head, forcefully suppressing her chaotic thoughts.
“Important matters first!”
She slowly raised both hands, almost as though pushing forward. A powerful divine will rapidly spread outward, enveloping the entire scale.
As the core divine artifact of the fourth trial, this “Scales of Justice” could not tolerate even the slightest error.
This was a sacred divine artifact containing two opposing Law powers: life and death.
Under the erosion of endless time, even the mightiest divine artifacts would inevitably suffer slight wear and imbalance due to the mutual friction between these two powers.
She had to ensure that the “Origin of Life” and “Origin of Death” represented on both sides of the scale achieved absolute, perfect balance.
Any slight deviation could lead to an incorrect judgment regarding the trial participant’s final choice, and that would become an extremely severe accident.
After all, souls capable of reaching this stage had already entered the list observed by the world’s will due to their potential and importance.
Even if they fell into corruption during their growth, the world’s will would only allow them to reincarnate within the world itself, rather than exile them to another world.
“Fortunately, this place has remained sealed all this time and possesses a law cycle, so the power of the origins of life and death carried by the scale itself has not been lost by much. Unlike the third stage, it has not nearly stagnated.”
After carefully inspecting it, Yolanda finally let out a soft sigh of relief.
“However, this balance still requires a slight adjustment. The power of the Origin of Life is a little too strong.”
She focused her mind and cautiously guided out a strand of death aura from her own divine origin, winding it around the end of the scale representing vitality and carefully neutralizing the excess life force within it.
Under her highly concentrated control, the life and death aura within her perception slowly merged together.
The scale, which had originally tilted ever so slightly toward the side of life, was now completely corrected of that nearly imperceptible imbalance.
“Haa... finally finished!”
Yolanda let out a long breath, feeling as though a heavy burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Only then did she finally have the leisure to gracefully smooth down her beautiful red hair, which she had messed up earlier.
Her gaze once again pierced through layer upon layer of spatial barriers, returning to the now-darkened Sea of Obsession and focusing upon the vampire child currently adjusting his own condition.
“What an interesting little fellow... I wonder what kind of choice you’ll make when faced with life and death?”
Life and death—this was an eternal question. Even gods could not completely avoid it, and it was one of the final choices every intelligent being would eventually have to face.
Within the Sea of Obsession, the soul storm that had swept through everything did not last long.
When the final strand of soul starlight flowed into Kyle’s body, the originally shimmering silver ocean transformed into a dim, deathly still surface.
Even the bright silver-white sky had noticeably darkened.
Upon the platform, Kyle slowly opened his “eyes”.
Under the impact of that intense torrent of emotions, Kyle felt a wave of dizziness.
Because of the excessive soul aura, his perception had become extraordinarily chaotic. The flow of time around him appeared strange and distorted—sometimes rushing by in an instant, sometimes seemingly frozen.
“This stage... what exactly was it testing?”
While adjusting his posture, Kyle muttered to himself in confusion.
He felt that something had definitely gone wrong.
Everything felt strange. Having no clues was one thing, but passing the trial so inexplicably was another matter entirely.
It felt as though he had done nothing, yet also as though he had done everything.
And what was going on with that malfunctioning gate of light?
Kyle looked toward the half-formed gate of light upon the platform, still buffering and not yet fully complete.
The corner of his soul body’s mouth twitched involuntarily.
“This path of rebirth... could it be that because nobody has used it for too long, it’s fallen into disrepair and started malfunctioning?”
An absurd thought, yet seemingly the only logical explanation, surfaced in his mind.
After a while, the dizziness and sensation of spatial-temporal dislocation on the soul level were barely suppressed. Although he was still far from fully controlling it, he had at least recovered his basic ability to move and perceive.
At that moment, the gate of light that had malfunctioned for so long finally completed its last “piece,” emitting a faint humming sound as it appeared before him in a stable and complete form.
Kyle stood up, preparing to step into the final gate of light.
However, the moment he rose to his feet, he noticed an obvious abnormality.
His soul seemed far too solidified!
His originally semi-transparent body was now radiating a warm and powerful glow, and even possessed a faint sense of tangibility.
“Tch, this is really... troublesome.”
Although a solidified soul was not necessarily a bad thing, he suspected that his body might no longer be capable of enduring such a severely “extraordinary” soul.
If he returned to his flesh with his soul in its current state, his body might explode...
“Forget it. Thinking about this now is still too early.”
He quickly suppressed that concern and turned his gaze toward the gate of light.
“First, I need to pass the final stage. This soul aura may still prove useful in the final trial.”
He had never been the sort of brave soldier who only took without giving. He deeply understood the principle of “no pain, no gain”.
Moreover, he possessed such an overwhelming amount of soul aura that he even suspected it might be a trap. Keeping it might only cause him to forever lose the opportunity to return to the real world.
“In the worst-case scenario, I’ll release the excess soul aura before returning to reality.”
After making up his mind, Kyle took a distinctly “heavy” step forward and crossed through the gate of light.
The surrounding scenery instantly shifted from brightness into darkness.
Before him, a gigantic scale emitting a faint glow floated silently within the void.