“Soul Devourer, did you truly think I had not seen through your little charade?” Malcolm asked as he took three unhurried steps back.
The chains binding Soul Devourer clanged, sparks leaping as the captive thrashed in futile rage, yet Malcolm’s pallid, ash-tinted eyes remained flat, indifferent, almost corpse-like.
“You feigned allegiance, nothing more,” he continued, his voice a measured hush that somehow filled the hall. “You planned to curl up inside my Malevolent Path Hall, leech its baleful aura, mend your wounds, and when you finally claw back to your former peak, the very first soul you intended to harvest would have been mine.”
Malcolm spoke the accusation not in anger, but as if reciting a ledger entry. “After all, the Soul-Devouring Technique can advance only by consuming souls stronger than the last,” he went on. “My own soul has bathed ten thousand years in the currents of reincarnation. To you, it must smell like ambrosia distilled from the gods.”
The captive froze mid-struggle. Malcolm had spoken the naked truth. Yes, Soul Devourer had intended to hide within the Malevolent Path Hall, heal, then seize Malcolm’s divine soul and the throne that came with it. Once he seized control of Malevolent Path Hall, who in Level Twelve would be able to stand against him?
“What an utter shame,” Malcolm murmured. He raised a withered hand and traced a maze of impossibly complex seals in mid-air. “I have outlived more schemes than you have swallowed souls. From the moment you crossed my threshold, your intent was as clear to me as the midday sun.”
The next second, both hands slammed downward, completing the seal. “Rather than letting a threat grow, I think it’d be better to turn it into a puppet!”
With that, booming thunder rolled through the hall. The stone floor split apart in a jagged starburst. Bone-white tiles shattered and sprayed like shrapnel, revealing a yawning pit that appeared bottomless. From that abyss, a gate rose—one hundred yards tall, forged of fused skulls. Ghost-lights danced in every vacant eye socket.
Across that ghastly door, warped runes crawled and re-knitted themselves, distorting the very air with a gravitational pull that made the hall groan. It was, without a doubt, the Door of Reincarnation.
“No! Malcolm Vayne! Even in death, I will hunt you down!” Soul Devourer shrieked, wings lashing and severed arms sprouting raw flesh in a desperate bid to tear free—but the effort meant nothing.
The nine chains tightened at once, yanking him into the air and flinging him like discarded cargo straight toward the open gate. Another concussive roar shook the chamber. A vortex, dozens of yards wide, flowered at the center of the door, swirling in muted grays. Its depths held no matter, no energy, only Law—the primordial rules governing life, death, and return.
The moment his ravaged body touched that spiral, invisible forces ripped it apart and drew the pieces inward. His scream cut off, clipped like a beast’s throat beneath a butcher’s blade. The Door of Reincarnation slowly closed. The runes on the Bone Gate returned to stillness. Only the gray-white flames flickering in the eye sockets of the skulls on the door seemed slightly brighter than before.
The great hall fell silent once more. Malcolm walked to the Door of Reincarnation. His gaunt hand pressed lightly against the cold bone surface, eyes closed as he sensed its energy. After a moment, a cold, satisfied curve appeared at the corner of his mouth.
“Ah, the Reincarnation Realm… It’s truly mysterious.”
***
Meanwhile, inside the Door of Reincarnation, Soul Devourer’s consciousness gradually stirred amid an endless fall. His divine soul had been pierced and torn by the reincarnation shackles, and he should have plunged into chaos under the unbearable pain. Yet some foreign, rule-bound force forcibly kept his awareness intact, allowing him to feel every shred of agony, every shred of despair, in full clarity.
When he finally opened his eyes and saw the world he was in, he realized it was a space composed entirely of gray and white. The sky was gray-white, devoid of sun, moon, or stars, only a dense layer of clouds that seemed heavy enough to press down. The earth was gray-white, with cracked soil, exposed rock, and withered vegetation. Everything was stripped of color, leaving only deathly gray and silence. Even the flowing spiritual energy in the air was gray-white—a form of energy he had never encountered.
The cold, silence, and absolute sense of order were the complete opposite of the chaos, greed, and devouring nature of the Soul-Devouring Technique. Most terrifying of all was the omnipresent suppression of rules in this world. Here, the Soul-Devouring Technique he had painstakingly cultivated for ten thousand years ran more than ten times slower, and every manipulation of demonic flames felt like struggling through viscous mud.
His divine soul’s perception was compressed to a radius of just a hundred yards; even if something was visible to the naked eye at a distance, in his awareness, it was nothing but void. Even his sense of time was twisted. He felt as though he had been falling for an eternity, long enough for mortals to live and die through dozens of reincarnations. However, when he looked back up, the gray-white sky still hung far above, its distance unchanged.
*I must leave…*
Soul Devourer gritted his teeth. His remaining will drove his shattered divine soul, trying to regain control of his body. He could feel the strand of chaotic sword energy at his severed arm being suppressed in this world, its corrosive speed greatly slowed. Yet, in contrast, the pain of his divine soul being torn away grew ever sharper.
Though the nine reincarnation shackles had vanished, the wounds they left behind remained. His soul was like a leaky, broken vessel, losing the very essence of his being with every passing moment. Finally, after a fall that felt both eternal and instantaneous, he touched the ground.
There was no impact, no tremor—it was like a feather landing on water, unnaturally soft. After several moments, Soul Devourer struggled to his feet and looked around.
He stood upon a barren plain that stretched without limit, as though some ancient god had scraped the world raw and left it to fade. The ground was the same dull gray-white as the overcast sky, horizon smeared into horizon until earth and firmament became a single lifeless smear.
Here and there, twisted trees jutted up like polished bones, their claw-shaped branches raking at the low clouds in mute accusation. The silence, on the other hand, was suffocating. There was no wind, no insects chirping, and no flow of water. Even the rhythm of his own heart dwindled to a timid murmur he could scarcely detect.
