Lord of Annihilation

And with the destruction of the crimson soul, the curtains of the battle against the Stage 5 being finally closed.

Lucius having escaped from that blank space and having turned the table on the Master finally heaved a sigh of relief after confirming the destruction of the latter.

'That wraps up our crisis. He's finally dead.' 

'While this endeavor was mostly fruitless, I did receive some interesting compensation.' Lucius' referred to the entire set of memories that he had received from the Master.

While this was not an intentional move by the other and was an unexpected side benefit from Lucius' actions, it was nonetheless a freebie. 

Lucius continued to observe a certain memory fragment within his soul with taut attention. After waiting for a few minutes, he finally let go of his worries.

Turning his attention away from that dangerous memory fragment -which was the cause of the Master's death- and firmly locking it up within his soul, Lucius took a moment to survey the inside of his mindspace which served as the final battlefield.

The entire space was on the verge of collapse, with his void and soul energy being entirely non-existent. The memory fragments of nearly 200 years of his life floated aimlessly within this space, filling it entirely.

Some distance away, he could see the figure of Ka'lor'ah floating in the air after having collapsed from exhausting her energy. Her golden figure continuously flickered seemingly on the verge of being snuffed out.

'From the looks of it, she has exhausted almost all of her energy, even having drawn from her Existence Crystal. With her rate of recovery, it will take her at least a few dozen years to replenish her spent energy, before waking up.'

Calculating within his head, Lucius remarked.

'Very inefficient. I need to feed her energy to hasten her recovery. Her assistance is very crucial for the next stage of the plan.'

Just as the thought appeared within his mind, a large influx of energy appeared within his mindspace. Surprised, Lucius turned to look at the source of this influx and his eyes landed on his soul.

Sitting cross-legged in the middle of his mindspace, the [Annihilator] soul continuously released massive amounts of energy, which quickly started to repair and replenish the mindspace. 

Observing closely, Lucius could feel some part of this energy enveloping his soul and slowly forming a cocoon around it. 

Immediately gaining an understanding of the situation Lucius moved his consciousness and dived into his soul, gaining control over it. Upon gaining manual control over the energy, Lucius immediately started to divide them into manageable portions and started to convert them into soul energy which was then channeled into his soul

'About time.'

And with that final thought, Lucius sunk into silence once again.

-----------

An inordinate amount of time passed before the movement could be seen within Lucius' mindspace.

A transparent white cocoon made of densely packed strands of soul energy occupying the center of the space stirred. Small microscopic cracks filled its surface, followed by fractures and more obvious tears.

BANG!

Having reached a critical point, the cocoon exploded outward with irresistible force. Appearing from within its core was the silhouette of a man surrounded by misty white vapor. 

The silhouette slowly rose from its seated position. As the white vapor parted, the figure of the silhouette was finally revealed.

A transparent white figure of a humanoid with intertwining strands of black and red forming a complex system of paths and nerves within its body. Its two eyes shone with blinding white brilliance as it looked down to observe its own body. 

The soul of the [Annihilator] had finally passed its initial phase and had taken shape in its entirety. The previously hazy features of the soul had vanished, forming clear and distinct lines and shapes.

The soul looked most similar to Lucius' own human form, except for its completely transparent skin and muscles, and its colder, more mechanical-looking face.

'Low-level Stage 2. I finally broke through.' Lucius thought to himself.

He felt around his body and quickly took note of the changes that had occurred. A couple of minutes later, Lucius' initial excitement was quickly doused when he realized that he had gained no new abilities. 

Sure, his soul power had grown much more abundant and potent, and he could finally start showcasing the 'real' method to battle, giving him a much-needed boost in strength. However, the feeling of disappointment was also real.

'As I thought, [Killer] is still a better soul. Well, it is what it is, I guess.'  He complained to himself and quickly removed his attention from this topic.

Looking around within his mindspace, Lucius noticed that his soul's ascension had barely made a dent in the tremendous amount of energy that had suddenly appeared within his mindspace. 

Nearly 90% of it still remained!

Thinking for a moment, Lucius quickly made a guess as to where this energy had come from. 

'That Stage 5 being's destruction must have resulted in an extremely large amount of residual energy left after the deed.'

'This is actually really good. With this, I don't have to waste any time looking for sources of energy to awaken Ka'lor'ah. I can do it right now and still have some energy left over.'

Lucius nodded his head in satisfaction.

'But first…'

'To clear this place up.'

Lucius waved his hands and a terrifying force of suction sprung from within his body. Like pieces of metal being attracted towards a powerful magnet, the fragments of memory that were floating around throughout the space were quickly absorbed into Lucius.

During this process of absorption, Lucius also took care to look through each memory fragment. 

300 years was a very long instance of time and Lucius had no doubt, forgotten a vast portion of his earlier years. Using this rare opportunity, he reviewed the fragments and refreshed his current memory.

This process went on for a long time when a certain memory fragment caught his attention. Reviewing this fragment, Lucius suddenly stiffened from shock.

This particular fragment of memory wasn't old and was entirely new. In fact, it was the fragment of a memory that had occurred just some time ago, during his second life.

….

"NOW YOU WILL LOSE EVERYTHING TOO!! LET ME DRAG YOU DOWN TO HELL WITH ME!!"

"She was right! You are indeed different from the others. Already having awakened your soul!"

"You are an anomaly in mankind's fate, Lucius. I'm looking forward to the game we are going to play later. Please do survive the upcoming ordeal."

….

The death of a certain student aboard the spaceship.

A mysterious female voice that spoke about matters that no one other than Ka'lor'ah and Lucius themselves knew.

The scent of a Stage 1 soul before Mankind's ascension, other than his own!

'Right…how did I forget about this matter?!!' Lucius was utterly and completely shocked.

How could he forget such an important matter?

For him to forget and leave behind an unknown element within Mankind, which was a crucial part of the 'Great Plan'. How was this possible?!

This was completely unlike him! 

'Not to mention...Ka'lor'ah was also present during that event.'

Lucius forgetting might be an exception, but for a control freak like Ka'lor'ah to forget? This was no longer a coincidence, but something larger in play.

'I must wake her up.'

Lucius immediately got to work, channeling the tremendous amount of free energy into Ka'lor'ah's figure.

----------

'I…did we win?' The darkness before Ka'lor'ah eyes slowly cleared and hazy light started to pour into her mind.

Feeling a stream of energy flow into her, Ka'lor'ah instinctively grabbed onto it and started to devour it at a furious rate. With Ka'lor'ah joining to help with the digestion of the energy, it was only a matter of time before her mind cleared.

'Oh, looks like I went into slumber after that battle. Seeing as to how I'm still alive, looks like we won.' Ka'lor'ah smiled brightly.

The darkness finally retreated from her vision and the figure of Lucius' still occupying his soul form appeared within her sights.

"Ohayo~~" Ka'lor'ah was in the process of greeting her partner when the latter rudely interrupted her.

"We have a serious problem."

Sensing the seriousness of this tone, Ka'lor'ah immediately became serious herself and asked.

"How serious?"

"Much greater than our freshly concluded battle." Lucius' normally indifferent tone, held a deep sense of worry and impatience.

Acutely picking up on that Ka'lor'ah thought to herself.

'Are we fu*ked? Wait, is this karma for my previous statement?' Banishing her playful thoughts, Ka'lor'ah continued.

"Tell me what happened?"

Lucius did not bother with words and directly shared that memory fragment with her.

The more Ka'lor'ah continued to watch, the greater was her shock.

-----------

"It's no coincidence that both of us forgot about this incident. There is clearly some higher power at play." Ka'lor'ah spent no effort beating around the bush and directly declared.

"As high as I think?" Lucius questioned with a strange tone.

"As high as you think. Although, I will have to perform a ritual to confirm our doubts." Ka'lor'ah nodded her head and replied with a grim voice.

She then continued, "I guess this is what they refer to as, 'Out of the frying pan and into the fire.'"