Lord of Annihilation

Looking at the scene underneath him, Lucius had one question, 'How did she do it?'

His characteristically blank face was colored with surprise as Lucius was unable to hide his astonishment. His eyes were widened to the extreme and his jaw was slightly agape.

Lowering his flight, he approached the two unmoving bodies and observed them with his soul senses. Of course, the majority of his attention was placed on the dead Stage 3 corpse.

"Impossible. This should be impossible," Lucius absent-mindedly muttered as his fingers ran across the cut on the corpse's neck.

He then inserted his soul power into the body to obtain a detailed scan of its insides. Lucius even employed a few of his self-developed autopsy spells to procure greater information.

Stream after stream of data was transmitted through his soul power and filtered into Lucius' brain. He then proceeded to study the information with utmost seriousness. Seriousness equal to the time when he was facing the Lord of Fate.

'The outer body shows a lot of bruising. Assuming from their distribution and height of the bruising, it was caused by tremendous blunt force.'

'The inner organs are relatively okay, apart from a few ruptures and splits. A trace amount of sword energy seemed to have run rampant near the throat. Judging from its remnant scent, it's Olivia's.'

'The damage suggests that the victim was assaulted by a singular party and was not sieged by a group. From the scene, this party should obviously be Olivia, but it makes no sense…'

'It is evident that her attacks do not contain [Power Unity]. More so, she lacks the authority to slay a Stage 3 being by herself.'

This much was obvious and anyone could figure it out from observing the scene. However, what puzzled Lucius was the following statement.

'If this had been a group effort, then it would be understandable. The cumulative authorities of all participating parties would surpass that of the Stage 3 being's, resulting in the killing being possible.'

Per se, killing a Stage 3 being by a Stage 2 party wasn't entirely impossible. 

While a single person would not have the authority to kill if they were to lack [Power Unity], a group of people would be able to succeed as a result of their authorities cumulating with each other.

This cumulative authority would suppress the higher Rules of the Stage 3 being, making it possible to kill them.

Put it like this, during the final battle in Mankind against the Stage 3 Scrofanian, the group was not limited by authority and thus had a solid chance at killing the being.

This was because they had a large number of Stage 2 beings pooling together their authorities. This had allowed them to suppress the higher Stage Scrofanian and provided them with the opportunity to kill him with the Orbital Cannon attack.

Had that battle being lacking the dozens of Stage 2 soldiers present in the area, the Scrofanian wouldn't have fallen for that trap, no matter how muddled of a state he was in. His instincts would have kicked in earlier and he would've avoided that trap in its entirety.

In short, Mankind was extremely lucky for being able to fulfill all of these hidden conditions and deliver that blow. (Not that it worked in the end.)

The reason Lucius checked the body and the surroundings for the participation of other Stage 2 forces, even though it was borderline impossible, was because that was the only way to rationalize the current situation.

But there wasn't! 

The body lacked any remnant aura apart from Olivia's own and the surroundings also lacked traces of other beings participating in the battle. 

Olivia, who in every way shape, and form lacked the authority to suppress and slay a Stage 3 being had somehow magically succeeded in doing just that.

It was illogical, impossible, and most importantly, against the order of the Rules!

'How on earth did she—Wait! What's this?!' Lucius, who was lost in this impossible conundrum, was startled awake as he identified something queer within the Stage 3 corpse.

At a level even deeper than the corpse's cells, Lucius' soul power identified a minuscule trace of foreign energy. From his initials scans, Lucius verified that this foreign energy did not belong to Olivia.

In fact, the more he continued to dig at this strange energy, the more it confused him as Lucius could not match the foreign energy to any of the Rules that he knew of.

Imagine coming across an element that did not belong to the periodic table, while being familiar with all the other elements. Lucius' current situation was like that. 

His soul senses managed to identify energy that did not contain any of the properties that Lucius knew of.

And Lucius knew a lot. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that he had come across and fought against almost every Rule that made up this Universe.

While he may not be able to instantly recognize, it should at the very least invoke a familiar feeling within him.

However, this foreign energy failed to do so!

'What are you?' Lucius formed incredibly tiny threads with his soul power and moved to encircle this foreign energy. He wanted to trap and preserve this strange energy before it dissipated completely.

The cellular-level threads moved meticulously and surrounded the foreign energy. Forming a cage-like structure around it, Lucius then willed his soul power to trap it

Just as the threads were about to entrap that energy, a change occurred. The previously dormant energy suddenly became agitated, before turning volatile.

'What the—' Before Lucius could even finish his thoughts, the foreign energy exploded!

"Argh!" Lucius cried out in pain, as he suddenly clutched onto his head and threw up a mouthful of blood.

An incredible amount of pain was felt from within his mindspace, as his dormant soul, residing at the center of the Domain-island, furiously writhed from having received an attack.

That minuscule, almost non-existent amount of foreign energy had managed to inflict damage onto his soul!

'Must catch it!' 

Determination shone within Lucius' eyes as he bit on his lips to suppress the pain. 

Ignoring the pain from his soul, Lucius hurriedly controlled his soul power to find another remnant portion of that foreign power.

He did not know what it was, but whatever that energy was it had managed to ignore his 300-year consciousness, his cheat body, and managed to hurt the [Annihilator] soul.

One had to recall, the [Annihilator] soul refused to submit even in the presence of a Lord!

Lucius scored every inch of the Stage 3 corpse, scanning every single, individual cell. His soul power was abundant and his search skills were exquisite, allowing him to accomplish this task in mere minutes.

However, he could no longer find that energy. Or to be precise, there was no more of that strange energy within the corpse.

'Did I lose it?' Lucius thought despondently. 

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he then pondered, 'That energy is definitely not simple. Question is, why is it inside this corpse, and how? Was Olivia behind it? How? Was it the reason she was able to achieve this impossible feat?'

The more he thought, the more questions appeared within his mind. Just as Lucius was about to sink further into his musings, he was interrupted by a very alarmed Ka'lor'ah.

"LUCIUS! Are you okay?!" she yelled.

Recovering from his daze, Lucius calmly wiped the blood off of his mouth and replied, "I'm fine. There was something strange within this body."

"Well, there's no time for that! This girl is starting to lose vitality faster and faster! We need to get her to the ship before I can administer the treatment!!" Ka'lor'ah hurriedly spoke.

Only then did Lucius remember Olivia's precarious situation.

'Right, I can't let her die.' 

Immediately getting up to his feet, he first stored the corpse of the Stage 3 Sword-Winged Angel inside storage, before carefully picking up Olivia's body.

Ka'lor'ah's emergency first aid had allowed the skin on her body to partially recover. The profuse bleeding and stopped with much of the blood had dried and stuck to the surface.

Feeling her familiar body in his arms, Lucius could feel her slowly losing her warmth. With his keen sight, he could also see her skin faintly losing its color. 

It was clear that if Olivia wasn't properly treated immediately, she would definitely lose her life.

Seeing her like this, Lucius felt a strange feeling flash across his heart. It had flashed by too fast to properly discern what it was and Lucius had been preoccupied with other thoughts to accurately recognize it.

But still, one thing about this feeling was understood by Lucius. 

It was a feeling of loss.

Not as strong as the loss felt by losing a loved one, or even losing a pet. No, the feeling felt by Lucius was even smaller in magnitude. It was similar to how one would feel about losing a pencil.

Just enough to notice it but not enough to care too much about it.

"What are you standing and gawking at?! We have no time! Go, go, GO!!" Placing herself within Lucius' pocket, Ka'lor'ah hurriedly urged.

"[Void Travel]" Lucius spoke.

Shadows appeared beneath his feet and enveloped the three figures into it. The party then disappeared from the surface of the Cloud Cover Continent, with only a small, black line heading towards outer space.

After many surprises and twists, big and small, the trio's journey had finally come to an end within this planet.

----------

Inside a dilapidated stone building that was foreign yet strangely familiar, Olivia felt herself sitting on the ground.

Feeling the damp moss and cold stone underneath her butt, Olivia quickly rose to her feet and vigilantly looked around. 

'Where am I?'