With a sharp crack, the severance was complete, like a thread snapping under unbearable tension.
The moment Velquin's soul was fully torn from Vlad's being, the last anchor that let Vlad conceal himself within Trevaris through the power of phoenix was also ripped away, exposing him at last.
At the same time, a faint crack split through Shannon's domain as Velquin's soul tore free. The power of phoenix had been fully unleashed, and the immense drain on her tenth tail power was beginning to show.
The domain, once unshakable, was starting to unravel. That crack was no mere tear but a warning.
No one had the chance to celebrate the rescue of Velquin's soul. Vlad, now forcefully expelled from Trevaris, turned into a surge of black fog and lunged straight for the fissure in the domain.
Hearts that had just begun to settle now jolted in alarm. Without hesitation, everyone unleashed their strongest strikes in unison, hurtling toward the fleeing shadow.
Their supernatural strength might not be enough to destroy the malice completely, but right now, they shared a single resolve—restrain Vlad.
Outside Shannon's domain, he would be harder than ever to destroy. Then and there was their last, best chance. He had to be stopped.
The same thought struck both Shannon and Benjamin in perfect synchrony. The domain was damaged and too far gone to mend in an instant.
However, it didn't need to be repaired; it just needed to be sealed.
A sudden blaze of golden light flared at the breach, streaking toward the crack with the same desperate speed as Vlad's shadow. It became a race.
In the end, it was Benjamin's golden light that reached first. Just as Vlad lunged for the tear, the golden light transformed into a barrier.
The golden light, an embodiment of the Divine Power's fortune, was supposedly anathema to malice, a force that evil instinctively feared and fled from.
Yet Vlad's form slammed straight into the golden light barrier, light and darkness colliding in a flash of searing brilliance.
The edges of his twisted form began to burn away, eaten by the radiance with terrifying speed. But even as pieces of him disintegrated, he surged forward, clawing at the crack, desperate to escape.
"If you could hear me, help me. Let us end him—together," she prayed.
Something stirred at that moment. Grass at her feet trembled gently, as if waking from a long slumber. In the very next heartbeat, life bloomed.
Throughout her domain, nature surged. Leaves unfurled, vines coiled, flowers opened toward light that had not been there before.
Her eyes snapped open. The presence of the Ten-Tailed Elythune rushed forth with that bloom of life and filled the domain.
From the golden-glowing rift in the sky, ten massive, snow-white fox tails erupted outward like divine spears of judgment. The blinding radiance of the tails struck before Vlad could escape.
Carrying the overwhelming might of the Ten-Tailed Elythune, the impact didn't just scatter his shadowy form. Instead, it forced it back together, dragging every wisp of his fragmented soul into one place.
Then, the ten tails unfurled in full, each turning to a luminous pillar and nailing his soul into the ground of the domain.
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