Chapter 492: Ch
He exhaled a quiet sigh of relief. "As you command, Grand Marshal." With a sharp bow, he teleported off the bridge to execute the orders.
Left alone at the command console, Kalen stared forward into space, his face completely devoid of expression. He appeared totally detached from the chaos around him—but inside, he was anything but calm.
What no one on the bridge knew was that the Grand Marshal’s mind was in utter turmoil. The sudden instability from the enemy’s crushing offensive had cracked a spiritual seal he had maintained for countless years.
Deep within his consciousness, that ancient seal had finally shattered. His spiritual awareness was now fractured into two distinct entities, locked in a ferocious, silent battle for control of his body.
"Damn you, Kalen! You actually took advantage of my trust and hijacked my body?!" the original consciousness roared in fury. "I treated you like a respected elder, and this is how you pay me back, you old fossil?!"
"Shut your mouth, boy, and get back in your place!" the entity currently possessing Kalen snapped back, showing no mercy to the original soul. "If you refuse, don’t make me remind you of my old methods..."
The ancient soul tried to force the real Kalen to back down with those empty threats, but the true Kalen didn’t budge. Instead, he burst into a cold, mocking laugh within his own mind.
"Hehehe... You old fossil, do you really think I still fear you?!" the true Kalen sneered. "No way! You think I sat trapped in that seal for all these years doing nothing?!"
Saying that, the real Kalen unleashed a surging wave of spiritual energy that instantly paralyzed the imposter possessing his body.
Within the vast sea of consciousness, the dark domain held by the ancient soul began to recede at a terrifying speed, rapidly reclaimed by the real Kalen’s radiant power. Pure, blinding light swept across ninety percent of the mental realm, leaving the imposter clinging desperately to the final ten percent.
Just as the true Kalen prepared to deal the finishing blow, a divine golden light suddenly materialized from the depths of his soul.
The golden aura not only halted the expansion of the light, but it also shattered the restrictions suppressing the dark Kalen. Striking back with violent force, it pushed the boundary back, reclaiming territory until the dark entity held thirty percent of the mental realm once more.
The white Kalen froze in momentary shock. "You... You old fossil actually had a hidden card left?! But do you really think that tricks like this will be enough to save you?!"
"Hmph!"
With a cold snort, the white Kalen unleashed an even more terrifying aura—one that reached the very peak of the Law Comprehension Realm. Under this terrifying pressure, the suppression from the mysterious golden light began to buckle and recede once again.
"You... You boy!" the ancient soul stammered, his mental projection trembling in horror. "How... How could you have gained such terrifying strength when you were sealed away by me?!"
"For that, I have to thank you, old guy."
The white Kalen threw his arms out, appearing relaxed now that he had regained control over his physical form. All he needed to do now was completely erase the entity in front of him, though he knew that would take time. Still, having seized control, he was at ease enough to answer the question.
"If not for you..."
The white Kalen began recounting an incident from the Radiant Star System when they were exploring the other side of a wormhole.
Back then, he had been merely a low-ranking soldier patrolling in his ship, only to be ambushed by a powerful space beast.
Driven to his absolute limit, he was on the verge of death when this old fossil stepped in to save him—before falling into a deep slumber for years.
While Kalen had appreciated the rescue, he had always seen right through the old soul’s true intentions.
Later, while repairing his vessel, he stumbled upon a rare opportunity: a dual-path cultivation technique—or rather, an evolutionary method.
It diverged into two distinct paths: cultivating either purely through the soul or solely through the body.
Both were brutally difficult. For the body path, one had to seal away their own soul, while the soul path required cutting off all ties and locking away the physical form.
Yet there was a paradoxical catch: neither the soul nor the body could truly exist apart, even while all active connections between them had to be severed.
Hearing this explanation, the dark soul was stunned and deeply unsettled, unable to fathom such an esoteric method. Then, a sudden realization struck him through the shock:
"That means... I...?"
The white Kalen smirked, seeing him hit the mark. He gave a slight nod.
"Indeed. When you possessed my body, you inadvertently gave me the perfect way out. You granted me the exact conditions needed to practice this technique to a level where its restrictions no longer bind me—allowing me to reclaim my body and continue growing even stronger."
"You..." The dark soul pointed a trembling finger at him. "You—that is why you barely put up a fight back then! That’s why you had the leisure to curse me and swear you’d have your revenge!"
Hearing this, the white Kalen’s smile widened further—so much so that it began to look genuinely unsettling to the dark soul.
"And did I not fulfill my promise? At the very least, this is the beginning of it. While your possession of my body certainly helped me, it was still done against my will. I have every right to retaliate, and I intend to. And I promise you, old soul: I will repay what you did to me a thousand times worse. Just be prepared for what comes next..."
Saying this, the white soul raised his hand and casually clenched his fist. In an instant, the golden light shielding the dark soul shattered into fragments. His presence was forcefully suppressed, pushed back until he occupied a mere one percent of the sea of consciousness.
He was not directly wounded, but entirely compressed and immobilized. Yet escaping physical injury brought the dark soul no relief; being utterly subjugated like this was agonizing in its own right.
Worse still, chilling alarm bells began ringing violently in his mind, accompanied by the low rumble of gathering thunder.
Looking up in dread, he saw a bolt of white lightning crackling within the true Kalen’s grip.
Without hesitation, Kalen hurled it straight toward him.
"Noooo—!"
Before the dark soul could even finish his desperate plea, the lightning struck true. Pure, searing agony tore through every fiber of his ethereal form.
"Ahhhhhhhhhh—!"
Leaving the old soul to writhe in torment, Kalen withdrew most of his consciousness back to reality. Standing on the fortress command bridge, he turned his gaze past the viewport into the void of space, muttering under his breath:
"Even with my Law Comprehension Realm bordering near the peak, I still can’t lock onto their positions... Just how far away are these enemies? How could their effective attack range possibly be this vast? Since when did human technological capability advance to such an absurd level?"
Even though he had just retaken control of his body after thousands of years, the white Kalen was already fully up to speed with the ongoing situation. Through the faint link he shared with the dark soul, real-time thoughts and awareness had continuously filtered into him—a side effect of the subtle fusion their souls had undergone, whether he liked it or not.
This partial merger was the real reason he hadn’t simply destroyed the dark soul outright, despite having the power to do so. In a literal sense, they were currently two facets of a single existence—a truth the dark soul hadn’t even realized yet.
However, Kalen knew this balance was only temporary. With his refined technique, he would steadily scour away the dark soul’s independent consciousness until only pure, ownerless soul energy remained. Once stripped of its foreign will, he could absorb it entirely, perfecting his soul and becoming whole once more.
He quickly shelved those thoughts; he was in the middle of a brutal battle, and the enemy was formidable.
His worst fears materialized almost instantly. Through his divine sense, he detected a barrage of devastating attacks hurtling toward his armada at near-light speed. The sight caught him off guard—not just because of the extreme velocity of the projectiles, but due to the sheer concentration of mana packed inside them. Some even carried faint traces of conceptual laws.
How is this even possible?
Snapping back to the command deck, he roared through the comms: "Incoming hostile fire! All units, brace for impact—defensive barriers to maximum!"
The moment the words left his mouth, blinding flashes lit up the void. In the blink of an eye, the mid-level fortresses, defensive outposts, and all three massive Lunar Fortresses trembled violently under the high-intensity bombardment. The celestial behemoths shuddered as their energy shields flickered and warped under immense strain.