CHAPTER 145: MIND ARTS

The moment Nova appeared before the spectral Ghost, her body shimmered with a deep, violent glow. A ripple of purple aura coiled around her arm, swelling and tightening until it condensed into a cutting edge sharper than any blade forged by mortals.

She didn’t hesitate or cared whatsoever what stood in her way, or what the consequences might be.

Her hand, shaped into a slicing motion, swung downward in a vertical arc.

Shhhhrrrk!

The purple aura shrieked as it cut through the air.

The ghost never even had time to release its arrow. Nova’s vertical strike cleaved it perfectly down the middle, from skull to waist to foot. For a creature that was supposed to be untouchable immune to both physical steel and magical force the sight was impossible. Yet Nova’s rippling energy ignored every law, cutting the incorporeal form apart as though slicing through paper.

The ghost’s body shattered into dust, dissolving into invisible fragments that faded instantly into the air.

But her strike didn’t stop there.

The purple arc tore forward like a judgment from the heavens, an unrestrained slash brimming with destructive force.

It roared toward the spectator stands.

The crowd hadn’t even realized what had happened yet. Most hadn’t even seen the ghost at all they only saw Nova appear, her hand swing, and then an impossible wave of energy racing straight at them.

The speed was so absolute, so merciless, that no one had the chance to scream. By the time their instincts caught up, death was already upon them.

Selphira was the first to move. Her perception, honed beyond most people, caught the danger in the fraction of a heartbeat.

Her heart seized.

Nooo!

Her hands blurred through a dozen seals, her mana pouring out of her body in a flood. She wove it instantly into her paper transformation magic, folding her power into a construct harder than steel, denser than diamond or many harder magic metals, unyielding even against most S-ranked strikes. In a single breath, a invisible shield expanded before the stands, a wall of impossible strength that gleamed as though forged from divine will.

"Arghhhhb!" she roared, voice shaking as she anchored every last drop of her energy into it.

The purple slash met it head-on.

CRAAACK!

The sound was deafening.

The shield rippled like a pond struck by a meteor, distortions writhing through its surface before

SHRRRRRIP!

The entire barrier split down the center. Nova’s strike carved through it as though it were nothing more than paper after all, ripping Selphira’s proudest defense in half.

Her eyes went wide with horror.

The slash didn’t slow as it meet next protection dome.

Even the Platinum Invisible Protection Shield was ripped in half.

Now directly rippling past every piece of protection.

The spectators stared in frozen terror, the blade of energy reflecting in their wide, helpless eyes. It was so close now mere feet away. In another blink, it would cut through the stands, through thousands of bodies, and continue on, tearing through the capital itself. At that speed and intensity, it could level miles.

It was unstoppable.

Until

"Tckk~" The sound cut through, sharp and irritated, carrying the weight of tangled emotions moments before already. She snapped her fingers, platinum hair shaking with the motion. She knew she couldn’t stop the strike. But

And then

In an instant

The spectators vanished.

One moment they stood frozen before death. The next, every soul in the stands reappeared atop the opposite side of the colosseum, blinking in confusion, trembling with shock but alive.

The slash roared on.

But the colosseum itself remained in the path.

BOOOOOM!

The destructive wave carved through stone reinforced for centuries, formations layered into every block. Walls that could withstand armies and calamities alike turned instantly to dust. A tenth of the colosseum vanished, erased in the blink of an eye. A clean, circular gash ripped through its structure, as though a piece of cake had been casually sliced and removed.

And still the slash continued, roaring beyond the arena, toward the capital itself

Until Marcella appeared.

Her presence calm. One hand rested casually behind her back. The other extended forward, palm open, as though she were brushing away nothing more than smoke.

The purple wave struck her palm.

And disappeared.

Just like that.

No explosion. No struggle. No clash of titans. It was as if the destructive force had never existed in the first place.

Marcella’s calm gaze swept over the devastation, the missing slice of the colosseum, the scar cut deep into the earth. Her lips parted only slightly. No words came. No judgment. No anger. Only silence.

The empire’s monumental structure one of its historical symbols lay wounded.

But the woman remained still, her calm unmoved.

Back at the center of the arena, the chaos had not ended.

Nova’s body had barely finished cutting down the ghost archer when another figure emerged.

This one wore a ragged black robe, a long, cruel scythe glinting in its hands. The blade swung instantly, with no hesitation, aimed directly at Razeal’s neck.

The movement was impossibly fast. There was no buildup, no warning, no aura to sense.

"No!" Nova’s voice rang out, sharp and desperate.

Her instincts screamed after sensing this being.. this one was different. The pressure of its presence marked it as an eighth-ranked being powerhouse. Worse, its scythe was already descending, mere millimeters from Razeal’s throat.

Even with her speed, she knew she couldn’t make it in time.

Her body blurred into motion anyway, burning everything she had to close the distance. Her heart screamed: I won’t let him die like this!

But reality was cruel.

The scythe’s edge gleamed against his skin.

It was too late.

Her heart trembled. No... I can’t... I won’t be able to save him. It’s too close...

Even knowing Razeal’s fate was already sealed that his body was dying from the extractionbseeing him about to be erased like this tore at her soul. She wanted nothing more than to reach him, to stop it, to drag him away from the jaws of death.

But the enemy was not a normal foe.

These were the Ghosts.

Soul-type beings without physical or magical bodies. They existed in a state of non-presence, invisible and undetectable until the instant they struck. That was why no perception could find them, no matter how high the rank of the observer.

They were assassins of legend. The ultimate killers, moving in and out of reality at will. Only in the moment of their attack did they become tangible enough to harm and in that instant, their target usually had no hope of resisting.

Their attacks were slow compared to true powerhouses, yes. But they cut directly into the soul. Physical barriers and Magical walls meant nothing. Their scythes could pass through flesh and armor without resistance, severing only what mattered the essence of a person.

The wounds they inflicted lingered forever. At best, crippling. At worst, death.

And now, one of them stood inches from completing its kill.

The scythe’s blade kissed Razeal’s neck.

Nova appeared in front of him, but her hand was still too far away.

Her eyes widened, despair flooding her.

The strike was already made.

And she was too slow.

Her hand stretched forward desperately, but compared to the inevitability of that scythe, her movements felt unbearably slow.

But just then

A ripple.

A deep, purple ripple of energy burst outward, not with sound but with pressure an overwhelming, reality crushing pressure. The force struck Nova like a hammer. Her eyes went wide as her body was blasted away, thrown like a feather caught in a hurricane.

She slammed into the colosseum wall with the thunder of an explosion, stone cracking and crumbling around her as her body left an imprint in its side.

"Touching my son?"

The voice was calm, quiet, but it resounded across the entire arena like a divine decree.

From the shadows of despair, Merisa appeared.

Her hand, delicate yet trembling with suppressed fury, gripped the neck of the SS-ranked ghost. Its bodybnormally intangible, untouchable by both phisical and sorcery was pinned in her grasp as though it were made of fragile flesh. The scythe mid-swing pushed back in absolute defiance of its nature coming out from Razeal fleah it had almost cut off.

Merisa tilted her head ever so slightly, her purple hair shifting as she gazed at the creature with eyes burning in restrained madness.

"The audacity of the Death Reaper Clan... has it reached this high?" she whispered, her voice quivering between sorrow and rage.

Tears slid down her face. Or rather, they had. The shimmering droplets of grief that had not fall to the ground. Instead, they evaporated as they left her cheeks, transforming into drifting wisps of violet energy. Each tear became a fragment of power, dissolving into the air around her like the smoke of a fading fire.

All this time she had been crying too, watching her son about to die. But unlike Nova who could let everything go and simply rush to hug Razeal she couldn’t. Shame and guilt weighed her down. What would she do or say standing there in front of him? How could she, when he was dying? Wasn’t she the reason for all of this?

She tried to move, but her body refused. She was breaking down, lost in the storm of how to act, how to face him. She hadn’t been able to do it for the past seven days, only daring to watch him from afar. And now he was slipping away.

She had the strength to stand against the world, yet in this moment, she couldn’t summon the heartbor the courage to stand before him.

But the sudden appearance of someone trying to harm her son.. She just instictively shot towards it

Now

Her eyes cutting toward Razeal from the corner of her gaze.

The wretch had already struck, the blade grazing Razeal’s neck

not his body, but his soul, torn ever so slightly.

She said nothing. Only watched, silent, as her son bleeding from his little cut neck which already got healed visibly.

He was saved from strike.. This Ghost not able to kill.

Still

Her grip on the ghost tightened until the empty void that made its body trembled. She tilted her head to the side like a predator staring at prey. And then, her lips parted.

"Mind Arts..."

Her voice carried like a whisper from another world, heavy enough to make the entire arena still.

"Ninth Rank: Ultimate Spell. Universal Infinite Lock of Forever Torment."

The words themselves were power.

The ghost’s eyes widened, true terror breaking through its hollow expression. It struggled against her grasp, its form flickering violently as if trying to slip away into nothingness. But it could not move. Her words bound it. The rank of the spell alone struck it with despair.

And then reality itself cracked.

Above the colosseum, the air split open. A jagged tear ripped through the sky, revealing not light but abyss. A gate immense, shrouded in endless darkness loomed in the heavens. From within, chains erupted.

They were colossal, forged from a material not of this world, colored in shades of crimson and dark purple. Each link bristled with spikes that dripped with a corrosive glow. The chains shot downward at speeds too great for mortal eyes to follow, rending the very air with their passage.

The moment they appeared, a tremor shook every heart in the empire.

From the lowest beggar to the most exalted beings, from the weakest recruit to the strongest powerhouse, all felt the same thing instinctive, primal fear. Their chests constricted. Their lungs froze. Their souls screamed as if dragged toward the abyss.

Even Arabella, sitting high in her seat far above, bit down on her nail. Her voice irritated

"That mad woman... She actually used a ninth-rank ultimate spell... for a mere ghost?"

Her eyes locked on the sky, on the abyssal gate that bled malice into the world. Her heart throbbed with a fear she could not contain or resist. Even she one of the strongest felt it. It was not rational. It was not logical. It was instinct, etched into every living being.

Whatever lay beyond those gates was not meant to be known.

The chains struck the ghost.

There was no resistance. No evasion. The creature that could slip through matter, that could vanish from perception itself, could not slip free from those shackles. They pierced its incorporeal form as if it were solid clay.

Its body shriveled instantly, collapsing inward as the chains dug into its essence. But not a sound left its lips. Not a scream or cry. Silence terrifying silence as the being was consumed by the spell.

The chains pulled, dragging it upward. The ghost’s form was yanked into the abyssal gate above, disappearing into its eternal prison.

And then

Seal.

A colossal sigil, purple and vast, bloomed in the sky where the gate had opened. Runes twisted across its surface, pulsing with the authority of judgment itself. The ghost was locked away forever, condemned to endless torment within that otherworldly prison.

There, he would endure a torment no being in existence deserves, no matter the crime.

All of this happened in a fraction of a second. No one present had the chance to react.

The ghost was gone.

And the colosseum was silent.

Finally, after everything, Merisa took a deep breath, trying to steady her emotions. She forced herself to ignore what had just happened, shifting her psychological focus to her son. Anger and fury rippled through her, so strong she had even used ultimate spell.

She paused, her boots clicking softly against the broken stone as she turned on her boots and now stood face-to-face with Razeal.

The shadow of her figure fell over him.

"Mother..." Razeal whispered instinctively, seeing Merisa towering over him, her tall figure casting a shadow across his body. The moment the word escaped, he snapped his mouth shut, realizing what he had just said.

Argh... it must be because of that damn soul attack... Razeal shook his head hard trying to steady himself. His entire body felt wrong shaken to the core, not exactly by pain, but by a weakness that spread through his veins like poison. That ghost’s scythe hadn’t even cut him fully, but it had grazed his soul, and the aftermath was devastating.

Not to say blood already covered him in smears and splatters, though his flesh had healed over. It wasn’t the physical wounds or anything that crippled him it was just everything else. His senses were all shaken, unbalanced. His thoughts spun in circles, his mind whirling as though it had lost its anchor. And on his forehead, that eerie, glowing purple pearl pulsed faintly, releasing invisible ripples that distorted the air around him. The very essence of his bloodline ripped out of him, severed from its rightful place.

The natural reaction of his body to suddenly losing its bloodline was overwhelming, and yet miraculously he was still conscious. Still standing.

It was almost unthinkable.

Any other person, even the most powerful, would have collapsed instantly if really had survived death. But still Razeal somehow By sheer willpower alone, by an unyielding refusal to bend, he was still upright. Still holding on.

It’s a miracle I haven’t passed out already... he thought bitterly. But I won’t collapse. Not in front of her. No matter what.

Even though his body wobbled, even though he felt as if he might faint any moment, he forced himself to remain steady. Not a tremor, not a weakness shown before this woman. He refused.

He straightened his back, lifted his chin, and met her gaze. Cold, unflinching, expressionless. No warmth, no softness. Even though it was the first time he had looked into her face like this in years, his eyes carried only steel.

Merisa, on the other hand, looked down at him in silence. Her expression was unreadable, calm to the point of stillness, as though carved from stone. But inside her... millions of thoughts clashed like storms.

Her eyes lowered briefly, falling upon the small deep-purple pearl embedded in his forehead. The last fragment of his bloodline. The essence he had extracted shearing apart the bond that once tied them together as mother and child. That pearl represented everything: survival, defiance, and also distance.

He’s alive... even after bloodline extraction.

The realization struck her like a wave. A rush of enormous relief surged through her chest, so powerful it almost made her stagger. Her entire body, which had been locked in tension, slowly eased as the truth sank in. He had survived. Against all odds, against the law of history itself her son was alive.

But her eyes did not soften.

She saw the state he was in his soul wounded, his mind spinning, his body exhausted beyond endurance. She saw him struggling, refusing to collapse, fighting his own weakness just to stand tall in front of her. And she saw, most of all, his face.

That cold, emotionless mask he wore for her. A wall of ice. A refusal to show her anything no pain, no longing, no anger, nothing as if trying to lie to himself. And above all, she saw the pearl again. The severed bond. The undeniable proof that the connection between them had been broken. It stinge her honestly.

Her mind swirled with millions of emotions relief, guilt, sorrow, pride, shame but her face betrayed none of them. She remained as expressionless as him, an unyielding mask.

Then, slowly, she raised her hand.

The silence stretched for a heartbeat

And then

Slap!

The sharp sound cracked through the air, echoing across the fractured battlefield. Her palm connected directly with his cheek, turning his face to the side with the force.

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3k words this Chapter

Total of 8k words a day. Thank me later ❣️🤧

Big thanks for all your support we’re leading, guys! And also as you all can see, the Chapters are getting better😂 It’s tough not to show you the perspectives of other characters (since I usually do), but you all mentioned it makes the moments lose their punch, so I held back this time.

So yeahlet me know if it feels perfect or if there are any pointers you’d like to share.

This Chapter is sponsored by Yuri_IsNTR big thanks to him 🤧❣️

And of course, thank you all for reading. This took a solid 8 hours of work, no joke 🫡 straight writing grind.

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