Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 338: Death’s Reach

The moment the light faded from the undead ASB’s eyes, both Jamie’s Concretizations and Lapis’ domain deactivated instantly.

The Galaxy Sword reverted to its original form, the cosmic crest above Jamie’s head vanished, and the warped space surrounding him shattered like glass, dissolving into drifting motes of light and revealing the rest of Pinecone beyond.

As the ASB’s bifurcated body came fully into view, cheers erupted from the fighters in the Amphitheatre, their morale spiking to a new high as they threw themselves at the remaining space beasts with renewed fervour.

Meanwhile, Jamie spat out a mouthful of blood as the backlash from pushing his power too far finally hit him in full force.

If not for his immortality, he’d already be dead.

His body broke down from the strain, only for it to regenerate the damage, then break down again, and regenerate once more.

This cycle of destruction and restoration left Jamie completely immobile.

And the timing couldn’t have been any worse.

With the ASB’s corpse cleaved in two, the cores within, those Jamie’s last strike had deliberately spared through his use of ’Selective Destruction’, floated out into the vacuum.

Like the ones he had seen earlier in the Amphitheatre, they were massive, and equally massive were the cracks spiderwebbing across their surfaces.

’Fuck...!’

Jamie cursed at the sight, and a moment later, his worst fears were confirmed as the cores began to break, unleashing the ASB’s residual energy in a violent surge that tore through space like a solar storm.

Expelled alongside the torrents of unleashed energy were thousands of basketball-sized orbs of multicoloured light—the souls the ASB had devoured, now forcefully released.

And that, was a serious problem.

The sudden influx of so many disembodied souls triggered a response from the universal law of death, which immediately saturated the area with its presence and began scanning the existential records of the universe to verify the vital status of each soul’s owner.

Unsurprisingly, many of them returned the same four-letter result: DEAD.

And like all dead souls, the law of death began to shuttle them toward the underworld, moving even faster than usual, as these were souls long overdue for reincarnation by hundreds of millions of years.

It even had a special restricted section dedicated to handling cases like this.

And that, Jamie could not allow.

One of his main reasons for confronting the undead ASB had been the souls within. He couldn’t allow death to reclaim them until he’d sorted through and identified the specific ones he was looking for.

But at the moment, Jamie couldn’t even move an inch. His magic power and cosmic energy were completely depleted, leaving him unable to activate any of his Authorities to halt the law of death’s automatic retrieval process.

Not without a price, that is.

’Fucking hell!’

Jamie forced space to move his hand forward, paying no mind to the cracking sounds of his bones.

But the moment he did, a clear voice echoed across the Pinecone Galaxy.

|Angelic Death Authority.|

For a moment, the entire Galaxy went silent.

The released souls were instantly enveloped by a barrier of cosmic energy, shielding them from the perception of the law of death.

And if death could not perceive them, it could not act upon them.

Simultaneously, ’Death’ was decreed upon every living space beast and monster attacking any celestial body within the Pinecone Galaxy, regardless of their location, power level or resistance attempts.

As for those who were already dead but moved as though they lived, their state of ’Undeath’ was revoked.

The living became corpses, and the dead returned to being corpses.

And then, just as suddenly as it had come, the overwhelming presence of the Authority vanished.

But the brief time it had been active was long enough for Jamie to trace it back to its origin.

He lifted his head, his gaze piercing through space-time as he zeroed in on the source.

More than halfway across the universe, seated cross-legged atop the corpse of a dead titan and staring straight at him, was the strongest Nephalem of the Zanerth Universe.

Her obsidian-black pupils locked with his, and her lips moved.

[I’ll leave creating a new body for the boy to you.

Oh, and you owe me one now, Jamie. I’ll be coming to collect that favour soon enough.]

The voice of the Sixth of the Legendary Hybrids echoed in his ears, just as the cheers of victory rose across the Amphitheatre and the stars beyond.

◇　◇　◇

Pinecone had a LOT of cleanup to deal with.

Just when the Vampire Rulers expected Lapis to appear and oversee the recovery efforts, her presence vanished once again. When they turned to Christoph, her right-hand man, for answers, he simply passed on the instructions she had given him before she disappeared.

Lapis’ curse was a secret known only to a handful of her many subordinates, and those few made certain it stayed that way, no matter what.

As for her location, it was, of course, Anadus Prime.

Jamie had also returned to the Prime World after finally regaining the ability to move. The moment he teleported in, Rowena, who was already waiting, frowned deeply.

She tossed aside the half-dead bodies of the Cosmic Superiors she’d fought, their numbers noticeably fewer than when the battle began.

In Rowena’s words, two of them had been too weak, so she accidentally killed them.

But those Cosmic Superiors weren’t her main concern. Jamie’s condition was.

"At this point, even I can tell. What the fuck happened to you?"

In his current condition, Jamie couldn’t properly mask the extent of his power loss in front of someone like Rowena, who was already approaching the Quasi-Supreme Realm.

"It’s complicated," he replied.

"Well, un-complicate it," she shot back, sighing before continuing.

"I might look calm, but I’m internally freaking the hell out."

And understandably so. Rowena knew how powerful Jamie was, and that was precisely why she was struggling to grasp how, when, and why ALL of that power had vanished.

"Someone’s borrowing it," Jamie finally said, heaving an exhausted sigh as he collapsed into a chair in the building’s living room.

For context, they were inside one of Lapis’ secret houses, which she went to whenever she wanted to unwind or destress.

Naturally, it was buried beneath countless concealment barriers, enough that even Monarch Realm existences wouldn’t detect it.

Naturally, Jamie could still find and teleport inside, even in his weakened state.

Because, why not?

Rowena could too. She was simply that much stronger than anything Lapis could construct.

Now, then, let’s go back to her response to Jamie’s explanation.

"How the fuck do you lend ALL of that to someone? And for what purpose?"

"Like I said, it’s complicated," Jamie replied with a shrug.

"Well, un-complicate it!"

"That would mean starting with a story that predates my birth."

"...eh?" Rowena stared at him, dumbfounded.

Jamie was over 200 million years older than her. A story from before he was born dated back to a time before her ancestors even existed.

"Just what the hell have you gotten yourself into..."

"Preventing the Zanerth Universe from getting destroyed, that’s what."

Jamie’s response had Rowena blinking repeatedly. Then she sighed, pressing her fingers to her temples.

’Don’t think about it, Rowena. It’ll only give you a headache.’

The sudden inclusion of universal destruction had thrown things so far off course that she didn’t even want to follow the logic trail anymore.

Just as Rowena was trying to mentally escape from reality, Lapis, still in Davina’s body, teleported into the room, letting out an exhausted sigh as she practically collapsed into a chair.

Seeing her, Jamie also sighed heavily, reminded of how troublesome her situation was.

At that, Lapis casually lifted Davina’s shirt, revealing the dark patch now covering half her torso.

Of course, the curse remained. The ASB’s initial death hadn’t lifted it, so killing its undead corpse wasn’t about to dispel it.

"What the hell happened to you!?"

Rowena’s reaction to the malignant curse was completely natural, but a moment later, she froze, as her eyes and power over life told her there were two distinct ’Lives’ within the body before her.

One of them, was very familiar.

"...Lapis?"

"Hello, Miss Rowena. Thank you for your help with..." Lapis glanced toward the unconscious masked figures bound by vines and continued, "...them."

"That’s not important right now. Why are you in that child’s body? And what is that thing on your stomach?!"

Rowena and Lapis were well acquainted, both under the ’banner’ of ’Jamie’s disciples,’ so Rowena’s concern was understandable after seeing the horrific curse.

"It’s a story I unfortunately can’t explain without making things worse."

"..."

Lapis’ reply made Rowena’s expression turn difficult. She narrowed her eyes, analysing the curse, her face darkening further as she realised how terrifyingly deep into Lapis’ existence it had taken root.

Just as Rowena was about to ask another question, Jamie spoke up.

"Lapis."

"Yes, Sir Jamie?"

"Where is your original body?"

"...in a secure location."

Her response was just as Jamie expected. Lapis had not destroyed her original body in a bid to escape the curse.

"You’re sure that every single bit of that curse is currently within your soul and that body?"

"...yes, it is..."

Lapis raised an eyebrow, curious why Jamie was asking these questions, but he offered no explanation.

He simply got to his feet with a sigh and spoke.

"Then this shouldn’t take long."

She tilted her head in confusion, but Jamie still offered no explanations, only muttering under his breath.

"Mira might kill me for this."

Then, with a chuckle, he suddenly speed-blitzed Lapis, and before Lapis in Davina’s body could react, he sank his fangs into her neck.