Chapter 35: Pompey's Collapse and Paimon's Optimization Power
Every gaze locked onto the slumped figure beside the boiling shores of the Fire Lake. It was the Overlord of the Outer Ring himself—Pompey.
Caesar was the first to break from the frozen crowd. She sprinted forward, her boots kicking up scorched earth, and dropped to her knees. With careful, trembling hands, she turned Pompey over and supported his heavy shoulders.
The sight that greeted them made the onlookers suck in sharp, ragged breaths.
Pompey's eyes had entirely lost their fierce, commanding luster, replaced by a glassy, unfocused stare. His face held the sickly, ashen pallor of crushed paper. His chest barely rose, his breathing so shallow and erratic it was almost imperceptible over the bubbling of the nearby lava.
But the true horror lay beneath the surface. Ominous, purplish-black veins pulsed beneath his skin like parasitic worms, spreading a toxic web across his neck and jaw. Worse still, jagged, glowing Ether crystals had already torn through the flesh of his arms and face. The horrifying Ether corruption was running rampant through his system. One could visibly track the agonizing process as new crystal clusters slowly forced their way out of his body, tearing muscle and skin in their wake.
Wise's eyes widened behind his calm facade. "Such severe corruption!" he exclaimed, his analytical mind racing to calculate the sheer volume of lethal energy ravaging the Overlord's body.
Before Caesar could even process Wise's warning, Lucy's panicked voice pierced the heavy air from the water's edge. "Caesar! Something's happening to the Fire Lake! There are Ether crystals sprouting everywhere! What do we do?!"
Caesar's jaw locked. A vein pulsed at her temple as she slammed her right fist into the scorched earth, cracking the stone beneath her knuckles. "Damn it! What exactly happened here?!" she roared, her voice thick with frustration and mounting dread.
"Uncle Pompey! Wake up!" Caesar grabbed Pompey's shoulders, shaking the massive man with desperate vigor. He was the only one who could possibly explain the catastrophe unfolding around them.
The jarring motion, combined with the agonizing pain of the crystals, seemed to drag a sliver of Pompey's consciousness back from the brink. He struggled to focus, his cloudy eyes darting wildly before finally settling on Caesar's face.
He opened his mouth to speak. Instead of words, a series of wet, guttural gasps tore from his throat, immediately followed by a violent, wracking cough. Thick, black blood splattered across Caesar's armor, mixed with tiny, razor-sharp fragments of purple crystal.
Pompey knew his body was failing. He could feel his life force draining away, bleeding out into the corrupted earth. He was beyond saving. Yet, in the suffocating darkness of his fading mind, a single, burning thought remained: he had to expose Lucius's conspiracy. He had to reveal the truth behind the Fire Lake!
Summoning the absolute last ounce of his waning strength, Pompey forced his trembling, crystal-encrusted hand upward, desperately trying to grip Caesar's arm. Broken, animalistic sounds scraped against his vocal cords as he fought to form a single name.
Just then, Lumine and Paimon exchanged a fleeting glance.
No words were needed. Forged in the fires of countless worlds and endless battles, their bond allowed them to communicate volumes in a single heartbeat. They knew exactly what had to be done.
"Paimon!" Lumine commanded, her voice a low, sharp growl. Her golden eyes narrowed with the predatory focus of a hunting eagle.
Shing!
In a flash of silver, Lumine drew her sword. She angled the gleaming tip diagonally toward the ground, her entire posture shifting into a stance of chilling, absolute vigilance. She stepped forward, her boots planting firmly in the dirt, physically driving a wedge between Caesar and the dying Overlord.
"Caesar," Lumine ordered, her tone leaving absolutely no room for argument. "Step back."
The sheer, oppressive weight of the Traveler's battle-hardened aura hit Caesar like a physical blow. Intimidated by the sudden shift in the blonde girl's demeanor, the leader of the Sons of Calydon subconsciously released her grip on Pompey's armor and staggered two steps backward.
Caesar didn't understand what was happening, but the solemn, unwavering certainty in Lumine's eyes sparked a tiny, desperate hope in her chest. Perhaps these strange outsiders actually had a way to fix the impossible.
Above them, Paimon's small figure had already darted through the air, hovering directly over Pompey's chest.
The usually cheerful fairy's face was pulled taut with intense concentration. Her big eyes narrowed, locking onto the spreading corruption. With a sharp exhale, she clenched her tiny fist forcefully in the empty air!
Buzz—
A ripple of pure energy distorted the space around her hand. A heavy, metallic wrench, glowing with a soft, radiant silver light, materialized out of thin air into her grasp. This was the physical manifestation of her "Optimization Power"—the absolute cheat she relied upon to purify Abyssal taint and eradicate multiversal erosion!
Through his clouded, dying vision, Pompey caught a blurry glimpse of the glowing silver wrench hovering above his head.
In his despair, a bitter thought crossed his mind. He assumed this strange floating creature was offering him the only mercy left in the Outer Ring—a swift, blunt-force execution to spare him the agony of turning into an Ethereal monster.
His only regret was failing to expose the true culprit. He didn't know if Caesar, Lucy, and these bizarre newcomers could save the Fire Lake, let alone the rest of the Outer Ring. As his vision darkened, the chaotic memories of his life began to flash before his eyes in rapid, fragmented bursts.
Pompey let his eyes slide shut. He abandoned his struggle, his tense muscles going slack with a hint of relieved resignation as he awaited the final, crushing blow.
"Get better!" Paimon shrieked, mustering every ounce of her cosmic strength. Her small, round cheeks flushed a deep pink from the sheer effort as she swung the glowing wrench down in a vicious arc, aiming squarely for Pompey's forehead!
Instead of a sickening crunch, the wrench phased smoothly through Pompey's skin, sinking directly into his corrupted body.
In an instant, the world erupted in light.
An incredibly complex, breathtakingly exquisite golden magic circle—spanning nearly a meter in diameter—flared to life directly beneath Pompey's back! The circle was woven from countless microscopic runes and flowing streams of liquid light. It began to rotate with a slow, deliberate grace, projecting an powerful aura of solemn sanctity. A comforting, radiant warmth washed over the immediate area, feeling exactly like the gentle embrace of the winter sun breaking through heavy clouds.
Even the violently turbulent Ether energy saturating the air seemed to flinch, forcibly pacified by this gentle, overwhelming power.
"!"
The Astral Express crew—Stelle, Dan Heng, and March 7th—alongside Wise, all held their breath. Their eyes widened, completely transfixed by the miraculous scene unfolding in the dirt.
This was the first time they were witnessing Paimon wield this ridiculous, reality-bending power to reverse corruption and purify defilement. It was also Paimon's very first time deploying her system cheat outside the boundaries of her own universe!
The absolute, rule-bound authority radiating from that golden magic circle shocked the Express crew to their core. Its warm, golden light physically pushed back the oppressive, burning destruction radiating from the Fire Lake.
But if the Express crew was surprised, the three members of the Sons of Calydon—Caesar, Lucy, and Wright—were fundamentally shattered.
Caesar's jaw hung slack. Lucy's eyes were wide enough to crack. Wright, usually the picture of unflappable cool, slowly reached up and pulled his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, staring in absolute disbelief.
Reversing Ether corruption?!
For them—people who had spent their entire lives surviving in the shadow of the Hollows, constantly dancing on the razor's edge of being violently mutated by Ether energy—this was not just a miracle. It was a myth. It was a fairy tale told to dying scavengers.
The sheer magnitude of what this power represented for the Outer Ring, for every single soul struggling to survive the Hollows, was utterly incalculable.
Lucy instinctively slapped both hands over her mouth, violently swallowing the panicked orders she had been about to scream at Caesar. A moment ago, she wanted to smash the Ether crystals with flint. Now, she realized that the sacred purification process happening right in front of her could not tolerate a single micro-ounce of interference.
She forced herself to take shallow, silent breaths, terrified that even the scuff of her boot might shatter the magic, ruin the cure, or trigger an unpredictable disaster.
Every eye remained glued to the center of the golden array.
As the liquid light flowed through the runes, a translucent, silver phantom of Paimon's wrench slowly emerged directly above Pompey's head. It hovered there, rotating with a steady, rhythmic hum.
With every rotation, brilliant specks of golden sparks burst outward, hissing and popping in the air like slag being hammered from a glowing blade on a blacksmith's anvil.
The eradication of the Ether corruption had officially begun.
To the absolute astonishment of the locals, the process was moving faster than anyone could have predicted. The horrific, purplish-black veins bulging beneath Pompey's skin visibly receded, shrinking back into nothingness as his flesh slowly regained its natural, rugged color.
Even more miraculous, the jagged Ether crystals embedded in his arms and face began to react. Like dirty ice exposed to a blazing summer sun, the hard, glowing structures began to melt. They disintegrated piece by piece, dissolving into wisps of pure, harmless purple Ether energy that drifted up and safely dissipated into the atmosphere!
"It really works!" March 7th squealed, unable to contain a bright, ringing cheer, before immediately slapping both hands over her mouth with a guilty wince.
However, just as the collective tension began to leave the group's shoulders, the atmosphere violently shifted.
Mixed within the harmless, dissipating purple Ether energy, a dense, sticky, and deeply unsettling black gas began to slither out from Pompey's pores!
This black smoke carried a foul, suffocating stench of decay—a rotting, venomous aura that was fundamentally incompatible with the raw, chaotic nature of pure Ether.
"What is that?" Stelle's voice dropped an octave. Her brows snapped together as she tightened her grip on her Flame Lance, the weapon immediately roaring to life with a low, aggressive hiss of fire.
Lumine's knuckles turned white around the hilt of her sword. She shifted her weight, leaning slightly forward on the balls of her feet, her muscles coiled like springs, ready to intercept any sudden mutation.
Paimon, who had immediately ducked behind the safety of Lumine's shoulder, didn't hesitate. She thrust her hand out, her face a mask of fierce concentration, and instantly summoned a second glowing wrench. If Pompey mutated now, she was fully prepared to give the Overlord another brutal, point-blank strike to the skull.
The emergence of this foul black gas painted a terrifying new picture. Pompey hadn't just suffered from acute Ether corruption. He had been secretly, methodically poisoned. Lucius had planted an insidious, chronic venom deep within the Overlord's system!
This toxin had clearly taken deep root in his organs long before today. Even without the violent, sudden surge of Ether corruption from the Fire Lake, Pompey's days had been strictly numbered. The concentrated Ether had simply acted as a catalyst, creating a devastating internal and external assault that rapidly accelerated his total bodily collapse.
Fortunately, the horrifying black smoke was fighting a losing battle.
The silver wrench phantom hovering above Pompey's head reacted to the new threat. It suddenly increased its rotation speed, spinning into a blinding silver blur. The golden sparks bursting from the phantom grew exponentially denser, showering down over Pompey's body like a meteor shower.
A fierce, invisible war was raging within the Overlord's veins, and the golden light was taking no prisoners.
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