Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Dumei prepared to explode herself in order to take out Alex and probably even Godslayer. There was no other choice for her in this scenario.

If she left this Spiritual Sea, she was going to get caught and interrogated. That was not an option here. Ever since they had planned this entire thing after catching wind of the tournament, they knew that they could not let the blame fall back on the demon race.

As one without a body, she had been the perfect choice for infiltration. This mission was a privilege and an honor for her to complete. And with the goddess’s blessing, she was going to do what she could, even if it killed her.

And so now, she was going to die.

She saw Godslayer raise his sword one last time and smiled. “Goddess, I come for your embrace.”

She gathered the power within her and—

The power never gathered.

Dumei hurriedly looked down to check what was happening and saw that she was trapped in a yellow fog that had appeared around her at some point. The fog consumed her body, draining all of the energy within her.

She could not gather what she needed to explode her soul.

“What… what is happening?” the woman asked, confused. She had known to get away from the fog when it first appeared, but she never knew how dangerous it was.

Now that the fog had grabbed her, it devoured her piece by piece.

Dumei felt her energy drain at a terrifying rate, and with each drain, her mind grew duller. Her Divine energy was being stripped away in its entirety.

Then, she felt a palm grab onto the back of her head. Her head was slowly turned around as she saw Alex looking straight into her eyes.

“You wanted my body for something specific. What is it?” he asked.

The woman grunted but didn’t answer.

“If it is something I can help with, I will,” Alex said. “Do not fight me, and I will take care of your troubles.”

The woman was angered at having her own words thrown back at her. “Just kill me. You will get nothing from me.”

“Alright, then tell me about Shumi. Why was she here? Where does she live currently? How can I meet her again?”

The woman looked at him and grinned, her eyes beginning to go into a daze from all the loss of energy. “You… you will… never get an answer… from-from me.”

Alex stared at her for a while before nodding. “Very well. If you won’t answer, then I will find it out by myself.”

The woman screamed as pain blossomed in her mind, like two hands digging into her brain and ripping it in half. She fought back, or at least tried to, but the draining yellow fog continued to devour her energy, making her weaker and weaker.

She continued to fight back, but at some point, there was nothing she could do. Her defenses fell away, and her mind went blank.

Then, she found clarity.

The woman stood underneath the overcast sky, but underneath her was a drained sea.

She looked before her to check for Godslayer, but he wasn’t there at all. She looked below her, and the yellow fog no longer covered her. She felt jubilant for a moment when she noticed something strange.

Her body had color again. The bluish tinge that covered her every time was no longer there. It was almost as if…

“So this is your creation.” Dumei heard the words behind her. She swiftly turned around and found Alex standing before a tall staff with spear tips on both ends.

It was her creation. She looked at it and then at Alex, who stood before it. Then finally, realization dawned upon her.

“This is my Divine Sea. How…”

Alex turned toward her. “You invaded my Spiritual Sea and tried to take over me,” he said. “I’m merely returning the favor.”

“No… how?” The woman was so speechless that she failed to form sentences.

“Only,” Alex continued, “I’m not here to take over your soul. I simply want some answers.”

The woman raised her hands, power coursing through her at the moment. “You should have killed me when you had the chance.”

She struck out with her power, sending it flying toward Alex.

Alex flicked his wrist, and the attack vanished. “I don’t think you realize just how weak you are right now,” he said. “You are far weaker than me.”

The woman stepped back in surprise. How had her attack been thwarted so easily by a mere Immortal?

“I must commend you still,” Alex said, looking around at the drained sea. “A Divinity truly is quite great. They can keep their wits even when they do not have any spiritual energy—or rather, I should call it Divine energy.”

The woman stepped further back, and Alex walked toward her.

“Don’t expect me to let you kill me without me fighting back,” she said as she pulled her Origin toward her.

“Kill you? No. If I wanted to kill you, I would’ve done it outside. No, I’m here because I want some answers, and you are going to give them to me.”

Alex dashed forward in a snap, arriving just before the woman. The woman fought back with her spear, stabbing toward him.

A fist-shaped energy flew toward the woman just before Alex arrived, and she failed to block it. Her mind slipped away for a second after the attack, taking a while to recover.

That was all the time Alex needed to slip in close to her and grab her. In her currently weakened state, he had all the power he needed for what he wanted to do next.

He grabbed her head with both of his palms and used the technique he had wanted to use for so long now.

Spirit Search.

A world appeared in Alex’s mind, a vision of his own face, with his hands stretching toward him, grabbing his head.

He saw what the woman saw at the moment, meaning his technique had worked on her.

The woman was weak, so she could forever be knocked unconscious at any point. And Spirit Search only worked in that small sliver between when a person was both conscious and unconscious. The realm of the dazed.

There were only so many questions he could ask as a result, so he needed to ask only the important ones. He couldn’t even waste his time with a test question.

So, he began with a question that had been burning within him for a long time.

“How did Killersky die?”

The vision he saw changed, images flashing. He saw a world of water, filled with islands. He saw Killersky inside a room in an alchemy guild. He saw her captured and then a large Spiritual Sea.

Killersky’s avatar was within that Spiritual Sea, fighting back against the woman but with no chance of victory. The woman captured her and then took over the body.

When she won over the body, Alex saw her burning away the corpse of a young man that was previously her.

Since then, she had been Killersky.

Alex was shocked. The memories he saw were not from the Medicine World at all. Meaning the Killersky he had known since the beginning had been this woman all along.