Impeccable Body

The purple-black magic circle slowly unfolded.

Unlike the Teleportation Magic used for their previous escape, this time, Rachel was casting Soul Magic.

"Soul Magic usually requires a magic material that can protect and stabilize the state of the soul at a critical moment; your Golden Apple happens to be able to achieve this effect."

Following Rachel's instructions, Shane placed the Golden Apple in the center of the magic circle.

He then returned to stand opposite Rachel.

The girl raised both hands, fingers spread, with her palms facing Shane.

"Back in Azarath, my magic teacher once taught me a lesson on Soul Conflict Magic, and your soul is currently experiencing exactly that situation."

As the magic circle was continuously established and refined, Rachel slowly described the problems within Shane's soul.

"The past you have hidden contains a spirit that is dull and bland, which caused you to feel a strong sense of rejection when you were forced to absorb the culture and spirit of the Viltrumites."

"Due to the overly intense conflict of beliefs, and the emotions you forcibly suppressed in order to survive."

"Your soul and a portion of your mental power have split."

Shane's eyeballs darted around in their sockets as he watched those purple-black magic smoke tendrils pierce into the top of his head like tentacles, causing him to shake his head in discomfort.

"Uh, are you saying I have schizophrenia?"

"Don't interrupt!"

Rachel scolded coldly, then denied Shane's question.

"I don't know how Earth's medicine defines it, but you don't have schizophrenia; you have a soul fragmentation."

"To protect yourself from being driven insane by that hellish environment, your soul slowly split into two parts from the age of three, when you became a Viltrumite."

"One is the ordinary Shane, who holds a longing for a stable life in his heart;"

"The other is the Viltrumite Shane, who lacks emotion and, in order to protect the memories of his past, adapted to the culture and rules of the Viltrumites, even actively participating in competition."

The girl was silent for a moment, seemingly thinking of the boy with the hollow, grey eyes she had seen in his memories earlier.

"Because of your previous experiences, you easily mastered the survival laws of the Viltrumites. You knew that the more outstanding you appeared, the safer you would be, and the higher the probability of your future escape."

"But in the process of striving for excellence, everything you had to accomplish made your original soul more and more painful."

Seemingly reaching the critical moment of the spell, Rachel suddenly closed her mouth.

Her ten fingers danced intently, her expression that of a surgeon performing a high-difficulty suture.

There was one more thing Rachel did not say.

Shane's original soul had very likely been on the verge of completely becoming two entirely different souls under this continuous fragmentation.

At that point, it probably would have truly become schizophrenia.

The Viltrumite Shane would likely have stopped identifying with his past self from then on and would have attempted to kill that past self on a cognitive level.

But as it happened, Shane had a mental breakdown and an outburst at the age of ten.

This prevented his soul from splitting completely; from the perspective of magic, a blood-colored youth with only half a face, a detached expression, and radiating a thick, bloody stench was drifting behind Shane's back.

As the Soul Magic sutured him, that portion of the soul gradually sank into Shane's body, merging with his original soul into one.

Beads of sweat actually appeared on Rachel's forehead; it seemed the surgery had reached its most crucial stage.

Shane, on his end, was not having an easy time either; his brows were tightly locked, as if his brain were enduring some kind of agony.

He was gradually reclaiming those emotions he had lost for over a decade.

Killing other "unqualified" young Viltrumites.

Destroying "inferior" infants born prematurely.

Having over a dozen bones crushed by instructors as punishment for failing to meet training goals.

Traveling to other planets to carry out conquest missions with the goal of genocide.

Years of pent-up negative emotions were released all at once into Shane's initial soul, which longed for peace.

Shane's face turned beet red, and mist even rose from the top of his head; his brain matter was boiling under extreme pain.

"Urghhh—"

This soul-level pain was different from the physical-level injuries he had suffered in the past, to the point where he couldn't help but cry out in agony.

And out in outer space, a ring flashing with dazzling yellow light was hurtling toward Earth at high speed.

Some kind of mechanical voice, audible only on the soul level, was shouting incessantly.

"Intelligent Life locked. Zhent Thragg from the Virgo Supercluster, you possess the power to instill great fear in others!"

Rachel's gaze sharpened, and the Golden Apple placed in the center of the magic circle leaped into the air. The artifact, which even Shane's unconscious grip could not leave a mark on, was now being squeezed like juice, precipitating golden liquid.

Those droplets tumbled in the air, finally forming a ten-meter-long golden thread that merged into the center of Shane's brow.

The next second, a cooling sensation that suddenly enveloped his soul and brain allowed Shane to heave a sigh of relief.

Rachel also let out a long breath, lowered her hands, and once again examined Shane's current soul state.

The black Sinful Energy was decreasing rapidly, and the blood-colored soul body was no longer mottled, becoming pure and transparent instead.

A golden diamond-shaped gem, identical to the one on Rachel's forehead, gradually began to take form between Shane's brows.

But suddenly, Shane let out a muffled groan of uncertain meaning.

The itching sensation from three days ago struck again, and it came even more violently than any time before.

The speed of the Yellow Lantern ring, which had already broken through the atmosphere, gradually slowed down, and the "Recruitment Broadcast" became intermittent, as if it had lost its target.

Yet, the power of the Fear Spectrum still radiated through Shane's entire body for a brief moment.

Rachel's expression shifted.

"How could this happen?"

Under her magical vision, the blood-red color within Shane's soul was disintegrating at an incredible speed.

Even the golden gem between his brows was melting away like an ice cream under the sun.

In Coast City, Hal, who had been warned by Batman not to approach Gotham City recently, simply could not sit still any longer.

The Yellow Lantern ring was currently drifting back and forth thousands of meters above Gotham City, which was far too provocative to his professionalism and his job.

A streak of green light shot into the sky, and Hal flew toward the Yellow Lantern ring, gritting his teeth.

"Get out of here, there is no one on this planet you are looking for!"

The green light and the yellow light converged above Gotham City.

As the Green Lantern ring, operating at full power, bloomed with radiance above Gotham City, Shane could not help but groan again, though this time, the tone seemed rather comfortable.

Consequently, the Batcave exploded into chaos.

The Dark Knight watched as the various mixed energy curves on the screen fluctuated incessantly, while the Viltrumite particles inside the Observation Chamber began to evolve rapidly once more.

Batman did not like this feeling of things spiraling out of his control.

With a flick of his black cape, he chose not to deploy the Batwing to fly up and confront Hal, as the sudden arrival of the Yellow Lantern ring was indeed unavoidable; the other party was simply doing his job.

The engine of the pitch-black Batcycle emitted a low hum, and it shot off like an arrow toward Nightwing's location.

"Tell me you've found Shane!"

Nightwing, who had taken quite a while to relocate Shane and Rachel, was now dressed in his Superhero attire, lying quietly on the roof of the Abandoned Factory and peering inside through a rusted hole.

Suddenly hearing the commotion in his earpiece, he looked up to survey the yellow and green lights flickering in the night sky.

Nightwing carefully shifted his body, his voice lowered to a whisper.

"Yes, I've watched almost the entire thing."

"What is Shane's condition now?"

"How would I know anything about magic! But judging by his expression, it seems like a good thing?"

Rachel watched Shane, whose entire body was undergoing changes she couldn't comprehend, with a nervous look. Seeing his expression finally calm down, she couldn't help but ask.

"What happened to you?"

Shane lowered his head to look at himself, clenching his fists in surprise.

"I don't know what influenced me, but it seems like I've evolved?"

Rachel was stunned.

"You call this performance an evolution?"

"Do you know what is happening to you from the perspective of magic?"

"Your soul, the Divine Power of the Golden Apple, and the magic—they have all been absorbed by your body!"