Eren had been using his soul sense amateurishly.
What he had been doing before this point was to use spiritual energy in its most basic form– to analyze the world around him in a deeper way. Or to overwhelm his opponents. As such, he hardly made use of his spiritual energy at all.
This was the first time Eren actively sought connection with his soul space. As a result, he finally found a way to employ his spiritual energy in his attacks.
Eren's fists were coated in spiritual energy when he attacked Nira Nightshade. And the attack finally managed to hit the apparition that was the Sage archer.
In the current state of his spiritual energy mastery, Eren could not use the spiritual energy in his elemental spells. But Ken's Fist Arts gave him a way to attack the Sager archer.
After getting over the initial shock, Eren started attacking Nira Nightshade with all he had. He didn't care about his spiritual energy expenditure at all. He just wanted to embrace the feeling of using spiritual energy so that he could make a habit of using it.
***
Snap.
Eren used his ability again. But he could not heal all of his injuries this time. Instant Reset had hit its limit. What's more? He felt extremely exhausted mentally. As if he hadn't slept for months on end. The over-expenditure of spiritual energy had its drawbacks after all. He was struggling to keep his eyes open and not sleep where he stood.
Nira Nightshade's apparition had gotten blurred so much that her image became translucent. Eren's spiritual attacks paired with Ken's Fist Arts had worked. Plus, Alephee was done with her job too, hurting Nira even more.
"How... how did you lie so fluently to me?"
Nira Nightshade asked with a weak voice that wasn't devoid of her pride as a Sage ranker. She had accepted the fact that she had been defeated at this point. The butcher smiled lightly before answering her.
"Hehe. It's simple. There's a part of me that believed my own lies until I didn't have to."
Blink.
When Eren punched Nira Nightshade's apparition this time, it shattered like a mirror before exploding into a million pieces. Only then did he allow himself to fall to the ground flat on his stomach.
The butcher had a smile on his face as he embraced a well-deserved nap inside Sage's castle.
***
"Eren…"
Eren heard somebody call his name from a distance. He felt like his consciousness was drifting into an endless void without a sense of direction. The voice that was calling out to him was like a harness that was trying to pull him back.
His eyes opened slowly, only to reveal the blurry figure of a young woman wearing a black dress. She looked at him with a concerned look on her face.
"I told you you were not ready to use spiritual attacks. You would have been dead meat if it wasn't for this safe place."
Alphee's admonishing voice was heard by Eren. However, her reality check failed to wake him up. He was still drunk in his slumber.
"I broke the array but we don't have much time. You need to wake up if you want to claim Nira's legacy for yourself."
These words from Alephee finally did the trick. The urgency forced Eren to awaken from his slumber.
He had swindled a Sage to get information from her. He had destroyed her vestige of the soul to prevent any leak of information about his Spirit Beast. There was no way he would let the rewards of his efforts go to waste after suffering so much.
Eren sat straight and looked around. He was still in a bit of a daze and everything looked blurred to him. He still felt extremely exhausted and he had a killer headache.
It took a while before his vision started returning to normal.
"Let's… let's go and…. woah…. !"
Eren was about to get up from his position using Alephee's hand that was offered to him as support. However, he was shocked by seeing Alephee's current condition, which was horrible, to say the least.
"Fuck… what happened to you?"
Eren channeled his C-rank mana throughout his body and found the strength in him to get up. He immediately got closer to Alephee before taking her in his embrace.
Alephee's flesh was melting.
She was trying to keep the flesh from completely liquefying using her time-element spell. It restored major parts of her body, enabling her to walk and function as normally as she could. However, it was obvious that she was in even more of a pinch than Eren.
"It's… it's nothing. Just some consequences of operating on the Sage-rank array."
Alephee tried to sound as normal as she could. But Eren could tell she was struggling as well. And the struggle was not just physical. She had also used a lot of her spiritual energy to interfere with Nira's array mechanism. He wouldn't have been able to eliminate Nira's apparition if it wasn't for Alephee's contribution.
Eren smiled mirthlessly before speaking to her.
"No brownie points for acting tough.
How much time will it take for you to recover?"
Alephee chuckled while being supported by Eren's embrace. She rested her head on his chest and replied.
"Not sure. Maybe a few weeks. Anyhow, I don't see a complete recovery before the event ends.
So I suggest you don't mess with the other three Sages."
Eren chuckled before caressing the back of her head.
"No promises. But I'll try.
Rest now. I'll handle everything here."
Alephee nodded before disappearing into the pendant's abode. She had used a lot of the trump cards she had been collecting to break the Sage array. The homunculus had gone above and beyond in executing Eren's plan. She needed to recuperate after doing what was considered impossible even by Nira Nightshade.
After Alephee disappeared from the scene, Eren shook his head vigorously to get rid of any mental and physical fatigue he was feeling. He regretted the fact that he couldn't use his expensive potions to fix himself instantly due to Sansara World's restrictions.
Despite this, he soon found great motivation, which made him forget about his mental and physical fatigue. He had to say that Alephee had done her job well. She had summoned every precious item Nira Nightshade had stored inside the castle into the hall.
A Sage ranker's legacy was waiting for him to claim it.
