The moment his fingers closed around the Corrupted Core, the world ceased to exist. No pain. No sound. No light. Only the assimilation.

Not the cold, icy rush of a lesser beast. Not the chaotic torrent of a human soul. This was different. The consumption of something ancient. Vast. A being alive for a thousand years. Its life force now twisted and poisoned.

It was a flood. A deluge of pure, unadulterated, and utterly raw power. A force so immense and corrupted that it threatened to obliterate his own consciousness.

The whispers in his mind were drowned out by a single, deafening, silent scream of a dying forest. A thousand years of slow growth twisted into a single moment of pure, agonized hatred.

His Soul Corruption, hovering at a dangerous 39%, skyrocketed. The number on his HUD was a frantic, blood-red blur. 40%... 43%... 46%... A runaway train. A meltdown of his very spiritual integrity.

The vines that had been crushing him went limp. Their power source was instantly extinguished. His body, now free, hung limply in the dead, thorny nest.

His own consciousness flickered like a candle in a hurricane. He was losing. The sheer, overwhelming volume of the Treant's ancient, corrupted soul was too much. It was not just a memory or an instinct he was consuming. It was a history.

A world-view. Silent thought that was now trying to overwrite his own fleeting, human existence.

He felt his own identity, the very concept of "Edward Ross," beginning to dissolve. To fray at theedges. To be subsumed by the ancient, sorrowful rage of the dying tree.

He was on the verge of becoming a mindless, raging monster. A human shell animated by the vengeful ghost of a corrupted Treant.

But in the deepest, darkest, most stubborn corner of his soul, something refused to break. The part of him that had defied the Crystal of Rejection. The part that had faced down the Inquisitor.

The part that had refused to become a murderer for a cold, mechanical god. It was his will. His indomitable, unbreakable, and utterly defiant will.

And in this moment of ultimate crisis, that will did something new. It did not just resist. It did not just endure. It fought back.

The whispers in his mind, a chaotic, screaming mob, were suddenly silenced. Not by the Treant's overwhelming roar. But by a new, singular, and utterly absolute voice.

His own.

SILENCE.

The thought was not a shout. A command. A declaration of absolute, sovereign authority over the warring ghosts in his own soul.

And they obeyed.

The chaotic, screaming voices of the Basilisk Queen, the Dire Wolf, the mutated Lord, and a hundred other lesser beasts were suddenly, miraculously, harmonized.

They did not disappear. Instead, they were bent to his will. Their individual rages and instincts were forged into a new, singular weapon. He was not their prisoner anymore. He was their master. Their king.

The overflowing, corrupting power of the Treant's soul, a flood threatening to drown him, was now a river. And he was the one directing its course. He didn't just consume the power. He dominated it. He seized it. He made it his own.

His HUD, a frantic, flashing screen of red warnings, went blank. Then, a new, golden text, a script he had never seen before, burned itself onto the screen.

[Soul Corruption threshold reached. User's indomitable will has forced a system-override evolution.]

[Class Ability [Soul Assimilation] has evolved into [Soul Dominion].]

[Soul Dominion (Active/Passive)]

Description: You are the master of the souls you consume. You can now momentarily manifest the spectral forms of the strongest souls you have devoured, forcing them to fight on your behalf. Each manifestation drains a significant amount of MP and places a strain on your own soul. Use with caution.

He had done it.

He had turned his greatest weakness, the haunting, maddening whispers of his victims, into his greatest weapon. He was no longer just a consumer of souls. He was a master of them. A king of a ghostly, captive army.

He opened his eyes. The pain was gone. The confusion was gone. There was only a cold, absolute, and terrifying clarity. He was still hanging in the nest of dead vines. His hand was still buried in the now-inert Corrupted Core.

Below, the battle was still raging. The Unchained were fighting a losing, desperate battle. Their forces were being systematically ground down. They were buying him time.

It was time to end it.

He took a deep breath. For the first time, he deliberately reached into the inventory of souls he now commanded. He did not choose the raging, chaotic spirit of the Treant. He needed a tool. Not a blunt instrument. He needed a specialist. He reached for the ancient, cynical, and magically potent soul of the being that had started him on this path.

He reached for the Lich.

"Come," he whispered. His voice was a low, commanding rasp.

From his own body, a plume of semi-translucent, ethereal blue-grey smoke poured out. It swirled in the air before him. Coalescing. Taking shape. It formed the spectral, ghostly image of the ebony-boned Lich.

Its empty eye sockets now burned with a cold, blue light of pure, subservient obedience. Not a perfect replica. A ghost. A phantom puppet animated by his will.

The spectral Lich raised its skeletal hands. It did not speak. But the air around it grew thick with a familiar, necromantic power.

From within the Treant's massive, wooden chest, a new sound began. A low, grinding, cracking sound. The Corrupted Core, which Edward's hand was still touching, began to splinter.

Black, cancerous veins spread across its crystalline surface. The Lich's phantom magic, channeled through Edward's own body, was attacking the Core from the inside out. A targeted, surgical strike of pure, unholy decay.

The Corrupted Ancient Treant froze. Its last, ponderous swing, which had been about to crush a defiant Fenris, stopped mid-air. It let out a final, long, groaning creak.

A sound of ancient, profound relief. As the source of its thousand-year torment was finally, blessedly, unmade.

The black, crystalline heart in its chest shattered into a million pieces of dull, inert rock.

And then, the entire, colossal creature simply… stopped. The malevolent red light in its eyes faded. Its massive, branch-like arms fell limp. It was no longer a monster. It was just a tree. A very large, very dead tree.

Edward pulled his arm free. He dropped to the ground. He landed with a soft thud at the base of the now-lifeless behemoth. He was drained.

His people, The Unchained, stared at him. Their weapons were lowered. Their faces were a mixture of relief, exhaustion, and a new, profound, and deeply unsettled fear. They had seen the black energy.

They had seen the ghostly form of the Lich manifest from his very being. They had seen him win. But they had also seen, with their own eyes, the true, terrifying, and ever-growing extent of his monstrous power.

He was becoming less of a man. More of a collection of vengeful, powerful ghosts. All bound to his singular, unbreakable will.

He stumbled. A wave of dizziness washed over him. He caught himself. His hand braced against the rough, dead bark of the slain Treant. He glanced at his own reflection. A dark, distorted image in the polished, black steel of his dagger.

But for a split, heart-stopping second, the face that stared back at him from the blade was not his own.

It was the face of the Lich. Its skeletal jaw was stretched wide in a silent, triumphant, and utterly horrifying smile.

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