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*****
"What!"
Swain and the others stood in stunned silence, their faces etched with utter disbelief at George's words.
In their world, it was an absolute law: once a Beyonder lost control, the process was irreversible. Once they mutated into a monster, their humanity was extinguished forever. The only solution was a swift, merciful death.
To hear that a rampaging monster could be "restored" was a direct violation of the fundamental common sense every Beyonder learned before they even finished their initiation. To George's audience, his claim sounded as absurd as someone saying they could casually resurrect a dead friend.
While the twenty-two pathways certainly included sequences with healing or necromantic powers, none had ever been known to reverse a full loss of control.
"Is... is what you're saying actually true?"
Despite the impossibility of it, despite the violation of every rule he knew, Swain couldn't help but ask. Hope, desperate and irrational, flickered in his voice.
The man who had lost control had been his teammate for nearly thirty years. Together, they had hunted bloodthirsty water ghosts on the shores and tracked down fleeing cultists of evil gods beneath the waves. They had retired together to open this very tavern. He was the last surviving member of Swain's original squad from his days as a Captain of the Punishers—closer to him than his own blood.
If there was even a one-in-a-million chance to bring him back, Swain had to take it. He told himself that perhaps a high-sequence powerhouse possessed such miracles, and he was simply too low-ranked and ignorant to know of them.
"Old man... pull yourself together!"
The elderly Nighthawk standing beside Swain saw the glimmer in his eyes and felt a surge of pity, but he spoke up to offer a stern reminder.
At the sound of the old man's voice, the fog of desperation cleared from Swain's blue eyes, though he suddenly looked decades older. His reason returned. He knew that the restoration of a "Lost" Beyonder was an impossibility—a fact reaffirmed by the Seven Churches for centuries. If such a method existed, the upper echelons couldn't have kept it a secret, nor would they have wanted to.
Such unrealistic promises were usually the bait of Evil Gods. Cultists used these lies to lead the grieving and the desperate astray, promising the resurrection of loved ones, vast wealth, or eternal life. To pray to such a being was to invite a fate far worse than death.
"Old Neil, I suppose I really am getting old if I've started becoming this naive," Swain said, taking a deep breath. He turned a stern, sharp gaze back to George.
"If your goal is to make me believe in some Evil God of yours, forget it. State your identity immediately and prepare to return to the Church for investigation!"
"It's only natural that you don't believe me," George replied, unperturbed.
With a casual wave, he extinguished the blue flames. In a blur of movement, he leaped into the air and landed with a heavy thud directly onto the monster's head. The sheer force of the impact drove the beast to its knees, its claws scraping against the wooden deck.
"In that case, I'll perform the cure first. We can talk about my payment afterward!"
The illusory Samadhi True Fire flowed from the soles of George's feet into the monster's skull. The celestial fire began to sear the creature's soul, meticulously purging the corrupted Beyonder characteristics and driving them out of the spirit and back into the flesh.
Simultaneously, George precisely funneled his internal spiritual energy into the monster's body. Utilizing the Damage Transfer ability of the Magician sequence, he didn't just move a wound; he forcibly gathered and concentrated every stray bit of Beyonder characteristic within the body into a single point.
A standard Magician's Damage Transfer was limited to physical injuries—like the Clown murderer who had moved a bullet wound from his gut to his arm. As long as the user wasn't dead, they could turn a fatal heart shot into a minor flesh wound. However, none could do what George was doing: manipulating the very essence of Beyonder characteristics.
With George's perspective—born of the knowledge required to create entire worlds—it took only a moment of study to expand the applications of a Magician's abilities far beyond their intended scope. He was operating on a level a normal Beyonder couldn't even fathom.
"Done!"
Wrapping the concentrated characteristics in a dense shell of his own spiritual energy, George reached out and gave a violent "pull." With a sickening squelch, the clump of Beyonder characteristics was physically yanked out of the creature.
Without the influence of the characteristics, the monster's body underwent a rapid, jarring transformation. The scales receded, the distorted limbs shrunk, and within seconds, a sturdy, middle-aged man around fifty years old lay shivering on the deck.
"He's fine now. Just get him some rest, and he can return to a normal life," George remarked, tossing the glowing clump of Sequence 9: Sailor characteristics into the air and catching it.
"Oh, by the way," George added, "since I've removed his characteristics, he no longer possesses any Beyonder powers. He'll have to live out the rest of his days as an ordinary person."
The clump in George's hand was essentially no different from the "beyonder characteristic" left behind when a Beyonder died. The only difference was that he had extracted it while keeping the host alive. In fact, if a Beyonder were willing to remain still, he could remove their powers even without them losing control—and it would be much easier, as he wouldn't have to use the Samadhi True Fire to cleanse a corrupted soul.
Through his recent research, George had concluded that the essence of "advancing" by consuming a potion was effectively an experiment in gene splicing. One took the characteristics of a supernatural creature and refined them into a potion humans could absorb, granting them the creature's powers.
It was like grafting a bear's genes into a human to gain its strength. But since humans and bears are different species, the fusion was naturally unstable, leading to rejection. If the human spirit couldn't suppress the "bear genes," the body would collapse into a half-human, half-bear monstrosity.
The materials for the Sailor sequence primarily came from mermen, which was why this former Punisher had mutated into a fish-like creature. By forcibly ejecting those "genes" and purifying the soul, the person returned to their base human state.
His theory had proven correct.
However, George knew his limits. He could currently only restore those who had lost control at Sequence 7 or below, as his own spiritual energy was currently at that level. To treat higher sequences, he would either need to advance his own rank or find a way to convert his primordial energy into spiritual energy more efficiently.
Still, this was exactly what he wanted. If powerful organizations needed him to treat high-level members, they would be incentivized to help him advance his own sequence to make it possible.
This was one of the reasons he was willing to expose himself to the Churches and save the "Lost." If he just wanted money, he had a thousand easier ways to get it. He was looking for something much more valuable: access and progression.
(End of Chapter)