In the midst of that deadly chaos, amid the growling of the beast that was pursuing Dex through the corners of the transparent dome, a subtle yet fundamental change occurred in the battle's rhythm.
Dex, who had been constantly pushed backward and showing signs of exhaustion, suddenly stopped attempting to block Sylvester's attacks directly.
When the abomination lunged toward him again, raising both clawed hands to crush the young man's skull, Dex did not raise his sword to deflect. Instead, his body relaxed completely in a fraction of a second.
With an extraordinarily fluid, silken motion, he used [Shadow Step] to slide sideways by no more than the width of a palm. Sylvester's poison-filled claws passed beside Dex's ear, to collide with devastating force against the transparent void wall, producing an enormous collision boom and leaving the beast open and exposed for a brief moment due to the errant force of its own charge.
Dex retreated two agile steps backward and stood in complete calm. He watched the beast turning with difficulty, hampered by its enormous muscular mass and the rage that blinded its every instinct.
"You are very powerful now, Uncle," Dex said. His voice was not trembling, nor was he shouting to overcome the battle's noise, he spoke in a cold, calm, and simultaneously provocative tone.
"Your physical strength is terrifying, and the mana flowing through your veins would suffice to destroy an entire cavalry battalion. But, this power of yours is borrowed, temporary, and above all, it is empty of any will or true purpose."
Dex's words, though the beast did not comprehend their deep meaning, the tone of contempt and steadiness within them intensified the boiling of the corrupted blood in Sylvester's skull.
"I will crush you! I will drink your blood!" the beast growled, and began hammering the ground with its feet like a raging bull preparing for one final sweeping assault, concentrating every last remnant of its black mana into its claws until they became so dense they began to drip like a viscous black liquid.
In that decisive moment, Dex closed his eyes for a single instant. He gathered every atom of his concentration. The magical core at the center of his chest, born from the womb of phoenix fire, began to pulse with a force and violence without precedent.
[Phoenix Legacy Secret Art: Purification by Flame]
The shape and nature of the flame enveloping Dex's body and sword began to change radically. The violent phosphorescent blue, distinguished by its destructive heat, began to withdraw slowly toward the periphery.
In its place, from the center, an immaculate white appeared, blindingly bright and painful to the naked eye. This white flame, what had increased was not merely its physical temperature, but more importantly it had acquired ancient and sacred magical properties: Purification.
A fire that does not burn physical bodies alone, but burns sins, devours corrupted mana, and cleanses existence of corruption.
Dex opened his eyes, his pupils having transformed to a radiant white. The phoenix aura now did not merely collide with the black poison aura, it began pressing upon it, penetrating it, and dissolving it upon mere contact.
When Sylvester attacked this time, hurling his massive body like a poison-filled catapult shot, fully expecting Dex to flee or evade as usual, what happened was something the beast's slow mind could not absorb.
Dex did not retreat a single inch.
Quite the opposite, he took one decisive, wide step forward, heading directly toward the center of the danger, penetrating the circle of his uncle's completely open defenses exposed by the reckless breadth of his own charge.
"This is the end you deserve!"
Dex declared, his voice ringing like a church bell on Judgment Day. And with a lightning-swift, precise, fluid motion, like water flowing from a waterfall, Dex delivered a direct thrust.
It was not a thrust aimed at immediate killing or piercing the heart, instead, he drove the blade of his white-blazing fire sword deep into Sylvester's right shoulder, specifically into the center of the magical node that was pumping the compound toward his arm.
Sylvester expected, by his animal instinct, ordinary physical pain from a sharp weapon penetrating his flesh. But what happened was worse, deeper, and more terrifying than any physical pain.
The pure white fire was not content with burning flesh and severing muscles. The moment the blade entered the abomination's body, the purifying flames seized the toxic black mana flowing like rotting rivers through Sylvester's veins.
And they began, like a hungry predator that had found its prey, to devour that mana with voracious, insatiable greed.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
It was not merely the scream of a beast, it was the scream of a person burning from the inside outward. A scream that tore the silence and crossed the void barriers, its terrifying echo reverberating inside the transparent dome as though cursed souls were being tormented.
This was the pain of spiritual and physical purification simultaneously.
The site of the deep thrust in his shoulder did not bleed a single drop. Instead, the wound began to boil, to bubble, then to evaporate with force.
The black corrupted flesh, the swollen veins, and the concentrated toxic mana that had granted him that fantastical power, all were transforming under the effect of the purifying phoenix flames into thick white smoke rising toward the dome's ceiling and dissolving into nothingness.
In a fit of panic and terror surpassing the mind-numbing effect of the compound, Sylvester attempted with great force to retreat, to pull the blade from his body in a desperate attempt to save whatever remained of his soul. But Dex was waiting for precisely this.
Dex extended his left hand, also blazing like a torch of pure white light, and seized Sylvester's other shoulder with force, driving his fiery fingers into the corrupted flesh, pinning the massive beast in place like nails of light.
"The forbidden compound you swallowed burns your life energy from within to grant you illusory power," Dex said, his face very close to the beast's, his gaze penetrating the darkness in his uncle's eyes. "And this sacred fire of mine, burns your sins, your corruption, and your betrayal from without."
Dex looked into the beast's two crimson eyes. With every second that passed, with every ounce of corrupted mana that burned, the compound's effect on the mind began to fade slightly.
Dex saw clearly a flicker of consciousness returning to those eyes: a flicker carrying pure human terror, and a horrifying awareness of the abyss into which he had hurled himself. Sylvester had returned to being human at the very moment he began tasting true death.
"You are burning twice, Sylvester," Dex whispered with the firmness and severity of a judge executing a death sentence. "Once because of your blind greed and your arrogance, and once more, finally and definitively, by the sword of my justice."
Dex did not wait for a response, but increased the pumping of pure white mana from his core to its absolute maximum.
The blue and white flames spread swiftly from Sylvester's shoulder, covering his broad chest entirely, then creeping to embrace his neck and his extremities. The flames began devouring the poison and the darkness with a ferocity that knew no parallel.
Under the effect of this merciless purification, Sylvester's swollen and disfigured body began to contract and shrink, like a balloon being emptied of its toxic air.
The enormous muscles dissolved, the claws fell away, and the black mana that had terrorized the space moments ago dissipated completely before the overwhelming flood of phoenix light.
Sylvester fell slowly to his scorched knees, incapable of raising his hand, incapable of defending himself. He watched with two eyes to which their whites had returned, yet filled with tears of despair, his body slowly dissolving.
He screamed, but his voice, which had thundered only minutes ago, began to weaken and deteriorate gradually, transforming into a faint and pitiable moan.
In that final moment, kneeling before his nephew blazing with the light of victory, Sylvester Williams understood the absolute truth: he had lost his final gamble, lost his city, lost his dignity, and that death and eternal oblivion were coming inevitably, not as punishment, but as the inevitable consequence of every one of his black choices.