Chapter 1059: Corrupted Maiden Nyla's mouth opened in a soundless scream as more of her body began to vanish, but the expression on her face was strange, it was filled with happiness and pleasure. Even in the face of her incoming destruction, she had never felt so alive. A Temple Maiden was expected to become the perfect vessel of the Wills of the Ascendants. They were to serve as watchers, guardians, and witnesses, and they were never to falter in their duties. It was written into their Creed. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺 They could never know love or have a family, their duty was the first and the most paramount aspect of their existence, they could only find solace in the end when their task was complete, for they carried within them the legacy and the burden of all Temple Maiden that had come before them. On whatever day in the future that this endless battle ended, either in favor of Calamity or Ascendancy, then a Temple Maiden would be there as a witness. This task was a burden that all Temple Maiden had borne with grace, but the weight of it was truly heavy. And so Nyla found to her great delight that Calamity Aura, which she once thought was ruinous in its purpose alone was only scratching a small part of its property, and the closest word she could find for the new dimension it showed her was... passion. She had once wondered what it would be like to live inside the body of a Calamity beast that was not mad and in full control of its emotions, and now she thought that she had finally peeked beyond that curtain, and she delighted in how unexpected and rich everything turned out to be. Everything was dialed up to eleven, different from what Explorers felt when they reached the Enlightened Rank which mainly boosted the perception of the Explorer. In this instance every single emotion she had ever felt in her life, from sorrow, rage, happiness, lust, and anger was heightened to a ridiculous degree... yet they were not overwhelming, for as they came into her mind like a storm, they fell into an endless abyss, because it seemed Calamity would accept the emotions as they come without any limits, and it made them feel good. It gave her a drastic realization about her past experiences that made all the suffering and heartache she had endured as a Temple Maiden seem so childish, and she wanted to weep in joy because she knew she needed to bring this enlightenment to every Temple Maiden across the entire realm. Nyla discovered that Calamity gave her a fresh perspective on life. Everything she had experienced had no bearing on her emotions. The rain did not fall because she was sad, nor would the sun stop its setting because she was feeling lonely, all her emotions were hers to control, and in fact, Calamity did not care about the sort of emotions she had, it would accept them all, for they were good. Her body continued to shatter to pieces, as her life signs began as faint as those of an ant. In death, she had never felt so alive. "Thank you.... Thank you.... Thank you..." her soul kept screaming. R Rowan watched as Nyla was brought to the edge of dissipation. Her entire limbs and torso were gone, shattered into pale glowing smoke, and of what was left of her head, only a wide grin and crazy eyes remained, in a few seconds her head would explode and she would fade away, no matter how many times she was resurrected, this would be her fate. Her soul was not just weak, the corruption Rowan had placed in her mental faculties would make her Aura incredibly explosive, ensuring she would never live past a few minutes at the most. Rowan would never allow this to happen after reaching this point. That would ultimately be a waste after all the time he took to prepare her. Opening his right palm, a swirl of black and red smoke manifested that was interspersed by red lightning, as a fiendish storm took shape, and within was a creature that resembled a nightmarish vision of a spider, crab, lobster Chimera with a woman's face whose body pulsed with scarlet flames. Bringing his hand over the grinning mouth of Nyla, he shoved the Shiik into it, and the creature adjusted itself inside the fluid mass that made up the skull of the mortal, and finally settled into her brain. Inside its new home, the Shiik opened its mouth and began to feed. The death energy was abundant all around it as not only was Nyla a Deific Ranked Explorer, but her flawed but unique insight into the nature of Ascendancy and Calamity ensured that the death energy she produced would have killed hundreds of Deific Ranked Explorer. She was now simply toxic. Her influence was a corruption and the Shiik gleefully fed on that energy and in return, it gave her vitality. Nyla's mouth opened wide and a stream of energy and essence began to slither out of it, transforming into blood, flesh, and bone, and before long Nyla returned to her previous state. She appeared flawless, but her soul was still dying, dissipating even faster than before, but a brush of Rowan's finger across her brows fixed that issue, filling her up with ten times the amount of soul energy she previously had. With the addition of the first portion of his consciousness, Rowan was finally able to solve the mystery of the unknown vitality that had been entering his body even as a mortal infant. It turned out that even though he could not manipulate soul energy consciously with his limited mind, he had been unconsciously transforming soul energy into vitality. Once he understood this, it was as if a lightbulb went off in his skull. Rowan's greatest source of strength was his ability to utilize soul energy as a resource, the ultimate resource. His greatest asset had finally returned to him, and the entire dimension of the oncoming battle had been shifted in his favor. He instinctively understood that for what was coming ahead, he needed every advantage.