Chapter 1223 Silver

As Claire fell from the sky and her body slowly disintegrated into nothingness, she gritted her teeth hard. There's still something that she hasn't tried and that's completely mixing her Holy Power and Demonic Power.

All this time, she's only partially mixing Holy Power and Demonic Power to take advantage of their volatile reaction that causes a huge amount of energy release. However, Claire knew that that wasn't the right way to use it. She can use both sides yet she could only use it to destroy each other. Just from that simple line of thought, she knew that she was doing something wrong.

In the first place, Claire had only been using the basic nature of both the Holy Power and Demonic Power. [Weapon Shaping] for the former and [Magic Conjuration] for the latter. Although it resulted in a very powerful arrow that could destroy high-level beings, it's nothing without its destructive capabilities.

As such, Claire went back to the true core of her Demonic Power and Holy Power which are [Worthless] and [Purification] respectively.

Claire knew exactly how these powers worked but no matter how much she tried them before, it'd just devolve back to the twisting mess of destruction it is. She just couldn't wrap her head around or imagine how she would combine the two of them properly, until now.

On the verge of death, Claire's eyes shined as realization and enlightenment dawned on her. The overwhelming fear that she's feeling right seemed to have been an illusion and her body that was being destroyed, became lighter. She lifted her arms and aimed her bow upwards. Without losing focus on the lights that were sipping from the outside world, Claire pulled her bow and the usual golden and black arrow appeared.

This time, however, the golden and black light was soon replaced by a soothing silver light.

It didn't have the same intensity as her previous arrows, but Kuruyashiki, the only other person watching her, shuddered at its sight, 'What... is that?'

With a newfound strength, Claire released the silver arrow upwards.

The same as a firework, the silver arrow went up slowly until it quietly exploded and rained down silver light, illuminating the whole dimension with its glare. It was the first appearance of what would be called the [Authority of the Silver Light] or the [Silver Light of Repudiation] in the future. The simmering light that denies all understood supernatural phenomena.

Kuruyashiki was blinded and used his arm to block the light. However, it was then that he realized that something appeared on his side and when he looked down at it, his eyes widened and his heart started palpitating, "Gagaku Kairou?" It was his trusted Zanpakuto in its most basic form.

The next moment, he found that the artificial dimension that his Bankai created started collapsing and the destructive nature of it had already disappeared.

"W-what's going on?" Kuruyashiki asked himself but he's not an idiot to stay unmoving. He found a crack to the outside world and intended to retreat from there. Unfortunately, he still doesn't realize the extent of what the silver light could do. Kuruyashiki circulated his Reiryoku around his legs, just as he would usually do when he uses Flash Step. But this time, the gathered Reiryoku only returned back to him, "!?"

Kuruyashiki tried a few more times but decided to give up on it. He then started creating a foothold to go to the hole but on his first step, even the Reiryoku foothold disappeared, "Dammit! What's going on!?"

Since it'd take too much time for him to escape, Kuruyashiki decided on a different approach and turned back to Claire who started regaining her balance in the air. Pointing his palm towards her, he shouted, "Hadou no 81! Ougon no Kokyuu (Breath of Gold)!"

But similar to his Flash Step, the Reiryoku he had collected produced a bit of golden light before returning back to his palm and doing nothing, "...Huh!?"

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After seeing Kuruyashiki's Bankai start disintegrating, Kisuke, Serafall, Kunou, and Tanis all sighed in relief, "That silver light is giving me goosebumps." Kisuke commented.

"You too?" Serafall replied back while rubbing her arms, "It's not destructive, but that light is an enemy of everyone who wants to manipulate the laws of the world."

"That's cheating!" Tanis immediately pointed out, "If she uses that in our sparring, I won't be able to use anything other than internal body techniques!"

But when Tanis turned to Kunou, she saw her still have this confident smile, "You can go around that?"

Kunou shook her head, "No. I don't think I can. However..." Kunou pointed at Claire who's struggling to breathe and shaking all over, "She won't be able to use that in our sparring. Look. After her mutation, she has the largest amount of energy by accessing both Holy and Demonic Power. But just after releasing that silver light one time already left her drained."

"Then should we help now? I don't think she'll be able to continue." Tanis turned to Ophis and Lilith while asking the question, "Although her opponent's abilities were sealed, he's still healthy."

Before Ophis and Lilith could answer, Serafall's hand landed on Tanis' head, "That's only true if the world was not the way it is. You forgot that she's currently the sole inheritor of all Faith right now."

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Claire reoriented herself while struggling to gather her breath. While it was just a single arrow, it drained all of her Holy and Demonic Power that she was finding it hard to even fly right now and materialize her bow. But just as Serafall had said, there's almost a near-infinite amount of unused energy out there for her to tap into. 

Without any restriction or guidance of any system, the ownerless Faith is for her to take as long as her body can handle it.

'I probably won't be able to walk for a few days...' Claire thought to herself while looking down on Kuruyashiki who was still clueless about what was going on, 'But there's no better time to end it than now!' She raised both of her hands and removed the seal that Kisuke and Serafall placed on her so that the Holy Power wouldn't cascade into her.

Claire knows that the purifying strength of the Holy Power had a significant effect on the [Chained], so she called everything that she could.

Answering her call, Hell's purple sky cracked and a whirlpool of power unknown to the inhabitants of this world started gushing out. Within just a few seconds, it formed into a giant golden cross.

Sadly, Claire overestimated herself. She didn't know how much she pushed herself by just releasing the silver light so at the height of her gathering the wild Holy Power, it went out of her control.

She thought that it was going to disperse when the safety seal on her reactivated and she was going to lose her chance to defeat her opponent. That's what Kisuke and Serafall thought too and were about to intercept in order to help until the giant golden cross suddenly stopped dispersing and actually further solidified into a much more stable condition when Claire was controlling it.

Kisuke and Serafall stopped on the spot. More accurately, they were frozen in place and looked at the middle of the giant cross with shocked expressions.

Along with the familiar aura, a golden silhouette of a woman with a bright halo and 12 Angel wings emerged from it. As she detached herself from the cross, they also heard a familiar voice, "Ah... I got connected."