Meanwhile, within Zara's mind space, Damien's efforts were being reflected clearly.

Immediately upon his intervention, the sheer level of Nox Mana polluting the spiritual works drastically decreased as if there was a leak in the space. For Zara, who was fighting with everything she had to survive, this change was a welcome one.

Currently, her fading form was in the center of the memory fragment tornado. Despite the chaos around her, she sat motionless and unfazed.

Her mind was split into countless different pieces, working to concurrently control the tornado, piece together the memory fragments, and hold together the spiritual world itself.

As for the main contributor to Zara's survival..

A small spark of light flickered in the depths of her spiritual continent. It was barely present, but its light was almost blinding. The light empowers Zara immensely, clearing her mind of corruption and allowing her to properly think and sustain herself.

With its help, Zara was able to make rapid progress. She felt a connection with the spark, and a connection with the memory fragments. With both of these existing concepts as a basis, she began building a foundation for the memories to connect.

'It all begins in the Motherland.'

She didn't know its proper name, since the Nox treated the name as a forbidden yet holy script, but she knew of the location's significance. It was the place where Nox came into existence, and the main perpetrator of their skewed existence.

'The Motherland is a place of eternal rest and bliss. Once one leaves the Motherland, they are never allowed to return.'

Zara's focus followed a man with a strong build and blurred face as he went through the stages of life as a Nox being born within their civilization. He grew, he devoured, and he became powerful enough to finally develop consciousness. After this, he finally left the Motherland and set out on his own journey.

However, the results of this journey were far different than he originally expected.

The events he experienced weren't made known to Zara through the memory fragments, but she was able to view the result..

The man rebelled.

He rebelled against his own race and fled to the Grand Heavens Boundary, eventually making his way to a small world where he lived in hiding for many years.

Zara's understanding of the man's life was limited. Rather than his actions, the memories focused more on other facets.

His power, his goals, his techniques, his skills, his mana utilization methods, and other factors such as these were prioritized over history. The information constantly flowing into Zara's head gave her a deep understanding of darkness, and a deep understanding of the Nox's own brand of Mana.

These memories opened up a new path that Zara had never seen before, using a mana that was far more complex than she'd ever expected.

Zara established a relative chronology within the memories as she continuously watched them. She was able to organize them into different categories based on their usefulness and contents so that digesting them was easier.

She didn't know how long it had been, but she knew that her previous hopeless situation was no longer a problem.historical

Something was guiding her.

A warm hand reached out to her in the dark and showed her the way forward.

Following it felt like the most natural action in existence.

At the same time, another warm energy comforted Zara. The spark of light in her spiritual continent settled within her chest, glowing dimly. Immediately upon feeling it, she sensed the connection it formed to a location unknown.

There were multiple factors rooting her to reality, and with their help, Zara didn't have to concentrate on maintaining her existence. She put everything into offense, fully taking control of the tornado.

VOOM!

The massive chaotic tornado began to slow. Its energy flow was wildly disrupted by multiple forces, and it wasn't able to maintain its momentum.

Zara didn't waste this opportunity. Her spiritual intent meshed into the tornado and painted it in her aura. Slowly but surely, it was becoming a concept under her control.

In the outside world, Zara's feral physical body also began to calm down.

Damien walked along her back and gently untangled the strange blue spots populating Zara's back and wings. Her tails swung from side to side, becoming strangely powerful as the pain in Zara's body was alleviated.

'She's been growing new tails with time for a while now. I don't know why I didn't realize that they're a manifestation of her power.'

A nine-tailed wolf wasn't a common species. In fact, Damien had never encountered another wolf species with tails like Zara's, which resembled a fox more than a wolf.

Thinking these idle thoughts, Damien slowly made his way to Zara's head. His actions were like a relaxing massage, allowing her body to lose its aggression and calm down.

By the time he made it to her glabella, she was already laying down on the ground, somewhat unresponsive.

'I know you're awake in there. When you come back to your senses, I'll give you a little surprise.'

Damien smiled lightly. Zara had an immense affinity for darkness and anything related. It was to the extent that her mana would passively observe the properties of a strong enough darkness that it encountered, the same way it devoured and incorporated the Nox.

Then, if Damien used his new Samsara Intent to inject her Mana Stream with clean Death Mana, wouldn't she become even more powerful?

With this thought in mind, Damien placed his hand on Zara's glabella and began slowly unraveling the final knot he could see. The strange blue spots that the "flow" showed him were almost completely gone.

The glabella, however, was a gateway to the spiritual world. The damage in this area far exceeded anything else Damien had seen in Zara's body.

'I guess I'll also get an opportunity to practice..?' He thought hesitantly.

Samsara Intent flowed from his hands, emanating a strange and contradicting aura. Life nourished and Death decayed. Reincarnation acted as the glue between these opposing forces that allowed them to work in conjunction,

Life Mana brought power to Zara's body and healed her. Her mana flowed smoother, her bodily systems were cleared of impurity, and her mind received yet another burst of clarity.

Death Mana was the cavalry. It moved to directly attack the traces of corruption in Zara's body, clashing against the variation Death Mana as if it wanted to prove its superiority to the latter.

And finally, as these two laws worked on attack and support, the essence of reincarnation covered defense. A swirling vortex of Reincarnation Laws acted as a master of redirection, disallowing for any negative energy to gather and become lethal.

'This is good. The prison realm's atmosphere must be helping somewhat. The amount of resistance is far less than what was present in the Real Plane.'

Damien sighed in relief as he supported Zara. If things continued on this trajectory, there wouldn't be a problem with bringing her back to peak condition.

But as he was thinking, he suddenly remembered the outside world's situation.

'Aha, we've been gone for a bit now. I wonder if the reinforcement team ever arrived..?'

A majority of the situation was already cleaned up by Damien and his squad, but reinforcements couldn't hurt, right?

The only thing that worried Damien was how they'd react to his disappearance.

'I guess I should head back soon..'

There wasn't much else for him to do in the Sanctuary after healing Zara. The time to return to reality was rapidly approaching.

'Zara will need to rest for a considerable amount of time to digest her gains this time, and I..'

'I still have a mission to accomplish.'

Damien's eyes briefly turned cold.

Previously, he didn't have any personal stock in his task, however, the Nox had decided to change that.

With a new vendetta fueling his actions against them, he surely wouldn't hold back.

Calypto's end was already on the horizon.