A head-splitting pain suddenly assaulted Reign as he tried his best to stand up.
He grabbed the queen's arm, but was powerless to do anything to her as merely lifting his arms with the suppression and pain working together was incredibly difficult. He tried standing, but his legs would not listen and soon, he found himself kneeling in front of the queen that was currently grabbing his head with both her hands.
"Shhhh, it will be over soon." The queen whispered as her eyes suddenly started glowing with a pale purple light.
Smoke started coming out of her body as a barely visible gray figure appeared above her, shrouded fully by the smoke.
That was her original body, the body where her soul lies even now, connected to the main body, but still not fully as it existed in a different layer.
The main reason why the queen wished to take over Reign's body was that she had seen the great potential he had and was certain that she could finally fully possess a physical body in this realm by taking his.
No more would her soul be left in another layer while the human body was in this one. With Reign's body, she could finally be whole.
The queen's body was oddly specific and difficult to keep as the soul and body were one, and her true body was not really physical, but more ghost-like. Her body was completely fused with her soul, and even with her great powers and knowledge, she had no way of transferring her soul over to a new body without including her true body as well.
It was highly adaptable and putting the body in a physical body was not hard, but it would force the physical body to deteriorate and die quickly, which was why the queen had created a special kind of spell that allowed her to form a connection to a physical body and control it by placing a small shard of her soul in it.
Her body always needed to be close to the soul, and if they were divided by a large distance, she would lose control of the body and the fragment of her soul would become independent from her.
This spell alone took the queen hundreds of years to develop, and even though it was the only way she was able to use a physical body proficiently in this world, it also had many disadvantages.
First of all, she was weakened after putting a fragment of her soul in the body, and she had to rest for a long period of time before both her power and the power of her other self reached Tier III, which was a far cry from her previous power, which was Tier V.
Controlling the body was also not easy and she needed to always focus in order to control and supply the body with power, and although she had managed to become very proficient in that, it was still not the same as controlling your own body.
The physical body of the queen was more of a puppet that was controlled by her true self, and that was one of the biggest reasons why her children never inherited her powers, and why her body was able to last for so long but was now stuck when it came to power.
The physical body lacked more potential, and thus, peak Tier III was the limit it could reach. If she was to increase the power of her true body and soul, then the physical body would follow and it would be destroyed during evolution.
But Reign's body was different.
His potential was enormous, much higher than any other human she had seen.
The power that allowed him to sense demons was somehow connected to souls, which was pretty much confirmed after she found out that he was able to fully destroy the souls of demons with his powers.
A powerful physical body that had a lot of potential coupled with his powers and strong soul made him a perfect vessel for her.
Thanks to his soul being very powerful and the special abilities he seemed to have, she was confident that there would be no problems with her putting her soul and entire spiritual body inside of him.
With that, she could finally use a physical body normally, and her powers would see a drastic increase after she had a powerful physical body that was fused with her soul and spiritual body.
Not only could she continue doing anything she wished to do on this planet, but she was confident that with such potential, she could rise higher and higher and reach even Godhood.
But there was a problem.
Even though she was attacking Reign's soul with her full power, she found that it was impossible for her to destroy it.
Damaging it was already incredibly difficult to be done, and she was only able to inflict great pain, but no injury to Reign.
She was befuddled by the result as she was confident that in terms of soul and methods of attacking it, she was miles ahead of Reign.
She pressed further and even increased the power to the fullest, but once again, she was unable to destroy or move Reign's soul out of his body.
'Something is keeping him safe and has anchored his soul to the body firmly, without destroying the source of that, I will never be able to take over his body.' The queen thought as she suddenly kneeled down and pressed her forehead against Reing's.
The spiritual body suddenly started becoming formless before getting sucked into Reign while her physical body collapsed.
She had decided to once again fuse the fragment of her soul that was inside the body with her true soul and attack Reign.
That meant that the physical body was now useless as such a fast and violent method of taking back the soul fragment had shattered the soul of the body and had left it uninhabitable to her. The queen was betting everything on taking over Reign's body, and even if she was to somehow fail, she could always retreat and slowly plot to get another body in the future.
She rarely did things that were of high risk, but this time, the reward for being successful was simply far too beneficial and tempting to her and she was unable to contain herself.
When Reign opened his eyes, he found himself located right in the middle of an ocean of lightning.
He was floating, even though that should be impossible.
There was nothing but gray clouds shrouding the area, the once boundless light and limitless darkness were gone, seemingly blocked by the gray clouds that were surrounding the lightning sea.
"So this is your mana sea, incredible." A voice suddenly spoke as Reign looked behind him.
A being that was about 1.5 meters tall floated above the sea of lightning.
The creature that was floating above the sea had only one leg and two arms while the head was incredibly tiny. No eyes could be seen on the face of the creature, and only a round mouth was visible.
There were no hairs on the head or body and only gray, shriveled-up skin that hugged the body tightly and showed the bones were visible.
"That voice, the queen?" Reign asked as the creature nodded before extending her arms to Reign.
He suddenly found himself unable to move and was lifted out of the sea of lightning.
The lightning tried to coil around Reign and protect him, only to be blocked by clouds of gray that appeared below Reign.
"AAaaa!" Reign screamed out loud as incredible pain took over his body, or to be better said, his soul.
The queen had entered his consciousness and was looking to completely annihilate his soul from within. She was now back in her full form, and her power was now at the low-grade Tier IV, something that was much more powerful than her previous peak Tier III strength.
With such power and a deeper understanding of the soul, the queen was much more powerful than Reign, and even fighting in his own consciousness where the sea of mana existed and boosted Reign was no problem for her.
She started twisting and turning Reign's body, breaking it slowly and painfully. His legs and arms twisted around and the bones broke, of course, that was mostly an illusion since it was his soul that was being damaged, not his body.
In a space away from the mana sea, Aethion looked at what was happening while the dark copy was next to him.
"Aren't you going to help him?" Aethion asked the copy calmly as the latter shook his head.
"There's no need to do so, she has intruded the mana sea, and with the barrier being so thin and frail right now, this will be enough to break it."
"Reign is going to awaken." The copy said in a low voice as a hint of worry could be seen in his eyes. Still, he didn't falter and stared at what was happening back at the sea of lightning.
As the queen was playing around with Reign's body and destroying it, she suddenly found that her clouds were dispersing.
Before she was able to figure out what was happening, the area changed.
Blinding light appeared on the right while boundless darkness appeared on the left.