The Sickened Luna's Last Chance novel Chapter 498

Ella’s POV

“Consume a lost soul?” I repeated.

Maria nodded. She stood and walked closer to the edge of the cliff, looking down at the writhing mass below. The green glow

cast shadows across her face.

“The crystal needs energy to pull you back,” she said. “A soul contains that energy. But you’d have to take it completely. The spirit wouldn’t be able to move on. It would just… cease to exist.”

My stomach dropped. “So you’re asking me to erase someone’s soul.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything.” Maria turned back to face me. “I’m telling you what’s possible. What you choose to do with that information is up to you.”

I looked down at the sea of souls. They were still screaming, still reaching up with translucent hands. How many of them were down there? Thousands? Millions? And I was supposed to just… pick one and destroy them forever?

“I can’t do that,” I whispered.

“Then you’ll be trapped here.” Maria shrugged. “The procedure will finish. My fathers will pull my soul into your body. And you’ll end up down there.” She gestured to the sea below. “With the rest of them.”

I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering even though it wasn’t cold here. It was impossible for it to be cold here. But I felt frozen inside. “There has to be another way.”

“There isn’t.”

I thought about Lucien. About Alexander. About my mother, still trapped in Richard’s clutches. If I stayed here, if I became one of those lost souls, what would happen to them?

But how could I destroy someone’s spirit just to save myself?

“What about Margaret?” I muttered, more to myself than Maria. “Her soul has to be down there somewhere. She was evil. If I consumed her-”

“No.” Maria’s response cut through my musings. “You can’t consume an evil soul. Or rather, you can, but there would be consequences.”

“What kind of consequences?”

Maria walked back over to me. “A soul carries everything the person was in life. Their memories, their emotions, their nature. If you consume an evil soul, all of that darkness would become part of you. It would corrupt the crystal, twist it into something dangerous.”

“So I’d become evil?”

“Possibly. Or the crystal would reject the energy and kill you anyway.” She sat back down beside me. “You need a pure soul. One that’s innocent. And it has to be given willingly.”

“Willingly?” I laughed, a hollow, dry sound. “Who would willingly let themselves be erased from existence?”

Maria didn’t answer.

I stood up and paced along the cliff’s edge, my mind racing. A pure soul. Given willingly. That meant that I would have to find someone who was innocent enough that their soul hadn’t been corrupted, but also someone who would agree to this. To complete and total obliteration.

“How long do I have?” I asked.

Chapter 498

+25 Bonus

Maria glanced up at the sky. The storm clouds were darker now, swirling faster. I had never seen them do that before. “The procedure is already progressing. I’d say you have maybe an hour. Maybe less.”

An hour to find a willing soul and consume it before I was trapped here forever. Perfect.

I started walking along the cliff, scanning the sea below. Maybe I could find someone. Maybe there was a spirit down there who wanted to end their suffering, who would see this as a mercy.

But as I looked at them–really looked at them–I realized how wrong that idea was. The souls in the sea were trapped, yes, but they were still aware. Still themselves. What I was proposing would erase that entirely.

I kept walking, Maria following a few steps behind. The cliff seemed to go on forever in both directions. The screams from below never stopped.

“This is impossible,” I said after what felt like forever. “Even if I found someone willing, how would I even do it? Just… reach down and grab them?”

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