Reborn as an Extra Chapter 576: One more Final Gamble, Both or None! Part-1.

"By fusing yourself into this isolated fragment of the spirit realm... doesn't that mean you'd end up getting tainted by corruption indirectly if this area falls victim to it as well?"

Upon catching Rio's inquiry, Ellie paused for a moment before responding,

"Back when I discovered this spot hundreds of years ago, the miasma wasn't nearly as vigorous near it... yet since I bound myself to this location, the miasma has grown intensely lively all around..."

"It keeps attempting to taint the grand seal nonstop, only to be cleansed repeatedly... and the exact same cycle applies to me... I'm stuck in an endless loop of taint and cleansing..."

It looked like Ellie was concealing plenty of secrets, yet Rio held back from probing further, aware that it could stir up the agony she was fighting hard to bury.

As is widely understood, miasma possesses a semi-aware nature; it probably singled out Ellie as its plaything right from her birth in this spirit realm, during her initial corruption.

The greater her defiance against the miasma, the more relentlessly it would scheme to erode and shatter her, intensifying its torments.

The miasma had inflicted the identical fate on Alverto and Aurora, and it was no different for the initial Lia, who gradually succumbed to corruption over time, enduring torment right up to her final moments.

Miasma acts like that 'relentless stalker' type, persisting in scheming against you regardless of how vigilant, defiant, or mighty you strive to be in opposition.

After it designates you as prey, a grim fate is practically guaranteed.

Not even the mightiest awakener in history, King Allen Von Reinhart, appears to have triumphed in his ultimate clash with it, since he vanished after venturing into the boundless miasma ocean and never came back.

Clearly, Ellie, marked as a target since her very beginning, couldn't have evaded its clutches without a fierce struggle.

While the grand seal's purification enchantment aided Ellie in mending and purging the miasma impacting her, she remained perpetually caught between taint and cleansing.

That not only placed an immense strain on her spirit and psyche, but it also brought excruciating pain from being repeatedly scoured clean from within by such potent purification spells.

Magic of purification at this intensity can even touch a person's soul, and since it operates on autopilot without a healer's guidance, any tiny error could wipe out Ellie's whole memory straight from her soul.

Under those circumstances, the most favorable outcome might involve erasing every memory and turning into an empty vessel.

The direst possibility would mean the collapse of her sea of consciousness, leaving her in a vegetative state.

Should that occur, she'd linger as an undead shell that defies decay.

'Maybe getting summoned serves as her method to venture into the outer world, since she can't step out herself...'

'To her, it's essentially a retreat from her harsh reality...'

Any entity originating within the spirit realm gets classified as a 'Spirit' by the realm itself, allowing summoners from the external world to call them forth as vital projections.

That explains why, upon the death of a summoned creature or being, its projection vanishes completely, and resummoning the identical one demands reconnecting with the source entity, or you'll never bring back the same presence.

Similar to Neo, the majority of modern summoners avoid forming deep ties with their summoned creatures, given the slim odds of reuniting or recalling them after death.

Plus, amid grueling fights and endless dungeon assaults, it's all too common for summoned creatures to perish and fade away.

Building warm connections with all your creatures would shatter your heart each time one falls and dissolves.

Liam stands out as one of the scarce summoners who genuinely values his summoned creatures.

Truth be told, Liam hasn't suffered the loss of even one summoned creature to date, despite tackling numerous dungeon incursions and fierce combats.

He's clashed with foes like Rio and Link, and still, his summoned creatures endure to this day.

The primary factor behind this lies in Liam's staggering and vast mana reserves.

Liam's inaugural summoned creature turned out to be a top-tier S-rank shadow dragon—namely, Ellie!

Even before awakening, Liam possessed such abundant mana that he could invoke an S-rank dragon and retain plenty to forge a binding pact with her.

With Ellie's assistance afterward, he expanded his mana storage through her, essentially turning her into an external mana reservoir, and subsequently acquired 'Mana Field,' boosting his mana utilization to the point where depletion was never an issue.

Armed with these stacked perks, Liam's summoned creatures received tremendous enhancement surges from him, growing so formidable that they rarely fell, even against adversaries like Rio and Link.

That's chiefly why Liam has kept every single one of his summoned creatures intact; his innate gifts made it virtually impossible to sever his link to them.

His present predicament stems solely from the betrayal by his own father, who plotted against him starting from the instant of his birth.

'Not even the father of the original Rio was that monstrous, for all his neglectful ways...'

Rio's dad, who shattered his wife's trust, didn't stoop to slaying his offspring or scheming against his kin, awful as he was in his irresponsibility.

Even the perilous path he set for Rio was crafted under the belief that his son would prove gifted enough to navigate it somehow.

'Actually... he met his end; that's why he passed that path to the original Rio upon realizing the original Rio's talent was feeble... he designed it expecting his son's prowess...'

'For the planet's top assassin, he wasn't ruthless enough next to Neo...'

'Neo would go to extremes for his ambitions... without Ashtel Rex, I suspect Neo would've dominated humanity as a despot...'

Neo shone as an exceptionally clever and masterful plotter; on top of that, he ranked among the elite summoners.

Had Ashtel Rex never appeared, Neo would've claimed the title of humanity's supreme figure in the empire, deploying his formidable summoned creatures to personally oversee every city in the land.

Dominating the whole country would've come as naturally to him as inhaling, free of any hitches.

"Come on. No one knows this area like I do; allow me to guide you through it..."

With a grin, Ellie directed Rio toward the enormous portal far off.

Having dwelled here for hundreds of years, she was intimately familiar with every nook and cranny, and she brimmed with eagerness to reveal it all to Rio.

For the first time in ages, she was encountering someone face-to-face after centuries, and though her initial guest was a stoic, impassive fellow, she remained thrilled to give him the tour.