Roselle was questioning his life at that moment.
Clearly, despite being a Sequence 2 Knowledge Magister, Roselle doubted whether his ears were deceiving him, or if he was already on the verge of losing control. Otherwise, how could he be hallucinating?
However, what surprised Roselle even more was that while he was doubting himself, the person who had just said something shocking suddenly changed his tone and said, "But before that, I need to check your soul first."
"Check my soul? Why?" Roselle's brows furrowed almost instinctively and looked at Lynn suspiciously, but unconsciously, his expression became more serious.
"Although, in theory, you were only completely corrupted by the Mother Goddess of Depravity after your travel to the moon, if I'm not mistaken, you may have already been initially corrupted by her power when you first landed on that unnamed island," Lynn calmly revealed something significant.
"So, I've already been corrupted by the Outer God? This..." Roselle's eyes widened. He wanted to refute Lynn, but thinking back to his experiences on that unnamed island and remembering the connection with Mr. Door after that—Lynn had already told him that Mr. Door was currently under the control of an Outer God—the words of rebuttal got stuck in his throat.
In the end, Roselle couldn't help but scratch his head and ask Lynn with some confusion, "If I was indeed corrupted back then, what's the point of stopping my travel now?"
"Of course, it's significant. I can't handle deep corruption, but if it's just shallow corruption..." Lynn smiled brightly and said, "I can give it a try."
Lynn wasn't lying. After discovering that Mr. Door had been corrupted as early as the Fourth Epoch and after interacting with the fully corrupted Roselle, Lynn had been researching matters related to Outer God corruption.
As someone who wasn't short on samples, didn't fear corruption himself, and could even suppress the pollution from the Mother Goddess of Depravity with his own Spirituality, Lynn had made some progress in his relentless research.
For cases like Bethel and Roselle, who had ventured to the moon and were deeply, comprehensively corrupted, with their entire souls practically marinated in the power of Outer Gods, Lynn's current methods couldn't resolve that.
But if it was just initial corruption, where the soul was tainted with a bit of the Outer God's power or had a corresponding mark planted, Lynn already had a solution.
Although he hadn't tested the method yet, the test subject was right in front of him.
Lynn looked at Roselle, his smile warm and radiant.
Even if he failed, he could still use his time-travel abilities to prevent Roselle from going to that unnamed island in the first place.
As for why Lynn didn't just descend at the point in time when Roselle went to the island and solved the problem at its root, the reason was simple—changes to the past wouldn't cause a butterfly effect in the future. Whether or not Roselle was initially corrupted on that unnamed island, his complete corruption and control by the Mother Goddess of Depravity were inevitable after he travelled to the moon.
So, even if Lynn descended at the time Roselle visited the island and stopped him from going, it wouldn't directly change Roselle's current state. Just like with Azik, they would have to wait for Lynn's avatar to reach that point in time on its own timeline before it could change Roselle's condition in the present, or rely on time travel afterward.
And compared to stopping Roselle from travelling, preventing him from landing on the unnamed island was a much simpler task.
Moreover, if Lynn's method for removing shallow corruption worked, descending at the time of Roselle's ascension would be a one-and-done solution.
"So, how do we check?" Roselle hesitated for a few seconds, then gritted his teeth and asked.
He didn't entirely believe Lynn's words, but he understood the situation. No matter what he believed, he wouldn't be able to resist Lynn's inspection of his soul, so he might as well cooperate.
Besides, Roselle was aware that he might have indeed encountered some secret corruption on that unnamed island.
"Just close your eyes. Don't worry; I'm very experienced with this kind of thing," Lynn said with a reassuring smile. Seeing that Roselle had really closed his eyes, he adeptly switched into "All-Knowing, All-Powerful" mode and began inspecting Roselle's soul.
With this inspection, he did find an issue.
Roselle's soul had indeed been subjected to some secret corruption from the Mother Goddess of Depravity. However, unlike Bethel's situation, perhaps because Roselle hadn't wandered around in the cosmos, and the earth's protective barrier was quite strong, the Mother Goddess of Depravity's power that had infiltrated was limited. Roselle's soul had only been slightly corrupted, with the corruption staying on the surface of his soul rather than penetrating deeply, leaving only a mark.
Of course, the corruption of an Outer God is tyrannical. Even a mere mark would be difficult to remove by anyone else. And as long as this mark remained, even if Roselle wasn't fully corrupted, the Mother Goddess of Depravity would still be able to secretly influence him through the mark, guiding him to do certain things.
In fact, Lynn strongly suspected that Roselle's sudden impulse to explore the moon wasn't entirely of his own volition, but the result of some hidden influence by an Outer God.
'But it's your bad luck to have encountered me...' Lynn chuckled. He pointed at Roselle's forehead, and the next second, overwhelming Spirituality and terrifying knowledge surged into Roselle, though it didn't harm his soul. Instead, it enveloped the corruption from the Mother Goddess of Depravity that had tainted Roselle's soul, and in the next moment, all that power exploded in an instant.
"Ahhhhhhhh—!"
Roselle instinctively clutched his head, staggering from the explosion's impact.
Lynn withdrew his finger, observing the howling Roselle before him. With his "All-Knowing, All-Powerful" abilities, Lynn thoroughly scanned him multiple times before nodding in satisfaction.
Thanks to his unique perspective from his True Self, Lynn could confirm that the corruption on Roselle had been completely eradicated. From that moment onward, the Mother Goddess of Depravity would no longer be able to influence him.
"As expected, my method worked." Lynn smiled. His inspiration for this method of removing corruption was partially derived from the glimpse his True Self had taken back then.
Though his True Self hadn't entirely eradicated the corruption on Roselle at that time, it had indeed worn it down and even killed the personality created by the corruption.
It was based on that insight that Lynn, after thorough research, developed the current method of removing corruption—essentially using his Spirituality to suppress the corruption completely and then using knowledge from his True Self to obliterate it.
(End of Chapter)
If you want, support me on Patreon and get access to the end of the story in advance:
p@treon.com/IHaveNoNamingSense