The battleground was quiet, but the war kept going.

Sylva's golden-green light pulsed, holding back the tide of purple-black corruption that poured from the Heart of the Scar. It was a tough standstill. The aura of life couldn't destroy the aura of death, and the aura of death couldn't overwhelm the aura of life. They were two magnets of the same strength, pushing against each other with powerful, invisible force.

"It's not working!" Vanessa exclaimed, her voice tight with worry. "Sylva can hold it back, but it can't win."

Jonah knew she was right. He could feel it through their link. Sylva was a healer. Its purpose was to nurture what was still living. It had no power to destroy something that was pure corruption.

He needed a different approach.

He remembered the Artificer's data crystal from the sunken city. He remembered the Chimeras from the failed government lab. And he remembered the fundamental rule he had come to understand. All magical constructs, whether living or demonic, whether made of flesh or stone or pure despair, followed the same basic principles.

They all had a core, an energy source, and a blueprint.

The Heart of the Scar was no different.

"Seraph, Vanessa," Jonah said, his voice calm but firm. "Keep everyone back. Don't let anything interrupt me."

He walked forward, right to the shimmering line where the two auras clashed. The air here was buzzing, electric, and so uncomfortable. He ignored it. He closed his eyes.

He didn't try to project his own power. Instead, he did something he had never tried before. He used his unique senses as a Beast Weaver not to create, but to see. He extended his will like a psychic scalpel, carefully reaching out to analyze the demonic artifact.

The world dissolved into a chaos of energy. But through the storm of evil, Jonah saw it. He saw the structure of the Heart.

It was exactly as he'd suspected. At its center was a core of solidified despair, a knot of pure, negative emotion. Its energy source was the blight itself, the corrupted magic of the land. And binding it all together, giving it shape and purpose, was a blueprint - a complex web of glowing, demonic runes.

It was just like one of his own creations, but twisted, broken, and evil.

And if it could be made… it could be unmade.

"A reverse synthesis," Jonah whispered to himself. A wild, dangerous, and probably insane idea. But it was the only one he had.

He opened his eyes and focused his intent.

"Sylva," he commanded, his voice ringing with a new kind of authority. "Don't fight the whole thing. Focus all of your purification energy. Right there."

He pointed to a single, faintly glowing rune on the surface of the shard. It was a nasty-looking thing, a rune of binding, the magical equivalent of a nail holding the whole corrupt structure together.

Sylva obeyed instantly. Its golden-green light, which had been a wide, defensive wall, now narrowed into a single, intense beam, a laser of pure life energy that shot out and struck the targeted rune.

SIZZLE!

The Heart of the Scar let out a psychic shriek of agony. The purple light around it flickered violently.

At the same time, Jonah focused his own will. He wasn't trying to fight the artifact's power. He was doing something far more delicate. He was pulling at the threads of its magical DNA, using his own unique understanding of creation to pry the demonic blueprint apart.

The Heart pulsed, a wave of cold fury washing over him. thump-THUMP! It knew what he was doing. It was being dismantled, piece by agonizing piece.

On the sidelines, the others could only watch. They couldn't see the complex, invisible battle of wills taking place. All they saw was Jonah standing at the edge of the conflict, his eyes closed in concentration, with sweat beading on his forehead. They saw Sylva firing a beam of light at the artifact. And they saw the demonic shard pulsing and shuddering, as if in pain.

"What is he doing?" Inquisitor Theron demanded, his confusion turning to alarm. "This is not the magic of healing!"

"No," Seraph replied, a proud, sharp glint in her eyes. "It's not."

Jonah gritted his teeth, pouring all of his focus into the task. It was like performing psychic surgery with a sledgehammer. He found another binding rune, another piece of the demonic blueprint.

"Sylva. Now. The next one!"

The beam of life shifted, striking another rune.

SIZZLE!

Another silent scream echoed in Jonah's mind. The purple light around the Heart flickered again, weakening.

He was doing it. He had found its weakness. He wasn't trying to overpower it, which was impossible. He was disassembling it, one piece at a time. He was unmaking it.

The Cardinal watched, her face a mask of intense calculation. This was beyond anything she could have anticipated. The boy wasn't just a healer. He wasn't just a creator. He was a master of the very structure of magic itself. He possessed a power that could not only build, but also deconstruct.

The potential was terrifying. And irresistible.

One by one, Jonah identified the key binding runes in the demonic blueprint. One by one, Sylva bombarded them with pure life energy, destabilizing them. And one by one, Jonah used his own will to tear the weakened connections apart.

The process was slow, tough, and completely draining. The psychic backlash from the dying artifact was powerful, a constant, shrieking chorus of evil in his mind. But he held on, anchored by the calm, steady presence of Sylva.

He had made a promise. And he was going to keep it.

He finally located the last, central rune - the keystone that held the entire corrupt construct together. It glowed with a furious light.

"One more, Sylva," Jonah breathed, his body trembling with the strain. "All of it. Now!"

He gathered the last of his mental strength for one final, desperate push. This was it. The final piece. The final act of unmaking.