After my succinct conversation with Cystella, both Melanie and Elina decided that I was no longer going to negotiate anything for our team. That was fine with me as I still needed to work on Dismantle, but I disagreed that I did anything wrong. My intent and desire had been simple and clear, but she had already made arrangements to do the test alone.
A few days passed and I was able to complete my test Room for Dismantle and even make some decent progress on the real Mind Palace.
I only needed to wait for another homeless person, and a week later I got it. I informed Professor Pure about how I was going to test Dismantle and he agreed to be there.
As I stepped into the barn I noticed a difference between this homeless man and the last few. Even with the white sheet covering his body I could see that he was rather overweight. Perhaps its was due to some disease or perhaps he was only homeless for a short time before dying and couldn’t lose a lot of fat due to malnourishment.
Professor Pure was already in the barn, brushing the mane of a horse Nightmare that had bat-like wings on its body and crystalline white eyes.
The Nightmare stared at me and it felt as though it could peer into my very being. There were no visible pupils or iris’ in the eyes of the Nightmare, only the slightly translucent white orb.
“If there seems to be any danger to you I will have you stop immediately, do you understand?” Professor Pure asked.
“Yes. What species of Nightmare is that?”
I had been reading a lot about the Nightmares of the Second Layer to get ready for the excursion, and my interest in the beasts had only grown.
“A Soul-Flayer. It’s species resides around a Pillar connecting to the Third Layer to the Second. Its species are herbivores and never go out of their way to attack anyone, but they can defend themselves by ripping apart the Dreamscape of others.”
My eyes widened and I felt a shiver run down my spine. That was… amazing. A dozen follow up questions bounced around in my head, and I had even put the dead man on the table out of my mind.
Evidently the professor saw the gleam in my eye because he gave me a rare, soft, smile.
“You can ask, I don’t mind.”
“What’s its name?”
“Not the first question I was expecting. He’s called Kevil.”
Kevil the Soul-Flaying horse, it was almost fitting, if not for the fact that is sounded so much like Kevin.
“Can it see into Dreamscapes then?”
“Yes.”
I paused for more than a minute before asking my next question.
“Are it’s attacks unblockable then?”
“No. The higher quality your Dreamscape the lower the effectiveness of the attack. Most of the students would be instantly killed by the backlash, however he can only do so much damage to us teachers. Also people can craft Wits to counteract the attacks.”
Another pause.
“Can it effect non-Dreamers?”
“Yes, for non-Dreamers the Soul-Flayer will rip open their Dreamscape. Sounds like a great way to create a bunch of Dreamers right? It’s not, their attack is so violent that it can actually cause the bodies of non-Dreamers to explode from Intent overflow. The Coal Empire even spent fifty years trying to find a way to do that safely, but they failed in the end.”
This time I didn’t speak again until several minutes has passed.
“What did you mean by the students would be killed by the backlash?”
“The Soul-Flayer doesn’t just damage the items you create in your Dreamscape, they damage the actual meta-physical space. Do you remember Lincon? The boy who died in The Forest of Living Dreams? He turned to stone because he rejected his Dream and his Dreamscape was unable to compensate. The Soul-Flayers attack can cause your Dreamscape to collapse, which is distinctly different from it closing. Their attacks can literally shatter your Dreams that way.”
“I see.”
Within my Dreamscape my consciousness was in front of a model that was slowly taking shape. I had been crafting after each question was answered. Each question added some detail to the model. Although it was obviously a horse with bat wings I could tell that things were off. I was constantly adjusting the musculature and angle of the joints. The eyes, however, were very much a match for a real Soul-Flaying horse, but they were still lacking the depth.
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Once I finished the model transformed, it became a thin book only a couple pages long. On the front and the spine of the book were the words “Soul-Flaying Horse”
The book then flew to where I had spent the past week crafting the foundation for my Mind Palace, and was laid onto the stone floor next to a much thicker book titled “Human.”
This was going to be the core of all of my future abilities, the library.
“Thank you for answering my questions,” I said, moving to the table in the center.
“No problem, do you want me to take notes while you work again?” Professor Pure said, nudging the Soul-Flaying horse away and grabbing a journal.
“Yes.”
While I had started to take notes in my Dreamscape after the Cheshire incident, I was not yet proficient at crafting and working at the same time.
Like every other time I donned some gloves, a mask, and goggles. Professor Pure told me that along with increased durability and strength, Dreamers also gained a stronger resistance to poison and disease, but I still wasn’t going to risk it if I didn’t have to.
“First impressions. Subject is likely male, however due to protruding gut I cannot see a sign of genitalia. Subject is obese, seems to have between thirty to thirty-five percent body fat, but I will need to investigate further in order to confirm. As for cause of death I see a large reddish-brown stain on the sheet that seems to originate just below subjects head.”
I removed the sheet to show an Bronze Islander, on his forehead the number displayed was 100. I had only seen Empyreans and Solarians up till then so it came as a bit of a shock. The number 100 was reserved for people in vegetative states and traitors. Traitor in this case didn’t mean that they acted directly against the country, but instead at the very least cut all ties to the country.
The mans skin was a mottled and ashen light brown, but must have once been a rich amber. His pointer and middle finger on his right hand were missing their nails and there were a bunch of deep gashes on his arms along with a deep purple bruise on his left wrist. The most glaring thing was the cut on his throat. It was jagged and at an angle, but was clearly deep enough to slice through the carotid artery.
“Subject is a Bronze Islander male between the ages of twenty and twenty-seven. Both hair and eyes are black, but the right eye has signs of bruising and burst blood vessels in sclera. Subject was murdered. Missing fingernails and cuts on the arms signify it was a struggle, but not enough to stop the attack.”
I pressed my gloved fingers onto the neck wound.
“The fatal cut is jagged and uneven, showing that the weapon used was not of high quality and that even then the subject was struggling. The cut is hard around the edges, but a pus like liquid comes out when I press down. I assume the deep bruise on patients left wrist is an indication of a hand-print, however the bruise no longer has a stable form so I cannot confirm.”
I breathed deeply in for five seconds, held it for three and let it go over five more seconds.
Within my Dreamscape the Human book moved from the foundations of the library to the experimental Dismantle Room. Because of the size of the Room I could not use the book to its full functions, but it would still help tremendously, hopefully.
“I will now begin first test of Dismantle.”
From the tool-belt I took out a simple scalpel, exchanging the used blade on the end for a new one. I examined the exposed naked body of the man, thinking. Then I moved down to his left hand, the one not missing fingernails.
“My first target is the pinky finger of the left hand. Goal, to not only peel away all of the skin of the pinky finger, but also be able to penetrate down to the bone, disconnecting the different segments of the finger without damaging them. Based on my current set conditions I only have two seams that I can utilize on the pinky. One, the area that connects the nail to the skin. Two, a line that goes from the top of the finger down to the top of the knuckle. I will aim for the Hyponychium in this test.”
I pulled power from the Dismantle Room, concentrating the flowing Intent into the scalpels blade. With a deep breath I lowered the blade and pressed it to the underside of the nail, right where the nailbed met the edge of the plate.
With only a slight amount of pressure the blade cut into the flesh. Then I could feel it all, the strong nail above the blade, the connective tissue that kept the nail in place. My Intent flowed into the nailbed, severing it from the plate overhead. I quickly realized there was too much Intent flowing into the finger and I was not dispersing it quickly enough. I pushed my Intent further into the dead mans pinky finger.
It ran around the nail completely, from the folds on the side down to the root. I let the Intent flow underneath the skin, slicing through the bottom of the hypodermis. At the same time it also ran along the second seam within the finger, which would allow me to peel the skin back easily.
Within the root of the nail I pushed the Intent along a blood vessel to arrive at the bone of the Distal Phalanax. My Intent surrounded the bone, heading towards the Middle Phalanax when it ran into the tendons. I tried to dismantle them by separating them singularly, but I was not expecting for them to be as strongly connected as they were. Dismantle ran into this joint and splashed against with much effect. Only a handful of sliced appeared on the tendons, but its power was much less compared to when it was cutting apart the skin.
I let the Wit lapse and focused on the finger with my eyes instead of my ability. The nail was popped out of place, the skin peeled away to the knuckle. The tendons were wrapped around the finger, but at the ends I could see a few shallow gouges from not being able to push Dismantle through the seams.
That indicated a lack of knowledge on the subject, and the only way to to make it able to cut away the tendons was said knowledge and experience. If my Dismantle didn’t follow the seams I had per-determined then the ability would lose most of it power.
The main issue was hitting that first seam. If I miss the seam it would be like trying to cut a piece of leather with a stick.
I narrated this to Professor Pure to put down in the notebook.
A prickly feeling ran through my chest. Could this even really do anything in combat? If I didn’t hit one of those vital seams it would be like I didn’t attack at all, and if I didn’t have knowledge on the subject then there would be no seams to attack in the first place.
I breathed deeply in for five seconds, held it for three and let it go over five more seconds.
This was only my first attempt, I needed to trust the process that this ability would one day be able to show its true power. The problem was living to reach that day.
“Test one complete. Moving on to test two.”