It took me two days before Lenore and I could seriously consider the question of the Soul Prison. That was mostly due to an annoying infestation of magical vermin, locusts the size of my hand were swarming the area. The forest was filled with dense Astral Power, strong enough to turn the individual trees into giants of the forest. At the same time, that power turned normally harmless pests, like those locusts, into something that was actually threatening. Usually, their size limited them to a diet of aphids and similar crawlies but here, the aphids were almost ten times their usual size from digesting the sap infused with Astral Power. That, in turn, meant that their predators became slightly more than ten times their size and in this case, it meant that their diet not only included those super-sized aphids but it also included everything else they could get their stingers into, like humans.

Fighting those pests had been almost entirely my job, none of the others was terribly gifted when it came to the destruction of large amounts of enemies. Sure, Sigmir was able to wrap some of her power around her axe and send it out in a cleaving cone, but that only made for one large, cleaving swing. Sure, it could destroy some of the locusts, but it was clearly more suitable for larger targets. Adra could cause magical air bursts and was, after me, the most capable to destroy them but her magic was focused on improving her archery and communing with the forest, not large-scale destruction.

My mist, on the other hand, was supremely effective and for two days, I froze millions, if not billions, of those locusts, sometimes even experimenting with the inclusion of Death-Magic into my usual mist spell. It worked quite well, earning me a point in the skill, but it also increased the destruction I caused amongst the plant life.

But overall, the locusts were a nuisance for us, not a serious danger. What they managed to do, however, was motivate us to move at our highest pace, trying to cross the area they infested as quickly as possible.

Due to that, it was on the third day after returning to Mundus that I stood in front of one of the giant trees and began to seriously experiment with the Soul Prison. Prior to my experiment, I had asked Adra about her experiences when she crossed the second Divide, quite certain that the Soul Prison had somehow siphoned some of the power involved for itself, but Adra couldn’t contribute any useful information. To her, the crossing had been a struggle between herself and the Ancient Sapling and she had only been peripherally aware of the help supplied by Lenore and me. If there had been another power involved, she hadn’t been able to notice.

My first idea was the most obvious. While Blood Magic was named thus due to its affinity for the, well, Blood of living creatures, the magic governed the use of magic to influence the vitality of living things with a special focus on the transmission-substance. So, while trees didn’t have blood in the same sense mammals and similar animals had, they had sap which carried their vitality, from the roots, into the trunk and out, to the leaves. Not a circulatory system, but countless capillaries, no heart or blood pressure but the transfer existed.

Striking a blow with my butterfly blades, I stripped off some of the bark, allowing me to get direct access to the sap and placing my hand against it. It felt incredibly weird, trying to reach into a tree with my Blood Magic, my entire experience rebelling against the attempt but slowly but surely, I was able to gain an impression. It was incredibly vague and confusing, nothing responding as I was used to, but there was a response and there was a faint trace of power. Nothing more was needed.

In an attempt to gain those precious first impressions, I tried pulling the power in, only to realise that it was akin to trying to push a boulder up a mountain. It was heavy and sluggish, no matter what I did, I didn’t seem to make progress. I was simply too weak, which meant I was going at it from the wrong direction. With Mortal Hubris, as I was most certainly experimenting on the use of Magic and my high level, I should be strong enough to drain a tree, if I went at it the right way.

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Closing my eyes, I let the magic I had invoked fade, no longer trying to directly drain, instead, I pulled out my silver Athame, the dagger that had accompanied me for so long, and started to carefully carve symbols into the tree. It was slow-going, the blade not made to carve wood, not even to truly carve flesh, a symbolic tool to focus magic, not a practical knife.

And yet, I felt that the symbology was needed, a slow and meticulous approach working with enough care to let me carve the runes without damaging the blade. A smile appeared on my face when I realised that these were some of the first runes I had used on Mundus, back when I had only just learned to use Blood Magic. Those snowbolds I had sacrificed in order to wipe out their entire camp, it was the same idea. A slow and gradual drain of their powers, without requiring me to invest as much upfront.

Placing the Athame in the middle of that runic formation, I sent my magic out once more, empowering the runes and trying to drain the vitality of that tree once again.

Sadly, while there was progress, it was meaningless. It was the difference between trying to lift a skyscraper and trying to lift an apartment building, sure, the skyscraper was orders of magnitude heavier but that didn’t mean that I was able to lift the apartment building either.

Still, I was obviously going in the right direction.

Letting out yet another sigh, I tried placing the Soul Prison against the quillon, trying to let it interface directly with my magic but there was no change. However the Soul Prison worked, physical contact didn’t help or maybe I was going at it wrong.

One change I did notice when holding it was that the hunger inside was still powerful, maybe even more intense now, as if the entity noticed and understood my efforts.

Sadly, while it might have noticed, it was either unwilling or unable to give me direction, some sort of, ‘Feeding sealed Ancient Souls for Dummies’ or something along those lines, leaving me to muddle along.

Shaking my head, I decided on yet another experiment, going at the problem from the other direction. Leaving the runic formation and the Athame in place and constantly channelling some Astral Power into it, I split my attention, calling on Lenore to help.

If the Vitality inside the tree was too sluggish to move, maybe I just had to make it move, make it limber. Together with Lenore, I let some Death-Magic seep into the tree, trying to use it to separate the Vitality from the sap, to enhance my Blood Magic. In the moment of Death, the greatest Vitality could burst forth, so I just had to bring that moment to the tree.

As the Death Magic began to infuse the tree, I suddenly felt a rumbling roar, not audible but a deep, bone-shaking sensation that vibrated in my very soul. The hunger I had felt radiating from the Soul Prison in my hand intensified by orders of magnitude and I could smell the earthy scent of Vitality in the air as the Death Magic forced the tree to fight back. At the same time, I could feel the work of my Blood Magic get easier and pushed more of my magic into the runic formation, glad that I didn’t have to actively think about what I was doing with it.

The tiny trickle of power I had managed to wrest from the tree started to swell and I channelled it through me, until it reached the Soul Prison in my other hand, where I let it seep into the crystal, trying to feed the beast inside.

Another roar vibrated and suddenly, the odd combination of magic Lenore and I had created turned incandescent, flaring with incredible power. My mouth gaped open when in an instant, the massive tree in front of me, easily eight metres in radius and tall as a building, turned into black dust, raining down on me.

Not a single drop of the power unleashed at that moment was left behind it all was channelled into the crystal in my hand, leaving me to shake my head in disbelief.

Apparently, I had found a way to feed the beast.

Just as I was about to celebrate my discovery, Adra stepped onto the clearing, her eyes wide and face pale. Her expression didn’t ease when she saw me standing in front of the hole left by the destruction of that massive tree, a few dead leaves and a lot of grey dust raining down around me.

“What have you just done?!” she screamed, looking incredibly scared.