“Dammit Herk, you're supposed to kill them after the soul-killer spell hits them!” The man knew they weren't speaking English, yet he comprehended their words clearly.

  [Soul was absorbed into Greater Core, knowledge of multiple languages are known to the Minds previously absorbed by the Greater Core including Caldian Language.]

  Wait, when was my soul 'absorbed'?

  [As your body was dying your soul was transferring to the Greater Core.]

  I died then? But I'm still here...whats going on?

  [Soul has separated from the body and integrated with the Greater Core. This is a deliberate attempt by the individuals in front of the Greater Core as they have summoned and sacrificed others in the same manner]

  Others? There are others in this...Greater Core?! Where are they?

  [The summoners employed a Soul Disrupting spell to scatter the souls and consciousness of the previous sacrifices. These were absorbed as excess Mana energy by the Greater Core.]

  No way...

  [Your Soul is the only to be absorbed with an intact consciousness. All others before you were unable to integrate.]

  Why do this? Why summon people from across the reaches of time and space only to have them killed in a very permanent fashion?

  [Knowledge contained in the minds absorbed do not contain this information, however speculating from observational records of the summoner group, the amount of information already available, and the accumulated mana is possible. Likely is that the accumulation of otherworlder knowledge, and mana is valuable to this group.]

  They wanted an unparalleled library? But then why was I spared?

  [Human Error is the probable cause. Complacency leading to careless actions.]

I'd rather not assume my opponents are incompetent, but it doesn't matter at this point. What can I do now?

  [Searching for suitable options...]

  “...Like it matters if its a fore or after, Jenya.” The big guy seemed like the type to get chewed out a lot. “Dead is dead and we have the mana.”

  “Uhm, as long as it isn't...contaminated...” the woman with the staff said.

  “Yeah, what she said.” Said another woman in the crowd. “As long as we kill them quickly we don't have to do any of the messy clean up!”

  So my death was convenient for you? The crystal converted my physical body into mana so you don't have to clean?

  “Alright, we've got one more today for the quota, lets get this done and we can hit the bar!” The second woman, who hated cleaning, leaned against the big man Herk. With her breasts hugging his arm. “Say, what are you doing after this, Herk?”

  The man, no the Soul in the Crystal Core stopped listening. He had come to a couple of conclusions.

  Multiple individuals had been summoned throughout the universe for the express purpose of being killed, and 'recycled' into energy and knowledge.

  His fate was different solely because they had gotten careless at a great moment, not because the regretted their actions and spared him. In fact they don't truly know he had 'survived' yet.

  If and/or when they discover this fact they may either erase him from the crystal, or destroy the crystal to not risk a potential threat appearing later.

  He was a threat to them thru the energy and knowledge being his already. They were a threat to him so long as he has not mastered any of this power.

  Whoever strikes first wins, would be an appropriate summation. He had the advantage as they were clueless about him.

  “Quit flirting,” one of the other cloaked individuals groaned. He was immediately glared at, which made him flinch since he wasn't as large as Herk. “I mean, the sooner we get this last one done for the day the sooner we can get paid. And drunk.”

  Eventually they moved about into position and resumed chanting.

  They resumed a very generic chorus of chants, but the spirit of the core still was finding it mesmerizing. The visible and invisible swirls of energy were all visible to him, as well as much of the comprehension of it. With a shock he realized one of the previous victims was much more adept at Summoning than this group who appeared to be Rogue Apprentices, at best.

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  The chanting continued as the swirls solidified partially into circles, rune like letters, and other complicated structures formed. Although he hadn't pursued the summoning information available in 'head' yet, he got the overall impression that these people didn't know what they were doing. At a glance he felt they were 'awkward', 'bumbling', and worst of all 'relying on chance' to summon anyone or anything of value.

  But, the last time was apparently the charm. The center of the circles formed a vortex swirl, an alien feeling came from it. “We got a really good bite this time!”

  “Shut it, Herk! Don't distract us from the chant!” The Core shook his nonexistent head, the ritual had completed and would proceed automatically for now, idiot. And complete it did.

  Like someone riding an elevator from beneath a lake surface, a man's head, shoulders, body, arms, and legs rose from the vortex on the floor. But it wasn't a human.

  Hair. The hair of the new comer was white, but not from age. It was thick and voluminous, with silvery highlight and sheen. The skin of the face was a greyish blue, and carried an expression of sleeping. A singular horn rose from the center of his forehead like a unicorn, however it felt more like a shark's fin.

  Shoulders were rounded and large, like a body builder's. The torso was likewise sculpted and chiseled. His legs had a few extra bends to it, like a cat's giving the core an expectation of speed. Everything about this being oozed power, whether physical presence, Eye catching allure, or mystical aura.

  What came next, the core wouldn't be able to stop. However a plan had formed.

  “Nevererandil...” small girl with the staff started chanting immediately. Everyone else looked scared. Occasionally when deep sea fishing, fisherman would actually catch a shark who would then catch them. This was such a situation.

  Non-cleaning slut put her hand restraining Herk and mouthed the word 'wait'. Everyone else pulled out similar staffs and readied. In a confused state, even the devil might be susceptible to a one hit kill soul crunching spell.  Hopefully.

  “Soul...Death,” the core noted something. This young lass was...regretting?

  The blast ripped into the dazed and confused 'demon' and he like the others before, died without dying. The core offered a moment of silence and vowed that he would avenge himself and all the others on this group.

  The 'demon' dropped to the floor. Still breathing, but without a soul it would never awake again.

  “Oh, so scary!” No cleaning slut simpered and trembled dramatically. “Big Herk! I won't be able to sleep soundly tonight if I don't see it die! Please, let me see the scary thing die?”

  Herk, suitably shown 'proper respect' he knew he deserved, swaggered over to the still-breathing corpse. “Don't fret, even if it were fair fight I wouldn't break a sweat!” Herk sauntered over as he rose his dagger to stab. “Hey, think I'll get the 'demon-slayer' title after this?”

  “Yeah, baby! Herk Slayer of Demons!” No clean was egging him on.

  His dagger stabbed swiftly. The sound of meat being forcibly cleaved rang out through the chamber, louder than the other sacrifices by far. “Man, Herk really got into that one,” said one of the robed individuals, paling a bit. The previous deaths seemed more 'clinical', yet this one felt different.

  The Crystal floating in the room began to glow as the familiar process took over. The body began to dematerialize into particles of light and absorb into the crystal. Shimmering glow which obscured the appearance of the victim, and transformed its 'memories', and the various energies of its body into resources to be harvested and sorted to the various facets of the Crystal Core.

  It was so dazzling, yet routine, that almost no one noticed at first. The 'sacrifice' remained, but 'Herk' had vanished.