Standing on my green cloud, I went from one form to the other. The ambient aspects began to dance around me and mix with one another. Slowly the cold, heat, wind, light, momentum and other stray aspects combined into null.

The energy flowed through both my closed and open gates. Slowly cycling through my meridians and refining themselves into null Qi.

As for the corruption, it was slowly exercised from my body, thanks to my movements. Half of the Qi was fed into my spark, while the other half was added to my supply.

All I could do was prepare. A moment ago I was about to fly back to Squirmy and fight him to the death, but that would have been suicide. With no Qi I had no choice but to run away and cultivate.

There was nothing I could do for Luca now. Blaming Squirmy was stupid when it was my fault she died. Moving from one stance to another and being forced to focus and meditate had calmed my anger. Now I was just sad. In any case, Alice's safety was still the priority.

I moved my arms and legs forcing corruption out of my body while pulling null aspects into my meridians. I felt fatigue trying to knock me down as my body rejected the corruption.

“Izzy, that dance is so cute. You look like a little ballerina.” Said my wife in an attempt to lighten the mood.

I broke concentration. “Alice, I told you already. I’m cultivating. I need to focus. Its not a little dance either.” I shot back before immediately jumping back into the flowing river, as I felt my meridians beginning to crystalize.

It freaked me out so much that I cycled through multiple positions to try and exercise the corruption. Alice smiled and clapped, causing my cheeks to redden.

I wanted to stop in embarrassment. Why was this so embarrassing all of a sudden!? I performed the flowing river in front of people all the time. It was never this cringe inducing before.

It didn’t help that with the low ambient essence normal people couldn’t see the power floating around. To my wife I must have looked pretty silly. Well, it could be worse. At least my Alice was being supportive about it.

I got my Qi up to around 60% before calling it quits. Moving around like that for so long, was tiring after all. Why was this cloud so slow?

Going by what my wife told me, Shadow could be in trouble right now. I didn’t want to lose anyone else.

My messed up brain imagined Luca as a centipede. I hugged my knees not wanting Alice to see me upset. It was pointless though since she immediately noticed. She knew me too well and by now could easily tell when I was upset.

My eyes peaked over my knees. She picked Snowball up who was sitting next to her. Then animated her body while making her speak in a deep voice. “Don’t worry, everything will be okay.”

It was a nice gesture but… “Snowball doesn’t sound like that. Snowball is a girl, so don’t give her a deep voice. Unless your doing a Morgan Freeman impression, then it’s okay.” I grumpily explained. She used the same voice she uses for Buddy.

Alice laughed. “Your like a little kid. Do you wanna hold her then?” She handed Snowball to me.

I didn’t want to take the doll. I wanted to be more manly in front of her, but the news of Lucas death was still fresh. It was all my fault. I was the one that brought that asshole into this world. All I had to do was kill him in our inner world. I failed and now both Centa and Luca are gone.

“Alice, I killed her. I hurt all those people.” I cried.

Alice crawled beside me and gave me a hug. “It’s okay Izzy. You might be responsible for it, but it’s not like you haven’t been warning everyone.”

“What are you talking about!” I shot back.

“You were tortured and no one helped you. Even after everything that happened everyone expected you to move on and forget about it. I’ve always wanted to talk to you about it. I’ve always wanted you to open up to me, but because of how everyone else treated you. You held all that stuff inside. So if the world abandons you, do you have to care about it?” she explained.

“That’s wrong! Just because the world is shit doesn’t make it okay to be a shitty person!” I cried.

“Maybe not, but everyone should take responsibility. The universe ignored you. Everyone ignored you. You could call this the consequences of neglecting someone in pain.” She said.

“But what about Luca!? She was innocent! Just a kid! She didn’t deserve that!” I cried.

“I know, but that’s on everyone’s shoulders not just yours. We could have made her stay in the castle, but we let her come. Its my fault too. My point is, it's not all your fault, so stop caring everything on your shoulders let me help you!” she cried.

I felt the ever growing weight start to lighten as for a second I swear I could see my wife, and several others prop the world up from my back. I didn't have to do it alone. There were people at my side.

“Izzy, I know this is selfish, but what if we ran away? We could leave and go live somewhere else in this world. With these bodies we'll have even more time together.” She said.

I pushed her away. “I'm not going to abandon my guild, or the people of this city. I can’t just leave. This is all happening because of me! How could you even think that!” Despite my outrage she was unbothered. In fact my words seem to get a smile out of her.

“I knew you’d say something like that. That's one of the reasons I fell in love with you. You’re a very kind person. You do all kinds of nice things because the guilt of not doing them makes you cry. If you really want to fight that thing, then I won’t stop you. No matter what you chose, I’ll be by your side.” She said.

That got me to calm down. In the end she only wanted to be with me. Leaving was the best way to do that, but no matter what, she just wanted to stay by my side. Where was that when she…

“I want to save them. Will you help me?” I asked, wiping away my tears.

“Of course I will! I’ll support you even if you become a murderer. I’ll help hide the bodies and lie in court, even when they have video evidence. You know I’m ride or die.” She said.

“You’re a liar!” I accused.

She seemed to frown at that. “Okay, that’s fair. I know that when that whole incident with Cain came along, I turned you in, but that was only because you needed help, and no matter what I did, I couldn't help you.”

“They couldn't help me either. All they did was pump me full of medicine. Those doctors were so full of shit. Every time they talked, they would try to make me feel stupid. They would dismiss my words. Do you really think that was the best choice? All they cared about was funding.” I said.

“I don't know. On one hand you didn't go to jail and you got medicine to help fix your brain chemistry. On the other hand, you came back so much colder. You didn’t even want to play games anymore. That’s why I got you a different doctor. Your medication changed and you were happier even.” She said.

“I really wanted to hate you. I wish I could be mad at you, but I also get it. Your husband had a literal demon telling him to do bad stuff. He killed a guy and gave his brother a disability. Of course you’d do what you did. I want to hate you, but every time I look at you, all I see is my wife.” I explained.

I looked to her and saw tears on her face. She was cute even when crying. I wonder if I looked like that too? Pulling out one of the random slime plushies I had, I used it to wipe her tears away.

“I do regret it and after seeing Squirmy and this whole mess, I realized that I might have made it worse, so from now on. I want to support you, because at the end of the day. You’re the only person I truly care about.” She said.

I gave my adorable imoto wife a hug. “I love you for that.” I felt the messiness of my mind clear, as her presence washed it away. It was like her soul had a calming effect. The golden radiance reminded me of my chicken soup aura.

I know Luca was dead. There was nothing I could do about that. Maybe I can at least free her soul. She was only 14. That’s absolutely nothing. If her soul gets split up into a million pieces. Then could I possibly put them back together?

Would they all grow into their own people. Like how Aku and Centa came into being. I was gonna save Centa anyway, and Luca should be in a similar situation.

But… I haven’t seen a single centipede with her memories or frequency. Do I really need the whole thing? Maybe if I can get most of the soul back she’ll be okay. I’m technically only a fraction of my original soul.

Centa had the larger chunk. Compared to hers mine was kind of tiny. Of course that changed over time. It grew thanks to that psychic energy Mr. Brutus was talking about. Who knew souls were like livers.

Luca could come back. I just need to find as many of her soul fragments as possible. Then I’ll feed her quintessence using the flowing river. It’ll take a while, but I can get her back to the mortal rank. Maybe she’ll be okay.

Centa needs a body too. Her ascension would take too long though. You need ten times the amount when trying to break into the upper spirit rank. If someone like my brother could pull it off then I’m sure with time I can give Centa a body too.

That was all long term stuff. For now, I needed to rejoin with Shadow and work together with the raid party to bring Squirmy to his knees. I’m sure Centa is inside the boss’s massive soul.

The rank was still a mystery to me, but it might be a level higher than upper spirit rank. I think it was called daimon, or something like that. From what I remember it was a word used by the greeks to describe a lesser god, or some kind of spirit.

Later on, the word was adopted and turned into ‘demon’ by christianity. It was basically used to describe anything that wasn’t the one true god, or his angel’s. ‘What’s that, you follow a minor god of harvest? Well guess what! It’s actually the devil in disguise and we’re going to kill everyone in this tiny village for being heretics! Especially the children!’ that sort of thing.

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The thing that bugged me was what Squirmy’s soul looked like. Normally their round like grapes, but that’s just the membrane around the soul. Like an aura. If you look a little deeper you can see what the soul actually looks like.

Mines a hollow planet, but Squirmy’s is different. For one his grape looks like it’s been crushed and all the insides are leaking all over the place. Also it almost looks like his soul is split into a bunch of smaller souls. Their all just stuck together and crying—like they want Shadow to come in and read them a bed time story.

The next thing I've been wondering was about all the Squirmy’s running around. If I had to guess. I’d say the boss is Squirmy’s prime, like how the minion centipedes have a prime.

What was that thing the other Squirmy said? ‘if I was alpha you’d be dead.’ It wasn’t that exactly, but it was something like that.

The important thing was that there were different levels of Squirmy. Which meant the one that attacked me and the dancing centipedes must be way weaker than the Squirmy I fought. His soul was a spec compared to the one I fought up on the boss.

But… the one I fought couldn’t have been alpha. Not only was his soul smaller than mine, it also seemed to tell me he was put there, as a way to sort information.

The information itself was mostly memories and soul fragments. It was almost like in the old days. When you wanted to talk to someone. You’d have to call the operator so they could patch you through to the person you wanted to talk to.

His job was like that. Which made me afraid when I realized he wasn’t really a combat type. I couldn’t imagine what an alpha would be like. Would it be bigger and with possibly more mandibles?

There was so much information in the operators soul. Too much to be honest. My brain nearly short circuited. Even now I was still sorting through the information. There were so many screams. I think they were from Squirmy’s victims.

“Izzy, isn’t that the barricade?” asked Alice. She pointed to a line of walls that seemed to circle the area. At the part where the street met the wall there was a party of NPCs, and a player.

“Hey! I know that guy!” I hopped off the side of the cloud aiming for the player clad in armor.

“Izzy! I don’t know how to drive this thing!” my wife panicked.

“Just think happy thoughts and you should be fine! Just remember to never-“ I cut my voice off on purpose.

“Izzy! Never what!? What am I not supposed to do!?” she cried.

That got a chuckle out of me. I used a few platform spells in combination with my caterpillar aura to cling and glide, slowing my fall. He was moving, so I adjust my trajectory by gliding across a few of my horizontal platforms in a diagonal way.

Once in range, I slowed myself down even more before lowing myself to fall and land on Boners unprotected shoulders with a soft “tunk!”

“Wha-what the hell!” yelled my beloved punching bag.

“Heeey. What’s up.” I greeted him.

He put his hands on my sides causing me to laugh. “Don't touch me there, I’m ticklish!”

He lifted me up and pulled me forward rotating me in the process. Boner held me upside-down in front of him. He and I locked eyes as my dress flopped down to my chest and upper back exposing my shorts.

My cheeks reddened as my embarrassment rose up inside me. Feeling anxious when he continued to hold me there, I kicked him in the face while yelling, “pervert!”

The kick wasn’t super hard since I didn’t currently have an active aura, but it did hurt him. I knew it hurt, because he let out an annoyed grunt as soon as the bottom of my foot met his nose.

“God dam weirdo!” Now angry, he threw me against a wall.

I shrieked before adjusting the air and momentum aspects around my body to create some wind resistance. With that I was able to flip my body through the air allowing me to land on the wall with my feet.

Once that disaster was out of the way, I pushed myself off, rotating into an aerial cartwheel that ended with me standing safely on the ground. I could tell it annoyed Boner, because he sounded like a growling doggy

His nose was also bleeding which led me to believe he actually enjoyed the view. He really was some kind of creep. “pervert!” I said narrowing my eyes.

“How was I supposed to know what was on my back! This is an active war zone! For all I knew you were some kind of monkey centipede hybrid. You think I want to look at your old man ass, or something! Get real!” he argued.

“Oh yeah! Well then why is your nose bleeding like the pervert you are!” I accused. Pointing my trembling finger at him while holding my dress down. Was this what it felt like to be taken advantage of? This vulnerability feels so awful.

“Just what the hell do nose bleed have to do with that! You fucking kicked me in the face! Did you forget that part!” he argued.

My finger fell. “Oh, right… sorry about that.” I apologized. Suddenly any and all feelings of vulnerability faded. I still felt a bit salty, so I took another angle. “You can’t just throw people at walls!” I complained.

“You cant just land on people from the sky and kick them in the face!” he retorted. He looked up and scratched his head, as if wondering how I did it.

“Little miss, don’t mind Boner, he still hasn’t been house trained.” This got a chuckle out of me and an angry grunt out of Boner, “You should not be here. We’ll escort you to the safe zone.” Said the warrior looking guy.

He was a very big and round fellow, but clearly had well defined muscles underneath the fat. Like a sumo wrestler, but larger. Just by his body type you could tell he was a warrior. His vitality and strength base stats must have been through the roof.

I looked up his name. “Oh, no. Mr. Thrud, I’m actually really strong. Do you see those flames on the boss. That was me.” I said.

“Oh, is that so. Well such a strong girl like you should sit this one out. You need to leave some fun for the rest of us after all. It is our job to deal with these threats after all. A task like this Is beneath a lady of such refined quality.” He said. Boner let out a chuckle to which I ignored.

This guy had one hell of a tongue. Still, he clearly didn’t believe me at all. I wasn’t the same character anymore. To them I just looked like a weak escort NPC. That would be annoying, but Boner knew me, so I could still get information on Shadows whereabouts.

“Thrud, that’s no little girl. That things the one that brought that monster here.” Said Boner.

“That’s one hell of an accusation. The kid looks like she just learned her alphabet.” Said the ranger who had just hopped off the building across from me. He went by Jack.

“Hey!” I complained and was ignored.

Boner drew his blade and pointed it at me. “Look, I know what I’m talking about.” It looked like some kind of skill had been activated as an aura of what looked like harming aspects surrounded him. My best guess was some kind of crit boost.

The aspects running through his body moved in a star pattern, but different. Unlike my star pattern his was flawless and steady. It was perfect, too perfect. This had to be the systems doing.

“Open your eyes man. That kid couldn’t hurt a slime.” Said their berserker named Ganthor.

“What?” he looked me over and I realized he was checking my stats. “That’s weird. What’s with your status. Level one, NPC!? Princess!? Fussy baby?” he let out a laugh. “No way! I could totally body you right now!”

His party all looked at him like he was insane. From their perspective Boner looked happy to bully and beat up a defenseless child. I wish I had the time, because this would have been the perfect opportunity to troll the crap out of him.

Instead I created a 1 layer aura and laced it with apathy. “Hey! Now’s not the time for that! A lot of stuff has happened. I need to know what your plan is and where Shadow is at.” I asked.

His evil smile seemed to disappear, the seriousness of the situation showing in his eyes. “I don’t understand what’s going on with you, did you bring that monster here, or what? Everyone seems to think it has something to do with you. At least that’s what the cat lady said.” He interrogated.

This wasn’t going the way I wanted. At this rate he’ll just end up getting mad at me and label me as an enemy. How do I make it clear to him that I’m trying to help? Hang on, that wasn't the issue here. How do I convince him into thinking it’s a good idea to let me help?

“Look man, It’s really complicated. You know how in some shonen anime there’s like a dark power inside the MC and they can use it, but at the cost of their morality, or humanity. Like Naruto, or bleach.” His face hadn’t changed and I wasn’t sure if he was listening or not.

Maybe I needed to go more modern. “Do you know what a turbo granny is?” I asked.

“Anime is for perverts and pussies. I don’t watch that crap.” He said crushing my insides in the process. It was the most damage anyone had ever done to me. Well, it was pretty high up there.

“Okay… you've clearly never found one you liked. You seem like a serious guy so try watching Vinland Saga. You know what, never mind! Tell me where Shadow is, or I’ll use you as a sword and kill Squirmy myself!” I threatened.

“You know, we have orders to look for you and Alice. We were supposed to escort you to the safe zone and since I found you that means I get a sweet raise and a nice bonus.” Said boner.

I could swear there were ruble signs in his eyes, which was strange since I knew he was American not Russian. Shouldn’t they be dollar signs? Was my mind playing tricks on me again?

“On the authority of the guild leader, you can forget about guiding me back to HQ. Shadow is just worried about us. I don’t want to sit around the castle. I can just tell her you found me.” I told him.

“No can do. You ain't the boss anymore. You’re not even a part of the guild. Cat lady said to bring you home and that's what I'm gonna do.” He insisted.

“I’m better off kicking ass than waiting around! This isn't a game! That things gathering power and when it’s gathered everything in the area, it’ll start heading this way!” I argued.

“Are you sure on that?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m sure. There are a few people hiding out. Getting them all to safety would have taken more than what I have. Especially after the fight I had with the boss. I thought maybe I could take it down and end everything, but I wasn’t strong enough.” I clenched my fists. A raid boss was still a fucking raid boss after all.

“I don't believe you. What can you do with a weak body like that? You’re not a player. Your stats are garbage. You don't have access to any guild buffs, and you can't even level anymore. You still haven't even explained how that's possible. No, I’d better walk you back to the castle before you get killed and I get blame.” He said.

Boner stepped forward, but before he could make an attempt to kidnap me, we heard a loud bang against the shield. I looked over to see a large centipede in the level 40 range. There were others behind it that were less powerful. They were a bit farther away, but would be here soon.

Could a group like this handle them. They were between the levels of 11 and 13. They could probably take down a few, especially with Boners current level of 45. Still this might be my chance to gain a little respect.

“Fine, I'll show you how strong I am.” I drew my nearly broken blade, as Qi raced through my meridians. From there I dashed forward with a Qi pulse slamming my face into the blue transparent wall.

“Ow!” I cried falling on my butt. My sword clattered to the ground as I held my face and cried big salty tears. “I forgot. I’m not *sob* apart of the guild anymore.”

“Nice face plant.” Said Boner.

Ignoring his comment and the NPCs rushing to my side I erupted with Qi shooting myself up and over the wall. I activated bind on the stronger mob before landing on its head. Black bands of shadow wrapped themselves around it’s body.

With a Qi pulse I shattered the chitin on its head closing the distance between me and the farthest centipede. The sharp side of Cindy's blade lashed forward in a flash sending a thin energy blade through the centipedes body resulting in it splitting in half.

There were four, now only three remained. One of the centipedes lunged forward. Activating a Qi pulse in my right leg, I forced the momentum into a back flip kicking the arthropod under its mouth and sending it’s body up into the air.

Upon landing I slashed it’s soft underside reducing it to ash and oil like blood. The next one released a cloud of poison filling the area in a dark smoke.

I activated my Qi sight while injecting some wind aspects into my aura for my own air supply. With my glowing eyes I got a perfect view of the mob.

It tried to stay low to the ground and creeped it’s way towards me. I blasted it in the face with a manabolt blinding the creature.

Putting my sword away I dashed forward turning the aura around my fist into a hammer. Then slammed my hammer fist through the centipedes skull deleting it from existence.

The impacted caused a draft that seemed to clear the smoke away. The last centipede who was also the strongest of the bunch was desperately trying to free itself from it’s bindings.

I readied another manabolt. This one I added a few extra runes to it and powered it a bit more, making it nice and fat. Then with its new name, I released the spell. “Manacanon.”

The bolt shot forward at high speed exploding out the back of the mobs head. The binds faded, as it’s body fell. It didn't even get a chance to fully touch the ground, before it turned to ash.

Unfortunately, the Manacanon hit the barricade ripping off a huge chunk of its HP. Oops. I hadn't realized how powerful that would be. A greater manabolt would have been a better choice. The energy spread out slamming into the buildings on the sides and knocking down the front of those stores.

“Whoa…” said boner.

“That's some serious magic.” Said the party monk. His name was Phillip. He was a very hairy dude.

“I've never heard of a bind spell like that. Normally it uses chains not bands.” said their mage, before looking through a book on magic.

He went by the name Zindrith. I kind of wanted to get my hands on his book, but stopped myself realizing I could probably get my hands on one later.

“Oh, look. my ride is here.” I said.

That’s when my green nimbus showed up with my wife in the fetal position rocking back and forth while repeating “…happy thoughts…” over and over again.

“Oops, I guess that prank went a little too far. In my defense I was only planning to ask Boner where Shadow was and leave.” I patted her on the head.

Wow her hair was pretty soft and so long. Why didn’t I give myself long hair like that? I’m so jealous.

“And that makes two. I’m like the best employee.” said Boner.

I rolled my eyes.