Five Days before

As Lucian was using [Soul Eater], he noticed diminishing returns on his character sheet. No matter how many smaller souls he absorbed, only a small portion of the energy transferred to his Soul stat.

The only thing the smaller souls did was increase his soul's quality, which he found slightly frustrating.

He would never be strong enough to absorb the bigger souls at the rate he was going. This meant that if this problem continued, he would be stuck, unable to improve unless he wanted to risk his life again.

Looking back at the system's previous logs, he noticed two things:

[Stat gain from Soul Eater heavily Reduced]

[Limit break Conditions for Soul stat Heavily Increased due to inactive Enemy]

This meant that he was limited in the amount of stats he could receive from [Soul Eater], making it harder to break the Limit.

Curious about how to break this Limit, he focused on the limit break condition, which thankfully popped up some helpful information.

[Each Stat in grade 1 has a limit. Challenge your body, mind, and soul to surpass your limits.]

"Hmm… not that much information, but relatively straightforward. In this case, to get past my Limit, I need to do something that challenges my soul's ability." With that thought, he began to prepare by getting stronger with smaller souls, slowly building his foundation.

"As my soul gets stronger, my ability to manipulate my soul increases. This would help when using some of my techniques in the future." he thought.

He had reached the end of the line for his soul to be improved naturally through Soul absorption. What he needed now was another way to gain more strength. He believed his previous soul techniques in his world could help with that.

"I need a failsafe in case I cannot handle the soul-devouring process." he thought as he manipulated his soul.

Thinking through how [Soul Eater] works, he realized why his soul was overwhelmed during [Soul Eater].

He didn't have enough soul energy to have gone through the whole process of devouring a soul. Luckily he found a solution to this problem.

The power needed to use [Soul Eater] wasn't based on intensity but worked more closely with duration. An example would be when an athlete was sprinting compared to long-distance running. The long-distance runner used moderate energy, nutrients, etc., and muscle activation over an extended period. Compared to a sprint which would require incredible muscle activity and leg strength for a short period, long-distance running would cost less fuel and activation, making it dependent on the energy needed to run to your fullest capability rather than quality.

The same went for [Soul Eater].

Lucian needed a way to increase the quantity of energy that he could input into [Soul Eater] over a long period to absorb a soul much larger than himself.

He could potentially accomplish this by absorbing more soul energy to increase the quality of his soul. This would mainly improve his soul quality; however, it would also increase the quantity of energy at his disposal by a small margin. The downside is that it would take years to reach a point where he could advance. However, there was a different way to shortcut the process.

Lucian immediately got to work on his hypothesis. With his new understanding of soul manipulation, he had begun soul absorption on a medium-sized soul. However, instead of taking in the energy into himself, he created a small pocket to the left of his body to which he transferred the energy. The energy was the size of a small blue-colored ball since the soul he was using was also blue. Slowly it increased in size as time past further.

Holding its position as [Soul Eater] absorbed the soul energy, its charm seemed to get harder and harder as time passed, causing Lucian to lose concentration as the energy dissipated. But this only made Lucian even more excited. He now had a direction to follow.

A couple of experiments later, he found out the best way to preserve the energy in larger amounts was to make a space inside his soul for the energy to reside. It would make it far easier to control a more significant amount of energy and would prevent him from losing the energy he gathered up even if he lost control of it.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Smiling at the success, he began preparing to absorb a bigger soul.

Back to the present, the energy from the Black soul flooded Lucian's energy link, it nearly breaking off from the sudden impact. He braced for it as the power steadily went through, maintaining the connection.

[6:37]

[6:36]

[6:35]

...

Time slowly trickled down as Lucian held on. Eventually, his energy reserves began to run low. Immediately he released his first ball of energy, refilling his reserves.

Four minutes passed by.

[2:08]

[2:07]

The mental strain he acquired when he persevered with his last ball of energy dissipated as he released it.

However, there was a problem. He still had two minutes left!

Stuck in an unfavorable predicament, Lucian calmed himself down as he thought of a solution. Breaking the tether between the two seemed still far above his ability. Moving was still impossible.

He started to feel a familiar painful sensation around his body.

He looked at the time left.

[1:28]

At this rate, he wouldn't make it!

At a loss for what to do, all he could do was look up to the top of the giant cave he was in. He could cause a commotion and get a demon to stop the process. But he would be as good as dead.

Unable to find a way forward, he finally looked at the tether again.

*Ding*

'If only I can --' he suddenly stopped himself. Lucian's eyes widened in realization.

Quickly Lucian focused his will on the tether; however, instead of trying to close it, he widened the tether's diameter, which increased the amount of energy being transferred to him and lowered the time it took to complete!

The energy intake increased by 25% as his soul started to feel the strain. Fortunately, with the quality of his soul at the moment, it was something that he could bear for a short time.

[0:53]

The process was much faster than before, but it wasn't enough. Lucian's vision blurred as the effects made it hard to keep conscious. Taking one final look all around him, there was only so much Lucian could do.

Just before his consciousness, he focused one last time on the tether.

"If I am to die, I will go out with a bang," increasing the tether's diameter by another 25%, the most he could achieve at the time with his soul manipulation. Energy flooded him even more fiercely as his soul was saturated with black energy.

*Ding*

His mind drifted away as he heard one last message from the system.

The Underworld

Above the Mountains of red and blood, clouds of black swirled clockwise in an unnatural manner, bare of any beasts. No matter how brave they were, none would have dared approach those clouds. Multiple peaks of mountains similar to the ones on the ground flew above the clouds in the darkness.

In the epicenter of the unnatural display was a throne made of skulls and bones. The throne seemed to change in structure each time it was looked at, making it hard to pinpoint exactly what it was.

Sitting in it was a man of stoic nature. He had hair and a beard colored like absolute darkness. His eyes, also black in color, told of wisdom and strength. Anyone who looked into his eyes would be lost, their thoughts unknown. On his head was a simple crown of black fire and thorns. The man sat leisurely with his arm holding his head up as he watched a visual in the air of a beautiful woman tending to some plants.

Suddenly he jerked up, terminating his visual as flashes of surprise and curiosity reflected in his eyes. Contemplating, he sat in thought, obviously curious as to why he felt this way.

"This has been the second time someone has escaped my grasp, and the second time I have not been able to pinpoint who exactly," he thought.

"The energy signature has been far too weak to get into my radar. However, I am curious how it is so close to the realm. Have those annoying god-slayers captured one of the weaker demons? No, the signature did not seem demonic but much closer to human. However, that can't be possible. Humans can’t be strong enough to be here. Then, what is it?"

The man's face twisted in frustration as he couldn't figure out what.

Suddenly, the signature appeared again. Surprised, the man immediately narrowed down the location. He wasn't going to lose it thrice.

He phased through the world faster than the eyes could follow, stopping inside one of the caves below one of the mountains dedicated to soul reincarnation. Phasing in, he swiftly looked around, looking for any abnormalities in the area.

"Your Godliness! Welcome! Forgive my unpreparedness; I was not expecting your arrival. May I serve you with anything?" An older demon flew with haste to greet the man.

Ignoring his question, he took another good look at the area, unable to identify the signature anymore.

"I Lost it again.." he mumbled as his pale skin slowly turned dark, and the aura around him turned more erratic and violent.

Turning to the old demon, he looked at him, his expression reflecting the face of death itself. The old man's body instantly began to shrivel up and dissipate, like he was nothing but dust...

"IF ONLY MERCURY DID NOT LOSE THE GOD SPHERE, I WOULD NOT BE HERE DEALING WITH SUCH TRIVIAL MATTERS," He said in anger, obviously not entirely done releasing his fury.

“THANATOS!” He roared

A wind blew as a winged man suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

"Yes, your godliness," an extremely handsome man with beautiful black wings and an enormous scythe appeared next to him instantly. He knelt in the air in subservience.

He stared at the man and nodded toward him. "Find the disturbance. I'm sure you felt it as well?" he said in annoyance since Thanatos hadn't done anything about it before long.

"Yes, your godliness. Apologies, I was preoccupied with my duties. I will find the source as soon as possible," Thanatos said respectfully.

"Good. I must preserve my Divinity due to the disappearance of the God sphere. A God of Death like myself has much better things to do." he sighed as he tried to calm down. He phased away back to his throne of bone soon after.

Watching him phase away, he stood up from his bowed position.

He stood in midair as his eyes flashed mysteriously.

Looking down the cave at a particular multicolored soul, his blank stare morphed into the tiniest of a smile as he phased away.