Micro felt as powerless as the moment he had first been summoned to a new world full of powers he couldn’t comprehend. He had no control over what little energy remained in his body, and the only energy he could see was the stolen energy of cultivators’ cores flowing through the air to the glowing humanoid figure above him.

With a makeshift core of tightly fitting chaos energy, he was barely able to contain his soul within his body and move around free of pain, but he confirmed how powerless he was when he tried to jump up to punch the monster and barely had the power to jump at all. He tripped over the side of the stage, unable to correct his path with his weakened arms and legs. He braced himself to hit the ground, but something padded his impact.

“Oof…” Several muffled voices grunted beneath him.

Micro scrambled away and looked back to find that among several cultivators who had broken his fall was Vera, the healer from the Soul Sect.

“Sorry!” Micro whispered, already running out of breath after standing up.

“Are you okay…?”

“You…” Vera spoke as she opened her glassy eyes.

“Your soul… you…”

“I’m fine!” Micro interrupted her.

“But I don’t know what to do…”

“Your soul… I see…” Vera sighed.

“You were a traveller, after all…”

“What do you mean?” Micro asked, kneeling down beside Vera.

“I’ve seen the soul of one other hero…” She replied, closing her eyes as the pain in her chest throbbed.

“But theirs was corrupted… polluted by chaos…”

She opened one eye and reached out to touch his chest.

“But yours remains pure… though hidden behind the same chaos… that fills this place now.” She continued with shallow breaths, then nodded.

“Run, if you can…”

“I can’t leave my passengers lying on the side of the road!” Micro replied with a thin smile.

“Is there a way to stop all this?”

“Stop it…?” Vera sighed, turning her head to look up at the glowing form above the stage.

“It still lacks a soul… If you could prevent the soul from entering the vessel… Then perhaps…”

“Where’s the soul now?” Micro asked.

“There… You’re too late…” Vera replied slowly, pointing up at the sky.

“It’s coming…”

As Vera fainted, Micro looked up to see something like a shooting star falling toward the stadium. He climbed up onto the stage again, where the Imperial Guards and his friends still lay, and looked up at the floating figure. It slowly descended to the ground next to Micro as a familiar blue cloak materialized around it. It landed softly, apparently alive, though its eyes were closed. He waved his hands in front of his face, and poked its shoulder several times, but there was no reaction.

“So the hero doesn’t have a driver yet…” Micro thought aloud, then he looked up again.

“But the driver is that soul… Let’s see…”

Micro then tried to push the soulless hero out of the path of the incoming soul, but he felt like he may as well have been pushing a mountain. He tried picking up the hero next, but he felt something pop in his lower back before giving up. He looked around the tournament at the mostly unconscious cultivators that surrounded him, but found nothing of use.

As the soul grew brighter and brighter in the sky, Micro began to feel anxious, unable to think of a way to prevent it from entering the body in front of him. Eventually the soul shone above him with the light of the sun, and he looked up in time to see it crash through the barrier of chaos energy on its way to the hero it was meant to inhabit.

“Ah!” Micro suddenly shouted as one final idea came to his mind.

He jumped on the hero in front of him and began to climb it like a tree, coming to rest on its shoulder just as the soul came rushing down. He held his hands up to shield his eyes from the blinding light, but the soul wasn’t slowed by his hands.

“Woah!” Micro shouted in shock as the soul crashed into his chest, the force of which sent him flying off the hero’s shoulders and half way across the arena. Landing on the stone seats between two unconscious cultivators, he looked around as the green barrier crumbled away, its particles blinking out of existence as they scattered. Without the barrier in its way, the moon and stars were finally a familiar colour, though he found it hard to see much of anything with his left eye.

What few cultivators were still conscious ceased their agonizing screams as the wind began to move gently through the arena once more, and several others began to wake up, but there were no words spoken. Ignoring the strange sensations in his chest for the time being, Micro ran straight back to the stage to where his friends still lay. He knelt down beside Kel and grabbed his shoulders.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Kel, wake up!” Micro shouted while shaking him with the limited strength he had.

“Master…?” Kel mumbled as his eyes slowly opened.

“You.. Agh…!

Kel suddenly rolled over onto his side and grasped his chest. Startled, Micro quickly rose to his feet.

“My core…!” Kel said through a cough.

“It’s gone!”

“It’s gone?” Micro asked, but as other voices began to echo here and there, similar statements could be heard.

“The array…” Lena added as she sat up slowly.

“It drained us of our internal energy… Until the hero’s vessel was complete…”

“But it didn’t kill us.” Azar grunted, still laying on the ground.

“But it looks like my core is intact, though damaged…”

“Hmm…” Lena analyzed Kel for a moment as he sat in shock.

“Your core is nearly gone, but it isn’t gone…”

“What?” Kel shouted.

“What do you mean?!”

“Keep your voice down.” Azar rebuked him as he raised a hand to his head in pain.

“Your core is there, but any jade core in the vicinity is likely near death…”

“Huh…” Blue spoke up.

“Now I’ve been sacrificed twice. Looks like my core is mostly dried up too.”

“But you…” Lena turned her head to look up at Micro.

“Even with a higher level jade core you should be able to-”

She suddenly paused as she looked closely at his chest with glowing eyes.

“Your core!” She gasped.

“It’s completely broken, but there’s something else…”

“Oh, I covered my soul with chaos energy to keep things together.” Micro explained.

“It feels gross, and I can’t use any energy, but it’s better than my soul bursting out of this tiny body. It’s the other soul swimming around in there that bothers me though…”

“What…?” Lena barely managed to mutter.

“Wait, the soul!”

She looked over at the cloaked hero who stood motionless only a few paces away. It radiated a terrifying aura, but it remained completely still.

Vera suddenly crawled up onto the stage and approached the group on her hands and knees.

“We don’t have time!” Vera shouted as panic overcame her fatigue.

“Your cores are tomorrow’s problem! The vessel is unstable!”

As Vera warned, the hero’s empty vessel suddenly began to twitch and convulse. It collapsed to the floor as its breathing grew hoarse, and internal energy began to spill out of it in waves that violently pushed everyone on the stage away. No one among the conscious cultivators in the arena could harness a single drop of energy with their damaged cores, and could only crawl away.

Even the two sapphire level Imperial Guards were unable to raise even the thinnest of defensive auras and helplessly backed away from the unstable hero’s vessel in terror. Kel tried to drag the still unconscious Tae away with him by her hands, but they were both pushed off the side of the stage by a particularly powerful wave of energy that shook the arena.

“It has no control!” Vera shouted as the sound of panicking cultivators began to increase.

“The core is in chaos! Run!”

Blue found her way into Micro’s pocket as he helped Kel lift Tae off the ground started putting as much distance between them and the ticking time bomb behind them as possible. Micro noticed Ki lying in his way and managed to grab hold of her with his other hand, but he could only hope the others still laying here and there would stay safe somehow as he dragged her with them toward the exit. But as he finally reached the exit, he knew it was too late.

Without looking back, he knew, as did everyone around him, that an explosion of energy was about to consume them all. He looked up at the stars, still only visible to his right eye, wondering if the old man was somewhere among them.

“Maybe another goddess will take me home this time…” he whispered to himself as he accepted his fate.

“Hah…” Blue let out a short laugh that sounded more like a weak cough.

“Room for one more…?”

“Sure.” Micro replied.

“I can-”

But he didn’t finish his sentence, as he caught a glimpse of a second light flying through the sky like a shooting star. He thought it may be a problem with his eyes at first, but after blinking away his tears, he was sure that it was coming straight toward them.

THWOOM

He couldn’t turn his head fast enough to follow it as the light collided with the stone platform behind him, sending out a shockwave that knocked him to the ground and made his ears ring. Not a single cultivator remained standing as tiny pieces of the stone platform rained down on the arena. Micro peered through the cloud of dust with watery eyes, trying to comprehend what he had just witnessed, and it became clear with a gust of wind.

The dust was suddenly swept away by a shockwave originating at the site where the empty hero’s vessel now beneath the foot of a woman in light blue robes with an aura he couldn’t believe. Even compared to the unstable hero with an emerald core, her presence was like a mountain weighing down on him. He watched her summon a rope of radiant light which she used to quickly tie up the explosive vessel, apparently stabilizing it enough to prevent it from exploding for the time being.

“How strange…” The woman said as she looked with disgust at the empty vessel beneath her feet.

“Looks like another failed summon… Oh well.”

Apparently content with her inspection of the lifeless hero, she held out her hand and fired an energy attack similar to the Spirit Wave skill which Micro had recently learned, but it was far more refined. In less time than it took Micro to blink, the empty vessel had disappeared along with a spherical chunk of the earth beneath it.

“Quickly, this way…!” A feminine voice suddenly whispered behind him. He turned to see a familiar face with one red eye grab him by the back of his robe and yank him to his feet with surprising strength. He stumbled toward the exit as she pulled him out the door and turned onto the empty street.

“Wha…” Micro blankly stammered.

“I thought you left…”

“Forgive me, brave messenger!” The woman cried.

“I sensed something had gone wrong the moment the barrier was erected. The summoning was corrupted by some unknown force…”

“The summoning…?” Micro gasped.

“You knew about the summoning? Are you-”

“Forgive my insolence, master!” She shouted with tears in her eyes as she led him faster and faster through the alleys and buildings of the deserted city.

“Despite your merciful orders, I couldn’t bear the knowledge that you were left to face a corrupted hero alone!”

“Corrupted?” Micro asked.

“I don’t know how, but a completely different soul than that for which the vessel was designed appeared in the stars.” She explained.

“I don’t know what became of the soul, but it likely would have caused the hero’s vessel to mutate into something terrible. I’ve seen it happen…”

“Pump the brakes!” Micro suddenly dug his feet into the ground, bringing them both to a sudden stop between two old buildings.

“You’re a magician?!”

“Master…” She turned around with a look of surprise.

“Of course I’m not a magician…”

“Oh, thank goodness-”

“I’m a Chaos Witch.”