As the golden essence kept leaving Soma’s body and merged into the lifeless body it began to glow golden. As more essence enter the stronger the glow became and when the final essence entered the body it started to shine like the sun blinding Zero.
Zero felt around with his eyes closed until he managed to grab Soma’s arm and proceeded to teleport out of the room. They appeared in Dracula’s empty hidden study that he had previously cleared out. Zero laid Soma on the ground and proceeded to remove Soma’s soul.
Soma’s soul looked like a pitch-black mass with small lines of gray mixed in here and there. What Zero was looking for ways to see if Yaldabaoth’s power still existed even after he’d defeated the archon posing as the chaos entity. To his surprise is did and he went to work extracting the power as he did with Death’s soul. Having experience in this he managed to do it rather quickly and sent the power into his dimension.
Now that that was gone he paid close attention as he looked for any tricks that Sophia might have left in Soma’s soul. He found nothing after checking so he then proceeded to do what he had come to the castle for. Zero split Soma’s soul into 2 pieces and his shadow opened up into a giant swirling shadow that released a multitude of souls that brought along.
Wasting no time, he turned these souls into a green energy that fed into the 2 halves of the soul. The souls grew slowly getting bigger and bigger as Zero pulled out more souls to feed them. After expending nearly 4,000 souls both halves looked exactly as Soma’s original soul did. Zero then inspected the 2 souls to make sure that there was no damage something he normally didn’t do because Soma was his friend. See that everything was fine he let his shadow shallow one of the souls and fused the remaining one with Soma’s body.
Zero waited for Soma to awaken as he thought of how to convince Soma of what he planned to do next. After 10 minutes Soma awoke and was on guard waking up in a strange area causing him to create a sword out of his blood and prepare to attack. Soma noticed a sitting figure in the corner and turned to attack but thankfully his night vision allowed him to see it was Zero so he stopped mid-attack.
“Thanks for not cutting off my head or stabbing me in the heart again.” joked Zero as he laughed
“Don’t joke like that. I’m sorry for the heart stab and almost killing you. Even if that wasn’t fully me it’s still something I should apologize for.” said Soma as he bowed his head.
“You’ve always been a bit too serious Soma and if you’re going to apologize for something it should be for dragging me into a fight with the archon inside you.” said Zero
“You’re right I’m sorry for not heeding your warning and going after it alone. What can I do to make it up to you?” asked Soma
“Well if you want to really make it up to me then I need you to do me a favor.” said Zero
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“Sure, what is it?” asked Soma
“Now don’t get mad but I plan to remove Mina’s soul…” said Zero but before he could finish the sentence Soma turned the blood sword into a whip and stuck at the side of Zero who looked at Soma with an unflinching smile.
‘Damn that scared me! Why don’t people ever let me finish my sentence.’
Soma glared at Zero and said, “I think I misheard you can you repeat that again!”
Zero’s smile didn’t falter as he said, “Sure but please don’t interrupt me this time. As I was saying I plan to remove Mina’s soul and transform her into something stronger than a human.”
“Why do you need to do that?” asked Soma who was still glaring at the smiling Zero while releasing killing intent.
“Now now calm down Soma I wouldn’t hurt my own cousin. When Yaldabaoth arrives Mina and you will be one of his priorities. He’ll do his best to kill the 2 of you and I’m not sure we’ll be able to protect her so I wanted to give her enough power to stay alive is all.” explained Zero
“So, you want to turn her into a demon with devil forging! I refuse to allow you to do that to her!” yelled Soma as his killing intent increased.
“You really need to chill out. I can’t devil forge and I have no plans to turn her into a demon.” retorted Zero
“What do you mean devil forging the only way for anyone to create a strong creature quickly.” said Soma
“I was interested in the art while searching throughout the castle but I’ve gained the power to create life without the power of alchemy.” said Zero
“The power to create life?” asked Soma
“Yes, and unlike devil forging my way won’t harm Mina’s soul in any way. Mina will still be herself soul wise and looks the only difference is that she’ll gain enough power to be able to defend herself.” explained Zero
Soma didn’t say anything as his killing intent disappeared and he started to think about Zero’s words. After a few minutes, Soma open his mouth and asked, “Mina’s memories will still be the same right?”
“Yes, just like with you when I change her I’ll remove Yaldabaoth’s influence from her soul and awaken her previous memories.” answered Zero
“Okay if she really won’t change then you can do it. I trust you.” said Soma
Zero walked up to Soma and place his hand on Soma’s shoulder and said, “Thank you for trusting Soma.”
“On another note, I’ve been wondering this but isn’t this my old study when I was Dracula? Where are all my books?” asked Soma as he glanced around looking at the empty room.
“Ah I took them don’t worry too much about it. More importantly, I need you to go hunt me some valkyrie souls for Mina.” said Zero changing the subject to avoid explain where the books are.
“Why do you need their soul? Also, I don’t really need to hunt them.” said Soma as orbs started to appear out of the walls.
“Right I forgot you’re the master of this castle and all the monster within it. I’d like 40 of them.” said Zero as his shadow expanded to absorb all the souls that were appearing.
“Do you need anything else?” asked Soma
After collecting all the souls with his shadow Zero grabbed Soma and teleported both of them to the walkway before the castle entrance where Mina was waiting. Zero turned to look at Soma and said, “No I just need to grab a few things I’ll be back in a few minutes so why don’t you go spend some time with Mina until then.”
Soma nodded and walked through the doorway and ran towards Mina as Zero teleported away.
Skill Explanation:
Knowledge Projection: User can project knowledge onto another mind, allowing instant transferal and understanding or slower process where the target integrates the knowledge without a risk of overflow. Some users can transfer either knowledge, experience, or both in various degrees.
Holy Voice: The user has the power to cleanse, purify, heal, shatter, destabilize, disintegrate, and stabilize the living and non-living of the mortal realm. This power can only affect beings capable of hearing the voice and will not work on the deaf.
Divine Mana Manipulation: Users can create, shape, and manipulate mana, the energy behind all magic. Mortals use a lower degrade form of man but due to the user’s ascension, they gain access to a purer form of mana that gods wield. Mana is the impersonal source of energy that is both external and internal, existing in people, places, and objects, and can be transmuted by the user into magical powers that yields upstanding results in both practice and combat. However, the ability of mana relies more on the use of different methods of magic such as spoken incantations, magic symbols, and mystic items, like spell books, charms, talismans, weapons. Divine mana has the added benefit of being able to summon high-level spirits and can be used to bring the deceased back to the world of the living. High-level users can also gain the ability to summon angels from their realms.