The perfect, damned, absolutely stunning, exquisite face refused to leave the forefront of my mind. I had a sudden clever thought - could I perhaps drown it in the memories of others? Could I devour more of these empty shells, add them to myself, become stronger, stay in the Astral longer?

Klint Klondike Tricameron was a hunter, a killer of men. It would be easy for him to devour these remnants of long dead souls... but it was also dangerous.

Klint's wise grandfather Archmage Keps had often uttered a phrase "Sample not the fruits offered freely, for they might be poisoned by our enemies. The Basque Empire never sleeps, always plots our downfall."

There was indeed great wisdom in this thought. Eating random people in the Astral might be a good idea to gain power, but also a very dangerous one, for one did not eat food from the floor, especially food that sat for God knows how many years and got contaminated with God knows what.

I looked at the fossilized, hollowed out body of Klint. The artefacts! Of course!

I could eat his artefacts! Magical tools imbued with bits of his soul imprinted in the Astral too!

The Dex man knew, understood magical tools because he was made from hundreds of tools that had replaced his organs, bones and flesh. These tools were empty, single minded. They were made, designed to serve. They weren't people, didn't have their own memories, dreams, hopes and fears that could carry onto me and dilute my personality into a mire of an unclear blob of a human being.

I swam around the body of Klint, examining the hollow artefacts that fossilized, crystalized into the Astral sediment along with him.

Here we go. Klint's own artefacts would not hurt him. Each of them definitely processed a small imprint of Klint's soul and mana! But I had to be careful in consuming them. I was but a small soul. Eating too much at once also seemed unwise. Pushing too many memories into my mind and too much mana into myself seemed to screw up my ability to think straight.

Klint also knew the Song-spell for stilling a soul, the [Tamus-Anima] and the Song for carving apart a piece of the soul [Sectus-Anima]. Wielding these two spells like a fork and a knife, I could theoretically carve up the things I was eating, take them a little bit at a time, until I got strong enough. Until the ever-present chill and darkness of the Astral would stop gnawing at my own soul.

I started to sing to the nearest artefact that still radiated magic. It was Klint's magisteel right hand. It now looked hollow, broken, covered in barnacles and dirty crystals, but there was still life in it. Tiniest motes of light that I wanted danced within its shell.

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I had no idea how I was singing without lips. Maybe the Song was just an idea, a mathematical expression, a magnetic pattern that my microscopic threads weaved, but as soon as I finished the song the motes of light inside of the arm stilled, paused their wiggling.

I mentally aimed for the nearest one with the [Sectus-Anima] and sang the stanza. The tiny mote of light separated from the arm, I guided it towards myself with my threads and engulfed it.

Perfection. It worked! I instantly felt better, less dead, less tired and unmotivated. Best of all, less obsessed with the face of Ishira's avatar!

On and on, I went, cutting the tiny soul-motes out of Klint's artefacts, taking my time to eat them slowly so that I would not lose my sense of self.

Eventually, I had reached Klint's heart - an enormous gemstone filled with mana. It was hidden deep, buried within the core of his chest. It took me a ridiculously long time to carve it up, to get all of its power into me incrementally, but it was a huge boon to me. My threads now glowed with power, were a lot thicker, stronger.

One of the last artifacts awaited my attention. The amulet necklace... containing Klint's grandfather. I briefly paused. Was it wise to proceed? I felt that it was. There was no sense in leaving the old Alanian Archmage legionnaire in the Astral, his memories of war with the Basque could be a great boon to me!

I stilled the vibrating, star-like structure within the ossified amulet and stared to consume it, thread by thread.

Welcome to Novazem Astral, phantom aberration.

Assigned Affinity: Soul Hunter

A blue window flashed at me. What the hell?

Klint's memories told me that this was just the Soul-Song, although presented in a strange visual manner, probably because I Ioved, understood computers better than anything. Soul-Songs were unique to each citizen of Novazem. Klint's Archmage grandfather for example had his Soul-Song visualized as a book that he could open and close.

Whatever, there were more artifacts to cut up, more power to absorb. I had to get stronger, couldn't be distracted - the Astral Ocean was a very dangerous place, unfit for a little, defenseless, weak soul like myself.

I did not know how much time had passed as I meticulously and incrementally carved out all of the power out of Klint's tools. Maybe a few hours. Maybe a few weeks or months. Time was hard to keep track of in the Astral where nothing moved.

The dreary landscape in front of me suddenly lit up.

A strange, fractal jellyfish emerged out of the gloom, roaming the wasteland of broken men. Its shimmering tentacles sucked the remnants of life and memories out of the hollow, dead things as it moved towards me.

Shit! That was a phantom. A creature of the Astral Ocean. A killer whale!

The silver-blue jellyfish hunter whale saw me, grew in size as it got close, increasing ten, then hundred, then a thousand times in size. Its razor-covered spread out, aiming for me.

[ ATTACK THE PHANTOM ]

[ FLEE ]