Chapter 9 – Soul Siphon

Aenon stared down his opponent, who had frozen still when his presence was unleashed. The elf’s soul was very different to any he had felt so far. Earlier he had felt it, but now that he was so close he finally understood what was giving off those weird vibes. If everyone’s souls were like spherical balls that emitted emotions, this guy’s soul was emitting a jumbled mess of conflicting feelings. But they were all very weak and hard to separate out.

And the reason for it was quite clear. His soul was covered in layers upon layers of foreign soul pieces. He had felt the soul fragments that had fallen off Eskad and his party. That was more akin to a powder, while these pieces were more like strips of cloth. And if Eskad had gained a few stat points from just the powder, it was hard to imagine how boosted the elf’s stats were. Aenon could feel the power radiating from the elf but could not accurately predict how strong he was. His identify skill also came up empty. The man’s level was in double digits, but his stats were obviously higher than Aenon’s since he could not see the level.

But more concerning of all were the man’s daggers. The attack had connected, which was a surprise for Aenon. His System assigned shield that provided protection from any offensive action had not blocked it in the slightest. Only those in authoritative positions, such as the arbiter and city officials, would have been exempt from the rule. This meant the man held some official position, and knowing the sniveling mayor of the city, it was not hard to see why. As Aenon was sizing up his opponent, the rogue finally managed to break out of his shock.

“My, oh my. That is some presence you have there. For a second you had me worried that I was looking at the new mysterious arbiter. But then my attack would not have landed. The fact that it did means you are just some pathetic rodent drunk on power,” the rogue said with a greasy smile.

Even though he was trying to pretend that Aenon’s presence didn’t have much of an effect, the bead of sweat rolling down his forehead said otherwise. Aenon touched the spot the dagger had cut him on the shoulder. Even his armor was unaffected. He checked his status to see what was affected. His health bar was still full, which confused him. But then he noticed that his STR stat had fallen by a single point which had reduced his over health pool, but it was still at 100%.

“So, you directly hit the opponent’s soul, draining away their stats. Its more like pure damage, rather than physical or magical,” Aenon asked while maintaining his calm demeanor. “Do all the wood elves specialize in soul magic to boost their power?”

“You do know what happens to curious nobodies who do not know their place?” the man asked with narrowed eyes. Aenon had intentionally let it slip that he understood Mave’s power. He was testing something, and it had worked. He noticed whenever the elf was unsure or surprised, a faint trickle of of his real emotions slipped out through the cracks around his soul. Even right now, when he assumed Aenon knew the elf’s secret, a faint emotion had managed to escape. Fear.

“Oh yeah? What are you going to do about it?” Aenon mocked.

In response, the elf got into his earlier stance and charged. And like earlier he managed to nick a cut, draining a point in INT this time. But this time Aenon observed the process more closely. A tiny thread of his soul had broken off and attached to the elf’s. A fight with this elf was a battle of attrition, where he got stronger with every strike. Pure hit and run tactics, where he turned his enemy’s power against them. A truly ridiculous, but effective, strategy. Aenon could see the allure behind such a method. The growth potential was nearly endless. Nearly being the key word.

“Well, this is a first. I have never seen someone take soul damage without breaking down and begging for mercy,” the elf said as he landed a fifth cut.

Every hit reduced one of his stats, and Aenon was yet to pin down his opponent. The guy was just too fast. But Aenon kept trying to stab him with his ruined daggers, making the elf cackle in glee each time he missed. The wolves in his shadow were growling, demanding to be let out. But Aenon ordered them not to. He had found the weakness, and he just needed them to play along. And so, the one-sided fight continued.

“Ahahahaha. I have drained a hundred stat points from you by now. Can you feel your body getting heavier, slower, and your memory getting fuzzier?” the elf reveled in his apparent success. He moved around Aenon with precision and grace.

“Not yet,” Aenon mentally told the wolves who were getting angrier by the second. The elf’s latest comment had confirmed Aenon’s suspicion that he had no way of sensing souls. If he could, the elf would not have been so cocky at draining a measly 112 points from his huge stat pool. To keep up appearances, Aenon started moving slower whenever his STR or DEX were drained and looked a bit out of it when his INT and PER were targeted. Only when another 824 points were reduced did the elf stop his deadly dance.

“Ah, this exhilarating feeling of gaining stats is incomparable with any other pleasures. And now that you are drained of most of your stats, I am going to enjoy making you squeal. You may be resilient enough to have tiny threads of your soul ripped off. But once I start carving off strips of it…” the elf grinned as he approached Aenon who was down on one knee.

Aenon was supporting his body weight using his hands on the ground. Or so the elf thought. The overconfident fool strutted at a casual pace, as he retrieved some kind of metal collar. Aenon could feel strong magic from it. But just as he was about to put it on Aenon, his feet froze. Not figuratively, but literally.

A thick layer of ice erupted from Aenon’s hands and wrapped around the bewildered man’s feet. And before he could think of a way to break free, four earth spikes shot up and pierced him through his calf muscles and thighs.

“AAAAAAARGH,” the elf yelled in pain. Aenon then stood up and started stretching his neck and arms, as though nothing of note had happened in the last 40 minutes. “You… you… you are a mage?”

“Never said I wasn’t,” Aenon replied calmly.

“But… but you should have no mana pool left to cast such magic. I was sure to drain your INT stat most of all,” he said amid grunts of pain. The guy wanted to break free, but the angle at which the spikes had pierced made it difficult.

“Oh, I noticed. A pretty good strategy you got there. Extreme speed to make you elusive and drain the core stats for magic casters. It was well planned and executed,” Aenon said with a mock smile as he approached the writhing man. “And it would work on most people. Having 900+ stats drained is no joke after all.”

“Then how?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Aenon asked sarcastically. The elf withdrew something from his inventory, a token of sorts. But before he could do anything with it, Aenon added, “Now.”

As one, his wolves dove out of his shadow and bit down on a limb each. The hand holding the token was completely severed, as the wolf savagely shook its jaws. The elf shrieked in pain, as the wolves started playing tug of war with the elf’s body. The action even ripped the spikes out, causing more damage.

Aenon gave a sharp whistle, making the wolves drop the elf and back off. But their growling didn’t abate in the slightest. They were still furious at the prey that had hurt their alpha. Aenon walked up and squatted next to the bloodied man, terror clear as day in his bloodshot eyes.

“Don’t come closer. I am warning you. You have no idea who I am. My parents are…” the elf started ranting as he desperately tried to crawl away. But his limbs were torn to shreds, making the action unlikely.

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Aenon ignored the elf’s words, just staring at the weeping man with cold grey eyes. His entire focus was on the elf’s soul. He found a new layer of soul fragments, his soul fragments. Unlike the other layers, they were held in place with a very weak force. If Aenon was to guess, this was a two-part process. The first step was to get the pieces, and the next was to stitch them together. And that probably happened after the battle. He still wasn’t sure why the elf had stopped draining his stats though.

Aenon could clearly see the older layers had almost fused together. But the newer layers, which included Eskad’s, weren’t entirely integrated yet. But there was another interesting thing he noticed. Now that he was observing this closely, the layers were radiating some residual feelings. They were so faint; it was like trying to listen to whispers from several feet away. But they were there, and it a huge jumble of emotions. Fear, regret, pain; it was a whole plethora of negative emotions. But the primary one which dominated was anger.

“… will come for you. You will have no spot in the multiverse where you can hide.”

Aenon was snapped out of his thoughts by the elf’s obnoxious voice. He was still not done with his litany of curses and threats. Aenon sighed internally and deposited his broken daggers into his inventory. In their place he grabbed the daggers that were lying in a pool of blood to the side. The elf’s eyes widened when he saw his precious weapons being held by someone else, and because of what he knew was going to happen. Aenon quickly skimmed over the weapon description before the man began to grovel.

Item Name: Soul Render

Item Type: Dagger (Main hand)

Item Rarity: Ancient

Item Description: An insidious blade with an insatiable lust for souls. Made using ancient forbidden arts, the dagger is harmless physically, piercing the fabric of its victim’s souls instead. The pieces that tear out inflict unimaginable and debilitating pain that makes the victim lose the will to live, let alone the will to fight. Being a weapon that inflicts soul damage, it has been outlawed by many empires and factions.

Item Name: Soul Reaper

Item Type: Dagger (Off hand)

Item Rarity: Ancient

Item Description: The malevolent twin of Soul Render, this dagger works in sync with its brother. While the main weapon tears off pieces, this dagger consumes them and attaches it to the wielder’s soul. However, the ability has a steep cost. For every 1000 stats drained, it will shave off 10 from its user, inflicting exponentially more pain in the process. Being a weapon that harvests souls, this weapon is outlawed by the System itself.

The rarity of the daggers was a grade higher than his own, and the effects were just monstrous. Aenon also figured out why the elf had stopped the fight. He had drained 900 something of his stats. Any higher and the man would have been paralyzed by the pain of having 10 stat points being forcibly drained by the second dagger. Curiously though, Aenon wasn’t sure how the elf was using the dagger if it was outlawed by the System.

“YOU, GIVE THOSE BACK,” he bellowed and tried snatch to the daggers using his one good arm, only to lose it to another wolf instead. He cried out in pain, as he had lost both hands.

Aenon tuned out the pained shouts and used his mana sense to observe the daggers instead. He found a sophisticated spell pattern on it that looked similar to the symbols Nocthrya had burned into his memory. But they looked… wrong. While the symbols looked familiar, they were not accurate. It was like a toddler’s first attempt at writing letters. Even so, they did accomplish whatever task they were meant to.

CRASH

A loud breaking sound made Aenon look up from he was kneeling next to the bloody mess. Agatha had finally managed to break down the frozen door and was hurriedly marching towards them. Aenon deposited the daggers in his inventory as he stood up.

“What is going on here?” she demanded as she stood with her staff ready. She looked around in alarm at the severed limbs, one of which was being chewed on by a wolf. The wolves gave her a side eye, but mostly ignored her.

“You tell me. This is your city, your house. I just got here,” Aenon said in a casual tone.

“We’ll get to that. First show me your weapons that you just deposited into your inventory,” she asked with pursed lips. She had not lowered her guard and was instead aiming her staff at Aenon.

“You mean the weapons that I seized from him?” Aenon replied while pointing a thumb at the elf. He didn’t like the implication in the woman’s voice. This felt like déjà vu all over again.

“Whatever the case, show them to me.”

Aenon stared coldly for a moment, before retrieving the twin daggers. The woman’s breath caught in her throat as she laid eyes on it, no doubt having used identify to read the descriptions. Aenon noticed a wand in her hands and pulled up its description too.

Item Name: Soul Harvester

Item Type: Wand (Main hand)

Item Rarity: Rare

Item Description: An outlawed wand that chips away the souls of its victims, converting the pieces into an elixir that can be consumed. Being a weapon that harvests souls, this weapon is outlawed by the System itself.

It looked like a set piece with the daggers and probably came from the mayor, who Aenon sensed was lying unconscious in the room. The wand’s rarity wasn’t as high and the flavor text was minimal, but the effects weren’t any devastating. It too had the mysterious spell pattern, which Aenon assumed was some kind of cloaking spell. It also explained the source of the potions the nobles were consuming.

“Hand that over right now,” Agatha spoke in an authoritative tone, holding out her hand towards Aenon. But she had to take a step back when the wolves stood up and faced her with a growl.

“Down,” Aenon commanded, making all the wolves to back off and sit on their haunches. Aenon then turned to her with a fierce gaze, “You speak as though I had anything to do with this mess. If anything, I am the one cleaning after you. I don’t want your gratitude, but the least you can do is get off your high horse.”

The older woman looked down in embarrassment, before giving a formal bow, “My apologies. I got carried away in the heat of the moment. I will…”

“Second time,” Aenon interrupted her.

“I beg your pardon,” she asked in confusion.

“That is the second time you have gotten carried away. The first time you tried to use soul manipulation to calm me. And this time, you acted as though I was the one who brought these daggers to your city. I am not even including the hostile behavior of your guild leader when we first met,” Aenon glared at her in silence before driving in the point, “The only reason you are still standing is that you didn’t do it out of spite or hate. But push me again, and I will make you regret it.”

Aenon focused his soul presence directly at her, instead of releasing it in all directions. The effect was quite apparent, as she started to sweat profusely and struggled to keep standing. She was leaning on her staff so as not to tip over. Aenon let her experience the full weight of his presence before pulling it back.

“I apologize once again. I will make sure it never happens again,” she said politely as she sighed in relief. Her gaze lingered on the daggers, but she said nothing. Aenon tossed the daggers towards her without a second thought, which she barely managed to catch in surprise.

He then turned to the elf, who was still spread out on the ground with terror filled eyes. He gathered some mana on his palm as he planned what he wanted to do next. He had studied the way the rogue fought, and how his weapons worked. He just needed to replicate it. He took a step forward, while coating his entire hand in the mana.

“You have something that belongs to me,” he said as he dashed forward suddenly and punched the prone man in the gut.

But this was no ordinary punch. He had infused mana into it, along with one other thing which he had not thought of earlier; his soul presence. His Void Stalker class had said it could incorporate soul magic. So, that is exactly what he did.

The soul magic enhanced punch directly impacted the man’s soul, loosening the pieces that he had stolen. And using the same spell he pulled them out and drew it into himself. The elf thrashed on the floor as the pieces were ripped out and returned to their rightful owner. Once he had recovered all his stats, Aenon kept pulling and condensing the fragments from Eskad’s soul.

Agatha must have assumed he was going to consume those too, but before she could protest, Aenon retrieved Eskad from his shadow and placed a hand on his chest. He fed the soul fragments back which quickly filled out the rips in Eskad’s soul. Like pieces of a jigsaw, they fit in but would take time to heal. There were still a few gaps missing, which must be where the wand had pulled from. He would try to recover those later from whoever had consumed the elixirs.

When Aenon was done, he pulled back and looked at the unconscious form of the elf. The pain must have been too much for him, making the guy pass out.

“You were about to interrupt me again. Assuming that I would feed on Eskad’s soul fragments,” Aenon said suddenly while facing Agatha. She panicked and was about to explain but Aenon cut her off, “But you didn’t. That is what counts in my book. I am not asking you to trust me blindly. Only that you think before you act. It is natural to be wary of me. But don’t let it cloud your judgement of who I am.”

She looked at him thoughtfully before asking, “Who are you?”

“Seomeone who hates tyrants.”