The perfect, damned, absolutely stunning, exquisite face refused to leave the forefront of my mind.

A realization stuck me. Klint died over a thousand years ago. Giovashi had not only survived the fall of Tricameron, she also fed on the magic of her followers for a thousand years, extending her lifespan far beyond that of mundane humans.

Her perfect smile felt like it was burned into my soul with absolute Charisma, refused to let me go.

I had a sudden clever thought - could I perhaps drown this memory in the memories of others? Could I devour more of these empty shells, add them to myself, become stronger, use them to survive?

Klint Klondike Tricameron was a Agent, 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.

Kopusha's memories agreed with Keps.

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

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

The Arcanix 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 artifacts that fossilized, crystalized into the Astral sediment along with him.

Here we go. Klint's own artifacts would not hurt him. Each of them possessed a small imprint of Klint's soul and mana! But I had to be careful in consuming them. 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 attempted to activate my Infoscopes and discovered that I didn't have enough mana in me to do so. Okay. Plain old soul-songs it is then. Thankfully there were enough semi-functional Alanian Astral Engines nearby to empower the songs.

I started to sing to the nearest artifact 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. The tiniest motes of light that I wanted danced within its shell.

I was singing without lips. 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. Best of all, I felt less obsessed with the face of Ishira's Avatar, Giovashi.

On and on, I went, cutting the tiny soul-motes out of Klint's artifacts, 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, became 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 as 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 started to consume it, thread by thread.

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. I hoped that Delta was okay, that whatever she was doing she was still alive. She had to be, as Giovashi had some sort of dastardly prophecy-related plans for her.

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! A phantom. The hungry beast of the Astral Ocean was here, had felt my warm presence.

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

. . .

Both the old Archmage named Keps and the Dex hunter named Klint desired to take down this confounding creature of the Astral Ocean.

[Use the [Tamus-Anima] Song-spell on this beastie, boy!] I could almost hear the crusty, experienced legionnaire mentally shouting at me. [The song-spell can be hummed rapidly! It is a perfect weapon against these damn things!]

I flung my minute body towards the phantom whale jellyfish monstrosity, swiftly singing [Tamus-Anima] in an attempt to tame the creature's soul, to slow down its attack.

It worked!

The resonance of the song pulsating around me somehow slowed a few of its razor-covered tentacles just enough to let me pass right in between them. I smashed into the monster's belly.

[Now, sing the [Sectus-Anima] spell! Slice through its skin, get into its innards where it cannot grab at you!] Keps barked.

Sectus? I had a better Sectus. I had my Infoscopes!

Three brilliant stars ignited around me, two of them armed with [LV 20 Sectus-Anima]. The Infoscopes flashed forward, slicing apart the skin of the abomination.

I quickly dug into the aberration's body using my own threads, prying apart the cut I had made.

[Now, [Tamus Anima] again! Fuse that cut!] The Archmage's voice hollered and I complied, pulling the cut shut with my threads and vanishing the view of the flailing tentacles.

[Yes! That's the spirit, my lad! A job well done! Take a breather... and then examine your enemy from within. Find the heart and strike it down! There be plenty of experience in hunting monstrosities like this one!] Old man Keps laughed. [Why, I remember hunting down a sandstorm-dragon in the Basque desert with me lads on our gliders! A great time indeed!]

I smiled internally. It was great to have someone to push me into action.

Keps reminded me of Dr. Mikhail Lavrentyev from the Academy of Sciences, a professor of mine during my student days in USSR. Mikhail could never sit still and in 1957 he became the first Chairman of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences and founded Akademgorodok.

Lavrentiyev's Akademgorodok, was meant to preserve and magnify the power of the Soviet Academics, so that if things ever went awry in Moscow or if the Americans nuked it, his Foundation could bring the USSR back from the ashes as a technocratic utopia. He talked about it often at lectures, waving his hands dramatically telling us how every building in his perfect city of science would be surrounded by the Russian taiga. He even explained to me how his idea was to hide the science academies from sight beneath the lush forest foliage, so that American bomber planes would miss it during their attack run.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

[Khm... I reckon that eating so many soul shards... might be a problem,] Keps commented, interrupting my ponderings of USSR. [Or an advantage. Regardless of the situation, I would advise you to Sing the Alanian Legionnaire's Hymn. It will help you affiliate yourself with the All-Mighty, Immortal Legion.]

The Archmage's advice was sound thus far. I didn't think that it could hurt to affiliate myself more with the Alanians. I needed as much power as possible in this dark, dreary place. I started to hum the song of the Immortal Legionnaire. The Alanian troops had sung this hymn before battle and also every morning to strengthen their souls. Klint sung it himself before every job, believing that it brought him good luck.

Like the other Alanian Song-spells it was also a story.

It was a tale of the great Emperor Celesar and his quest to unite the children of Alania into one people. His determination in never giving up, his courage and his appeal to his troops to protect the motherland, to stand against all enemies of Alania for all time. The hymn spoke of many victories stretching from unimaginably distant past into the future, a loop of glory that could never be broken. It praised the heroes of Alania that would never die, the greatest of which had been pulled from the Astral, to walk once again against the vile enemies of our Empire, just like Keps had been.

I was one of these heroes, an awakened man that stood up against the gods, wielding the Soul-song to defy the world, to crush my enemies, to always strike true and to bring justice to those that needed to be punished. I would bend the universe to my will. I would serve the Alanian Empire with my entire heart!

At first nothing happened, but as I continued to repeat the stanzas, I felt some slow change within me, a connection to something far greater than myself.

My System Status lit up once more.

Name:

Dante Alan Skyisle / Vladislav Alexandrovich Kerenski

Age:

-

Species & Subtype:

Astral Phantom

Affinity:

Soul hunter [+ Soul Devourer skill]

Spark of the Morningstar [+ 3 skill channels] [+ Soul-Song skill]

Dryad [+Chrysalis skill]

Blessing of Emperor Celesar [+ 2 skill channels]

Level:

14

Experience:

8'454/11'250

Health:

0.95/14

Stamina:

1.21/14

Mana:

1.34/14

Mana regen:

14 m/hr

Strength:

16

Agility:

16

Dexterity:

16

Vitality:

18 [+3]

Charisma:

12

Magic:

65 [+3]

Foresight:

15

Intelligence:

297 [+89]

Wisdom:

15

Soul:

56 [-54] [+88] [-12]

Skills:

1

[Soul-Song LV 0] [ON]

[Raising Spell efficiency by 0.1%]

[Providing detailed Soul-Stats]

[Translating the Soul-Song's Language]

Known Song-Spells:

[Tamus-Anima] [Sectus-Anima] [Conjugo-Anima] [Identify]

2

1 [Infoscope LV 20]

3

2 [Infoscope LV 20]

4

3 [Infoscope LV 20]

5 1 [Info-Tether LV 20] 6 2 [Info-Tether LV 20] 7 3 [Info-Tether LV 20] 8 1 [Modify LV 20] 9 2 [Modify LV 20]

10 3 [Modify LV 20]

11 1 [Sectus-Tether LV 20] 12 2 [Sectus-Tether LV 20] 13 [NeuroVista LV 20] [ON] 14 [Chrysalis LV 14] [OFF] 15 [-=Soul Devourer=-] 16 - Phylactery - Battie [Barrier] [LV 14] [Crystal Battery]

[14 soul shards from Dante]

[20/20 mana] Phylactery - Leemy [Chrysalis] [LV 27] [Mystic-Willow-Oak]

[40 soul shards from Dante]

[40 soul shards from Delta]

[27/27 mana]

Extra Soul Shards - Klint's tools, Keps, Klint

[88 Soul Shards]

Affliction:

[Soul decay: -12]

Things were looking good, but I had soul decay. From what I knew from Kopusha and now Klint, soul decay was bad. If enough of it accumulated, I would go mad, lose my sense of self.

The memories of Keps told me that Emperor Celesar created the Soul-Song in his divine, eternal wisdom by carving mountain-sized hexagrams onto the surface of Lunaria above Novazem. The answer seemed like some sort of propaganda at best, but then again... Keps was right about how to get into the Phantom whale and survive. I decided to accept the answer with a grain of salt.

Soul Devourer? I tried to move the skill out to reset it or to disable it and it refused to budge. Pointing the Infoscope at it defined the Skill as a:

[Cursed skill, marking the alignment of an Astral Hunter Phantom, the devourer of men. Consuming more human souls increases soul decay.]

Well, that's just freaking great.

I vanished the Stats.

The view of the insides of the ghostly creature was back, made up of transparent pulsating bones and organs, the most freakish semi-transparent anatomy I had ever seen. I had no idea whatsoever where the heart of this thing was.

I seemed to be safe within the belly of the beast for now... but for how long?

Hrmmmm ...Did this creature have internal defenses akin to white blood cells?