CHAPTER 23: SOUL REALM
By this point, Soren stopped hesitating. He immediately recognized what he was looking at—this was some kind of projection of the whispers of the rift.
He cursed himself for being too curious and sprinted back toward his True Self. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like the manifested projection of Rift’s corruption was planning on letting him go. As he sprinted toward the ancient tome, Soren glanced back—he noticed countless strings of purple glowing symbols chasing after him like tentacles.
To make matters worse, he lost control of his own anxiety which made the pressure of the fog even higher—if before this, navigating the shroud was akin to walking underwater, it now felt like he was submerged in a thick layer of tar.
It only took a few more steps—he finally reached The Records. With every fiber of his body he took hold of it and declared his intentions within his thoughts: Escape back to reality…
Myrin had told him that the moment he obtained his true self and thought about leaving, the process would happen effortlessly.
Soren however, clearly underestimated his bad luck.
Just before his projected body disappeared from The Heart’s Shroud, a single strand of corrupted whispers of the rift managed to graze him. Almost instantly, madness began to fill his mind once more. He felt his veins popping as the ravings clawed at his mind.
The Shattering.... The Fracturing.... Singularity....
He couldn’t even scream. His body slowly faded from The Heart’s Shroud as the fog stirred from the madness.
Soren passed back through The Echo of Mind, which had now once again erupted into storms—ones even bigger than before. His projected body then escaped to The Veil of Perception which was now showing realities filled with void creatures and unknown oddities he couldn’t even fathom with his mortal mind.
And then, it happened. He returned to reality.
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Myrin slowly imagined in his mind’s eye the spellform for a healing magecraft. The leylines appeared within his Soul Realm. He aimed them toward Tina’s arm as she sat on the cyan grass. She bit down a piece of cloth to stifle the pain as Myrin applied his magecraft to her wounds. The festering cut slowly began to close.
Myrin glanced in Tyrel’s direction, who was busy zipping past a few Memory Void Husks—applying swift slices across their necks effortlessly. But Myrin could tell that even he was clearly running out of steam.
“By the six divines, what in Yasini’s demise is this…” He frowned as another pair of Memory Void Husks rushed at him and Tina from another direction. Drawing the spellform in his mind’s eye, he projected it again onto his Soul Realm—a sunflower bloomed in the air and shot forth blinding light against the Malevolent hexes, eviscerating them completely. Every time he did it, more guilt built within him.
This was sacrilegious and against the teachings of the Maiden. But he knew it was the only way. Even if he tried to kill them while sparing their bodies to give them a proper burial later, their souls would never return to the Spirit Blossom Willow anyway. The corruption of The Nameless Mist—it caused their entire existence to be forgotten, as if they were being concealed from even The Beyond itself.
“This is not good,” Tina said while rubbing her healing wound. “Our thoughts are periodically being stolen from us—those Memory Void Spirits need to be dealt with as soon as possible!” She wasn’t wrong. Everytime Myrin readied a magecraft spell, his thoughts would get disrupted and the spellform he would imagine would shatter. He thought that maybe his Soul Realm could sense their existence, but it was hopeless. His soul reading ability required him to look into a person’s three layers of self—specifically The Echo of Mind. But that was impossible when The Nameless Mist shrouded the souls of the Malevolent Hexes.
To make matters worse, it was also stealing their emotions and desires themselves. Tina wouldn’t have gotten hurt if not for this. She was about to dodge an attack from a Memory Void Husk when the thought of dodging disappeared from her mind and she took the hit head on.
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“When will that bastard wake up!?” She glanced back at Soren, who was still sitting on the log with his eyes closed. Myrin had used his Soul Weapon to draw a fictional bubble around him that gave him some level of protection, but even this wasn’t enough. It was only a matter of time before it broke and if his attempt at unlocking a Soul Realm was interrupted, he would instantly die.
Myrin glanced to the side and aimed his sunflower beams at a few other Memory Void Husks when suddenly, he felt his will to live cease. The Memory Void Spirit had siphoned his desire to continue living. He dropped to his knees, much to the shock of Tina.
“Get up! You can’t drop now!”
Myrin didn’t reply. It was as if he couldn’t even hear her. His senses had been stolen as well.
“Damn it!” She cursed her luck. Tyrel was still busy taking care of the Memory Void Husks, but he was getting besieged from all sides. It was dangerous—if a Memory Void Spirit messed with his thoughts right now, he would most likely die.
What do I do, what do I do… Her Sacred Treasure had attacks that could completely purify Curses and Malevolent Hexes, but it didn’t have a wide range. She needed to know where the Memory Void Spirits were to shoot them down.
Suddenly, her own thoughts became sluggish. Even the will to search for them disappeared.. Hell no. A flare of motivation rose within her as she stood up to pull out a knife and threw it accurately toward the closest Memory Void Husk. She focused her Soul Realm once more and gave a boost to her feet—if she couldn’t aim at them directly, then the next best thing to do was to not aim at all.
Unfortunately, her plan immediately failed. Just as she was about to jump up into the trees, she noticed something holding down her feet—a Memory Void Husk. Somehow, it snuck close to her without her noticing.
No, she definitely did notice it, but the Memory Void Spirit had stolen her memories of that event. “Shit!”
A second later, she immediately forgot her plan. That was stolen too now. She stared blankly as countless Memory Void Husks closed in on her—unsure of what exactly she was supposed to do. Her mind has been hijacked, and no matter what she planned, the thoughts would immediately get stolen.
“Ten feet above and at your three o'clock.” She heard a solemn voice from behind her. Instantly, her mind used whatever resources were left and kicked into high gear. She ordered her Sacred Treasure to manifest itself.
Her gauntlets began to melt. Liquid drops of silver slid down her hands, morphing into the shape of a large bow. The silver solidified, and countless decorations and engravings took shape, starting from the grip of the bow and running seamlessly across the upper and lower limbs. She swiftly got into position—the moment her hand reached out to pull the bow string, an ethereal white arrow manifested itself.
She let go, watching the arrow pierce through the air before exploding 10 feet above her.
Her thoughts, emotions and senses returned to her. Even her memories. She turned to face the source of the voice—Soren was sitting on the log with his usual butterflies swimming in his eyes. Though, there seemed to be a problem. Blood was dripping from his eyes and ears and the look on his face was not entirely confident.
“Soren!” She yelled excitedly. The bastard truly took his time.
Soren ignored her, “Focus. Twenty feet in front of where Tyrel is another Memory Void Spirit. Another to your left at the nine o’clock direction. Three more behind us…” He continued to list their locations.
Tina didn’t say anything and immediately began sniping each one. Although she didn’t fully know where they were, she was pouring enough anima into her arrows to make them bigger—that way it was harder to miss.
Soren glanced behind the trees. “Another one is hiding there, to your left. He is behind that tree that has a weirdly shaped trunk.”
Tina listened and immediately shot her arrow which pierced through the trees before hitting its target.
“How are you doing this?” Even with [Eyes of the Fairy], it was impossible to look that far. And even if he could, the Malevolent Hex was hiding behind countless sets of trees. His vision was obstructed.
“It’s my Soul Realm,” he didn’t wait for her reaction and immediately gave the coordinates for the next one. Seconds later Myrin awoke—his thoughts had returned to him. Frowning, he activated his Soul Realm and reached into his mind’s eye to draw a new spellform, one that was more complex than all the previous ones. Casting the magecraft caused flowers to sprout across the road that quickly grew into vines which wrapped themselves around the remaining Memory Void Husks.
Tyrel slowed down his pace and glanced over at them and nodded. It only took a few more minutes to finally clear all of them out.
Tina placed her hands over her knees for support. “By Her Silver Grace… We did it.”
She smiled and glanced back at Soren, “I can’t believe it! I’m starting to like your abilities more and more! Did y—” her voice was cut short.
Soren had fallen over, unconscious.