Chapitre 23: City of Ravens (9)
Sunrays hitting my eyelids jolted my brain to action. The dry blood on my face made my skin feel stiff. Pain coming from my ribs made my head feel dizzy, my vision sharpened allowing me to see my surroundings. Laying on the edge of a cave I saw the inside wasn't deep, barely a few meters in, while the entrance was coved with thick bushes that scarcely any light could pass through.
I couldn't remember how I got here. I got up, and while holding my chest, I went out. My soul essence didn't recover completely, but if anything attacks me, I should be fine. I washed in a stream and looked for something to eat.
Now I regretted leaving the satellite phone in the stash to have less weight on me, alongside with the dry rations.
After killing a Jackalope, I ate him whole before I began to look for a way back to my stash.
Soon I began thinking about what happened yesterday before I passed out. The bandits that were following me, the sudden attack of a Leshy, the chase, and when I was caught. I remembered the light going through my clothes, and the feathers that appeared.
I could help but to wonder why did it happen. I knew it sucked away all the soul essence that I had, and the fathers were created by the symbols, and I could only guess that it activated to protect my life.
Either way, I was alive.
When I got back to the stash, I found it untouched. Most likely bandits were planning to attack me when they would get the most profit, and if not for the emergence of the spiritual plant they would wait longer.
I put the leather in the stash and ate some dry rations. With the satellite phone in hand, I contemplated if I should call for help. My ribs were broken, but as far as I could tell the fracture wasn't serious. There didn't seem to be any jagged edges that could puncture my lung or any major blood vessel.
On the other hand, I had new questions that I needed answering. But it will be risky to stay here while being hurt.
In the end, I decided to stay. But since it won't be a good thing to hunt for Orthrus's I will slowly make my way back while exploring if I can activate the symbols on my arm.
When I packed everything into a nice bundle, holding everything in hand, I walked toward the edge of the forest.
Form the outside it looked as if was just walking while staring into the distance. But my mind was focused on manipulating my soul essence and concentrating it on my arm. Trying to activate it I found a place where the soul essence changed for a second before disappearing.
Noticing this I began to pour more soul essence there, and soon the symbols on my arm lit up, and a black feather emerged from the light. Shaped like a spearhead and pitch black in color, it floated gently above my arm while I stared at it.
I froze in my steps while I admired the beauty and danger that this little object possessed. The edges extraordinarily sharp and the luster one of a kind. I gently felt the connection that was established between me and the feather, with my mind I made it move slightly, and it followed my command to the smallest degree.
I looked at a tree not too far away, and with a quick thought sent the feather towards it. There was no sound as the feather entered the three and went through it cleanly!
I summoned the feather back but, on its way, it disappeared.
I created another feather and waited, after a minute, or so the feather disappeared like the previous one. This means there is a limit on how long it can stay before disappearing.
I was thrilled. This power was too good!
It didn't need any substantial amount of soul essence to activate, and the power it displayed was off the charts! It could even damage a Leshy!
I hastily found a monster and created a feather. The target was a small group of goblins, there were twelve of them, all eating some kind of rotting bodies. Controlling the feather, I sent it towards the goblins.
Making the feather pierce the head of each and one of the goblins the only sound the could be heard was the sound of bodies falling!
When it was over, I went closer and admired this piece of art. Suddenly I felt the connection with the feather strengthen! From the other end something started to move towards me, and soon it entered my body.
This sudden change gave me a scare, I closed my eyes and looked inside my body to find whatever entered me.
What I found was… crazy! Mad! Impossible! In the empty space of my body floated a lonely figure of a goblin! With my soul essence, I quickly expelled it from my body with little to no resistance and watched it fade in the wind.
This was… too much! Souls of other beings are not something that I can mess with! But… maybe I should not decide to fast.
I looked at other goblins and summoned another feather, stabbing it into one of them, I waited until the feather disappeared, but nothing happened. This could mean that the soul can only be extracted immediately after or shortly after death. There is again a time limit.
Without overthinking, I found a new group of monsters. I repeated the process and slaughtered them. I made three feathers and stabbed them into the corpses, and soon I felt the connection with the feathers change, and three Crocottas's
soul were floating in the space around my soul.
First, I tried to manipulate them, move them like move my soul essence, but no matter I wasn't able to make it budge an inch.
Next, I used my soul essence and moved one of the floating souls and tried putting it through the symbols on my arm, thinking if it can do so much already, maybe it can do something with, but there was no reaction no matter how long, or hard I tried.
While resting under a tree, I considered what can I do with the souls. I know soul essence can influence as I was able to move them around with it. Souls are made of soul essence, to be more precise there is soul essence in the soul, while the soul itself appears to be made from soul essence in a different state.
Knowing that much, I created a string from my soul essence and punctured the soul of a monster. Like a balloon, it exploded sending tremors across my body and soul. What looked like soul essence spread everywhere, most of it escaped my body with only some residue remaining.
After the initial shock, I gathered my thought again and examined what happened. The residue looked almost exactly like the soul essence I have with some small specks of dark in it. What I found interesting was that I could slightly manipulate the residue!
It seemed like something was obstructing me from full control over it, and I guessed that it was the dark specks. Using my own soul essence, I separated the dark speck out and put them in a corner. This time when I tried to manipulate the residue, it went much more smoothly!
I could only guess, but the dark specks should be the elemental essence of the Crocotta that allows them to mimic voices. Knowing that I couldn't do anything with the elemental essence, I pushed some of it out of my body. With no visible sign, it disappeared.
To see what happens I mixed some of my soul essence with the elemental essence and pushed it outside of the body to see if the soul image is affected by the impurities, but the soul image didn't appear at all. In other words, the soul image can only be manifested with pure soul essence.
This had many implications for me if I had elemental essence before I could manifest the soul image I would have to remove the elemental essence from my soul. But in that situation would I be able to control the elemental essence from my soul?
Arcane and Martial artists use elemental essence, then if I had elemental essence wouldn't that mean that I could be both Soul and Arcane artist? But then what is the reason for me not being able to manipulate the elemental essence? There are three possibilities.
It comes from another being that's why. But then why can I manipulate the soul essence? Because of that, this is the most, unlike reason.
I have an empty soul, thus with no connection to any elemental essence, I have no ability to control it. If it was a person with elemental essence in their soul from the beginning, they could manipulate elemental essence.
Lastly, because I'm a soul artist, and have a soul in my body, it somehow prevents me from controlling it.
I was hoping that it is the last option of the three.
I had no way to test these possibilities, so I could only wait and ask master later. But now that I knew it was useless for me to have the elemental essence I expelled all of it from my body. I will need to ask Master for more details later.
While I was thinking about the elemental essence on instinct, I started to move my soul essence back to my soul. Without realizing I moved the soul essence that came from the monster soul and alongside with my own soul essence.
When I finally realized it, I panicked and looked at the soul, inside of my soul I could see storm brewing as the soul essence was mixed and blended.
L’AVIS DES CRÉATEURS 
Haron
Haron Hi!
If you enjoyed the chapter, leave a comment with your thoughts.
If you like the novel overall, write a review!
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone