บท 3: Spark of Revenge
Inside the soul realm, Sorath and the light stared at the darkness shown by the mental image. Not a single word left their mouths for a long silence. Suddenly, loud noises far behind them broke it.
It was the sound of chains colliding and rubbing against each other, sounding like they were tying up a top-class prisoner.
When the noises vanished, and the realm went quiet again, Sorath rose to his feet and stretched his body. Turning around, he walked a mile away from his initial position. He headed for the place where the previous noises occurred. The dragon-looking light followed him by riding on his head.
"If you can do that, then why didn't you help her?" Sorath blurted as he walked.
"It means nothing even if I save her from the chosen."
"What do you mean?"
"If she survived because of me, the Architect will be the one that killed her. If that was happening, her soul would permanently disappear."
"I see. There will be so many things I must handle once I return," Sorath grinned.
The dragon-looking light wagged its tail slowly and nodded.
"What is your reason for accepting my request?"
Sorath raised his eyebrows at the question.
"My reason?"
He realized he didn't have any reason to avenge the death of the Author, unlike the dragon-looking light. If anything, he should have begrudged the Author for taking over his body and died a ridiculous death.
So, what pushed him to do so?
Sorath lifted his gaze forward and smirked widely.
"Why should I need a reason? Is it not my duty as her creation to take revenge for his creator's death?"
The dragon-looking light observed him. It tilted its head and stopped wagging its tail, thinking about Sorath's answer. But no matter how many times it tried to tell whether his words were a truth or a lie, it could never find it. After all, it wasn't a being who could read the hearts of the living.
In the sake of grasping Sorath's motives, the light questioned him again.
"So you think of her as your God?"
"In this world— No. In this Tower, the possibility of someone possessing a Supreme-tier Trace isn't zero. And the possibility of it happening to be an ability that allows someone to create a human or an alternate timeline isn't zero either. There are already examples of that level of skill…"
His expression darkened as he said that. Yet, his grin widened like a psycho.
"You have seen her memories of the peaceful world. She's just an ordinary woman before she died and her soul transgressed to this world that she thought was the world of her novel just because it has a hundred percent similarity."
Sorath kept his expression neutral and said:
"So?"
"So it's not possible for her to own a Supreme-tier Trace! And, back to my question, do you think of her as your God?"
Sorath just shrugged it out and kept walking. On the other hand, the light insisted on knowing his motives. So, it kept pestering him with questions which Sorath always answered with complete ambiguity.
As Sorath listened to the dragon-looking light babblers, his eyes spotted a glint of gigantic chains in the darkness far ahead of him.
"Is that the place?"
The light stopped babbling immediately. It turned its attention away from Sorath to the gigantic chains. Nodding, it flew from his head, heading towards the chains.
As the dragon-looking light was getting thinner and thinner from Sorath's point of view, he raised his arms and made a camera gesture with his fingers.
"It should be me who asks you the question, Guardian. I don't know who was here first, but, who is she to you?" Sorath muttered.
***
In the depths of the soul realm, gigantic chains emerged from the darkness, stretching themselves firmly from the top to the bottom. The chains' size and volume gradually decreased as they got closer to the bottom.
There, Sorath found 20 smaller chains binding a person. Upon closer inspection, his eyes gleamed with recognition of the white-haired woman being chained up.
Glancing at the dragon-looking light, the guardian, sitting before the "empty" woman, Sorath said:
"Is this her soul that you captured?"
The Guardian frowned.
"I saved her soul."
"Yeah, sure, let's go with that," Sorath said nonchalantly.
Crouching down, Sorath stretched out his hand forward, trying to touch her face. But, the light stopped him.
"Don't touch her!"
Sorath raised an eyebrow.
"Why?"
There was a short silence before the Guardian answered.
"It's improper for the living soul to touch the dead soul."
"If you say so."
Sorath sighed and got up. There were so many questions he wanted to ask the Guardian. But looking at how it had transformed into an adult dragon. He knew it was his time to leave.
Sorath held his breath as he looked at the Guardian's big lizard eyes behind the darkness that formed the soul realm. That was the only thing he could see from the enormous-sized dragon.
Even its voice sounded deeper and thicker similar to Earth's growl as it said:
"It's time for you to depart, Shedever."
Sorath tensed as the Guardian's cold breath grazed his skin.
"I will bestow you a Trace to protect you from any time-manipulation ability like that of a murderer of my… master, and the rewind I would attempt." At that moment, Sorath received a notification window shown in his vision. It looked similar to an RPG status window and messages.
[You have received a new Trace!]
Trace Name: Temporal Immunity
Rank: Eternal
Affinity: Shallow
Effect: You will notice and retain your memories of prior timelines before the alterations caused by someone's regression, time travel, or rewind skills.
Suddenly, he clutched his head because of the sudden pain. Fortunately, it was gone after a while.
Noticing the Trace's rank, Sorath opened his eyes wide. Before he could get a chance to ask the Guardian about it, the Guardian was almost finished with resetting the timeline.
"Say, what will you do first after your return? Can you handle living in the real world after spending 7 years inside the soul realm?"
Sorath grinned.
"What are you talking about? Even though I was trapped here for 7 years, I still experienced what she experienced. Living in the real world won't be a problem for me. Also, what will I do after the reset?"
He looked down. He had so many things he would do after returning to the real world. But, if talking about what he wanted to do first was, of course…
"I will kill Julian as soon as I return. Both for me and her sake."
The Guardian closed its eyes.
"I see. Then… one last question. Are you thinking of resurrecting her?"
Turning at the Guardian, Sorath looked at him with a neutral expression.
Then he tilted his head and said:
"Of course…"
A smile formed on his face, gradually turning into a maniac grin. His red eyes stared at the Guardian deeply, making its lizard eyes shudder.
"It's the only thing I could do for her as a thank you."
Suppressing its emotion, the Guardian blinked slowly.
"If that's what you want, then try to climb the tower and reach floor 65. Only then can you resurrect her."
Immediately after that, Sorath fell over at the sudden change of the environment.
"Ack! My eyes!!"
His eyes which had long been accustomed to darkness screamed at the sight of the vibrant color of the real world.
"Fvck that Guardian. At least tell me first before you release the trigger!"
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