Soul Venerable (Re-written)

 

 

A brief moment later, extremely far away from the battle of godly proportions. In a cave secluded from human civilization, a dark light flickered for a few moments before fading as if it was an illusion. Within this unmemorable cave, a new existence had emerged from a distant origin.

"I have… survived?" the existence muttered by itself.

The existence is merely a black crystal, its core pulsed with faint purple-colored energy. In the Material Encyclopedia within the knowledge vault of Archmage Mordred, it would be categorized as a rank 6 soul-path material known as Soul Phylactery. It is an exceedingly rare artificial material that could only be made by refining untold millions of souls of living creatures.

Every soul phylactery in existence was a priceless treasure that could host a truesoul for an indefinite amount of time in place of the physical body, effectively turning one into an undead. Unfortunately, having soul phylactery is seen as heresy in the eyes of the Divines.

Liches or other undead creatures are one of the most abhorred types of existence in this world due to their very nature which defies the natural order of life. The souls of the undead are also not accepted by any Divine Kingdom of the Gods. Their mere existence is taboo.

"Fortunately, before exploding my true body, I managed to perform a soul-path killer move to funnel a part of my truesoul inside this phylactery. Despite Lamost's killer move [Myriad Soul Disintegration] killed my four rank 5 Epic split souls, it could not completely eradicate my truesoul…"

The former Archmage Mordred released a sigh of relief or something equivalent. "I have to break out of the restrictions of this world, and return to my original." he relented, "But now, I will have to recover my wounded soul first."

The Braves were fooled when they considered Archmage Mordred as a Magic Caster. His specialty was not using spells nor martial arts.

They besmirch his reputation and frame him for being an otherworldly invader to justify killing and looting his inheritance, but ironically, he was a true otherworldly invader that came from a different world.

"I, Grimsong Spectre Soul Sovereign: rank 6 Soul Magus of Holy Terra, managed to become the Great Archmage Magic Sovereign in this world, yet unable to break through to rank 7 despite my effort. Is this the restriction of the World Will, or does rank 7 have a special requirement that I am not aware of?" He muttered.

He briefly analyzed where he failed in two lifetimes, but did not delve too much about it as he has found new methods of cultivation that will have a greater chance of breaking through to rank 7 and above in the future, thanks to the accumulation of his two lifetimes. 

"This world's technology and soul cultivation is too far behind despite the existence of refinement-path, I suspect the gods are responsible for this…" he commented, but inwardly, he was content with the situation. "The Magi of Holy Terra is a lot more troublesome to deal with, compared to the delusional gods of this world." The former Archmage Mordred complained but did not forget his current predicament was the result of the gods scheming to get his true inheritances.

During the last battle with the Braves, he collects most of the nine hundred million souls that died under his hand, refines them, and uses the dead souls as material for his soul-path killer move to fool the world. Even the Gods who secretly observed the battle from their Divine Kingdoms are affected.

However, one could not underestimate the Hero who has received the world's blessing. Lamost's martial arts were peerless in the present age. His killer move managed to destroy most of Mordred's soul foundation, imprisoning him inside this small soul phylactery. 

In his peak, Mordred's truesoul would be capable of interfering with the material world like a physical body, fighting barehanded with Immemorial Beasts was not difficult, to say the least. His transformation-path killer move, [Despair Devil Metamorphosis] was simply a method that allows him to take the form that accommodates his soul the best, it wasn't a martial art but a soul art.

Now, his soul was merely a fragment of his original self.

Without being able to physically move by itself, the soul phylactery that holds Mordred's truesoul flickered as it releases a short-range soulforce pulse towards the surroundings. At first, it didn't produce any results as it was too weak. It was minutes or perhaps hours before a group of small ants started to appear near the stone.

"Ants are better than microbes, at least…" he muttered as the soul phylactery released an enslavement-path soul art that dominated the weaker lifeforms instantly. "The first step to recovery is finding a way to connect with complex lifeforms."

The ants move under his command. They brought his soul phylactery into the queen ant's presence. Without any delays, he instantly enslaved the ant queen. Even with a broken soul, Mordred was still a former Archmage and a Magus from Holy Terra. A Sovereign of two worlds in his third lifetime. The methods in his hands are not limited to magical spells. His foundation is too deep for the small ant to resist.

With the queen ant under his control, he became more mobile than previously. Of course, without a visual organ, he's unable to see anything. The world in his vision is pure black without any light, but he had the ants guiding his way.

"Damp, dark, and cool air. This must be deep underground…" he speculated after connecting his senses to the ants.

Ants generally did not have complex thought processes to manipulate. It would be a waste of his limited soul essence to read the incomplete memories of thousands of ants under the queen ant, thus he kept his desire to himself. 

After a few hours, the ants found themselves in the presence of a small rodent. It was a black, hairy cave rat with red beady eyes. It sniffs the rice grain-sized soul phylactery that the small ants brought on top of their tiny shoulders. The rat was humongous compared to the ants, it also evolved to eat anything they could find, including ants. Thus it was sniffing while eating ants at the same time. 

Mordred was delighted when the soul phylactery touched the nose of the rat. He used his soul arts to enslave the rat without much difficulty. As for the ants, their soul was devoured to recover the soul essence that he spent to dominate the rat. It was negligible and extremely little compared to the soul essence used, but he wasn't in a position to let go of any resources he could find.

A few moments later, the rat brought a rice grain-sized purplish-black gem on its arm, leaving a swarm of dead ants.

The thought process of the rat is more complex than the ants. It can recall a longer period, thus leaving him a map of some sort of the current location.  

"An old cave deep within the mountains… how unlucky…"

Actually, he was feeling fortunate for being resurrected far away from civilization. His existence is taboo to the world. Not only he had become undead, but his identity is no longer the respected Archmage but the Devil King. It wasn't that hard to predict what would happen if his soul phylactery was found by intellectual lifeforms like humans or elves.

Of course, his methods are not limited to mind-controlling rodents or ants, but without a strong soul foundation, he could not dominate intellectual creatures such as humans, even if they are mortals.

The cave was humongous, with tunnels interweaving into small corridors and complex maze. The number of holes in the cave was too numerous to count, even the rat has yet to fully explore it in its lifetime. Of course, there was no actual need for the rat to do it. He just needed the location of other lifeforms so he could devour their soul to rapidly recover from this condition.

He led the rat to its nest, where a family of rats was busy dallying about. Without any guilt, Mordred sent a soul-pulse, killing them instantly while their small, formless lumps of souls were sucked into his soul phylactery, becoming food to his hungry truesoul. Their souls were like popcorn, not fulfilling, but it's a thousand times better than not 'eating' at all. As he consumes the souls of rats, he also uses a complex soul-path method to read some of their memories to complete the three-dimensional map of the cave.

"Rats, bats, and other small mammals… there's simply no good source of soul."

Mordred repeated his method multiple times. When he arrived in a room full of life, he used the soul-pulse to reap their souls, turning it into fuel for his recovery. Almost nothing was spared, be it small mammals or insects. If he didn't care about leaving any trace, he would've consumed the soul of microbes in the ground itself, but that will kill the land. Yet, even with that method, his rate of recovery will be extremely slow, merely better than what he has been doing currently.

To fully rely on time to recover his broken soul would take eons. It was unrealistic.

As time passed by, he found many other lifeforms such as spiders, centipedes, and many others. He didn't read the memories of every creature he devoured as it would spend soul essence which is counterproductive, but he did it on some larger creature to get more relevant information.

It was on the next day that he found a slime. It was something that he was fond of. Instantly, he devoured the rat's soul that had carried him for many adventures throughout the previous day. The cave rat did not have any resistance to his method, it died instantly while Mordred enslaved the slime.

The slime was one of the weakest variants, a cave slime. It's colored dark brown like the floor and ground. It also moved slowly but compared to the rat, it was more flexible as almost no crevices could block it. Despite lacking most forms of senses, it evolved to have a natural ability to sense heat for a few meters, therefore it has no problem in navigating the cave.

Besides, it also has great evolutionary potential. As Mordred devoured the soul of the rat, the slime wrapped itself around the corpse to consume it. It was like a symbiosis between him and the slime.

"Forcing a lowly species of slime to evolve into higher rank would take enormous amounts of resources, but what's free anyway?" he smiled toward the cute slime that slowly melts the rat corpse inside its glutinous body. As of now, the slime's core was smaller than his soul phylactery, but as more nutrients are absorbed by it, it will condense its core to evolve.

Then, time passes by as the two consumed both the soul and the corpse of any living creature that they found.

The slime has condensed its core into the size of a marble, whereas Mordred has recovered his soul into the level of an average human teenager. The time spent in this network of small corridors and caves was about a week. It was a long and tedious journey, but it was thousands of times better than letting time heal his soul.

Most of the small life inside the caves were devoured, but some are left to repopulate, he didn't want to kill the ecosystem while their souls aren't that fulfilling anyway.  

At this moment, he had finally found the entrance of the cave.

Looking at Mordred physically, he looked like a small purplish-black stone stuck inside a larger-than-average brown slime.

The slime also progressed from its original dull form into a better one. With the increase of a larger core, its intellectual quality also increases accordingly. Now, the slime could think about how to move faster by itself. Not only that, but it could also mimic rocks, stone, mud, or dirt depending on the situation. Overall, it was a major upgrade from a dumb slime into a faster and more adaptable slime.

The progress was insignificant, but it's progress nonetheless.

"She's still far away from being a rank 1 lifeform, and her evolution requirement will increase as she levels up, but she'll be my greatest asset…" he smiled as his senses connected with the slime.

Since he had decided to take the slime as a permanent companion, he granted her a name: Kasumi. Her enslaved mind has been filled with Mordred's telepathic will to assist her every move, making her one of the most mobile slimes ever existed in the cave.  

As Kasumi slowly oozes towards the cave's entrance with Mordred inside her, she suddenly reacts to external danger. All this while, she had never experienced a threat from the lifeform within the cave as they are usually exterminated with a simple soul pulse from Mordred. Its instinct was not completely suppressed yet because Mordred has no real need to do it.

At once, he recognizes the source of danger, a group of external lifeforms coming towards the cave. He maneuvered Kasumi into one of the larger cracks in the roof of the cave, hiding from plain sight.

"Gasp…"

The sound of creatures taking deep breaths could be heard from inside the cave, their number numerous. Followed by hurried footsteps, the form of creatures who made the sounds became clear.

"Greenskins…" Mordred commented.

He had a long story with them. Greenskins are a combination of multiple races grouped up together due to their similarity, which is their green skin. The goblins, although not the weakest of the bunch, are still one of the weaker ones, thus their status is not too high in the eyes of any other intellectual races in the world.

"Finally a source of intellectual soul!" he rejoiced.

Rushing inside, the goblins did not realize that their movements were monitored by a presence within the entrance of the cave. Kasumi utilizes her slimy body to ooze between the cracks undetected towards the group of goblins deeper in the cave.

"They are bringing the wounded?" he can't help but be surprised.

Due to their rapid breeding capabilities, goblins have less than average sense of danger. Their fatality rate in some battles are alarmingly high, yet it wasn't a problem because they will get the numbers back in mere months.

Mordred didn't complain though, if they died in the proximity of his phylactery, it would save him the effort of doing the job.

After a while, they stopped moving in haste and began hiding inside the cave. Mordred knew something just didn't add up according to their movement, so he scrutinizes their every action.

The goblins roused whispers to each other in their native tongue, but Mordred understood them due to his previous life's foundation of knowledge.

"The kobolds will not find us here. Keep silent…"

"I saw Ugol die…"

"Ugol was a hero, my mother will not survive without his sacrifice…"

"Yda! Where's Yda!"

"I'm here, stop panicking. The leader told us to hide. Don't make a commotion."

"I'm sorry…"

Such were the whispers of the goblin. After eavesdropping on their conversation, Mordred became aware of several details. The goblins are led by a goblin shaman who's also their chieftain, and they were being pursued by a tribe of kobolds. The chieftain led a few of their best warriors to fight against the kobolds, yet they were outmatched.

The kobolds numbered twice or thrice compared to the goblins and they simply had better equipment than them. Although the goblins have a shaman, the situation is merely kept together by the chieftain's healing spell. Without the healing spells, the situation could worsen any second.

"It would be a chance for me…" Mordred smiled happily. From his deduction, he found out that the goblin shaman is still far away from a true rank 1 entity. That means the shaman has no perpetual force field protecting it at all times. They still can be ambushed if he arranged sufficiently.

He just needed to wait, and he did just that.

One hour, two hours… It went on for half a day. The goblins in hiding became nervous while the wounded ones have already started dying, and some actually died which to Mordred's delight. Three goblin souls devoured secretly by Mordred who kept Kasumi's desire to consume their flesh, not forgetting to peer through their memories to obtain crucial clues. Unfortunately, the ones that died were useless in death as they were in life.

It wasn't time yet to move, so he waited until the leader returned, hopefully, wounded and tired so he could kill him in one swoop.

And so it happens according to his calculation. The goblin shaman returned with a few guards, wounds of various shapes and sizes covered the surface of their skin. They exclude a bloodthirsty aura, evident of the recent slaughter they just participated in.

Mordred concealed his desire and used his limited soulforce to cast a soul art to hide Kasumi and his phylactery from the detection of the Shaman. "Rank 0 sound-path soul art, [Water-slime Bioacoustics]!" the soul technique did not release any soulforce undulation since it was a sound-path method that mimics the specialty of dark-path. Without a strong detection, the goblins will recognize him and Kasumi as a normal slime or merely a puddle of water.

He bided his time, allowing the goblin shaman to converse and console the scared goblins. It took a while due to their numbers approaching one hundred, but the group calmed down eventually after having a meal together. The goblin shaman then retreats into the room his elite guard has prepared for, in the deepest part of the goblin-explored region.

Kasumi with Mordred inside her followed the shaman slowly and silently. The shaman did not notice any abnormality as he lowered his guard. Thinking it was already safe, he removed the bloody article of clothes and put it on the floor.

"The provision for this week…" he started to ponder greatly. He's the chieftain and the shaman of the tribe, the responsibility in his hands was enormous. He needed to find a way for his tribe to survive the hunt of the kobolds, then initiate contact with the lizardmen and many others. Too many races are striving for supremacy in these lands, if he didn't have enough resources, then his tribe would decline.

"Must I lead my tribe into the swamplands?" he pondered. Eventually, his scheming ability was too limited as he released a heavy sigh. He was tired, he had been battling against the kobolds for two days without any sleep. He made sure that nothing was wrong, and then slept on the rocky floor, just like that.  The goblins are strong enough to resist the cold air of the cave, plus he had no other choice at the moment.

It was the time Mordred had been waiting for. Kasumi oozed towards the goblin chieftain without a problem. In the chieftain's sleeping instinct, it was like a puddle of water. His sleeping consciousness wasn't able to properly discern whether this water is real or not, thus could only allow the water to approach him.

Kasumi finally reached the goblin chieftain's sleeping body. She oozed Mordred's soul phylactery forward to let it touch the goblin's forehead.

Then, Mordred used his soul art to instantly kill it. "Rank 0 sound-path soul art [Vibrating Soul Grasp]!"

The goblin chieftain woke up from his deep sleep in shock, but before he managed to recognize what happened, a sensation as if his head had been held by a large hand could be felt. Then, the hand transferred high vibration to separate his soul from his body.

According to the logic of this world, a mortal's body could not survive without a soul. 

"Wha-" therefore, he died with grief and regret while not knowing what killed him.

The chieftain possessed a considerable spiritual force as a shaman. His foundation as a magic caster, despite being a goblin, allows his soul to be stronger than average rank 0 mortals. There was no way to effectively control him with enslavement-path methods without having severe consequences as Mordred's soul foundation was too weak at the moment. The only option left was to kill him using a direct soul attack method. 

Mordred followed up his kill by devouring the shaman's remnant soul.

But this time, he didn't let Kasumi devour his flesh and bones. He has plans for that.