Soul Venerable (Re-written)

 

Sumire, who started an enslavement-path magic spell, stopped her activation sequence safely. < I see, so this is the brat he was talking about. > In an instant, she devised a plan of action, < Sakuya, can you try to wake up that girl, she might be the one who fought against Nyx previously. >

The telepathic thoughts transfer was near-instant, but Sakuya merely scratched her chin nervously.

< Captain, that’s impossible. There’s a Shirogane over there. Although her brother is holding her back…> Her words trailed off.

< I see. > It wasn’t that hard to deduct what will happen. Unlike Kurogane who cultivate strength-path and specialized as a Swordbreaker, any stray attack from Shirogane could maim if not directly kill Sakuya who has the least amount of defensive measure against sword-path attacks.

< Then, Alanis, attack his sea of consciousness. > Sumire requested.

< Affirmative! > Alanis immediately spent a large amount of data in her brain. Information-path methods have an advantage over other paths, which is their activation time.

Before the era of the Great Archmage Mordred, wisdom-path was the fastest of all paths in terms of activation sequence but information-path specialized in gathering, transmitting, and storing information. In this case, the method Alanis activated was already stored in her sea of consciousness. She was merely offloading them into the form of a spell. In other words, delayed spell activation sequence was originally information-path methods before it was adopted by other paths.  

“Rank 0 information-path magic spell, [Color Spray]!”

It is an offensive magic spell, designed to overload the opponent’s brain or sea of consciousness through a large amount of useless data. As the colorful wave of light hit Nyx, his sea of consciousness becomes overloaded with colors of various spectrums. [Death by Guilt] was a type of channeling spell where the user needed to constantly expend thoughts, rendering the caster’s mind to be occupied. Due to [Color Spray], the transfer of telepathic thoughts was broken.

Shirogane’s clouded eyes returned back as guilt of attacking her own brother now weighed upon her mind. This was the secondary effect of [Death by Guilt], it amplifies the emotion of guilt after being controlled, allowing the caster to dispatch the victim easier.

Since Shirogane’s special condition made her susceptible to emotion, she was greatly affected by the guilty emotion. Still, her combat instinct kicked in and she managed to activate ruthless sword-emotion, cutting off all emotion completely.

“Hmm?” Shirogane recalled her large katana as she realized that her ruthless sword-emotion expenditure had increased significantly. < Captain, I cannot stay in combat mode for long. > She reported through [Group Chat].

< I see. The situation is now under our control. Let me analyze for the best course of action for now. > Sumire replied.

“Oh? You cultivated in information-path, what a blunder on my part…” Nyx muttered as he touched the spot between his eyes with his broken hands. There was nothing there, but it was a habit of the living to massage that particular spot when one is having a headache. Although [Color Spray] has no destructive power whatsoever, it overloaded the victim with useless information. It will confuse or stun the victim depending on their mental fortitude.  

The amount of data Alanis used was sufficient to directly put a cultivator whose mental fortitude is relatively weak like Kurogane to briefly faint, but it merely stops Nyx’s spell and inconveniences him. 

In any case, it took a large amount of telepathic thought to flush away the useless colors in his sea of consciousness.

< Alright, I got it. Sakuya and Kurogane, please make a distraction while Shirogane and Ramiel will wake the girl up. > Sumire transferred a large amount of telepathic thoughts, explaining how they will fight. This exchange happened through [Group Chat], Nyx was completely clueless.

“Time to stop playing around.” Nyx touched his temples, extracting a ball of prismatic light slowly which allowed Sakuya to finish her spell. “This is for you, rank 0 necro-path magic spell, [Death by Sensory Overload]!” The ball of prismatic light becomes corrupted under dark purple hue. Then, Nyx threw the light projectile towards Kurogane.

At the same time, “Rank 0 fire-path magic spell, [Napalm Artillery Strike]!” Sakuya launched a large ball of golden-red liquid fire.

“Huh?” Kurogane was prepared to defend. He wasn’t afraid of mental spells like [Death by Guilt] because his [Survival Instinct] is a trump card against mental domination. In times of his mind being controlled, his body would shut down higher brain function while his mind will be controlled by [Survival Instinct]. He would stand there like an idiot and would only retaliate if hostile action is taken against him. The case of him attacking Shirogane from the back wouldn’t happen as long as she doesn’t attack him first.

However, he was a muscle brain through and through. He didn’t consider Nyx's previous actions, thinking that he’ll activate a variation of [Death by Guilt]. When the dark purple ball hit his head, his eyes rolled back. His nose, eyes, and ears bled and he lost consciousness. His brain couldn’t deal with the large amount of useless information as his senses were overloaded.

< This! > Alanis and Sumire were surprised at the same time. They recognize that Nyx’s spell was an imitation of Alanis’s spell, [Color Spray]. By using the colors he extracted from his sea of consciousness, he used them as a spell resource.

Indeed, this was a necro-path imitation of an information-path spell. Perhaps, it wasn’t even an imitation, but a true necro-path magic spell that produces the effect of information-path.

Sumire’s thoughts churned faster. < My deduction was correct; Nyx was a true blue legendary mage in his past life… but we must press on! It’s too late to retreat. > She describes her deduction through [Group Chat].

< Then, will my spell be returned like Alanis’? > Sakuya asked.

Boom! A large, viscous liquid fire exploded with Nyx as the center. The flame was golden-red; it was extremely bright in this underground room. However, it took merely two second for the liquid fire to turn purple and gather into a ball around Nyx’s fingertips.

“Rank 0 necro-path magic spell, [Death by Incineration]!” Nyx threw the dark purple liquid fire back.

< Don’t think too much about it! Sakuya, deal with it! > Sumire ordered.

Sakuya stood in the face of the purple ball of fire as she clasped her hand. She grits her teeth while concentrating her radiation into her fist as she punches the purple fireball to oblivion, dissipating all the spell residue. “Good thing I am a hard-counter for all fire-path magic caster.” Sakuya sighed in relief.

In that brief encounter, Shirogane used the opening to approach Nyx in hope to distract him. Ramiel and Yamamura who have been healed by Seraphina went to break open the x-shaped bone bondage on the helpless girl.

“This is… interesting.” Nyx’s burnt bones have recovered to an acceptable level after the negative energy on his body was burnt by Sakuya’s spell. At this moment, the effect of [Death by Reactive Bone Armor] had ended, he was no longer protected by a defensive spell. Nyx was truly like an arrow at the end of his flight. High intensity combat was a weakness to most undead due to the lack of proper telepathic thought generation.

He might be able to use [Death by Malicious Intent] which has the same function as [Thousand Malicious Thoughts] to keep up with the thought expenditure, but activating it multiple times in succession puts a great burden to body, mind and soul. Since he did not have a proper ‘body’, that burden was taken by his mind and soul. With that said, his mind and soul almost crumbles due to the self-inflicted abuse.

Shirogane unleashed an attack towards him. ‘No, not yet. I still haven’t fulfilled my mission!’ Nyx roared in his mind as he activated a new spell.

“Rank 1 necro-path magic spell, [Death by…” It consumes all the resources in his disposal, it even uses a large portion of his truesoul to activate because the spell was way beyond his capability.   

Unfortunately, he was too late. Let’s not talk about how a rank 0 magic caster lacks the necessary cultivation base to activate a rank 1 magic spell, even if Nyx uses a self-mutilating method to briefly increase his power, rank 1 magic spell couldn’t be activated instantly. In that brief moment, a sword force decapitated Nyx’s head. With a thud, his skeleton hits the ground uneventfully.

< Is that it? > Yamamura who reached the girl muttered. < It doesn’t seem like he’s that powerful. >

< Fool. > Sumire rolled her eyes, she didn’t lower her guard as she pondered whether this was a trap. As far as she could tell, none of the spells Nyx used were simple. Attack (Death by Piercing and Death by Impalement), defense (Unknown spell that regenerates his bones), camouflage (Unknown spell that produce black smoke), mind control (Death by Guilt), crowd control (Death by Sensory Overload), and area of effect (Death by Incineration) … the variation of spells shows that he wasn’t a simple character to begin with.

Furthermore, Alanis never found the mana pool or aperture on his body.    

At this time, Yamamura has released the bones that bind the girl, yet there was a semi-translucent film protecting her from touch.

< Captain, this girl is weird. There’s a veil on her body, I can’t get a direct touch… > Yamamura reported.

< I see. > Sumire did not move from her location while examining the facilities of the bone refinery. Starting from the wall of bones that made up from hundreds of beast bones, tables made out of bones, the coils made out of bones and some metal, and the rot that stayed in one corner of the bone refinery. Every piece of object was scrutinized through a sweep of telepathic thoughts.

On one hand, she was still wary while on the other hand, she wouldn’t want herself to fall into a trap. < Nyx didn’t say where she’s from, but this contingency method is similar to a certain clan in the far east… > she tried to recall where she got that information from, but her migraine hindered her.

Yamamura scratched his head. He examined the pale-skinned girl and found out that she was incredibly short, comparable to the petite elves. Her cute lips, nose and cheeks that still have a slight amount of baby fat made her extremely attractive. Her shoulder-length hair was metallic blue on the roots and dark purple on the edges, it looks smooth and silky. As his gaze traveled down, she found out that her body was covered by geometric lines like that of runes.

Of course, she wore no clothes whatsoever, allowing him to enjoy the sight of her modest breast and the twin pink nipples on top. Her hairless nether region looks extremely inviting and the faintly undulating pink folds and bean-like organ made him nearly lose his self-control.

‘This girl looks so damn sexy.’ A dirty thought appeared on his mind but immediately suppressed for the time being. If he dared to mess around with a girl whose identity was unknown, he might not know how he’d died.

Suddenly, her eyes flicker as her eyelid slowly rises. A beautiful pair of glowing crimson eyes encircled by black sclera with unfathomable depth revealed itself to the world. In that instant, Yamamura fell in love with the girl in front of him. “Ah… missy…” his words trailed off before the girl’s eyes spread open as she panicked.

“NYX!” she screamed as she stood up. The semi-transparent veil on her body soon gathered on her right hand as if it were jelly. In a brief second, the semi-translucent jelly turned into a 1.5-meter long and relatively thick silvery lance with three blades connected by a rail in its core.

At this moment, the ground shook.

 

….

 

A few minutes earlier, within Mordred’s sea of consciousness.

< Main soul, there’s an emergency! > Kasumi’s telepathic thoughts interrupted Mordred.

“Hmm? What is it?” Mordred’s thought process is in a state of acceleration which consumes a large amount of spiritual force to produce telepathic thoughts. These thoughts are weaved, combined and refined with each other to construct a large array of telepathic thought networks within his sea of consciousness. He was compiling an Operation System but it hasn't been completed yet, there was a large gap in the telepathic thought network.

< There’s a group of intellectual race hunters advancing on our position. We are currently in danger of being exposed. Let me update you on the situation. > Kasumi transferred a large amount of telepathic thoughts, filling up Mordred’s gap of information for the last few days.

Starting from the strange appearance of intellectual race hunters, Grem’s discovery of tempered mana crystals, and Violet Sword Blaze intrusion into his dwellings. Of course, she also elaborates regarding her plan to accommodate Mordred for infiltrating human society.

“The purple haired girl is Sumire… The one who emits a fire-burning fire-path radiation is called Sakuya… A wolf beastman named Alanis who cultivates information-path… This strength-path brute is called Kurogane… The one with an oversized sword… wait, that’s a katana designed for power armors, yet she uses it like a great katana… Hmm, I see…”

Mordred accepted every piece of information that Kasumi provided from Nyx. Although Nyx could not use information-path methods to directly investigate their identity, he could eavesdrop on their casual conversation with each other through his sensitive hearing before they switch over to [Group Chat], courtesy of sound-path methods.

“These naming styles are commonly found in the southern continent, more specifically: Hartina Kingdom. The wolf beastman Alanis has a teammate relationship with her party instead of master-and-slave, only the southern continent gives equal rights to beastman, which confirms my deduction. It is safe to assume that I am truly reincarnated somewhere within Hartina Kingdom’s territory, though the timeline is yet to be determined.

My current location is actually quite close to Galatreon but it’ll be suspicious if I take the identity of a Hartina hunter… Amongst the 12.561 identities I have prepared for reincarnation, over 700 of them are in Hartina, but due to the lack of information regarding the timeline, I couldn’t use them however I’d like. Since that is the case, I’ll use the identity of someone from a secluded clan…” Mordred began to deduct.

“Kasumi have devised an elaborate plan for me to infiltrate back into society, but that’s only achievable if Sumire is retarded. Wisdom-path cultivators are problematic to fight against.”

Since Mordred’s telepathic thoughts are used to ponder, he has no spare energy to construct the telepathic thought network. His priority now lies in fooling Sumire. She is not as easy as the others, she possessed low combat ability but a high amount of wisdom and ability to scheme. Furthermore, she inherited one of Mordred’s countless minor inheritances at some point in her life, making her more knowledgeable regarding necro-path methods.

< Rest assured, main soul. Nyx would sacrifice himself to influence Sumire’s soul. >

“Since that is the case, I’ll reboot the crystal processor without a proper Operation System. Kasumi, support me in installing my soul in this body.” Mordred commanded.

< Affirmative. > Kasumi retracted her telepathic thought connection with Mordred’s sea of consciousness as her slime body wrapped Mordred’s mechanical body to protect him from investigative methods. Then, the crystal processor started to boot as all systems were slowly turned on.

 

It is a well-known fact that a body without a living soul is typically known as puppets, while a soul without a body can be considered as ghosts or specters. Since that is the case, the mechanical body that Mordred and Kasumi refined with difficulties is in a sense, a high-spec humanoid puppet. Of course, imbuing an Artifact Soul into an object allows the refinement of self-aware artifacts, the so-called Soul Armament, which are simply artifacts with an ego.

Soul Armament could think, act separately and in some cases, grows, depending on various factors. This rendered everyone who had soul armament to be in an inherent advantage compared to their peers who did not. After all, it’s basically two against one. Just imagine someone threw a flying sword and then the sword suddenly attacked you from behind, as if a fighter was manipulating it.

Therefore, having a soul armament is a must after reaching a certain point. Unfortunately, those who can refine soul armaments are rather rare and the weakest ones have a rank 3 legendary cultivation base, the so-called Legendary-Artificer.

That being the case, Mordred’s ambition isn’t merely creating a host shell for his soul nor becoming a humanoid-type Soul Armament. Mordred’s current soul quality is known as Chaldean Soul, a soul that was refined into bits of information and data, containing his ego, sea of consciousness, emotion, personality, and memory. In the physical world, Chaldean Soul has the appearance of pure information current.     

Without a physical body, Mordred’s Chaldean Soul could not interact with physical objects. That’s where the mechanical body comes in handy. When the Chaldean soul is installed on a machine with computational capability, it could exhibit 100% of their capabilities.

Mordred was busy compiling the Operating System for the body but it wasn't completed yet. The importance for this was because any organic lifeform-based shell is different compared to a true machine.

Any living creature has an automatic reaction called instinct and reflex. The simple action of breathing requires a variety of muscle tissue to contract and expand, the same could be said for blinking, or the beating of a heart. Although he has no use of breathing, blinking or a beating heart due to the lack of those organs, he has to play the part of a living humanoid. These small actions, if ignored, would become clues for wisdom-path cultivators which eventually allows them to deduct his true form.

An Operating System would be able to automate these processes, but since there’s no time to compile an efficient and fully working OS, then he’ll have to cover the flaws manually. It’ll take quite a bit of processing power even with the new Crystal Processor, but there was no need for that. Kasumi inserted her slime core into a slot prepared for this situation behind his waist as a secondary central processing unit to act as a temporary operating system while Mordred took control.

“After plundering countless Intelligent Metal’s true inheritances, three lifetimes of research while deducting the profundity of information-path, I have replicated my previous success by refining a rank 0 soul-path machine. Behold, this is my path of immortality: Armored Soul Tribe!”

Sometimes, great things were achieved without any witness. Whether or not this invention could be considered as world-changing couldn’t be announced to the world as it would attract the hostility of the gods. The very existence of undead machinery is taboo in Morgen World, soul technology should never be revealed!   

Without a commotion, Mordred’s Chaldean soul was installed on the mechanical body treated with soul-path methods to better accommodate the load. Lost senses such as touch, vision, and smell returned as basic sensors are activated one after another.

Mordred opened his eyes. He saw the team who fought against Nyx. As he activated his lenses to its fullest extent, he could see the tricks Nyx was pulling.

‘So I just have to kill him, right? Kasumi, status report!’

< Affirmative. All system green. Minute errors are being adjusted in real-time. >

‘Great, leave the combat for me. You just need to update my Operating System as we go. Grant me access to your liquid metal body.’ Mordred transmitted his thoughts.

< Access granted. Updating liquid metal armament configuration to: Gunlance-type assault railgun. >

He screamed. “NYX!”

Kasumi’s liquid metal body was under the control of Mordred’s crystal processor; it soon took the form of a gunlance-type assault railgun. At this moment, the ground shook as a figure ate Nyx’s corpse.