Chapter 334. Sharing Soul Sight (Patreon)

Ian tugged off his shirt, revealing the hard lines of his transformed torso. His skin was rugged, almost molded like a statue.

Soolemar stood close to him and spooled a tendril of ethereal energy from his soul. It snaked its way over to Ian’s chest, then pressed into his clavicle, pushing its way into his body.

“It’s hard to go past your skin,” Soolemar noted. “The transformation brought on by your artifact is fascinating. When we have more time, I’d like to study it.”

Ian nodded. “If all goes well, there will be plenty of time for that.”

Before Ian went to Eternity, his soul’s corruption heightened his offensive capabilities at the cost of defense. Probing Ian’s body with ethereal energy had never been a challenge for the old necromancer.

Until now.

Soolemar had heard from Ian’s own mouth just how far he’d progressed but to witness it in person was different. Soolemar couldn’t see embodied souls, but he was a master at feeling them, reading their contours, and discerning their composition–their viscosity, flexibility, and responsiveness.

Before, Ian’s soul had been like a ruined plastic bag, torn and strewn throughout his body. Around those pieces of soul, his ethereal body had pooled. Usually, the ethereal body was almost like a cross between a liquid and a gel–at least that’s how Soolemar thought of it. A powerful, dense ethereal body would be hard to push through and would make injuring the soul more challenging.

The strength of one’s ethereal body was somewhat intrinsic, but for necromancers, the starting point was mostly irrelevant–they could increase the strength of their ethereal body over time.

Most of Soolemar’s experience feeling the souls of other necromancers came from a time long since passed: when his school still stood, and people openly learned necromancy. He drew on that body of knowledge as he assessed the changes in Ian’s ethereal body and the state of his soul.

“Remind me, Ian–how many years has it been, from your perspective?”

“Five or six–it’s hard to keep track in time-dilated spaces.”

“You’ve used disembodied souls to repair the state of your ethereal body,” Soolemar said. “It’s significantly strengthened.”

Soolemar almost said, “Good work,” but stopped himself. Even if Ian considered himself Soolemar’s student, the old necromancer couldn’t think of him the same way, not anymore. Ian was a peer. He didn’t need encouragement. Saying such platitudes felt wrong, almost disrespectful.

Ian laughed. “Let’s see how hard it is for you to reach my soul, going against just my passive defenses.”

By passive defenses, Ian was referring to how hard it was for foreign energy to pass through his ethereal body. The denser his ethereal body, the harder a time Soolemar would have.

Soolemar pushed his tendril of energy deeper. After passing through Ian’s skin, he encountered less resistance, but Ian’s energy was still notably denser than Soolemar remembered. Before, it had almost been too stretchy and overly sinuous, lacking stopping power. It had allowed him to form needle-thin threads of energy that didn’t break but had left his soul vulnerable to outside attacks.

It felt healthier. But there was also something different that he hadn’t expected.

“Why is your ethereal body constantly shifting?” Soolemar asked.

“As you know, souls are relatively invulnerable in Eternity, but can be manipulated indirectly. While training with Ancient Ash, I began regularly shifting my ethereal body to practice nudging the soul in particular ways. The more I did it, the more it became second nature. Outside of Eternity, it’s not relevant, of course–I can control my own soul directly.”

“You make it sound easy,” Soolemar said, snorting in annoyance. “No wonder Achemiss bought into your charade.”

Ian laughed. “What do you mean?”

Soolemar ignored his question. He’s practically fishing for compliments, the necromancer grumbled internally. The way Ian subtly shifted his ethereal body oozed nuance and practice. Soolemar found it hard not to be jealous when everything came so easily to Ian, but he recognized his own limits–and his own inferiority. Ian really was that gifted when it came to Death affinity–more gifted than anyone Soolemar had ever known.

And going by the fact that Ian had been recruited by a lauded ancient for individual instruction, even if it was supposedly as a reward for winning a competition between other young ascendants… Ian clearly stood out even among ascendants.

Soolemar continued pushing his ethereal energy tendril through Ian’s chest. When at last he reached the threshold of Ian’s soul–that timeless coil of thought and memory–he began to assess it in earnest.

“The anchor points,” Ian said, directing Soolemar’s attention.

Soolemar spent the next several minutes working his way over Ian’s soul. Despite the greater strength and support of Ian’s ethereal body, his soul was still in multiple fragments. Soolemar didn’t think that would ever change–you couldn’t fundamentally un-corrupt a soul. Piecing it back together merely meant applying external pressure with the ethereal body, forcing the fragments to migrate close together.

Because Ian’s soul was decentralized, it took the old necromancer a while to pore over the entire matrix of connections that fastened the soul to the ascendant’s body.

“The effect would have been worse if your soul was in one piece,” Soolemar muttered.

Ian’s eyebrows rose. “Care to elaborate?”

Soolemar paused. “You were right to point me to your soul’s anchor points. It’s quite bizarre–they’re frayed around your soul, almost like your soul was cannibalizing the anchor points to strengthen itself. Unfortunately, since the anchor points are extensions of the soul itself, you wouldn’t have been able to manipulate them in Eternity.”

“I would have noticed if it were severe,” Ian pointed out.

“That’s why this is so interesting… I think the damage is from the inside.” He met Ian’s gaze. “To my point, since your soul is more distributed, I think the cannibalization may have been minimized. Can I cut open one of your anchor points to demonstrate?”

“Hold on,” Ian said, looking around. “Do you have any disembodied souls stored nearby?”

The question was almost insulting. “Ian… do you forget who you’re dealing with?”

A minute later, Ian was holding a string of souls on a line of his ethereal energy. He tapped the crown of embers on his head. “Watch closely,” he said mischievously, “this is pretty cool.”

Soolemar scoffed, but the excitement he felt was genuine. This was the crown of embers that Maria transformed into, the artifact that allowed Ian to see embodied souls. It would allow Ian to follow Soolemar’s progress as he dissected the anchor points.

Moreover, it was the first real ascendant artifact that Soolemar had ever seen in person. He tried not to show just how interested he was–he didn’t want to seem like the practitioner equivalent of a country bumpkin. As Ian offered the souls to the crown’s embers one by one, the little flames changed color and rotated, spinning faster and faster until at last they sank into his head.

Ian blinked and smiled. “There.”

It was a bit anticlimactic; Soolemar couldn’t see as Ian did.

“Now let me share what I see with you,” Ian added. “With your permission, of course.”

The chance to see disembodied souls? He relaxed his mental defenses. “Go ahead.”

“Just a warning, I’m still not very good at using Remorse.”

Soolemar was going to tell Ian not to worry when his mind suddenly felt the impact of a mental equivalent of a sledgehammer. A mess of light and color subsumed his vision. It was practically a Remorse attack.

“Ian!” Soolemar winced.

“I warned you,” Ian said. At least his mental voice wasn’t too loud. “In Eternity, I mostly used my Remorse to communicate thoughts. Sharing my vision like this is beyond my capabilities.”

How are you doing it, then? Soolemar thought. Assuming you manage to show me more than this mess of undifferentiated colors.

Ian snorted. “Ascendant energy bridges the gap, but I don’t have the nuance to wield my Remorse affinity effectively. Just give me a moment; I practiced doing this countless times with Ascendant Red, but he’s a much more forgiving subject.”

The world gradually shifted into focus as the minutes ticked on. Soolemar had retained the ability to see in color, though his sight was desaturated compared to that of the living. Seeing through Ian’s eyes reminded him of what he had lost a thousand years ago, when he’d made the final, flawed step into immortality and undeath.

Adding to the disorientation was the fact that he was seeing through Ian’s perspective, not his own. Ian was currently looking at Soolemar, so Soolemar was seeing himself through Ian’s eyes. It was markedly different from looking at himself in a mirror.

He shuddered in anticipation as the blurry scene finally solidified.

Soolemar saw something within his vessel. It almost looks like a green mass that had been pressed into the shape of kelp, or tree roots… or maybe even an ink stain that had taken solid form. He hadn’t expected it to look so ugly. When he sensed his soul, it felt smooth, the anchor points delicate yet strong.

How strange. Soolemar saw himself press a hand to his chest, saw how ethereal energy pushed out from his hand and jostled his soul, straining the anchor points. When he retracted his energy, the soul drifted back.

“Maria says that your soul is a lovely shade of green,” Ian said.

Soolemar smiled, not fully processing the comment. This was incredible. More than ever, he became determined to enter Eternity at any cost. Ian found a way to see embodied souls in a handful of years. Even if it took Soolemar thousands of years to find an artifact with a similar purpose, it would be worth the wait.

Ian’s gaze shifted downward to his own chest. Where Soolemar’s soul looked almost plantlike, Ian’s looked bulbous, like a host of tumors, or a dormant hive. It was an intense blue color, like the pristine waterfalls that once roared in Yurusi Canyon, or a cloudless, sun-filled sky.

Ian focused on one of his soul’s anchor points, plucking it with his ethereal body. Outwardly, nothing seemed wrong with it. “Soolemar, why don’t you cut into this one.”

Soolemar’s ethereal energy tendril hovered over the anchor point, poised to begin the experiment.

Why not just cut into the anchor point yourself? Soolemar wondered.

“I already have, earlier–just a quick test, though, without the ember crown allowing me to see embodied souls. Something seemed off but I couldn’t discern what. We both know my intuition is second to none when it comes to necromancy, but my experience is lacking, especially since souls are so hard to deal with in Eternity. You’ve seen and felt countless souls in your lifetime. I defer to your mastery in this.”

If you’re sure.

“I am. Go ahead.”

Soolemar’s tendril of energy flattened to a thin edge and sliced along the length of the anchor point. Ian shuddered, though showed no other outward sign of distress. Soolemar carefully stretched the anchor point until it was nearly flat, revealing its interior.

Glowing, cobalt-colored crystals grew inside the anchor point.

“What is this?” Ian mentally asked, concerned.

I’m not exactly sure, but it’s definitely the source of your problems.

“The color is like that of my ascendant energy with Maria empowering me, as she is currently. Is my ascendant energy somehow compromising my soul?”

Then all ascendants would be in trouble, Soolemar reminded him.

“You said that it looked like my soul was cannibalizing my anchor points. What if instead, the crystals are coming from my soul, spreading into my anchor points?”

Your soul is protected by Eternity, Ian, Soolemar said. How could it be compromised?

“Nothing can attack it, but it’s still connected to me through an inseverable link that spans any distance. It can be indirectly affected just by moving my ethereal body.” Ian sighed. “And if an ascendant wishes to die, they can force their soul to atrophy to the point of unraveling.”

In other words, Eternity’s protections aren’t absolute.

“We can speculate about how this happened later, once Achemiss is finally dead.”

Agreed.

“Which brings me to my main question… can you fix this?”

Soolemar’s lips curled into a smile. It looks quite difficult. I’m not sure.

“Oh?”

Together, though, I’m of the opinion that in the domain of the soul, we can do most anything.