Level Up Legacy

Chapter 1492: Soulless

"I heard about your little adventures," Rae said with a smile. Her white scarf appeared and created a chair for her to sit. "You’ve been going all around the world and making a mess."

"It’s good to see you too," Arthur said with a smile. "You had your fair share of adventures."

"Barely," she gave him a snort. "I want to let you know that I’m participating in the Divine Trial."

Arthur was surprised, as she was laser-focused on taking down the Father of Shon. "Why?"

"Because I’m weak," Rae said, flat. "You have defeated calamities and gods while I was struggling to take down a single man. But I have to be the one to kill him, you know? That’s not going to happen with my current strength."

"The trial doesn’t offer strength," Arthur said with a frown. "The gods will possess you and take control of your body. This is their way to infiltrate our world."

"Then, you would need all the help you can get," she said with a sigh. "Listen, Arthur. I know that I joined your guild here and am expected to listen to your orders. But we both know that’s not going to happen."

Arthur was silent. "But I’m asking you as a friend."

"Do you remember when Deluge harmed Diana?" Rae asked. "You took revenge the moment you learned of it. I’m sure that it felt good, to chase after that calamity and tear him apart. But he escaped. How did it feel when you couldn’t exact your revenge?"

"Like I was burning from the inside," Arthur said as his expression changed.

"I’m turning to ashes," she said. Her red eyes revealed an unusual amount of despair. "And don’t even suggest strengthening me using runes. The PSAs broke apart the moment I wore one of them."

The PSA was an acronym for the Physique Strengthening Artifacts. It was the artifacts that Arthur could use to strengthen his armies, with the current limitation of five artifacts per person.

He had noticed that unlike his past assumption, one couldn’t stack these artifacts without any toll. They used spiritual energy instead of mana, which was the real source of power behind passive abilities.

The current limit for most humans was five artifacts, and some of them trained their souls to wear more. His guild members would periodically enhance their artifacts or add to them.

It was strange that the artifact broke the moment Rae wore it. It was designed to withstand any amount of spiritual energy and only take what it needs. Arthur was even surprised to learn that Julia had reduced the spiritual consumption by creating Bonded Artifacts that could only be worn by a single person.

The Bonded Artifact was created by using the person’s spiritual energy as a catalyst, making it only respond to that person. It lowered the cost of fueling the artifact and prevented selling the artifacts to outsiders.

It was genius, and Arthur was once again reminded that while he could create any rune, he couldn’t improve it like someone who had studied the structure of the runic lines. All he could do was alter the runes with his spiritual energy, which he realized was just another way of bonding them to him, thus reducing the mana cost.

"Can I have a look?" Arthur said while reaching forward with his hand. Rae hesitated but reached out to grab his hand. Arthur closed his eyes. "I’ll try to look into your soul. Don’t worry. Any secrets you try to hide cannot be seen by me."

"What are you trying to see, then?" she asked.

"Your soul," Arthur said.

His spiritual energy flowed through his body and into his hand, and then toward Rae. It flowed through her body as she let out a grunt of discomfort.

"Tell me if you feel any pain," Arthur said.

"It just... itches, like ants under my skin," she said.

Arthur never experienced the feeling, but knew that couldn’t be pleasant. As he was about to dig deeper, a strange feeling happened. His spiritual energy that was within her earlier was now gone.

The feeling was like it had dissipated, but Arthur never broke his contact with it. He decided to try again with a little more this time. Rae let out a groan as his spiritual energy was more aggressive this time.

"Stop," she said and pulled her hand away. "That feeling is... too much. I would rather walk around naked than experience it again," she said with a scowl. "Fucking pervert."

"How am I a pervert?" Arthur asked with his mouth agape. But his mind was more preoccupied with what he saw earlier. "Rae... I know why your artifact broke."

"You better after what you did," she said while rubbing her chest for some reason. "Out with it!"

"Ahem," Arthur coughed. "Your soul doesn’t emit the spiritual energy that the artifact needs, but the opposite. The flow of energy is reversed to the common methods of emission."

"I’m not a nerd, Arthur. I don’t know what that means," she said.

"I asked everyone to read the book Souls and Bodies," Arthur said with a frown.

"We’re a guild, not Jerano. You can’t force me to learn things."

"It would make you stronger!"

"Battles make me stronger, not reading books. I doubt I would understand it anyway. It was too much like a rambling nerd voicing out his theories than anything I can use to grow stronger."

"Your soul is sucking in the spiritual energy around you instead of letting it out," Arthur said and glanced at her chair. "It might be powering that scarf of yours."

"It doesn’t require mana," Rae looked down. "But I never questioned it. I guess it does make sense now. Does that mean I can’t use the PSAs?"

"That doesn’t have to be the case," Arthur said. "Your scarf should be using some of your spiritual energy, not all of it. But the fact that your soul absorbed my spiritual energy suggests it has been deprived for too long. I need to take another look to make sure it’s not damaged."

"I knew you were a pervert, but to be shameless as well..." Rae said while crossing her arms around her chest. "I’m telling Diana that you assaulted me twice."

Arthur felt his face turn red. Rae had always been insufferable, but it felt like he got used to it when they were in Jerano. But thankfully, after seeing his expression, she burst out laughing and presented her hand again.

"You’re too easy to embarrass, Guildmaster," she said. "I’m glad to see that you haven’t changed much."

"I did plenty of changing," Arthur muttered under his breath as he grabbed her hand. This time, he allowed his spiritual energy to flow unhindered, but he controlled its flow to be gentler.

Arthur had to close his eyes to focus on visualizing her soul. As he was diving deeper and digging closer to her soul, Rae let out a moan that made him flinch and snap his eyes open. He saw her grinning at him.

"You’re unbelievable," he said. "This is a matter of life and death. You can’t joke around with souls."

"I’ll be fine," she said. "Just get it over with."

"I would, if someone didn’t keep pulling my leg," Arthur said while glaring at her. She shrugged and it almost broke off their connection.

Arthur resumed his soul search, and after a few minutes of uninterrupted visualization, Arthur retracted his hand from her while looking at her with a grave expression.

"You can’t scare me," she said with a grin, expecting that he was pranking her back. However, Arthur looked at his own hand in such an expression that she had no choice but to believe it. "What did you see? Is my soul pretty fucked up?"

"No," Arthur said as he met her eyes. "Because you don’t have any."

"What?" she asked. "I don’t have any what?"

"You don’t have a soul. It’s just a dark pit that keeps going somewhere," Arthur said, his voice a little shaking. "I’ve... never seen anything like this. How did I not notice?"

"Don’t give me this crap," she said as she jumped from her seat. The scarf unfurled and wrapped itself around her neck, becoming a continuation of her white hair. She grabbed it. "If I don’t have a soul, how am I using this?"

"I have no idea," Arthur said as he looked down at his own hand. "It almost feels... like the Nameless."

A long period of silence descended between them. The Guild Hall was still empty except for them. It would be soon before Diana came to take him to reawaken his legacy.

"I need to examine someone else from your kind," he said. "Someone who had their bloodlines altered."

"What are you saying? That all my brothers and sisters are soulless?"

"I have no idea," Arthur grunted. "But I need to investigate more before I make an educated guess."

"You’re not telling me the truth," she said while glaring at him. "You saw him in there, didn’t you?"