The Machinist raised an eyebrow. "Of course," he said without remorse. "I have a skill that's literally called 'Kill Body, Remove Soul,' and I depend on souls to animate my golems."

"Monster!" cried Lana, enraged.

The Machinist gave her a yellow smile. "Hunters kill beasts for their body parts, for money. I kill for souls. What's the difference?"

Honestly, Aaron agreed. Lana didn't.

"Souls are sacred! Immortal! Forcing them into eternal obedience is immoral, terrible, and cruel!"

The man snorted and spoke at a fast speed. "Sacred according to whom? Your personal morals? Your deity? Just to be clear, I don't force anyone to obey me. I don't have suitable tools for that."

Lana opened her mouth in shock at what he was saying. He would force someone to obey him if he could? He continued talking, unaware or uncaring of her shock.

"You see, the only suitable tool to force obedience is mind control, but only Sovereigns are allowed to use mind control in the Thenor Empire. I'm not a suicide, so I don't touch it. Sadly, none of the other options are good ones.

"Forcing obedience through torture would give me an untrustworthy servant. Convincing someone to obey all my orders by using logic and facts might take forever because most people are just stupid and can't see reason. And negotiating for undying obedience would become unsustainable in large numbers or the long term.

"No, instead I replace the soul's mind with an artificial one completely loyal to me. Much simpler that way.

"Oh well, I admit I tried to use the consciousness of a living being once. I trained a dog to obey me and perform basic commands, killed him, and put his soul in a dog-shaped golem, without clearing the mind of the soul.

"It was terrible. Bodies of flesh and bone do not work the same as stone bodies, and dogs are not exactly geniuses in adapting to situations that require great mental acuity, such as controlling a different body. It couldn't even make a sound, it just became a soul stuck in inert stone. I'd have put it back to its body, but unfortunately, after a body dies, only a few classes, such as Necromancer or Priest, can put a soul back in it. I had to kill the poor fellow, a regrettable experiment."

He shook his head. "Imagine if I had done this with a human. Maybe he could adapt to the new body eventually, but he wouldn't be happy with me, much less obey me. Not to mention that any ability that the human knew wouldn't be usable in his new body, so he wouldn't even have that advantage. If you want to keep a human mind alive for their knowledge, there are easier, cheaper, and safer ways to do it."

Lana finally managed to speak, answering his first question, "The Goddess of Light teaches that souls are sacred and inviolable. Your acts are one of the few unforgivable sins in the Temple of Light."

The Soul Machinist sighed. "You'll just ignore everything else I said and focus on the religious topic, won't you? Typical Priestess. Well, the God of Darkness says otherwise. Why should I listen to your goddess instead?"

"Most gods, including the God of Rule, agree with the Goddess of Light." She was controlling her voice better. The familiarity of the topic calmed her. "The only gods who disagree are chaotic at best, outright evil at worst. That should be evidence enough."

"The very fact that supposedly superior beings that should all know better disagree on the subject is evidence both of their fallibility and bias. Therefore, their opinion on the subject is nothing but that, an opinion, which doesn't really matter.

"But let's say they are right. They can prove it, I hope? Or am I just supposed to believe them? I'm not a Devout, and as you know, the White Treaty forbids the gods from imposing their beliefs on non-believers. I'm outside your jurisdiction, lady. You asked for my death, but that would be just murder, which your goddess claims to be against. But how convenient that when she is the one advocating murder, she's not against it!"

Lana smiled slightly at that. "The Goddess of Light is love and grace, but a loving parent will punish a child when it's doing evil. Murder is wrong because it's done for our selfish reasons, but her will is for the good of all. Thus, it's not murder."

The Soul Machinist rolled his eyes. "Same thing, different words. I'm not debating religion with you anymore. Priests are all brain-washed fanatics that can't see stupidity when it's rubbed in your faces."

"But it is a religious topic by nature," Lana barked. "It's about souls, which are the domain of gods."

"Oh, shut up. Arcane skills are the domain of Arcane Energy, it's in the name. There's nothing about souls that is divine unless you add divine meaning to the existence of souls yourself. It's just wishful thinking on your part, not cold facts."

Lana tried to reply, but the man spoke too quickly and didn't let her. "Just to entertain you, I'll say this last piece on souls and religions: I studied the subject, and no god claims to know where souls come from or where they go after death. They obviously have no domain over it. At best they would be temporary caretakers. I would trust the word of a Beast Tamer about how to train a beast, but it's beyond their scope of responsibilities to claim whether beasts are divine.

"Now, back to cold logic, divine beasts are divine for a single reason, they all reach the Sage level once they mature. Tell me, objectively, what is it that makes souls sacred?"

Lana now smiled widely and victoriously. "Souls are alive and impossible to replicate. Thus, sacred."

"Good, we're getting somewhere. Let's say I agree with your definition of sacred, which I don't. Now, pray tell me— No, don't pray. I forgot I was talking to a Priestess. Just answer, why is a sacred thing untouchable? Because you attach value to it. Because someone said so. None of these reasons are objective, they are all subjective. You want to kill me because I disagree with you."

Lana was beaming now, almost tasting victory. "Being alive and impossible to replicate makes them not only sacred but also unique. There's nothing else in the world that is alive and impossible to replicate, only souls. We should not touch them out of appreciation, at the very least. Or out of respect for most of the gods. You just have neither appreciation nor respect, because you would close your eyes to the truth rather than accept you are pursuing an evil path."

"Oh, yes, the evil Soul Machinist, using a natural resource! Kill him before he lay eggs! As I said, it's a subjective matter. Being unique makes it untouchable to you, not to me. You attach moral value to uniqueness, while I don't." The man sighed dramatically. "Look at you, smiling as if you won the debate. You can't even understand my words, can I? Damn brain-washed Priests."

Indeed, both were sure they had won. Aaron thought Lana could go a bit further. She could state that violating a soul against its wishes while it still had a mind was unethical. However, she was still young and inexperienced in such debates, no matter how well the Temple of Light had trained her.

Aaron himself thought little about erasing a mind that was already going to disappear anyway, as no one, not even him, knew where souls went after death. They just disappeared. That said, he had visited some civilizations where minds could only be erased from souls if their owners agreed to it before death, and he thought of that as a perfect middle ground.

He wasn't about to continue that already too-lengthy discussion though. He had given Lana her chance to convince him, and she had failed. Now, he had an enemy to kill.

"Enough talk, my blood is burning for battle! Lana, I'll not kill the Soul Machinist for you, but I also won't interfere if you want to do it yourself. Just know that I won't save you if he wins either." He would obviously avenge her, but saying it out loud would give her an unfair advantage over the man. Pampering clan members was seldom a smart decision. "As for you, Mouth-Man... Alys, plan C!"

Alys acted instantly because "burning blood" was a code they had previously agreed on to mean action was close to happening.

She used the same spell she had used against the Mouth-Man in the corridor, the spatial bubble that would shrink and try to crush it. The result was exactly the same as before; the bubble stopped decreasing before it touched him.

However, the bubble this time was used only to distract the Mouth-Man from Alys' two other actions.

She created an oval blue portal in front of Aaron that led straight to the Mouth-Man. Aaron went through it without hesitation and the portal disappeared.

The energy spent on portals depended on how long it was kept open, the distance traveled, and the mass transported. Alys had said before that taking the five Fire Wolves a distance of two hundred meters would take everything from her. Taking Aaron to the Mouth-Man had used just under a third of her Space Energy.

While she was still creating the portal, she also created dozens of spatial blades around the Mouth-Man and Aaron. They were transparent and stood in various positions in the air, like giant floating shards of glass.

With plan C properly initiated, she canceled the space bubble around the Mouth Man. These simple acts not only prevented the Mouth-Man from escaping, they also put him in a kind of mini-arena with Aaron.

Aaron smiled aggressively at the being who had tried to kill him before.

It was time for revenge.

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Lana stared at the Soul Machinist who looked back at her with scorn.

She could see in his eyes how he was sure she wouldn't attack. She was a mere Three Star Priestess while he was a Four Star Soul Machinist in a room full of golems under his command. She had no chance of defeating him.

She would still have tried if it weren't for her current mission, protecting Aaron and giving herself to him. This included swallowing her pride and convictions to preserve her energies, to use them only for his sake!

With a sinking heart, she looked away from the cruel man and turned to the battle between Aaron and the Mouth-Man that was already going on.

If Aaron's prediction was correct, Alys would soon run low on energy. It would then be time for Lana to act.

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The Soul Machinist smiled when the puny Three Star Priestess decided not to commit suicide. He turned to check the battle nearby.

The Mouth-Man was one of the strongest beings under the king's command. And yet, when the Soul Machinist had reported to the king that the Mouth-Man had attacked the Herald of Light, the king had said to order the Mouth-Man to stop! He had also said that if the herald insisted on taking the beast's life, the Soul Machinist should order the beast to sacrifice himself!

The king was distant from the caves and couldn't give direct orders to the beast. Giving a communication talisman to the Mouth-Man might leave a trail, something he wasn't willing to do. So instead, the king had ordered the beast to obey the Soul Machinist as if his orders came directly from himself.

But the Soul Machinist didn't order the beast to kill himself yet. He was curious. Why did the king fear this pathetic Three Star Qi Manipulator so much?

He had studied the Temple of Light more than most Priests to make sure their views on souls were just bullshit, so he also knew that a Herald of Light had fallen against a carnifex in the past with no consequence. Unless the goddess was looking through the Priestess' eyes right at that moment — which was very unlikely — a little spacetime scrambling would make that place impervious to divination. The Temple of Light would never have learned of the king's involvement.

It didn't take long for the Soul Machinist to widen his eyes in amazement and understand why the king's orders had also said for him to run away as soon as he had the chance!