Soul Eater

Hiro’s POV:

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I feared losing Alice. I wasn’t fearing for my life. What I feared most was losing Alice! I didn’t want such a thing! As our hearts stopped, I suddenly felt completely empty, yet full. Interestingly enough, there was only one thing in that dark, empty, cold place, which was my chest. And that was the feeling of Alice.

At that time, Gaia’s voice resounded in our mind. “Now my children, you are beyond the bond…” We didn’t know what that meant until a few moments later. Alice was still naked under me. It was a nice view… but what flowed into my mind was also very good. Both of us calmed down, realizing that we weren’t in danger of losing each other. Exactly the other way around. This thing they created was something amazing.

Gaia liked trolling others, but what she left behind as her legacy would be appreciated by us forever. Our hearts stop beating when our bodies are destroyed as well. The problem wasn’t that it stopped, but that it stopped by itself. We were scared because if we couldn’t restart our hearts, then our bodies would slowly wither and die. Two unmoving souls, without a body. We could live only in our mind for centuries to come without even being able to touch each other. How would that be?

Luckily, we didn’t have to face such a fate. This was Gaia’s message:

“This is my last message. There is truly nothing more that I can leave to you. You will hear this message only if you reached the last stage of Soul Fusion. Probably, your hearts stopped beating as a side effect of the blood you drank. If you fused, then it entered your pair’s body as well.”

“When our souls fused, quite a lot of us were also consumed. That’s why I told you that it was dangerous. After eight years, we felt that there was something more to this soul fusion. Something that we didn’t know of. We knew that we created something bigger than we thought. Although our fused forms went past the strength of someone at the eighth level, but we realized that there was a possibility, which was even better than just pure strength.”

“The chance of evolution. Were we really supposed to simply shed our mortal shells and cultivate as it was written? I realized that we were wrong! This technique was tinkering with souls as you have noticed it. I felt that if we were to reach a certain point of unity, then I could do something ridiculous. Truth be told, originally, I didn’t know if it was possible, but since you are hearing this message, it was.”

“On the theory of ‘eating’ the soul of those we fused with, I realized that such things were possible as well. That was the first time in a long time when we left our world and started looking for test subjects… We tried devouring their souls, but it failed every time because before we could devour our target’s soul, it was shredded into pieces thanks to our imperfect sync. No matter what we did, we always felt that we weren’t perfect for each other. Something was missing. You probably found that missing piece and you were able to reach the last form of soul fusion.”

“This skill is called Soul Eater and you can devour the souls of your opponents and build it into yourself. Be careful because if you don’t have a strong will, your personality could easily change after devouring a soul. Like I said, in our case, the soul was shredded into pieces before making them into my own. In case you can successfully devour it, the amount of your soul force is going to increase and it is also going to turn more powerful.”

“You will probably be able to use that soul force to further your cultivation as well or pour it into pills, which would recover your soul force. I’ve never heard of such a pill before, so that would be a miracle as well. The other thing is that if you truly reached the final form of soul fusion, then you turned into an inseparable entity. Supposedly, not even death could separate you because your souls are probably in such a powerful unity, that you would simply reincarnate as two people after death. If you don’t wish to separate, then this is also a very good thing for you.”

As her explanation finished, the details of Soul Eater flooded into our minds and our hearts also started beating once again. A smile slipped onto my face as I thought - The thing you were missing was in front of you all along. I wouldn’t say things like “before making them into my own”. I would say that “before making them into our own”... It is important to share all you have with your other half. You can’t truly understand and love the other one unless you share everything with him or her. Their problem was that they tried holding onto their own things. They weren’t truly united like we were.

“Yeah, though could you wait with your monolog? I’m still here all naked and my lust didn’t subside just because of this…” Alice made me remember what we were doing. I quickly got to ‘work’, though this was the best kind of work I could think of. After a few hours later, we felt completely refreshed and happy.

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I was sitting on our little beach, with Alice between my legs. The rays of the sun we made were seeping into our bodies, warming us up. It felt wonderful. There was a big sand hill behind me, which served as my backrest. Alice was leaning on my chest, with the back of her head on my left shoulder, while facing towards the sun with her eyes closed. I was caressing her hair and face, while she was resting with a blissful face on.

After giving a kiss on the top of her head, I started speaking. “Now we can think clearly… Firstly, we should look for a ‘test subject’. Some kind of trash person would be perfectly fine.”

Alice coiled her tail around my right arm while saying with a weak voice - ”Yeah, it’s not like anyone could shake our minds. We are here to support each other forever, so we don’t have to fear our personality changing randomly,” She said with a confident smile on her face.

I nodded upon hearing her words. I had a strong willpower anyway. For example, no matter what I started doing and no matter how much I hated doing it, I still finished it in the end. I was also very willful when it came to making decisions or to my personality. I mean… I never felt that I should change just because of others. I would rather change my environment and the people around me. Now, this might sound arrogant, but I don’t care. Like I said, I have a strong personality, which makes me hard to deal with from time to time.

But it is also easy to make me happy or excited. Like a child, I guess. Others can turn me happy very easily. Alice started murmuring as she opened her right eye - “Why are you thinking about your personality? I know you the best…” I chuckled upon hearing her murmuring, but I didn’t say anything. I felt so peaceful in her company.

“Nyaa~ You big crybaby,” Alice said jokingly while turning around and coiling her arms around my neck. Our lips touched and her tongue entered my mouth. She was as sweet as honey if not sweeter. I embraced her back and we started kissing, which soon turned into copulating, even though we have done it just now. Another few hours later, we were sitting in the same position. Honestly, I felt ridiculous.

“So where were we?” I questioned her after realizing that I forgot everything. All I had in my mind was her. This is no good… I can’t stop!

“Maybe we should merge for a bit to calm you down… and we were talking about the, the…” Alice started thinking heavily to finish her sentence. Her struggling face was cute.

“Hahaha, you are one to talk. You are no different! You can’t hide from me that I’m in your mind even now…” I laughed happily, knowing that she felt the same. She simply dissolved as an answer and entered my body. We turned into the same kind of genderless creature.

We had straight, long, blonde hair, reaching the middle of our back. Our body was similar to a woman’s, except that it was very muscular and we didn’t have boobs. Our face kind of made it impossible to tell if we were a male or a female because we had manly and womanly features as well. I felt our lust subsiding, and then completely disappearing. It seems like this body didn’t have such desires, though I can understand it. It was visible that this form was perfect for fighting.

Its structure was made for battle. In this form, we had the agility and flexibility of women and the strength and sturdiness of males. Not to mention that we didn’t have guts and a few other organs since they were unnecessary at this level. Instead of those, we had more hearts, thicker veins, with upgraded air supplier systems and more blood in our veins.

Also, instead of normal muscles, we had myocardial muscles in our whole body, which we were able to control. Not exactly how it was supposed to be… Naturally, our eyes stayed the same. We didn’t have vocal cords either.

[So... test subjects. Should we look for them in our own world? I mean we can access the history of every human.] I questioned Alice with a clear head. In our own world, we were able to read the whole history of every creature. If we wished to, we could easily search for people who were ‘unworthy’ of life.

[I don’t know. It would be indeed easier, but testing the tiny souls of these mortals would feel wrong. Why don’t we kill a few cultivators of Angelwood Academy? They are the enemies of our school anyway.] Alice answered as such. Her words were indeed true. Not thinking about it anymore, we quickly teleported to Rin’s place. Her lair wasn’t far away from our house.

She carved out a big hole under a tree and dig her way into a beautiful cave. It had crystals covering its ceiling, lighting it up with beautiful lights. We entered through the hole and found her playing there, in a pool of lava. She was rolling on her back, splashing it all over the place. Upon noticing us, she jumped towards us. Even though we were fused, she naturally knew that we were her masters. We patted her head and then left our world with her and teleported towards the Star Formation.

Her ability really came in handy. Just this alone made her very useful, not to mention her fighting capabilities. We activated our battle form and Rin also covered her body in scales. After mounting her, we used the Star Formation. There was a guy in front of it and he was asking for five World Crystals as a payment. Not more because we were members of the academy.

In a moment, we appeared at Tuchore. There weren’t many people nearby, but we still gained attention since we looked really unusually. Just a look at the wondering faces of the people present was enough to prove it. There was a woman here as well and she too was asking for World Crystals, but since we weren’t wearing our school badges, we had to pay twenty this time. We wouldn’t wear our school badges when coming here, telling everyone that we were their enemies… only idiots would do such a thing. Maybe once we turn strong enough...

After paying her, we left. Using our mind power, we quickly sensed our surroundings and after finding a few places where were only a few people, Rin teleported us there. We found ourselves in front of a group of fairies… all of them were beautiful women, though there were about two males as well. They were only at the fourth stage, but a look was enough to tell us that they weren’t the bad kind of people we were looking for.

We walked up to them and Hiro used his mind power to ask - “Hello, sorry for the intrusion, but can I ask for directions?”

They raised their brows while looking at us and then one of them asked. “Hello. Where do you want to go?” She asked nicely with a small smile on her face. Yeah… not exactly the kind of person we were looking for.

“Let’s say that we are looking for ‘bad’ people at the fifth level. Do you know of such groups?” Hiro questioned them with a smirking face. The fairies made surprised faces upon hearing his question. They turned towards each other and they started mumbling something in a different language. That was weird because everyone was using the same language…

After a short chatting, they turned back towards us and the same girl said. “Well… they aren’t that bad, but they could be still called as bad people. They are also our enemies because they are always trying to get their hands on our bodies. They can’t catch us as long as we are together since they aren’t that powerful. But if you could kill them, then we would be very happy…” They probably didn’t find a rapist to be such a ‘bad’ guy since things like those were quite usual in this crazy, lawless world.

But for us? No more words were necessary. We’d seek them and kill them until they are gone! We didn’t have to fear them lying and using us since we would have noticed thanks to the curse on our eyes.

“Perfect! So? Where are they?” Alice questioned them upon hearing their words, which also surprised them since up till now, they were hearing my voice.

“Huh? Ah… go here,” She said with a surprised face, while she sent the location straight into our minds. It wasn’t far away and although there were more people, but it was still alright. We didn’t sense anyone too powerful either.

“Can I ask something from you?” Suddenly, one of the two guys asked with a curious face. After we nodded once, he continued. “I’m sorry for asking and please don’t get offended, but are you a male or a female? It’s really hard to tell…” He said while biting his lips.

We laughed loudly and told him that it would stay our secret as Rin teleported away. They were left there with their wondering faces. In front of us, a nice park appeared. There were a few benches, with small lakes and normal sized willow trees. It was truly a nice place. Knowing the looks of our targets, we quickly found them. They were a group of six and all of them were beastmen. They had big, splayed ears, with long noses and long incisors. They were of the rat kind…

Not bothering with talking to them, we simply appeared behind them. Rin bit on the head of one of them, while we turned Blank into a glaive in our hands. With a single swing of our weapon, we beheaded all of them. We had a hundred and seven Crypt in our merged battle form and since they were only at the fourth and fifth stage with only eighty to ninety some Crypt of strength, they had no way to resist us.

Using our mixed, powerful energy, we destroyed their bodies completely. Their souls were left there, completely helpless. They started shouting at us, by using their mind powers. “What the fuck are you doing!? Do you want to die? You idiot! You are going to pay for what you have done!” They shouted such things and they were also shouting at the people present, asking for help. The onlookers started sizing us up, but most of them simply turned around after sensing our powerful auras. But a few of them still came to help.

“Hey! What are you doing here? Outsiders aren’t allowed here and how dare you attacking the members of our school!? Do you want to call upon yourself the wrath of Angelwood Academy?!” One of our newest opponents questioned us. She was only a loser at the seventh stage. Just because Hiro was slightly struggling to beat Hitoshi, who was probably only a slightly bit more powerful, it didn’t mean that we would do so in this form of ours.

We didn’t even bother with turning towards her. “Hey! I’m talking to you! You ugly shit!” She started badmouthing us, which on the other hand, felt annoying. Using Soul Eater, we consumed a rat man's soul. His personality, his knowledge, his past, flooded into our mind. We felt a bit messy in the head for a few seconds, but with our powerful will powers, we quickly dispersed that mess and made it disappear.

We turned his soul force into pure energy and using that energy, our cultivation immediately increased slightly. [Hahaha! This skill is indeed wonderful! His soul saved us from at least a few days of cultivation! After devouring their souls, we might be able to reach the fourth stage!] I said happily in my mind. The people present realized that one of the rat men were killed, which angered them. We not only killed a member of their school, but we even ignored them.

“Bastard! Who do you think you are!? You are going to pay for your crime!” The same female shouted at us and she covered her body in a green light. She formed a spear in her right hand and threw it towards our back. We weren’t bothering with evading it, nor was Rin. It struck the scales on our back, and although it made us itchy for a moment, but nothing more. It simply disappeared like a fart. Her mind power? Our souls were at the fourth stage of Baby Soul, while hers was only at the fifth stage of Soul Infant.

Anything she did was like a fart in our eyes. Not bothering with the others’ attacks either, we started devouring the souls of the rat men, one by one. When only two were left, we thought of something. We turned around, towards these idiots and after spotting a ring on one of them, we appeared in front of the guy. He made a startled and surprised face, but he wasn’t able to do that for long. We punched him in the face and took away his storage ring.

After breaking his connection with it, by using our powerful soul forces, we threw everything he had inside it, into our own storage space. After that, we grabbed onto the soul of one of the rat men and tried shaping it. He started shouting painfully in our mind as he felt his soul being crushed and forcefully shaped. Not caring about his pain, we started forcefully shaping it into a big cube. His consciousness was quickly torn apart and he finally went silent. God… so much shouting.

We moved his soul into our new spatial ring and then tried covering its space with the cube shaped soul. We were trying to make a soul container. A normal soul couldn’t be stored in a storage space, but after covering it in this manner, it might be possible. Doing such a thing would be impossible without knowing this technique, called Soul Eater. We weren’t sure if it would work, but it was worth a try. The soul of the rat man was suddenly torn into pieces. We were doing it too quickly…

“What the hell are you doing!? You monster!” They still kept on with their shouting, which was getting more and more annoying. We growled in a deep voice and using our minds, which were numbering at ten, we attacked everyone with Bolt of Silence. Considering the difference between our souls, they quickly turned into ‘vegetables’.

[Finally… they are silent…] Alice remarked happily. The other people present, who were only onlookers before, now started murmuring and leaving. I guess they were fearing that they would get caught up in this mess.

[We better hurry up… They might call someone who would be too powerful even for us. We are on enemy grounds…] I thought and quickly got to work. It would be wrong to stay here any longer. Using the remaining soul of that rat man, we did the same thing as before. He didn’t dare to shout after seeing five of his friends dying, but after feeling how his soul was being torn apart, he started shouting in pain.

This time, we were able to finish the procedure. It was the time of testing! We looked at the woman from before and used our energy to destroy her body and Bolt of Silence to kill her. Before her soul could disperse, we grabbed onto it and pulled it into our Soul Storage Ring. Just as we imagined, it tried slipping out of the storage space to disperse, but that thin layer was stopping it from doing so.

Those people who tried attacking us were killed on the spot, with a swing of our weapon and then we pulled their souls into our Soul Ring. But after the fifteenth soul, the new ones started slipping out, making holes on that thin layer.

We used the soul of the woman to make that layer thicker and it worked just fine. We started pulling in the souls once again, though most of them dispersed by the time we finished. Luckily, we were still able to collect twenty-four souls in total! Feeling that we should quickly leave, Rin quickly teleported away.

[Hey, let’s prank this school!] Alice thought, already weaving evil plans in her mind. Rin quickly changed directions and teleported towards the hole, which originally led towards Gaia’s world. Since it was such an important place, why should we leave it intact?

We separated into two and quickly got to work. We carved a big Rune formation in the cave, right under the main building. It was a ‘container’ kind of formation and we also added an energy collecting one to it. It would collect more and more energy to a single place, but when that container would get overloaded… that would be the time for our present to show itself.

Rin quickly teleported to the Star Formation. Although the woman, in front of the formation, tried making us pay, but after knocking her out, we left freely. We went back to our ‘housing’ and then entered our own world.

[Alright, let’s devour these souls and see if we can step into the fourth stage!] Alice said eagerly, wishing to leave behind the third stage in one go.

[Hey… but what happens if we cultivate in this form?] I said thoughtfully, realizing that maybe we could turn even quicker than before! Alice said that she didn’t know either and that we should try it out. We took out a few hundreds of thousands of World Crystals and started consuming it, along with the souls. Our strength was quickly growing, but we realized that what we thought of was impossible.

Although we had to cultivate only one body, but its energy consumption was much greater. We had to spend twice as much World Crystals and souls to advance so much, as we would in our separated forms. That being the case, it took a longer time… so we separated and using the souls, we broke through to the fourth stage in just a few hours! We didn’t have to spend as many World Crystals either, which was truly wonderful!

Normally, we would have taken a few days, or maybe even a week to reach the fourth stage, but we were much quicker like this! This skill was a miracle. The best was that others couldn’t use such a skill because no one had fused souls. A single soul wouldn’t be powerful enough to control another person’s soul, but a fused one? It was a piece of cake. This was not only a good way to quicken our cultivation speed but also a good way to attack our enemies!

We called for Rin and after mounting her, we left our own world. It still wasn’t time to hold the voting and we had other things to do. Alice was sitting in front of me and I was sitting behind her, holding onto her waist, just like usually. Rin teleported away and we appeared in front of the Zumn Reef. After dismounting Rin, she turned back into a cub-sized panther and jumped onto my shoulder.

As we entered the building, there was a line in front of us. There were a few groups of cultivators at the third stage. Upon noticing our badges, they quickly stood to the side with respectful faces, knowing that we were members of the school. After coming back, we obviously wore them again. After Aiko finished talking with the trio in front of her, they left and we took their place.

“Oh, hello. What brings you here?” She asked with a smile on her face, while her cat ears started twitching.

She would be really cute if she were to be younger. Alice thought upon seeing such a scene.

“Ah, we came here because we have a question. Do you have a way to communicate with others in a long range?” I asked her with my head tilted to the side.

Her ears twitched once again and then she started laughing, while saying - “Hahaha, of course, we have. Don’t be stupid… Anyone at the sixth level could do those things. When the two universes mixed, it took only a single day for everyone to get their hands on the new communication orbs. Here, take them. They are freely distributed,” She explained and then she handed over two orbs for each of us. Rin roared, making her presence known.

“Hahaha! You have such a cute companion! Cat types are the best! You have a good taste!” She said proudly, not forgetting to praise her own race. “Do you need one as well?” She questioned as she appeared in front of me and rubbed her nose against Rin’s. Rin’s answer was a scratch on her nose. Although she was nice and all, but we didn’t intend to spread Rin’s race, so we simply chuckled after hearing her, not telling her that she was an Abyss Panther. Though probably it would get out sooner or later, but the later the better.

“Was that all you needed?” She questioned us while she was rubbing her nose, with her head tilted to the side. We nodded as an answer and then she said with a cheeky smile on her face as she appeared beside Alice and elbowed her into her side. “Hey, hey~ I’ve caught wind of your fame. You beat up the whole class of newcomers and then got into the advanced class at the fifth level. That’s a really nice way to start your school life. You came at the best time because a war is going to take place in a few weeks of time. I expect great results from you and don’t die if possible! It’s a good sector with a lot of resources, so you better capture it for the school!”

Hearing her words, we were surprised. We haven’t even heard of such a thing! Everything was coming at us randomly, out of nowhere! [In that case, we will have to organize our things to have enough free time when the time of war comes.] I thought in my mind as I put my right hand on my chin. Alice said a ‘yes’, as she pushed my hand away, held onto my chin, and stole my lips.

“Ugh… it’s starting again. Stupid love birds. Go away from here!” Aiko said with an annoyed face as she started waving her hands, indicating for us to leave. We left the building and after finding a silent place, we sat down and took out our new communication orbs. After pouring our mind powers into it, we tried looking for Ellery’s mind power. If you didn’t know who you were looking for, then finding somebody would be impossible. But if you knew the person’s aura, then it was easy.

It worked like a big searching system where everyone had unique identifiers… “H- Hello? Who is that?” Ellery’s voice resounded in our minds.

We chuckled upon hearing her question and then Alice said - “What’s up Ellery? You don’t remember us anymore? I’m Alice.”

“What!?” Ellery exclaimed in a surprised tone and then she quickly continued - “But how is that possible? I tried contacting you already numerous times, but I wasn’t able to. Your auras simply disappeared. I thought that you were… that you were dead…” She said in a sad tone, which sounded like someone who was about to cry... Seriously?

“Wait… were you not able to find us? But how is that possible?” I questioned her, feeling curious.

“Well, I’ve tried contacting you numerous times, but it always failed for some unknown reason,” She said the same thing once more. Probably she didn’t know of its reason either. After thinking about things for a bit, we entered our own world and tried contacting her, but it didn’t work. We didn’t find anything.

We slapped on our foreheads as we left our own world and told her the truth. She too was surprised to hear it, even though it should be clear. These steles or orbs were using the wavelengths of this universe. If she tried contacting us while we were in the Abyss or in our own world, then it would be natural that she wouldn’t be able to do so.

“Where are you now? Do you mind if we visit you? In case you are somewhere close…” Alice questioned her, which to Ellery answered with a laugh.

“Of course, you can! I’d be glad to see you. Rose and Max is also here. Since I met her, I tried contacting her and then I invited her. Since it’s been more than a month, we’ve got to know each other quite a lot. She is a good girl. I became friends with her! I could also introduce you to my father and then you could ask more about that Earth. Though his old knowledge might be useless since everything changed so much…” Ellery explained in a good mood.

“Ah… about that. We found it already, so no need. But we are still going to visit you,” I said while scratching the back of my head, though she couldn’t see it. Alice shrugged her shoulders and then asked her about her position.

Ellery sent the answer straight into our mind and we started laughing upon realizing that she was so close. She was in this galaxy, except that she was in the outer parts of it.