No matter how much we searched, there were no signs of Apollyon. That was neither a good thing or a bad thing; we couldn’t confirm whether or not he truly died. Not even with my army of clones had I gotten even a whiff of him. It was unsettling, but Mandy saw this as an opportunity to train even harder.

Once I notified the coalition of worlds about Apollyon’s sighting, Mandy immediately forced me to train. I hadn’t even the chance to explain much of what was going on; August had to take up that mantle for me.

~

“Focus!” Arcana pinched me as I began wavering. It was hard to concentrate on anything; August and I just lost our entire families.

I tried to shake it off and focus on merging with her. Unlike many other spirit lords, Arcana’s arcane was so much to consume that it couldn’t be done in just a few minutes, even with the help of my clones and Timedial. How laborious; everything felt harder to do, like I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders. Well, I guess I did.

This weight definitely slowed my understanding of arcane. The only things I retained were what my body naturally remembered after every failed merger; there was no conscious effort put into it. I knew I couldn’t continue like that, especially when it came to training soul magic. I requested a break, which was given to me due to my lack of progress.

I cast Voidwalk for some peace of mind and just idled in the void for a while. A slew of memories emerged, of good times and bad. Who knew how long I stood there, looking up at the clouds swimming by. How the fuck do they expect me to do this? The more I thought of my children, my mother, failing Phoenix, my servants, my friends, the sadder I became. It angered me to no ends. At first, I blamed myself for weakness, but how was anyone supposed to defend against something like that? There was no sign, no warning, nothing. There was just death.

My mana worked up a storm, bolts of lightning shot out of me endlessly. The sky was alit and the surroundings immersed in the terrifying sounds of lightning. I continued until I drained all my body’s mana, refusing to use Division so that all that magic use would sap my stamina. I wanted to feel something, anything, besides that overbearing morose that only worsened with each passing second. My robes were soaked in sweat and my breath was staggered.

Damn it all! Why, why? Why me?! There had to be someone better, right? Why the fuck did they have to choose me?! “You fucking posers! You’re supposed to be almighty, right?!” I screamed at the sky, directing my hatred and choler to beings I never thought I’d even dream of thinking badly about. “How could you assholes allow this?! Why would you even create that thing?! Fuck! Fucking, shit! This is unfair!”

I keeled over and my head hit the dirt. My fingers dug into the ground and split the earth apart. I began going crazy, breathing fire, striking trees with lightning. My very breath caused massive Divergences, but no matter how I assailed my surroundings, the tears never ceased. They stuck to my face like glue, as if telling me there was no way for me to escape them; that my suffering would carry on for all eternity. This pain had no plans of ever stopping. I worked myself into a frenzy until there was but a measly drip of mana remaining within me.

I collapsed in the epicentre of grief and just let the tears run. Even with all my mana, all my power, all my knowledge, I couldn’t stop feeling hurt. So, I gave up and let it rampage within me.

After some unknown time passed, I felt the void becoming enfeebled, and shortly after, I reappeared within the corporeal plane again. August stood over me.

“We don’t have time f–” Mandy suddenly stopped her scolding, and I’d no idea why. I was curled into a foetal position and faced away from them.

I felt August’s Light Link position disappeared from behind me and entered Aquan for a couple minutes. When he came back, he had an entire keg of mead and two mugs. He pulled me up so I’d sit up and leaned his back against mine. He rested my empty mug at the side of me, “Owner of The Big Boar says hi,” and got his own mead.

I was so exhausted, physically and mentally, that it felt like I hadn’t even the strength to hold that mug. I just stared at it for a couple minutes, until I shakily grabbed hold of it and opened the tap on the keg. Just filling a damn mug felt so difficult, but it meant I was able to enjoy a drink with my buddy in the midst of the worst time in my entire life.

If this wasn’t a silver lining, I had no idea what was. We just sat there, drinking one mug after the other and exchanging no words, until the entire keg was drained dry. That did nothing to fix my problems, but it did make me shed my last few tears. I knew that the worst was yet to come, but at least I could focus again, which was more than enough for me.

August, Arcana, and I stayed in the mountains, where I was able to finally become an avatar of arcane. I finally mastered arcane totally, which was something only achieved by Emily and Arcana herself. By all standards of magic across many worlds, this was by far the greatest achievement a mage could possibly dream of, yet it wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be. The rewards for such a thing were splendid, but the giddiness I’d usually have simply vanished.

Once that was over, I cast Spectre of Eliora and asked about the avatar of light’s identity. Strangely enough, it was the spectre I spoke to. I was taken aback, “Then, who’s the avatar of shadow?”

“The avatar of shadow is Apollyon the Destroyer,” the spectre pointed out, quite indifferently.

My mind did a few backflips, “Does that mean that he can be summoned after mastering shadow manipulation?”

“Yes,” she confirmed, “but you cannot summon The Destroyer without the Orb of Eblis.”

“What is it and where is it?” I questioned.

“The Orb of Eblis is the artefact created by an old god of space, and given to Eblis in order to rule over death. I do not know its location.”

Great, that’s great. Well, I’ll think about that later. I went ahead with becoming an avatar of light. Unlike arcane, it was a bit easier to accomplish. Being an avatar of light granted me near immunity to death due to injury, an extremely strong and passive form of healing. Just like the Avatar of Earth buff, it was permanent, although it could be toggled on and off whenever the caster wanted.

Achieving both mastery of arcane manipulation and becoming an arcane avatar granted hundreds of spells. There were so many, my mind reeled just running over my spell book. Arcane really was capable of all magics.

With those two things added to my repertoire, the only magic types I had yet to properly tackle were space and soul. The reason I kept skipping space magic was because August learnt it, and I was sure it would be extremely similar to void magic. So instead, I chose to focus on soul magic training.

Before we could even begin, Donna advised me to remove the extra consciousness of myself I had within me, powerup as much as I possibly could with Augment, pills, and potions, then create a new clone and re-do the Division process. I wouldn’t understand why until I actually implanted the brand-new consciousness inside me.

This was the consciousness of a clone that crossed several important milestones like being a mind avatar, crystal shard powerup and mana powerup, and was affected by Augment. There were many other factors that made it an amazing thing, but those were the most important ones. I expected amazing results, and so did everyone else. Regardless, I still fainted.

I woke up some days later in the spirit world, nestled within a special regenerative liquid in the water faction’s deep seas. Once Hydra sensed that I was awake, she took me to the surface. “What happened?” I asked.

Dawn and Donna immediately materialised. “How do you feel?” Donna parted the hair from my forehead.

“Soggy. How long was I out?” I questioned.

Dawn’s face contorted, “Four days, this is the fifth day.”

“Forget that,” Donna dismissed. “What is your mana power at?”

I decided to have a looksee, and found that my base mana power was 11,968%, and with the 20% extra from August’s enchantments, it sat just below 15,000%. My eyelids ran away from each other, “14,960%. But, how?”

“Never mind that. You have to start soul magic training immediately,” Donna grabbed my hand. We sat down, and I spent the entire day meditating like Hethekk the Scryer. “The purpose of this is for you to use your mana like a pair of eyes, a pair of ears, a nose. However you think of it, know that it is a tool to find your soul. The soul lays at the deepest depths of a person, so concentrate. Try to remember what it felt like when you became a mind avatar or a void avatar. Let your mind, your being, even your entire existence sink to the lowest roots. Trace back everything that’s ever happened to you. From one second ago to the moment you drew your first breath. It’s all there. Find your genesis.”

I’d usually call her out on this ambiguous bullshit, but with the fate of the worlds hanging in the balance, I had no choice but to take her seriously. Her explanation of it was something I couldn’t exactly grasp, so I resorted to mapping my own mind, and retracing my memories briskly, yet steadily. A lot happened, both good and bad, but it forged me into who I was at the time. Was this the path meant for me?

Those thoughts distracted my search, so I banished them from my mind and found myself even more lost than before. How could it be that focusing more made me focus less? Was it correct for my mind to scatter in so many ways? I couldn’t tell.

Days went by, weeks even. Only within the fourth week, had I begun to feel like something was different when searching for my soul. It almost felt like I could see myself from another perspective; an out-of-body experience. Weirdly enough, looking at myself like that allowed me to feel so much more. I was more perceptive of my own body. I could feel my own breath, my own heartbeat, the air in my lungs, the morning sun’s gentle heat.

A few days of drowning in that blissful state and I felt even more things. But what surprised me even more were the happenings at a much smaller level in my body. The messages that shot around my brain and nerves as I moved my muscles, the chemicals that released when I took certain actions, or thought about happy memories, even the electromagnetic waves around me could be felt ever so slightly.

I continued practising, and remembered how I cried when I was born. I remembered my mother’s warmth and my father’s soothing voice. Just remembering those things put me in a place of tranquillity I’d never thought existed. I revisited that place, day after day, for weeks on end, and found myself slowly forgiving myself. I was at such peace with myself that the threat of Apollyon was the furthest thing from my mind. In that very moment, I was free. I knew I had major responsibilities, but in that state, there was nothing that would fetter me enough to sadden me, to evoke any sort of negative emotion within me.

Early into the second month, I found myself in my old room where my family and I lived in Aquan. My old bed was there, and I readily hopped on it. The softness and warmth embraced me as much as I embraced them. The place had a translucent purple hue to it, much like a usual void plane. It was without a smidgen of doubt, the most serene place I’d ever been in. The comforting feeling of nostalgia mixed with a monumental, boundless amounts of magical energy. Just my breath filled me with power unparalleled. Was that a sign? Did it mean one must be at peace to achieve true power? I couldn’t tell at the time, because I was too busy falling asleep.

When I awoke that evening, I was floating in foetal position with a dim violet light leaking around me.

“Congratulations,” Donna said, “you’ve found your soul.”

I chuckled lightly. That so? “Well, that’s great. But I’m hungry, so let’s eat, yeah?”

Dawn watched me strangely, and Donna tapped her on the shoulder as a sign of reassurance.

Over dinner, I explained to Hydra, Dawn, and Donna, what my soul looked like to me.

Donna nodded, “Yes, it differs depending on the person. It could be anything of significance: a place, a person, a memento. I’m really honoured that you remember my teachings as such precious memories.”

I smiled and let her have her satisfaction. In truth, my room would often have someone in it. Sometimes it was Donna, sometimes August, sometimes Flynn or Mary. And there was one particular reason there would almost always have someone in that room – the nature of void magic. In essence, void magic was nothingness. To combat that, it seemed the very depths of my subconscious chose to create versions of my loved ones that would make me the happiest I could be. They were a bright star in a dark room.

Even after taking two months to complete the prerequisite of soul magic, my understanding was broadly increased. I had a late night that night, thanks to those mischievous women, but still awoke before sunrise. I entered my ‘room’ again, my soul, and got down to business. The power in there was stunning to say the least. My main issue was getting that power, even a tiny piece, out into the real world.

Donna was right about having to use mana to find my soul. If I just meditated without invoking mana, I’d simply have the normal effects of meditation and would never be able to find my soul. So, I knew there was something fundamental about using mana to interact with soul energy. There was no time to waste, but I still stepped with caution.

First, I simply poured my mana out into the room. It mixed perfectly, and I mean seamlessly, to the point where it felt like I didn’t even release mana. I tried once more, this time with Mana Perception turned on. The usual blue hue that mana had was quickly turned purple. After a few more tries, the same thing happened. Does that mean the mana became contaminated? Hmm, that can’t be. This is my own soul after all.

The issue at that point, was that the mana melded into the room. Of course! Thank you, Arcana! I remembered my first time in Yunaris’ scariest dungeon, Earth-Sky Tower. In the Heaven part of the dungeon, an almost endless source of mana tried to kill me by entering my cells. Thanks to Arcana’s tutelage, I knew that mana couldn’t exist outside a living being or magical construct without a container. The mana that attacked me in that dungeon was contained in a thin film of arcane magic.

This time, I released my mana within an arcane container, and expectedly, the mana quickly turned purple. I absorbed a piece of the mana, no more than a marble’s size. It immediately jolted me out of my meditative position. Donna, Dawn, and Hydra woke up in total fear because of what they felt.

This, this power is maddening! It was way too much to keep bottled up. Power like this absolutely had to be released. I could already feel my ‘room’, my soul, cracking in pain. It was an otherworldly agony that made me feel like my very purpose in life was to obliterate everything.

Even my demonic transformation did not induce such psychosis. I felt like all my memories were disappearing with every passing second; like I was reverting to a basic, simple, single-cell organism, and all I wanted to do was consume everything.

Power like this needed a release, otherwise I felt like my mind, body, and soul would implode.

I teleported to that strange world Emily loved since I knew there was basically no one there and ripped apart the continent using the power I borrowed from my soul – void power. A huge split ruptured the land and water from the sea began pouring in. The earth trembled and roared, but even then, it still wasn’t enough to use up all of the power.

I summoned Hydra and had her take her full form immediately. Lifting her up for about a half hour released the soul energy. So, soul magic’s pretty fuckin’ dangerous. No wonder Emily killed Donna. Sheesh! What were the gods thinking with this? After I hit myself with Renew, I went back to Donna.

Her face was nothing short of confused, amazed, shocked, and worried. “Did you just learn how to use soul energy?”

“Yup,” I said, popping the ‘p’ a little. “Almost shat myself.”

“B-but, how?!” she squinted her eyes.

“Well, when poop travels along your intes–”

“Dammit, Eric!” she palmed her face. “You were nowhere close to using soul energy as a resource! At least you weren’t supposed to be! Hydra’s ass, I don’t know what to do with you anymore, boy.” She took a seat as if she found standing to be too difficult. “Well? Did you unlock any spells?”

“Um,” I only then paid attention, “uh, yeah, one called Coalesce.”

Her eyes almost popped. “Alright, fuck this. I quit with immediate effect. I’m no longer your master as of now. I want a paid vacation and a nice retirement package.”