Book 2: Chapter 4

Ekraq had been gone for a long time yet Cyil had not moved from his spot.

Cyil was shocked at the sight of the body swaying to the light wind. He almost felt like vomiting.

Cyil was speechless and after calming down he stubbornly approached the body hanging from the tree branch. Cyil decided that he would try to let the person down because even if the person had done some heinous crime he didn’t deserve to be displayed like this.

Cyil tried to ignore the body above him and focused on shearing his way through the thick rope. Cyil slid the edges of the rhombus back and forth against the rope but he soon found out that although the rhombus was jagged, it wasn’t sharp enough nor was his force wasn’t strong enough to damage the rope.

Cyil temporarily gave up his endeavor and floated back down to Arina’s grave. He had settled on Arina’s body, even though she was female. Cyil felt that Arina deserved another chance at life. He knew it was selfish but he wanted to raise Arina’s identity from that of someone who died by poison at the age of 16 to someone who died in a heroic battle after having accomplished much. It would be like Arina had done it herself, Cyil naively thought.

So with 7 hours left, Cyil had found a body. Because Baccaus didn’t have time to tell him, Cyil didn’t exactly know how the transferring of a soul worked; he would just try to touch the person and see what would happen.

And Cyil’s guess was correct. As soon as the stone came into contact with a suitable (meaning dead) body, it would begin the transferring process. The problem Cyil had to face now was how to get past the layer of dirt that covered Arina. With the rhombus stone’s striking power, Cyil could hardly damage the freshly layered dirt. Cyil tried various methods and the way that worked best was to slowly move the rhombus stone back and forth in a line to dig deeper.

The process was slow and grueling and using a toothpick to move the dirt would have been faster. Before Cyil knew it, 5 hours had passed; Cyil had taken so long because he had to make multiple lines side by side, otherwise the dirt would have fallen back into place. Another reason was because the dirt was harder to penetrate as he got deeper. But now he felt he was almost there.

Cyil dug and dug and one hour later he was greeted with a ting sound. Cyil wasn’t sure what he had hit but it was not dirt nor was it clothes. Instead, what Cyil had encountered was an iron breastplate. Cyil gawked and didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t imagined this scenario. Sure, clothes might cause some trouble with activating the stone but iron armour definitely would!

At this point, Cyil didn’t panic as a normal 11 year old would have, but he looked towards the body still hanging from the tree. Cyil wouldn’t have time to try digging from another spot, the head maybe, where he could make contact with skin; he made a decisive decision and floated towards the hanging body.

When Cyil reached the body, he carefully observed it. The sun had begun to rise over the horizon while the moon was on its way out and the body could be seen with more colour and detail.

Cyil first noticed that this “he” was young, not much older than some of the teenage boys he had seen in Fayburn. Cyil then noticed the various holes on the boy’s body and he gulped. “What a gruesome death. Are these considered serious wounds?” Cyil didn’t know but he didn’t have much of a choice.

As Cyil was right up to the body, he noticed that the boy’s pants was odd. The front portion was slightly pulled down while the back portion was pulled down even further, revealing the boy’s buttocks.

Cyil gasped. Was the boy killed when he was about to use the restroom? Either way, Cyil counted that he had less than an hour left and promptly tried to touch the boy’s boots with the rhombus stone. When this didn’t work, Cyil moved up to touch the boy’s calves but that also failed.

“Why is this so difficult?” Cyil screamed inside and knew he had greatly underestimated this task Baccaus had given him.

After trying around a couple of places on the lower body, Cyil frowned. The stone wouldn’t work with clothes blocking it. Cyil’s only option was to try skin to stone contact and he wasn’t sure that would work, either. If it didn’t then he could only try something else.

It was at this point that Cyil wondered why in Nakrul the boy would wear gloves and a long sleeved leather jacket. So with much disgust but resolute will, Cyil floated towards the buttocks, which was exactly at his float limit of 5 feet high and made contact with it.

Instantly, Cyil felt a change in the stone, as it stuck like glue onto the left buttocks of the boy the stone begin to vibrate and it released a blinding light that illuminated the dawning day. As the light was emitted, Cyil’s soul was also ejected into the buttocks of the boy.

Cyil’s soul began to register its new home and flood into the whole body. As Cyil’s soul began taking over this new body and familiarizing itself, remnants of the old soul was found.

These were strands of consciousness left behind by the previous soul, and because the soul had only returned to the elements not even a day ago, a lot of these strands of consciousness were left behind. Although they posed no fatal threat, these strands were memories from the previous owner and if someone were to be influenced too greatly by these strands then their very own soul and memories could be altered.

Cyil encountered these strands and was swept up in many memories from the previous owner. He saw things as if he were the owner of the body and he felt as if he were the one in the situations that replayed themselves. These were some of the previous owner’s most impactful memories of their life.

Cyil learned that the previous owner was called Mahoj Zen. He was 13 years of age and was actually a mage, too! Cyil wasn’t expecting to inhabit the body of a mage. He knew how rare they were so when he found out that Mahoj was a mage, Cyil was excited. Just as Cyil’s excitement grew, other memories appeared in his mind, wanting to engrave themselves into his very soul.

These memories were not pleasant and those that were turned Cyil into a man in an uncomfortable flash. As the current of memories came, Cyil grew to understand Mahoj Zen more and more. When all of the strands of consciousness were ablated Cyil’s soul remained steady and retained all of what Cyil was, without being influenced by Mahoj Zen’s memories.

Cyil’s soul was already familiar with illusions and mental attacks because he had spent 5555 days trapped within one of the highest class illusion spells and had broken through even that. Baccaus had helped greatly in making Cyil aware but it was Cyil’s own mental and soul strength that let him escape from that illusion. It could be said that as soon as Cyil escaped the spell, he would have been able to give the Death God a decent fight in wrestling controlling of his body back.

The strength of Cyil’s soul had increased by leaps and bounds, having made a qualitative transformation. It was just that he hadn’t the time to consolidate this change and learned how to utilize his soul power. When he would finally learn how to, then the results would be unbelievable.

“This Mahoj Zen was not a good person, although he experienced some unfortunate things, that did not give him the right to harm innocents.” Cyil instantly made this judgement and sifted through Mahoj’s memories once again, to make sure he remembered nough to pass as Mahoj.

Cyil hadn’t expected to learn of someone’s memories when his soul transferred over, but now that he did it made things much easier, as he wouldn’t have to pretend that he had lost his memory.

When Cyil finished going over the memories, he soul also finished its transference. This body was now his, but because he was not the original owner, the body would decay and age at a quicker rate. Nonetheless, Cyil was hopeful. He would absolutely get stronger then challenge the Death God and take back what was rightfully his.

“Wait for me, grandpa Baccaus, grandma Kara.” Cyil, or it should now be said Mahoj, declared. At that moment, physical feelings returned to Mahoj/Cyil and then sounds soon follow afterwards. He could hear someone silently weeping and felt someone’s warm embrace. Mahoj opened his eyes and to his surprise, he was no longer dangling from the tree but was in the arms of a woman he recalled as Mahoj’s mother. The woman was rocking his body back and forth and all around her stood a gathering of people, eager to witness this tragedy.