Book 2: Chapter 30

Cyil rubbed his stomach and let out a burp as he sauntered out of the fancy restaurant.

“Too bad they only have rank 1 magical beast meat. Otherwise, I would be able to strengthen this body even more.” Cyil clenched his fist, producing popping sounds from the force.

“This is a body you’ll eventually discard anyway. No need to put so much effort into strengthening it.” The Nefarious Saint replied in an annoyed voice.

“Still upset you can’t taste the food?” Cyil laughed and poked fun at the Nefarious Saint.

“Hmph, I wouldn’t have eaten that food even if I could, and I can’t so I’m grateful.”

“No need to be so upset, Nefarious Saint. Why don’t you just place your soul under an illusion spell, so that you can eat all the food you want?” Cyil pointed out an solution.

“You think I haven’t done that before?” The Nefarious Saint said in a lazy voice. “I have, but nothing beats the real deal! In any case, let’s go take care of business before anything else.”

Cyil said nothing further that may irritate the grumpy Nefarious Saint and made his way through the busy streets to Ravenous Serpent’s sub-headquarters.

It didn’t take long before Cyil reached his destination.

“Looks the same as two years ago,” Cyil walked straight into the sub-headquarters, ignoring the surprised looks from the Ravenous Serpent members.

Cyil penetrated pretty deep in the sub-headquarters before he was finally stopped by rank 3 member.

“Hey Kid, are you lost or do you just want to die?” The stout man with an eyepatch loomed over Cyil with his one good eye.

“Finally, someone stopped me. I was wondering how long it would take.” Cyil shrugged as he released a bit of his soul force.

Instantly the man felt as if he had fallen into a quagmire; he was being pulled into the ground, eaten up by it and his rank 3 strength could not help him one bit. The man began to scream and call for help, but no one was around to help. He clawed at the loose sand that gave no holdings for him to grasp.

“I don’t want to die,” the man shouted through sobs and gasps for air. “I don’t want to die. Someone please help me!” The man shouted one more time before he was swallowed up by the ground.

“Not bad,” Cyil said as he left behind the eyepatch man with foam bubbling through his mouth and continued making his towards Jughog’s residence.

Jughog had the most luxurious building within the Ravenous Serpent’s sub-headquarters so it was easy to find. Even if Cyil did not know the way beforehand, he could have found it without directions.

Cyil arrived at Jughog’s well furnished building and laughed at the two statues of Jughog next to the front gate. Then Cyil’s eyes roved over to the stakes wedged into the ground and he frowned.

“New heads. Seems like he’s been busy.” Cyil did not feel pity for those who had been beheaded, only frowning to show his disapproval. “Let’s do this.”

Cyil walked past the gate and into the courtyard. Just as Cyil was about to continue, the Nefarious Saint said, “careful.”

Cyil had no time to respond as the ground lit up with strange diagrams, surging with heat.

“It’s actually a magical array.” Cyil sprinted towards the residence, not hesitating or retreating as others would in that situation. A moment later a pillar of flames twirled in the air, shooting up into the sky.

“The mayor must have set this up,” Cyil said as he observed the flames. “This magical array is not complex at all and has many flaws, but it can still harm even rank 3 mages and rank 4 warriors.

“So you’re a magical array expert now, too?” The Nefarious Saint quickly became annoyed again by Cyil’s luck.

“Right, I studied magical arrays two times in my other lives. I had a pretty decent achievement with magical arrays, too. It’s too bad I broke out of that illusionary life after only a short while, otherwise I would have learned more.” Cyil replied calmly, thinking back to these two lives.

“I haven’t even heard of people remembering their experiences within this complex illusionary spell yet you can remember everything. What kind of monster are you?” The Nefarious Saint had been shocked when Cyil first awoke and told him about his experiences. The fact that Cyil could remember the events of his other lives meant he could transfer that knowledge into his ‘real’ life. This was such a cheat, because that meant that the current Cyil would have knowledge equivalent to someone who had lived for over thousands of years.

Of course, Cyil’s knowledge could be even more diverse because in these illusionary lives, he was not only human but beast and of other races, too. He even had a life where he was in a whole other world--a place called Earth!

The only downside was that each time Cyil entered a life he would start at a random point in the person/creature’s life. He would appear as that person and have all their memories jammed into his head, causing a huge strain on his soul. The massive amount of information would flood his soul, try to replace the information of his original self, and threaten to destroy his soul. If Cyil should ever succumb and lose himself in the illusionary life then his soul would be destroyed, killing him instantly.

Thus the longer Cyil spent within an illusionary life, the higher the chance of him losing himself within that life. Hence, Cyil could spend at most a few years within each illusionary life before he would be in mortal danger. Still, a few years of another life provided endless new perspectives and much useful information. By now Cyil had rendered out all the useless information from his many illusionary lives and only kept the most crucial and useful bits of information, because even if his soul was 1000 times stronger than it was now, keeping every piece of information from all those illusionary lives would shatter his soul.

“The process of mixing these pieces of illusionary information so that they will become one with my soul without threatening to confuse my soul is an arduous task. Are you sure you want to bear that burden?” Cyil really felt tired each time he did so, but still he choose to do it.

“Of course!” The Nefarious Saint answered without hesitation. “The advantages of living multiple lives is unspeakable. Even if they are illusions, the feelings, information, and skills you acquire are very real. But argghhh, why can’t I remember anything when I wake?!”

Cyil laughed at the Nefarious Saint’s frustration. “I have no idea,” he said then pushed open the door.

Cyil still managed joke around with the Nefarious Saint even when he was about to kill someone. This scene would have been unthinkable some odd years ago when Cyil had only been a farm boy who simply wanted a father. But things have changed; Cyil has changed and the farm boy was no more.

Soul Domain- Suppress!

Cyil willed it and his domain engulfed the entirety of the building. He could sense everything within the building and could see the startled expression on Jughog’s face. Aside from Jughog there was two servants in the kitchen along with a large woman rocking a baby.

The large woman rocking the baby was in a room with Jughog, so Cyil knew she was Jughog’s wife. He didn’t even need to inspect their souls to find out.

“Who dares?!” Jughog stood up and roar, unable to locate the source of this uncomfortable feeling he wanted to get rid of.

Soul Domain-Suppress and Illusions!

Cyil added in illusion to the mix and everyone in the building, except for Jughog, fell into a deep sleep.

Jughog only stumbled a bit, holding onto the edge of a table, before regaining his balance. “What sorcery is this?!” By now a small fear had crept up into Jughog’s soul. He didn’t know how he was being attack and he couldn’t find the attacker so of course he would be scared.

Cyil raised an eyebrow, surprised that Jughog managed to resist his illusions so well.

“It’s his giant’s blood that helped him,” the Nefarious Saint cleared up Cyil’s confusion.

“Gaint’s blood?” Cyil rummaged through his mind for information on giants and quickly found it, but decided to let the Nefarious Saint explain.

“Right,” the Nefarious Saint grew smug, feeling good that he had taught Cyil something because nowadays Cyil seemed to have all the answers. “Most giants are not too smart and they are no good with magic. Their advantage primarily lies in their overwhelming size, thick defense and enormous strength. But few know of the giant’s ability to resist illusions and the likes. This does not mean they have a strong soul, but rather, that their soul is so ‘pure’ in a sense, that it just naturally wards off anything that would taint it. So, this man managed to resist your illusions with just ¼ giants blood in him. What would it be like with a real full blood giant?”

“So there was such a thing,” Cyil feigned astonishment, feeding the Nefarious Saint’s smug attitude. “Then let’s see how long he can last for.”

Cyil immediately focused his efforts on Jughog and increased the suppression and illusionary effects. Originally he had used only 10% of his soul strength, but now he increased it to 30%.

Jughog felt like a hammer had hit him in the brain, dealing him a head splitting headache. Still, Jughog managed to stay awake. Now, the fear inside him magnified, proliferating in accordance to his racing heart.

“Once more.” Cyil increased it to 40% as beads of sweat began to run down his forehead.

“MMmm,” Jughog groaned as he fell to the ground, no longer able to support himself on the edge of the table. Clutching his head with both hands, Jughog spasmed on the ground in agony.

“Now, the final blow.” Cyil went up to 50%, all of it focused on Jughog.

This time Jughog gave one startled shout, as if something had jolted him, before going limp.

“Whew, so 50% is needed. That’s good to know.” Cyil wiped off his sweat before quickly proceeding to Jughog’s room on the 2nd floor.

Cyil pushed to door open and could see the family of three all asleep in odd positions:Jughog was on the ground while his wife and baby was on the bed.

Cyil spared no time and took out a long dagger which he plunged through Jughog’s left eye and straight through to his brain.

Jughog, in the moment before his death, regained clarity and could barely see the leather shoes of his killer. “My baby,” Jughog whispered, before he returned to the elements.

Cyil lowered the strength of his soul domain, returning it to 10%, because keeping it active at such a high output was straining. “It’s done. Brothers of Soaring Wolves, you have been avenged.”

Cyil said these words to himself, knowing that they would never hear or know of this deed. Cyil took no pride in taking down a rank 5 warrior nor did he feel a sense of relief. Instead, Cyil just felt indifferent and simply continued on with his plan.

Using his soul domain, Cyil quickly found all the valuables in the building and with that, he dispersed the soul domain and left the building…

A few hours after Cyil left, Jughog’s wife woke to the sound of her crying baby. “What’s going on? What happened dear?” She called out to Jughog as she rubbed her temples. “I had the weirdest of dreams. You wouldn’t believe--”

“--AHHHHH!!”

***

A man dressed in scaly, slick leather clothing slithered his way across the rolling plains at tremendous speeds. Looking carefully, some would even say he was gliding across the hills--his feet never touching the ground.

This man mumbled to himself as he neared the 3rd sub-branch of Ravenous Serpent’s in Rovaria Kingdom. “So Jughog wants to quit his position and become a father. What rubbish. Making me come all the way here to appoint a new leader. Do they know how far I have to travel? Bunch of useless shits. Why did leader have to choose me to come to this backwatered place. I heard the monster tide is coming so the safest place is in the capital. I’ll get this over with and head on back. My beauties are eagerly waiting for me after all.”

As the man mumbled up to this point, he stopped and stared at the city walls from afar. “Finally! Mmmhm, but while I’m here, I might as well enjoy some beauties, too. The locals always taste the best!” At this point the man licked his lips, showing a forked tongue the should only belong to snakes.