"What is the nature of a Soul?

The Church of Light believes that the Soul is the source of life. According to the old scriptures of the Church, when God created the Primes, he only created an empty vessel of flesh. Not a living being. But then God created the First Flame and gave each one of us a part of it, our Soul. The Soul gives us our intelligence, our conscience. It makes us for who we are. When a person died, the Soul returned to the Flame before being reincarnated into another body. This is the Cycle of Reincarnation as we know today.

Many mages believed that the Soul can be simplified as a mass of mana, much more condense than the mana we are used to in nature. Their proof is that using magic or tools that absorbs mana, such as a mana stone, one could manage to store a Soul inside. This led to the creation of two new branches of magic as we know today: Soul magic and Necromancy.

Soul magic aims to manipulate the flow of pure mana, not contaminated with any of the elements, therefore able to inflict damage to their opponent while ignoring all kind of defense. This proves to be very useful against opponent with strong magic defense such as dragons.

Necromancy however manipulates the Soul itself of the living. When a person dies, the Soul leaves the body and sometimes lingers for a time on Earth before going back to the Flame. By retrieving these lost Souls, necromancers are able to put them in a new body and manipulate them to their will. These people are known as undead. While most undeads lost their conscience due to the mediocre way of practice of the necromancer (low quality of mana stone to store the soul, inexperienced necromancer), there are cases of some powerful souls who are able to retain their conscience and a part of their formal power.

In my opinion, there are both truth and flaws in these theories. If the Soul is what makes us intelligent, then what keeps us alive? Necromancy has once been mistakenly as resurrection magic. But the undeads who come back no longer possess the power they use to have. Therefore this is not a complete resurrection. Many have tried to preserve the body of the deads and even in perfect condition, what comes back is still not the same as before.

Thus I concluded that there must be a third factor aside the Soul and the flesh that make us who we are as a complete set. I will call this factor Essence. To me, the Essence is what keep us alive. It's the life energy that was given and flow inside our body since birth. Much like mana, this energy is inside every living being, including the monsters. But while we could increase our mana pool with intensive training, this energy will stay the same amount, or rather will only decline as we grow older. When nothing is left, our bodies fail and we die as a consequence of this.

I believe that if we manage to manipulate this energy, a true resurrection magic will no longer be just a dream. We may one day surpass the immortal celestial and dragon.

As a final note of this research, I have personally tested necromancy on a few demons. I observed that necromancy worked on demons just like any races of the Primes. Does it mean that the demons too have a soul? If yes then are we really that different from each other?"

* * *

"What is the meaning of this? Why are the heroes buried here? Why is my mother Lakyus?" I yelled at Noroeth. Why would the hero and the demon lord have a child together?

"About that even I don't understand. First she wanted to become the hero to defeat the demon lord. The moment she met him, she told me that she wanted to marry him. What was I supposed to do? Can you imagine what went through my mind at that time? I thought she was under a mind control spell but no, she was too powerful for that sort of spell to work on her. I even personally check myself but there was nothing." Noroeth started to gush out angrily.

I did not know an undead could be so.... lively. He just seemed like an old father grunting about his daughter being married away. But wait just a minute.... why did he sound like he know Lakyus, or should I say my real mother, very well? Shouldn't he know Asgore better?

"You sound like you know my mother pretty well." I expressed my concern.

"Of course I did. I was her god damn teacher" the lich continued his grunting.

"Wait what? How can a lich be a teacher of the hero?"

"I was not always a lich you know. I used to be known by another name: Theoron."

'Theoron....Theoron.... Isn't that the Sage? One of the Six heroes?' I repeated inside my head.

"Are you THE Theoron?" I howled at him.

"Ha ha ha! It seems my reputation has gotten the better of me. Yes I am Theoron the Sage, One of the Six heroes. But now I have another name and that's Noroeth." Noroeth laughed and answered proudly.

"How did you end up like this?" I continued with the question.

Suddenly his expression went dimmer.

"Like the story said, I died ten years ago. But that's not the problem. The problem is I don't know who killed me. Ten years ago, we were surprised when we met the demon lord. We expected to meet a ferocious beast but he seemed just like a decent guy. Although we did try to kill him the moment we saw him, most of us ended up blown away. But only your mother, Hero Lakyus, was a match for him.

They fought for three days consecutively before finally ended in a tie. I think it was during that time they saw something in each other. Lakyus insisted that we were not to interfere. It kept repeating itself for the next few weeks. I thought perhaps the demon lord was just toying with her since he clearly did not use his maximum power. But then one day she showed up with Asgore, hands in hands, and told me that they were going to get married. And also she was expecting a child.

We did not know what to do. Lakyus could not fight anymore and we were powerless against him. So when he invited us to his castle, despite our suspicion, we accept anyway. We thought perhaps there was something there we could use against him. Or at worst learn more intelligence. If he really wanted to kill us, he could do that easily already.

At first I did not trust him. But when he told me about his plans, what his vision was for the demons and the world, I just could not help but kept listening. I have lived for more than three centuries and I am proud of my wisdom. But at that moment I began to doubt myself. Could it be that my prejudices against the demons were wrong ? If that is the case then how could I consider myself a Sage when I could not even see what was right in front of me for three hundred years.

With time passed, the others shared my opinion and so we decided that upon our return we would spread the demon lord's message to the rest of the world. None of our wanted war. No longer should we continue this endless cycle of hatred and bloodshed. Could you imagine it? Peace between demon and the rest of the world.

Plus we were happy that you would be the first living proof that showed that demon and others could live together.

But alas our dreams were shattered. The day you were born, I was outside the castle. Then I saw great light from inside. That was the last thing I remembered before I died." Noroeth paused before resuming.

"When I woke up again, I was in this body. Remember the little girl you saw carrying a slime? That is the witch Amelia. She specialized in necromancy and so a few months after I died, she managed to recover my soul and put it inside my old body, which became like you see right now.

The demons royal guards were not in the castle that day because they were on a mission. When they came back, everyone inside the castle was already dead, including Asgore and Lakyus but you were missing.

As for the others, Celdora and Arshe were accompanying Mephisto and the royal guards so they were not at the castle. Old Izago passed away. He was found outside your mother's chamber. It seemed like he tried to defend against the assailants to protect her but....At that time, aside from me who was just outside the castle, Ingrid was staying with Lakyus and Asgore, together with a certain servant who accompanied us on our journey."

"...was that servant my mother, Morgan?" While I did understand the situation, there was not any explanation on how I got out of the castle. Or how Morgan was connected to the events. But remembering what Mikael said, it must mean that she was at this castle ten years ago.

"Yes. The others suspected Morgan because they did not find her body. And since you were also missing so we thought perhaps she kidnapped you. For what reason we don't know. But to be honest I could not believe that she could cause all this by herself, or even with help. We are talking about both the demon lord and the hero party here, the strongest of the world and yet we were wiped out without a single trace.

Sigh...There is just too much things unknown to us. But enough of this. What matters is now you are here with us."

Noroeth halted his speech and patted my head. For a moment I mistook him for Gazel. It reminded me of how Gazel used to pat me. Except Noroeth's hand was just bone.The gentle pat like every time he came home or when he finished reading us a tale of his adventure. It almost brought to tears but I managed to hold up.

"I think that's enough for today. Let's go back to the parlor. The others must be waiting." Noroeth walked out of the mausoleum.

I thought I would be more emotional about this whole affair.But what I felt at this moment could not be described as anger nor sadness. How strange.

My real parents were murdered and yet I could not feel a single bit of resentment. Compared to when Morgan died, this was nothing. Was it because I was raised by Morgan instead of them? For some reasons I could not feel any love being at this place. Simply empty.

I looked back at the two coffins one more time before leaving the room. We went back to the parlor. Upon entering the room, I greeted the four persons inside. They were the demons from last night.

After introducing themselves to me, I asked them what would happen from now on. The man named Mephisto started speaking.

"Noroeth must have told you about your parents and the circumstances behind your birth. Then I shall not mince words any further. What we want is for you to become the new king of Ragna. It is only natural since you are the only son of late king Asgore.

After the Asgore's death the demons were divided into numerous factions. Some sought revenge, others took the opportunity to increase their influence while the rest stayed hidden. But in the end we all want the same thing: to drive the Prime races out of our territory and make them pay for what they did to our people.

Lord Alastor, you are the legitimate heir to the throne. In others words, if you are to be crowned, it would make your authority unquestionable and we can unite our people once more."

"I am a bit uncomfortable with adults calling Lord that? Could you drop it? As for what you just said, I highly doubt that it would be easy. Who would want to be led around by a ten years old? And they could claim that you use a substitution only to have a puppet as the king. " I asked Mephisto.

"Very perceptive, lord Alastor! That's why we decided that you will study under us to increase your power. What better proof than showing that you are much superior than them? So what do you say milord?" Mephisto spoke with a smile.

If you thought about it, this situation could only be convenient for me. While I did not hold much affection for my real parents, I wanted to know who was behind their death. If I uncovered that, perhaps I could learn more about Morgan. Finally I could use the demon intelligence to search for who attacked our village. But there was something that bothered me in everything he said. I had to make my standing.

"While the offer is certainly interesting, I would have to refuse." I gave my answer to the now dazed demons.

"What ? Why?"

Naberius and Azurus uttered in confusion. Only Amelia and Mephisto kept their calm and smiled. It seemed like I passed their test.

"May I ask why?" Mephisto put his tea cup down on the table.

"Many reasons. First, I am far too inexperienced as a leader to be a king. Even if you say that you will be teaching me about ruling, it means that right now I am not ready.

Secondly, I lack power and therefore I don't think the me now deserve to be even thinking about becoming a king.

Lastly you have been talking like my future have already been decided. I don't like people deciding my fate, not now, not ever again. So unless I want to be king, I will not be one. I want to take responsibility for the decisions I take upon myself, and not because I am influenced by someone else.

Therefore to answer your question, no"

The room stayed silent for a while. Everyone was stunned by the things I said. They did not expect a ten years old to say no in this kind of situation. Then the silence was broken by a loud laugh.

"Ha ha ha ha! Well said! To be honest I thought you were a bit too naive, without a doubt because of your age. But now I see how wrong I was. You are much sharper than you look. Brilliant!" Mephisto chuckled.

"I will take that as a compliment. To continue our discussion, would you care to hear about my proposal?"

My proposal was for Mephisto to give me three years before I decided to become king or not. Until that time, I would study under the four demon royal guards to gain experience and to increase my power. The conditions were of course the safety of Alice and my access to any intelligence the demon had. In the end Mephisto accepted my proposal.

With that, I decided to retreat back to my quarter to check on Alice. She might be worried if she did not find me when she woke up. I probably should not mention anything I learnt today to Alice. And how should I talk to her about Morgan...

Naturally Stella quietly followed me from behind. I did ask her to stay but she insisted to go with me.

I opened the door, still wondering what would be the right words for this kind of situation. Alice was sitting on the bed, peering at the window.

"Hi sis...Um.. How do you feel?" I spoke haltingly.

"Hi brother! You don't have to be awkward about it. I know mom is dead." she replied to me with a smile. Her answer completely blew me up. I expected her to be crying, sulking but Alice was very mature about this.

"Are you sure you are okay Alice? You seems a bit strange...." I asked her.

"I am fine Alastor. I would like to ask you the same thing. I know this has been hard on you but I want you to know that your big sis is here for you. Whatever we will always be together as a family" Alice caught me off guard and hugged me "Of course I mean you too Stella. We are all family now. Come join us!" she smile at me and a surprised Stella.

In the end we stayed like that for a moment. We did not utter a single word. There was no need to.

People cannot live on their own. They seek companionship, warmth from another. And they will protect it. No matter the cost. The place we call home.

That night, I stayed up quite late. Alice was already asleep. I thought I should not but I decided to tell her what Noroeth and the others have told me. Yet she accept everything very easily and she did not ask me any question. I thought it was weird for her to change her personality that abruptly. I feared that Morgan's death has broken something inside Alice. But at that time perhaps I should have noticed the signs.

I nearly completely forgot about Stella...again. The whole time she did not make even a single sound. She just sit next to the bed. Her blue eyes and white hair, under the moonlight, reminded me the first time I saw her. My heart almost skipped a beat thinking about that. How embarrassing.

"Stella you still did not tell me why I am your master. Noroeth told me that you have only recently been activated so how did you even know about me?" I asked her in a low voice.

"I am only doing what the voice in my head is telling to. When I awake, I heard a voice telling me to protect you from all harm. To me it's enough proof that you are my master." Stella replied.

"Do you mean the voice in your heart? Your conscience?" I knew Stella was a doll, artificial construct created to follow their master's orders. But a doll with a conscience and self aware.... I did not think it was possible. The person who created Stella must be a genius. I would love to speak to him but I heard he was already dead shortly after making Stella.

"I don't know. Perhaps... I apologize Alastor." Stella mumbled.

"It's okay. Don't worry about it" I smiled at her.

Anyway I thought hard about what Noroeth has told me. I wanted to know the truth behind my parents' death. While they did not raise me themselves, it was not their choice and they probably tried to protect me till the very end. I supposed that was the least I could do to thank them for bringing me in this world. I believed that I would also discover Morgan's past this way.

Then I spoke.

"Stella, I feel right now as if the whole world is against us. I am a demon. Some will try to kill me. Others will try to use me for their own ambition...."

"I will kill all those who want to harm you." Stella said softly.

"Innocents will die..."

"As long as you live."

"Don't you want to know what my goal is ?"

"Whatever your goal is, I will stand by your side."

"What if I die before I could reach my goal..."

"That won't happen"

"We don't know what the future holds Stella. I could very well die tomorrow or in ten years."

"Then I will make sure the world won't have a future."

joe