Sunny had seen souls that were radiant and full of light, and he had seen souls that were being consumed by a spreading corruption.
However, he had never seen a soul like Jet’s.
It was lightless and shrouded in darkness, almost like his own. A single powerful core burned in its depths, superposed against her heart… the core itself was strange, bizarre, and filled him with an eerie sense of profound unease.
The ethereal orb was irregularly shaped and much larger than it was supposed to be, grossly overshadowing the size of other Ascended cores he had witnessed. Its surface was covered by a net of deep, twisting cracks… no, not quite. It was more like the whole core was assembled from numerous shards, as if it had been shattered once and then crudely assembled back into an uneven sphere.
Some shards seemed to match each other, while others did not fit well, bringing a sense of chaos to an already flawed and fractured, disfigured construct of Soul Reaper’s core. However, there was also a certain order and beauty to the ugly disharmony of it.
The patchwork sphere of broken shards shone with furious, radiant light. It was brimming with a stunning amount of soul essence, which was much more than an Ascended should have possessed. However, unlike most cores, this one’s radiance was not uniform. Instead, most of the light was concentrated in its depths, while the outer edges were dark and dull.
More than that, thin streams of light were constantly flowing through the cracks of the shattered core and dissipating into nothingness. They were like water slowly seeping out of a cracked vessel.
Despite that, Master Jet’s essence did not seem to be diminishing. Instead, as Sunny watched, the strange soul core only grew brighter.
‘What the…’
At that moment, Soul Reaper had just slaughtered another Corrupted abomination. This one had taken her longer to put down, since as a Monster, it possessed two cores. Each had to be destroyed with separate strikes.
As soon as both perished, however, the creature twitched and collapsed to the ground. Then, something strange happened…
When the Corrupted insect died, a flood of tainted essence seemed to rush into Master Jet’s fractured core. The remnants of the fetid darkness permeating it were then burned away by the furious light, and soon, a stream of pure radiance flowed into the brilliant center of the shining sphere.
Sunny was left very puzzled by what he had just seen… and a little bit troubled, as well.
‘I guess there really are all kinds of bizarre Aspects…’
He was one to talk. His own soul was not exactly the picture of normalcy.
In any case, distracted by the unusual nature of Master Jet’s soul core, Sunny had missed his chance to study her battle technique. All he managed to notice was that her flesh was saturated by essence to a much larger degree than usual. It was as if, unlike all the other Awakened, Soul Reaper’s ability to reinforce herself with essence was not limited by the modest capacity of human flesh, or at least had a limit so high that it put the rest of them to shame.
That would partially explain why she was so strong and fast despite possessing only a single core. This just went to show that having multiple cores was not an absolute advantage… there were a lot of strange and unimaginable powers out there, many of which could achieve the same result through different means.
However, they wouldn’t be as versatile.
‘Would I be able to win against her in a fight?’
Sunny was not sure. He was reasonably confident in his ability, but then again, as someone who often achieved victory through being underestimated, he did not want to fall into the same trap.
Even if he won, what would be the cost? Losing one or two cores was not going to kill him, most likely, but being left with a crippled soul was small consolation for victory.
Maybe that was why Saints were reluctant to fight Soul Reaper despite being much more powerful than her… and why many people treated her with fear and resentment.
Sunny would have loved to ponder on these issues, but sadly, his time was up.
The stone hive soldiers were already jumping over the carcasses he had used to hide behind, and their frenzy was just as murderous as before.
Gripping the Cruel Sight, he lunged forward and pushed it into the tough carapace of another enemy.
***
Hundreds of Nightmare Creatures descended upon the three cohorts of the Irregulars. With Soul Reaper diving into their tide alone to hunt down the most dangerous foes, the initial clash was not as obliterating as it could have been. Supported by Queen and her sharpshooters, the melee fighters held, but were instantly surrounded.
Behind them, Master Sunless — the youngest of the First Company captains — was somehow holding off the entire flanking force of abominations by himself. Even if Irregulars had time to look back, they wouldn’t see much except for a veil of strange darkness that refused to dissipate despite the constant flashes of bright light produced by the battle.
All they could perceive were the deafening shrieks of dying Nightmare Creatures and the cracking noises of parting chitin that resounded from the depths of unnatural darkness, as well as smell the sickening stench of burning flesh.
One of the soldiers staggered back after killing another bug and briefly looked back. At that exact moment, a disfigured body of a massive Fallen Beast flew out of the darkness and crashed onto the rocks, splattering fetid blue lymph all over the mountain slope.
It was more or less torn into two halves…
Not cut. Torn.
The soldier shuddered.
‘Gods… what kind of monster is that kid…’
Suddenly, a blinding flash momentarily turned the world white. High above them, two gargantuan forms clashed furiously, producing a deafening thunderclap. The whole mountain shook from the violent force of their impact.
Cursing his luck, the Irregular tried to throw all unnecessary thoughts out of his mind and lunged back into the deadly melee. There were still hundreds of the damned bugs for them to kill.
By his side, other soldiers of the First Irregular Company fought for their lives. No one faltered, no one allowed despair to poison their mind. Each of them gave it their all, full of determination and resolve worthy of the government’s best.
And yet, things weren’t going too well. The enemy was just too numerous, vicious, and overwhelming.
Worse than that, the cursed bugs were wickedly smart and coordinated.
Something had to change soon…
