Soul Venerable (Re-written)

 

 

Since the culture of Morgen World favored cultivators, inns who provided a place to sleep have a different standard for their business model. Instead of merely renting a room for rest and recovery from fatigue, most inn rooms contain stealth formation and various other security measures to block investigative methods. They also serve cultivation resources as meals to their guests and offer special rooms for cultivation.

Within Elestra city, the Spring Fairy Abode is one of the upper-mid tier inns that provided various services for up to rank 3 Legendaries. And so, it is the inn that Mordred chose to stay in. Under his command, Larissa also rented an underground cultivation chamber for snow and ice-path cultivators. 

Naturally, the room is cold. When the doors opened, the frosty air exited the room but it was soon closed after Larissa and Lupusrazor entered.

“It’s reaching -50 degree Celsius… it’s warmer than I thought.” Larissa inspected the room. 

“Don’t compare this room to your Secret Plane.” Mordred ejected himself from Lupusrazor as he methodically activated information-path stealth methods to conceal their presence further. It’s not that he did not trust the Spring Fairy Abode’s antidetection measures, but it’s common sense for him to stack layers upon layers of stealth methods.

After the preliminary preparations were done, Larissa took out the pile of resources that she got from the Hunter Association. Most of them are ice or water, but there’s also some portion which consist of gas stored in crystal containers. 

“That old geezer, Sebastian… Do you know him?” Larissa asked.

“Nope. There’s so many Legendaries in this world. I handpicked talented Paragons or Epics who have the potential to become enemies or allies, and those who had extreme and or special physiques to stay rent free in my memories. Of course, I memorized all the known and most of the unknown Sovereigns in this world. Why do you ask?” Mordred replied.

“Pure curiosity.” Larissa shrugged. “So, my icy rune design… What do you think about them?” She asked.

“Powerful…  but inefficient.” Mordred paused his material inspections as he pondered. “I’ve made some designs based on my understanding of snow and ice-path, but I can’t optimize their powers due to my lack of attainment… However, I mixed a bit of profundity of other paths that allowed an increment of throughput, but that means you have to increase the input proportionally.”

“Metamagic?” Larissa inquired. “I don’t understand, how can that method support other paths so efficiently…” 

If someone wanted to make a method more powerful, one can just add more power. For example, to increase the lethality of bullets, you can just add more gunpowder.

But, that would be the most idiotic, borderline retarded method.

Increasing the amount of gunpowder would increase the caliber size. Unless the gun can use larger caliber rounds, it is not wise. Thus, it is typically better to use a better type of gunpowder that burns even faster if one wants to achieve greater lethality. Or, using a better material as the bullet’s projectile can achieve the same effect. Replacing the bullet projectile from mortal iron to tungsten alloy would definitely increase its killing power.

Still, there’s a limit to doing so.

If both gunpowder and projectile used in the bullet is already reaching the limit of material science, there’s simply no more way to further strengthen it. At this point, it was obviously better to use electromagnetic railguns than gunpowder-based ones.

This logic extends the same to cultivation. If a certain method has been upgraded to its utmost limit in terms of resource expenditure, damage potential, activation sequence or efficiency to the point of almost having no way to further upgrade it, the said method would typically be left behind. New, better methods would be invented based on the previous in exchange.

However, Mordred’s ‘Metamagic’ somewhat broke this convention. 

“It is based on Magus' intensive research, you don’t have to understand anything.” Mordred replied. He finished setting up information countermeasures and so, he began categorizing the materials.

“As expected…” Larissa voiced her suspicions. “It must be based on a special ideology just like your sound-path utilizing the concept of vibration. Did you create a new path again?”

“No way. A [path] is not something that can easily be made. Even now, Eleanora, one of the 4th Generation Braves, has yet to officially establish bow-path despite the majority of the superior elven races secretly aiding her in developing it. To do so in one generation would take something far more than talent, resource, accumulation and luck. Of course, Magus have an inherent advantage in this due to our habits and upbringing, but making a new path without sufficient foundation is not possible. Even I can only pioneered 2 paths of soul and sound, and that took my life’s accumulation.”

“You said ‘magus’s intensive research’, not ‘your’ intensive research. You’ve either inherited or plundered it from someone else…” Larissa accused.

Mordred realized the slip of his tongue. He went quiet as he continued his work.

“Hey, tell me. Is it one of your friends? If I recall correctly, you’ve mentioned the magus named Intelligent Metal, is it her/him?” Larissa shook her head. “Well, that name must be a title just like your ‘Grimsong Specter’. From it, even I can infer he/she must be a magus of metal-path, right? Or maybe… information-path or both?”

“Stop asking so much crap. I need your knowledge to make the best ice runes…” Mordred diverted the topic as she is close to reaching the truth. He finished categorizing the materials, it is time to proceed to the next step. From his fingers, he produced a stream of information light that stayed on the air and began sculpting symbols and runes. As his finger dances in the air, the amount of runes and mathematical formulas floating around him increases.

“Tsk.” Larissa felt she missed the chance to dig deeper. She knew that Mordred’s mind is occupied with something, leaving a gap in his logic and behavior. Perhaps there’s less than 10% of his attention being used to make him act in ‘autopilot’ mode. Otherwise, he wouldn’t make a slip of the tongue and he wouldn’t ask her to assist him in deducing new rune models.

“Elaborate the structure of your ice.” Mordred asked. He understands a bit of her ice sufficiently to somehow barely prepare countermeasures. But their intent now is to create a rune to better channel her powers, there was a need to have a deeper understanding of it.

Larissa pondered for a few moments. She uses her fingers to accumulate the water molecules of this room to create weightless frosty mist in the shape of runes and mathematical formulas to elaborate better. “The name of my ice is… Chronophagous Hoarfrost… You know what it is specialized in, don’t you?”

“Extreme wide range elemental blight… the type that could be translated to the word terraforming. It took my former self quite some time to completely eradicate your armies in that time-freezing icy terrain. Combined with your two fires… You were an opponent that took a significant effort to subjugate… Solomon also complained that your army killed a lot of his Space Marines elites.” He muttered while deeply inspecting the runes that Larissa made. 

She raised her eyebrow. “That troublesome Epic kid… He could stand toe to toe with me in grand strategy warfare… Of course, that’s because of you taking the field to kill my elites and refining those cheat-like Space Marines, but a loss is a loss. Can I meet him someday? He’s full of talent.”

“That’s impossible.” 

“Ah, is he dead?” Larissa asked.

“I don’t know. I haven’t re-established my connection with Galatreon, but I’ve lost connection with my split soul serving as his A.I Unit. He’s probably dead during the Fall of the Great Archmage.” While casually replying to Larissa, he is doing intense calculation with the runes. He frowned, “Hey, those [Frostheim Aqua], were you planning to cultivate your body using them?”

“Ah, yes.” Larissa confirmed his guess. “Frostheim Aqua is a strategic resource known for its effectiveness in wide area saturation. It can be used as a medium to channel my Chronophagous Hoarfrost-”

“I know what they are used for.” Mordred cut her off. “This is a tactical nuke-level strategic resource, it’s a waste to use it like that. I thought you had a better solution than this...”

“Well… since Lord Erebus is a Vampire Lord, I was thinking of replacing my blood with Frostheim Aqua…”

Mordred shook his head in disappointment. “You need around 7 liters of Frostheim Aqua to make that possible and even so, that’ll ruin your bloodline.” He took a deep look at Larissa. “I designed your body to have 2 brains, 3 different types of hearts and 4 potential mana pools. Your sea of consciousness is around 4 times more durable and wider than standard mages. In sheer computation power alone, you’re on par with wisdom-path experts with extreme physique, having no issue in telepathic thought generation rate. Are you trying to waste my effort?”

“But… this body has zero resistance against elemental blights. Since you assign me as a [Vanguard] not a [Control Tower], those telepathic thoughts generation bloodline abilities are almost useless. If I use my ice or my fires, I will receive 100% self-inflicted damage.”

“I can’t believe  this… your body is extremely high spec, but you’re so dumb. I’m going to inspect your truesoul…” Mordred extended his hand to grasp her head, but Larissa panicked. 

“No! Don’t touch my truesoul. I’m absolutely fine, there’s nothing wrong with my truesoul.” Like hell she’s going to allow him to touch her soul. Mordred is a Soul Magus who has deep research upon the realm of soul. Letting him do as he pleases with her soul meant giving up her neck to the chopping block.

Suddenly, she felt Mordred’s soul undulation become heavier. ‘This soul pressure… he’s diverting half of his attention. Is he finished with whatever he’s doing?’ Larissa reveals a tinge of fear when she realizes Mordred is no longer on autopilot. She knew he was serious, she was about to activate her methods to escape but it was too late.

“Rank 1 necro-path killer move, [Death by Capital Punishment: Crucifixion]!”

His soul essence resonated with the world. A semi-translucent image of a cross manifests behind Larissa Agatha as her body is bound by spectral chains. It seems like he has no plan to kill her as there’s no nails pinning her body onto the cross, but she couldn’t move and activate any methods.

“Hkkk-” She wanted to defend herself but her neck had been strangled by spectral chains. She could not speak, move, nor defend against anything.

“Rank 1 refinement-path killer move, [Life Component Disassembly]!”

An individual has a mind, body and soul. This killer move separates all three, exposing them openly.

At this instance, Larissa’s sea of consciousness and truesoul is forcefully separated. Their spectral image appeared next to her crucified fleshy body.

Her sea of consciousness was truly larger and more durable than a typical cultivator. Its exterior is like a crystal sphere, it has a dark purple-onyx gleam that hides whatever is contained within.

As for her truesoul, under his investigative method, it was revealed as a horned woman with four miniature dragon wings on her back. Her truesoul consists of four colors: pure white, dark purple, purple red, and dark red mixed with black outline but the current dominant one is the pure white color that took up 90% of her truesoul. She glared at Mordred in anger and agony, but she’s bound to a spectral cross.  

“I see… So that’s what it is.” Mordred understood why Paimon is so dumb. ‘She’s been corrupted too deeply…’

Paimon, the Demon King of Strategy, has two main bodies: the humanoid and the three headed demonic dragon.

Her true form was actually the humanoid, the three-headed demonic dragon was an abomination that she made in her millennia of campaign.

As a [Transcendent] enslavement-path sovereign, her desire to have a strong subordinate is limitless. 

Enslaved rank 6 lifeforms typically have lower performance than true elite rank 6. To circumvent this, she planned to do what other demon kings wouldn’t dare to: merging her soul with other lifeforms. She was confident in her corruption ability as she has transcendent attainment in enslavement-path. Any lifeform who glanced at her true body would be enslaved.

With that said, she put her attention to the strongest lifeform in the myriad dimensions: the dragon race.

Her first target was an immemorial chronophagous demonic dragon of ice whose territory is in the same demon world as her. It was a demonized lifeform that preyed upon year beasts as its staple food. The immemorial demonic dragon wasn’t something that could be easily defeated, but patience is something that she has in abundance. 

It took her 2.489 years of scheming to subjugate it.

The body and the soul of the chronophagous demonic dragon was an over-the-top quality material. She merges her soul with the demonic dragon’s with the goal of gaining an excellent chess piece. 

Her plan was progressing flawlessly. After all, corrupting the chronophagous demonic dragon and converting it into a part of her allows her to gain its comprehension. Centuries after the chronophagous demonic dragon became hers, Paimon’s snow and ice-path comprehension rose to the level of the original demonic dragon’s, which was transcendent.

Most rank 6 Sovereigns died trying to reach Apex, having Transcendent attainment in one path is an accomplishment comparable to being a Hero. For her to gain an additional Transcendent attainment at the price of a few centuries was literally cheating. 

After her success, she no longer makes an appearance with her true body. She mostly paraded with her demonic dragon’s self. However, as a demon king, her greed is limitless. She replicated what she did to two more immemorial demonic dragons, both are fire-path lifeforms. The result was her fire-path comprehension also rose to transcendent.

During Mordred’s subjugation of Paimon, her demonic dragon body was significantly larger than most demonic dragons and possessed three heads. She was truly problematic foe that took all of Mordred and his disciples' effort to defeat. 

After being subjugated, Mordred sealed her demonic dragon body in a secret location within Lemegeton while raping her humanoid body until she conceive a child.

‘Paimon does not realize it herself since she does not cultivate in soul-path… When things are too good to be true, it usually is. Her personality is mixed with the three demonic dragon’s that she merged with…’

Just because she can merge her soul with another lifeform, it doesn't make them a part of her.

Of course, having transcendent attainment in enslavement-path meant her presence alone could literally enslave vulnerable Epics. However her targets weren’t Epics and they aren’t that weak.

The dragon race, despite its demonized variant, is still something that couldn’t be easily killed or dominated. Perhaps, it is especially because they are demonized that they are far more difficult to subjugate.

With Paimon’s current condition, who can say that she's truly the original Paimon? With how much the demonic dragon’s personality mixed with hers, wouldn't it be okay to say that the demonic dragon is still alive? After Paimon's personality fully mixed with the demonic dragon's, whose personality is going to remain? 

At that point, who are the losers and what can be used as the metric of victory?

In the end, is it Paimon who merged with the demonic dragon, or did the demonic dragon who chose to merge with Paimon?

‘Those lazy demonic dragons have overwhelming racial advantage against all races the moment they are born, they do not think like non-dragons, thus are lacking in terms of mental fortitude to struggle, always choosing the easiest method to solve any problem. No wonder I get the feeling that Devil Aspect True Inheritance was unfinished. Her drive to complete it has been extinguished after her first merger. I should've seen this coming when she was given Resonance Blades to play with...’

Of course, Mordred does not discredit the minority of dragons who made an effort to do better, but dragon’s laziness is a racial disease. It blocks the majority of dragons from thinking prudently and solving problems creatively.

‘In any case, my previous self should’ve noticed this issue.’ Mordred inspected the personality corruption. After a brief investigation, he realized that he absolutely cannot separate the 4 personalities from each other. It was like a concrete mixture, her soul has been contaminated to the point of almost done mixing into one. To separate one from another would mean deconstructing and reconstructing her ego.

Of course, that’s possible for Mordred, but it would take a lot of time and effort. It’ll also require special soul engineering facilities and a large amount of energy because Paimon’s memories spanned several thousand years, perhaps tens of thousands of years. If there’s a mistake in rearranging the memories, dementia is one of the better repercussions.  

‘One’s body has a significant impact on one’s soul… Even an old soul will be somewhat affected if forcibly put inside a healthy young body¹*cough* Rick and Morty S2E7 *cough*. In Paimon’s case, if she is perceptive enough, she can quickly sense the cognitive dissonance and act accordingly to maintain her ego. 

That being said, I made her unable to sense the incongruity. The pitfall that I dug for her is using our daughter’s genetically engineered body as a shell so that she’ll slowly take in the personality traits that I want…’

‘In a sense, it is a method of brainwashing with extra steps, but those extra steps are necessary since she’s a former rank 6 with several transcendent attainments. I even took the necessary precaution by disconnecting her demonic dragon body’s link and sealing it somewhere deep within Lemegeton to ensure the personality corruption stops.

However, it seemed like her personality has already been corrupted too deeply by the chronophagous demonic dragon’s. The soul-path trap in her body which was mixed with refinement-path profundity couldn’t completely alter her personality because she’s too corrupted…’

If Mordred’s method to alter her personality is like putting sugar blocks to sweeten a drink, then her personality was like a molten asphalt. No matter how many sugar blocks are added, it wouldn’t make the molten asphalt mixture edible.  

Mordred could already project the failure of this endeavour. ‘Is this the karmic retaliation of the world? The karma that I’d gain from completely brainwashing Paimon into a pet slave would be too much for me to handle. Even after I restarted her cultivation from zero, the karma still caught up eventually… Can I still salvage this? Should I just kill her and use her body as a host for my split soul instead?’

He seriously considered removing Paimon from her current body… but even then, he lacked the necessary soul engineering facilities to cleanse the trap that his previous self set up in her body. If he actually killed Paimon (removing her truesoul while leaving the body intact), her corpse would be idle. 

For Mordred, leaving a unique resource idle while being perfectly able to exploit it is a sin.

‘No, I shouldn’t be rash. Perhaps, she only needed more time until my brainwashing method took effect. If she’s still like this after reaching Legendary, I’ll take out her truesoul from her body and use a split soul instead.’ He decided.

“Rank 1 refinement-path killer move, [Life Component Reassembly]!” Mordred undo what he did and reconnected back all of her body, mind, and soul.

The moment she became whole again, her body shuddered. The refinement-path killer move wasn’t painless. It felt like being killed but unable to die during the duration. It was so painful that Larissa’s body broke in cold sweat, her face produced all sorts of mucus and tears, and she also unleashed her bladder. Of course, all of them are quickly frozen due to the coldness of the room. 

With a wave of his hand, Mordred dispels [Death by Capital Punishment: Crucifixion] and activate a minor refinement-path method that cleans her body.

“Cough! What the fuck… did you just do…” Larissa cursed as she coughed the content of her empty stomach. Her physical body was undamaged, but her mind and soul are. She hurriedly activated blessings to heal and used investigative methods to check whether he did something to her soul.  

Needless to say, she couldn’t find anything. He didn’t do anything towards her soul, after all. Even if he did, his mastery of the soul is higher than her, she’ll have difficulties in detecting it in the first place.

“I will give you two options…” Mordred’s gaze is colder than the room, his soul presence is extremely heavy. Larissa knew this was caused by 90% of his attention being used to deal with her.

“One, you’ll step down for now. I will assassinate the Trueblood Vampire Lord, Lord Erebus, alone. Or two, receive a life-alteration surgery and participate in assassinating Lord Erebus…”

“W- what should I do if I don’t participate in killing Lord Erebus?” Larissa asked, worried.

“Without your participation, I am prepared to lengthen the time limit to kill and usurp Lord Erebus’ identity to… two years. Within that timeframe, you’ll be working as a hunter to procure various resources for me. If in those two years I still can’t draft a certain-plan to kill Lord Erebus, then I’ll give up and I’ll move on to other identities. It’ll make my next move, [Project: Wild Hunt], a bit harder since Lord Erebus’ identity as an inquisitor has various useful privileges, but two years is the longest that I can dedicate for him.”

“What about the life-alteration surgery…?”

“[Mental Commissar], a procedure to-”

“I choose to step down.” Larissa instantly cut him off, she didn’t like the dystopian codename of the life-alteration surgery. Anything connected with the mind or soul would be extremely dangerous if it was left up for Mordred's machinations. It would be best if she can stay far away from him. 

“Very well…” Mordred’s soul pressure gradually thinned out, he’s back on autopilot. “I’ll send a list of materials later. In the meantime... I'll use the Frostheim Aqua to refine your magic machinery chainsword. You are restricted from using non faith-path methods other than your Chronophagous Hoarfrost and even then, you'll be responsible in collecting the necessary offerings to pay for your blessings.”

Basically, she can no longer use daddy's 'credit card' for her infinite blessing. 

Larissa knew she was forced to act as a [Vanguard]. She exhaled a disappointed sigh as she saw Mordred's movement becoming very mechanical in the process of selecting materials. 'What the fuck, is he on full autopilot mode...?'