Chapter 1427 (Patreon)

When Lia and I walked up to the freshly unconscious pair, I couldn’t help but wrinkle my nose in disgust. Maybe pushing the pair's passion to such extreme heights had been a bad idea; it certainly smelled like it.

“Yuck,” Lia complained, her voice as soft as mine, though I noticed her gaze was a little more curious than I'd expected. But then, I wasn’t sure how much of her memory from before the Change remained at this point, from a time when she was called Chantalle. Had she seen naked male bodies at that time, and if she had, did she remember that? Or did she only remember what she had seen since the Change, and the only thing close to a naked male body would be that of a Shattered or Undead in their torn clothes? Because if that was the case, I could understand her curiosity, even if the state of the two guys was a little too explicit for my liking. But then, chronologically, physically and mentally, Lia was an adult, so maybe the interest was to be expected regardless of circumstances.

“Agreed,” I muttered, glancing at the mess the pair had made in their passion, the sheer amount of white stuff spreading around everywhere. Only to realise Luna might have use for it; it had its biological uses, after all.  Though getting the stuff into a suitable receptacle was a little challenging, I somehow managed, only repeating Lia’s earlier utterance a dozen times or so. 

“Let’s do this,” I said to Lia, or maybe to myself, trying to psych myself up. “First, separating the Soul from the Body, without causing too much trauma,” I added, still partially talking to myself. 

“Why do you care about the trauma?” Lia asked, distracting me for a moment as I was studying the bodies, peering past the physical and into their minds and souls. 

“While the ability to secure a Soul and keep it from passing on, maybe even salvage the Mind and the memories contained within, that would only add complications I don’t want just yet. Once I’m more confident in the procedure and have some success to back it up, I’ll think about making it more complicated. For now, I want this to be as simple as possible,” I explained, and she simply nodded in reply. 

“You know, you can ready yourself to transform the body into a Vampire if my attempt doesn’t work,”  I suggested, before letting my mind wander off, spinning ideas up and telling Lia about them in a slightly rambling manner.

“Or even if it does, I’m rather curious how the transformation would work if the Soul is already trapped. Plus, if I trap the Soul and transfer enough of the Body’s memories with it to maintain the personhood, for lack of a better word, would a newly created Vampire be amnesiac? Or would we essentially have two instances of the same person, one a Vampire, the other initially trapped in the Soul Prison but then transferred to a new body?”

“If we get two, would we be able to mass-produce Vampires from that Soul?” Lia asked, sounding rather amused at the idea. “Would there be a limit, some sort of degradation, or would that work?” 

“No idea,” I admitted, pulling out one of the Soul Prisons I had prepared during my work. “But it sounds like something we can test at some point.”

“Makes me wonder: would I be able to install a new personality in a Soul by deliberately avoiding transferring any of the Body’s memories and adding some, well, programming afterwards? To create what would essentially be vampiric golems, if you will?” I asked, mostly talking to myself again. 

“We should find out,” Lia suggested, a grin on her face. 

“Agreed,” I nodded. “But later. For now, I want to do this part right.” 

With that, I opened a small wound in the first guy’s skin, letting blood ooze out and connect to the Soul Prison I pressed against the wound. A brief glance at the Runes carved into the Crystal, some old and familiar, some new and largely experimental, made sure that the correct runes were blooded, creating the initial connection between the Soul Prison and the Soul I wanted to capture. Blood Magic and its ability to interact with the Astral Power of a person was incredibly useful for this step, as it gave me something to create that initial connection, tying the Astral Power, and through it the target’s soul, to the Soul Prison. Additional runes anchored that connection deeper, slowly reeling in the Soul. That part was designed to be slow and gradual, giving me time to work on the person’s Body while the Soul Prison did its thing. 

When that first connection formed and the Soul Prison tried to draw the Soul in, I got to work on the guy’s physical form. After a quick check that everything was going as I had planned, I reached out with my magic, using a combination of Mind, Death and Soul Magic, all working in conjunction. It was an incredibly delicate working, subtle and deceptively weak, but what the magic lacked in power, it more than made up for in the control and precision needed to make it work. And perception, as targeting this specific magical weave was the challenge, so it could affect what it was designed to work on.

Namely, the connections between Body, Mind and Soul. When visualising my own Soul, I always pictured them as gossamer threads, linking the different parts of me into one coherent whole, so that was the image I used now, too. Thin threads, connections that I was slowly snipping away at those connections, observing as the Soul Prison drew the Soul in. 

Severing these connections properly took intense focus, and I was incredibly glad Lia was with me, keeping an eye on me and my work. Otherwise, I likely would have been distracted trying to keep myself safe, which would have made me briefly wonder whether I should have taken these people to my tower, or some other sturdy facility where I could work in peace. Maybe something I should consider for the other guy. 

Just as I snipped yet another thread, I noticed the other threads start to fray, snapping uncontrollably in a cascade. At the same time, I felt the guy’s life rapidly fading, which made me frown and take a mental step back so I could observe what was happening from a better vantage point.

When I did, I realised that the Soul Prison had stopped drawing the Soul in; the Runes I had charged up earlier were spent, devoid of power. Cursing softly, I channelled fresh power into those Runes, but the initial connection had already been lost, with only a relatively small sliver of the Soul trapped within the prison, while the rest was rapidly fading away as the connections between Body and Soul were snapping. 

“Shit,” I swore quietly, looking at the trickle of blood that was oozing from the guy’s nose. 

“What happened?” Lia asked, looking a little confused. 

“Didn’t work. The Soul Prison needs more work, or maybe I have to be faster at severing the Soul. Want to try turning him into a Vampire?” I suggested, stepping back to let Lia work if she was interested. 

“Yeah, why not,” she nodded, using a fingernail to open her own skin, letting some blood ooze out as she stepped up, intent on using her own ritual to turn the guy who was in the process of dying. Not quite dead yet, but also no longer alive, he was in a rather fascinating state. His Soul had departed, but, from what I could see, the heart was still beating strongly; his Body was completely hale. Similarly, my Mind Magic let me detect impulses still firing in the guy’s Mind, indicating that it wasn’t completely gone yet, either. 

If not for the fact that his Soul was fading into the afterlife, with only that small sliver I had captured remaining, he would be completely fine, ready to get up once the magic I had used to spell him to sleep faded away. 

But the Soul was rather vital, so he likely wouldn’t wake unless Lia’s ritual worked, which was a curious question. So, I simply observed as Lia did her work, draining some of the guy’s blood, carving some runes, then adding her own blood to the mix, channelling some of her power into the ritual as she did. It wasn’t terribly complex, but I could see that Lia had refined the process quite a bit since we had done something similar. 

Suddenly, a soft cracking sound made me pay attention, and I noticed the crystalline Rune Prison cracking as the runes slowly broke apart. Moments later, it shattered completely, and I saw the sliver of Soul I had captured slip back into the body, just in time to join Lia’s ritual and give us a new vampire.

Luckily, the spell keeping the newly resurrected being unconscious was still active, and I quickly reinforced it. Because something was off about this one.