Chapter 1431 (Patreon)

“Let’s see what we can do with this one,” I told Lia, opening the shadows beneath the guy in the cell so he dropped into them, then back out onto a nearby table.

“Not sure I want him as a vampire,” Lia admitted as we were walking over. “I mean, fainting just because he saw a scary figure and heard a creepy voice? That’s just a bit… You know?” 

“Doesn’t show the strongest mental fortitude, does it? Maybe his lowest attribute is Courage, or something like that. Or your Mind Magic was a little stronger than intended.”

“No, I don’t think that my Mind Magic was the issue. He already was afraid, just because he was in a dark room; that makes him a coward, nothing more, nothing less. Even turning him into a vampire can’t fix that. Can you imagine a vampire that’s scared of the dark?” she scoffed, scowling at the unconscious form of our newest guest. 

“It certainly would be amusing to have a vampire that doesn’t dare move at night. Do you remember, from before the Change, those little lights you plugged into a socket and they’d dimly glow all night? He might need one of those,” I chuckled, imagining a vampire slowly walking through their lair, with small nightlights all over the place, giving it a warm, welcoming feel, instead of the gloom I usually associated with such an image. 

“Let’s see if I can do the separation a little faster. But first, let’s make sure that our guest doesn’t wake up at an inopportune moment, wouldn’t want him to have a heart attack- who knows how that would affect the magic,” I added, weaving the same magic I had used to put his vampire friend out earlier. 

“Attempt number two: quartz crystal transmuted from sand, inscribed with runic formation number three, seven and thirteen, formations set into a triangle, to strengthen their individual effects,” I told Lia, who quickly noted down my words, acting as my assistant. Because I generally had a good memory, thanks to my high attributes, I usually got away with not taking notes. But these experiments were conducted a little more systematically because of the daunting number of variables, so proper documentation might hold the key in the future. Especially if a Soul Prison worked initially, only to shatter later, leaving me with no record of the partially successful attempt.

With my thoughts communicated, I opened a small wound in the test-subject’s forehead, placed the Soul Prison in the fresh blood, and made sure the Runes responsible for the continued connection were coated in it. Then I drew on my Blood Magic, siphoning the subject’s magic through that connection into the Runes, feeling them light up and begin to draw magic steadily. For a second, I felt the flow of magic through the runes and judged the rate. My determination, or maybe educated guess, was that it could be sustained at its current rate. It wasn’t drawing too much, draining the guy dry before I could finish, but it also wasn’t drawing too little, as that would cause the formation to collapse with uncertain results.

My voice continued describing what I was doing to Lia, but I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep going when I dove into the guy’s inner world, where his Soul, Mind and Body were connected. There, I began the same task I'd done earlier on the guy’s companion. Slowly, one by one, I carefully snipped the tethers between the guy’s Body and Soul. On the other hand, I ruthlessly shredded the connections between the Mind and his Body, without subtlety or care, simply because it was faster. And because I didn’t care if I damaged the guy’s Mind; he would die at the end of the experiment anyway, so it didn’t matter too much. 

After a while, I felt something change. It was similar enough to my earlier experience to have me withdraw and even take a step back physically, just in case. The guy on the table was convulsing a little, blood seeping out of his nose, tear glands, and even a bit was leaking from his ears, making me wonder if I had accidentally given the guy a brain haemorrhage.

But his body wasn’t the interesting part. No, the body was merely a sideshow; the really fascinating part was happening above it, and a little to the side, so to speak. For a moment, I wondered what a normal person would see there, since I could only perceive what was happening through my Soul Sight, and likely through my Extra-Sensory Perception for Minds.

The Soul Prison, still sitting on the guy’s forehead, emitted a faint glow, something I hadn’t really designed it to do, and I could feel the guy’s soul, at least most of it, within it. The rest of the Soul seemed to surround the prison, drawn in at the moment, but the rest of the guy’s Mind had turned into a spectre that vaguely mirrored his appearance and hung above the dead, or rather dying, body. 

“Do you see that?” I asked Lia, my eyes going wide in surprise. Unless I was completely off-base, we were seeing a ghost, or something like that. Something similar to my Bound Elemental, only that it hadn’t been born by nature, but by the death of a person. 

“I think so,” Lia replied, her face furrowed in confusion. “I mean, I feel that there’s something there; I think I could affect it with my Magic, but that’s about it,” she explained, her eyes staring at the guy’s spectral form.

I wasn’t sure if he had heard us, but the guy’s head, previously fixed on the prison on his body’s forehead, snapped up, his baleful black eyes staring at us. Curiously, while his eyes were literally black voids, they weren’t completely still. I could faintly perceive a link between those black voids and the Soul Prison, as if a small part of his soul still lingered in his eyes. Or maybe it was like a negative, an imprint of something that used to be there but was now gone. I didn’t have the right words or concepts to describe what I was seeing, especially since I wasn’t sure what it actually meant. Metaphor was always easier when you knew what you were trying to convey. 

When the guy’s mouth opened, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew that I wanted to be prepared. So, I instantly went into Bullet Time and started to conjure up magical barriers. Mind Magic, woven into a shield of Darkness, just in case the Mind was using that to attack. Death Magic, linked into the Darkness, too, as the guy was dying and I had no interest in getting pulled along as he went. Lastly, I added Wind Magic to block any physical sound, just in case. That last shield was the weakest, and I had barely finished my magic when I felt them get assaulted. The assault wasn’t tremendously powerful, but it struck all three shields at once, and even with the Wind Shield in place, I could faintly hear the thing’s unearthly wail. 

Then, just as suddenly as the assault had started, it stopped. The Darkness I used as a medium to carry the Mind and Death Shields kept me from seeing the spectre, so I opened a tiny hole in the shadow to see what was going on.

The spectre, clearly outlined to my magical sight earlier, was nearly gone; it had faded to the point that it was almost invisible, even to my eyes. The connection I had felt had diminished, and the Soul outside the Soul Prison looked strange, as if parts of it had been ripped away.

“Fascinating,” I whispered, watching the remnants of the Mind fade away, leaving only a faint sparkle in the air. It wasn’t physical- no dust or anything like that, just a magical residue. For a moment, I tried to reach out, to interact with the sparkles in any way, to siphon them off so I could study them later, but they, too, were soon gone.

Despite being left with nothing but the faintly glowing Soul Prison and a dead body, I couldn’t help but feel elated. Maybe this version of my experiment had worked out, unlikely as the idea was. But when I stretched my magical senses towards the Prison, I soon realised that it wasn’t working as well as I had hoped. I could already feel the magic sustaining the containment drawing in more power than the Soul inside could provide, and the runic formations were starting to cannibalise the magic I had used to create the gem from sand. A quick estimate told me the containment would fail in about twenty minutes, maybe less. 

Looking over to Lia, I described what I was sensing, making sure that our notes were as complete as possible. Once that was done, we discussed the odd spectre and its attempt to kill us from beyond the grave. All in all, the prison took about seventeen minutes to fail and crumble into sand, allowing the Soul to escape into the afterlife. 

Experiment two was, sadly, another failure. But it was also a step in the right direction.