Chapter 74: Theories, And an Artisan

Chapter 74 -074: Theories, And an Artisan

The theory Mikael had come up with was this: He would have to externalize his soul, the very core of his being; his actual soul, willing it to manifest into reality as a tangible form of energy Ragnarok could actually process.

This in itself was nowhere near easy. As a mortal, he would have to will out his soul, not to mention the little to no celestial essence he had to spare.

If he managed to manifest his soul into energy, the scythe would take it and strip it of its Auroranean divinity!

And whatever came out would be reconstructed into a new soul—his new soul. He would still remain Mikael, if he calculated right, just different. A totally new version of himself he was sure not even the Heavens could have expected!

A change on the metaphysical level was something no mere mortal could achieve. Then again, Mikael was no mere mortal.

This process was probably going to take time, cycles, as the soul was not just something anyone messed with. And if you accounted for some disturbance from the universe—which would most certainly come—the cycles might take a while. A really long while.

But still, each cycle would convert more of her, Aurora’s divinity, her essence in him, into something that would become the scythe’s and his. Eventually.

And he would have taken the first step towards his goal and desire: freedom! From his trauma, and Heaven.

It was finally time to get things rolling.

He stood.

His legs protested stubbornly after staying still over the course of five days on the ground. The mortal flesh was strangely persistent about its limitations, something his celestial body had never required him to even think about.

Not being able to influence it, he waited for the complaint to subside before walking over to the closest tree and pressing his back into it.

He was reasonably certain what the next couple of hours would feel like, and there was no reasonable advantage to falling face-flat in the wilderness and to the mercy of these ferocious Ravagers.

He picked up Ragnarok. The weapon felt familiar, its weight helping the weakened, fallen Sovereign to stabilize himself.

What was the soul?

Over the weeks, Mikael had spoken to a good number of mortals, humans mostly. They believed the soul was the intangible part of their existence, the sum of their being and every non-physical phenomenon fused, one that remained after the death of the body, the one thing they believed would end up in some paradise above. That was between their creator and themselves.

But for Mikael, at this moment, his soul was completely physical. It occupied the same space as his mortal heart, as the core that produced and stored mana. It was something he could touch physically.

He gazed down, inward, deep into himself. With the awareness of a pseudo-divine artisan, he looked down to find the core of himself as a living entity.

And for a former being with incredible divine powers, the search took no time. However, it was quite different from what he had expected.

He had anticipated layers, surfaces he could peel back, a structure with seams and divides where the conversion could begin cleanly.

What he found instead was totality.

There was no layer beneath a layer, no seams he could rip out himself. Aurora’s essence did not run through his soul, flowing and occupying a few gaps here and there. It was the gap itself.

Every strand of his being, every filament of the structure that made him and sustained him, all of it was her, wholly and completely. Evidence that he truly was her very own creation.

There could be no more perfect pair in this entire reality than the Creator Goddess and the fallen Sovereign of the Void at this moment!

Converting that without even knowing what it was that held it together was not going to be a matter of finding the right, perfect starting point.

It was simply a matter of fundamentally changing the material that gave him his being while the said material simultaneously kept him alive.

“How hard could it even be?” Mikael joked, although the uncertainty in his voice was clear even to him.

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The letter arrived late in the evening at the Limnor Household. Its packaging was pleasant and nice, so the Duke had no qualms about whether it was genuine.

The box of Rank Breakers Mikael had left them was truly the most profitable business they had had in decades. While it was limited, that scarcity only seemed to increase its value.

Naturally, they had reserved some of its proceeds for the inventor, substantial enough to last Mikael his entire lifetime.

Clinton read them the contents of the letter. The lad had awkwardly asked about their well-being, the fact that he was not accustomed to doing this kind of thing clearly visible for all to see. He then went on to ask that they forward just about enough money for a traveller and keep it steady as the need for it might arise.

But the letter ended with no clear indication of his current location or what he was up to, wherever he was.

Since the Empire had their eyes on the genius inventor, it was just a matter of time until they found him and chained him up in some research tower as ‘precaution’.

“Poor lad,” Duke Alan sighed in his heart.

“He wants us to send him money, but he left no location as to where to send it,” Selena hissed. “Oh, there’s one written here. It’s written differently, though.” She squinted her eyes.

“Glad to see the arrogance never left him. I still wish I’d killed him back then,” she said as she rose.

“His not dying then is working to our favour at present, is it not, my dear?” He rose after her.

“Clinton, have them set dinner in the garden. The temperature is very pleasant this evening.”

“When is your trip to Elyria coming up again, Alan?”

“A few days from now, actually. Since these times are so troubled, it’s only one delegation that would do all the travelling.”

“Talk about a stressful Empire,” the Duchess sighed as they came into the garden, where the servants were already setting up for the last meal of the day.