Chapter 510: The Three Souls Of Unification

He had just finished reading Wren Ollan’s quiet message, written years ago and preserved in the Library in anticipation of another orb-overload case seeking to understand the experiences of those who had come before.

Wren had written it for him.

For whoever the seventh case turned out to be.

For years, the old soul had been preparing for his arrival, leaving behind written guidance for someone they might never meet. Elenora had done the same through her papers. Wren through this volume. Even the sponsorship, the counsel, and the access to the Library had been arranged by people who had been waiting for a seventh case to appear.

Bruce was stepping into a framework that had been built for him long before he existed in this world.

For a moment, he felt both the immense comfort of that support and the crushing weight of being the person all those preparations had been made for.

If he failed, Wren’s volume would remain in the Library, waiting for the next seventh case—or perhaps the eighth, a century from now, in an era Bruce would never see. The chain Wren had described during their first dinner would continue, regardless of what happened to him.

But if he succeeded, the chain would lead somewhere new.

The pattern of failure might finally end. The eighth case would inherit not only Wren’s observations but Bruce’s as well. Perhaps, with their combined knowledge, the next person would never have to face the same obstacles Bruce was struggling with now.

He carefully set Wren’s volume aside and reached for the third book he had come to find: one of the theoretical texts deeper in the aisle, specifically recommended by the pillar.

...

The theoretical texts were older and considerably denser than the biographical records.

Bruce spent roughly three hours working through two major volumes. The first, written two hundred years ago by a scribe named Keven, compiled observations from fabric-adjacent souls across multiple cities. The second was four hundred years old, its author’s name so badly worn from the spine that it was no longer legible. Keven’s work referred to it as a foundational text.

Keven’s book proved useful, confirming and expanding upon Yolen’s framework.

Keven had never used Yolen’s term base-language. His work predated Yolen’s by sixty years. Instead, he referred to what he called the first order of the realm’s writing, attributing to it precisely the properties Yolen would later associate with base-language.

He also discussed the Codex’s role in maintaining this first order, noting that the work of fabric-adjacent souls operated on a scale that intersected with the Codex’s own maintenance.

The older text, however, was far more difficult to digest.

Its archaic, formal prose forced Bruce to slow his reading considerably. It presented a theory of the realms as written works, composed in a shared language that had, at some point long before the current cycle, split into three dialects corresponding to the three realms.

According to the author, fabric-adjacent souls across the realms carried fragments of that original, pre-split language within themselves.

And if those fragments could be brought together—if souls who still possessed the remnants of the original language could communicate with one another and reunify its three dialects—then perhaps the three Codices could be reunited as well.

Bruce stopped reading.

He stared at the passage, then read it again.

The author was proposing precisely what the Physical Realm’s Akashic Codex had told him before the descent: the three Codices had once been one, but over time, they had forgotten what they used to be. Somehow, souls might be able to help them remember.

The idea had existed for at least four hundred years.

Somewhere in Xiltra’s Library, a scholar whose name had vanished from a book’s spine had considered the same possibility Bruce was now pursuing. The theory had been taken seriously enough to be recorded, preserved, and passed down through generations of readers.

Bruce was not the first to consider this path.

He wondered whether anyone had ever attempted to walk it.

More importantly, he wondered what had happened to those who might have tried.

He continued reading, searching for an account of an actual attempt. But the author offered no evidence of conversations between fabric-adjacent souls across the realms, let alone any successful effort to reunify the Codices.

The text presented only a theory and the possibility it implied.

Whether anyone had pursued the idea during the four centuries since its writing, Bruce couldn’t determine from this volume alone. He would have to look for more recent works that referenced the theory.

Still, the author had outlined a possible approach, and Bruce committed its essential points to memory.

The pre-split language could only be spoken by souls who carried its imprint. The three Codices, in turn, could only be addressed by souls capable of speaking that language.

If reunification was possible at all, the process required at least three such souls, one native to each realm. Each would need to communicate with their respective Codex, and all three would need to communicate with one another across the boundaries separating their realms.

Such a configuration was extraordinarily rare.

In the history known to me, no such configuration has existed.

Bruce closed the volume.

No such configuration had ever existed.

Until now, he had been thinking primarily about his own progression. He was the seventh orb-overload case in Xiltra. He had the records of Sisel Marn, Ashen Carr, and Grave Ondar to learn from. His immediate objective was to climb to SSS-rank and reach the Codex.

He had never fully considered that reaching the Codex might not be enough.

According to a scholar who had lived four hundred years ago, the reunification required three souls, one from each realm, all carrying the imprint of the pre-split language and capable of communicating across realms.

Bruce was one of them.

He was a soul from the Physical Realm, carrying that imprint within his soul and now operating in the Soul Realm as an Ascendant.

But that was only one piece of the puzzle.

Somewhere, there needed to be a soul native to the Soul Realm with the same imprint. Somewhere else, there needed to be another native to the Mind Realm.

All three would have to find one another. All three would have to reach the required rank. And all three would have to be alive and capable of working together at the same time.

That was a considerably bigger problem than reaching SSS.

Bruce sat quietly, allowing the implications to settle.

He began considering the fabric-adjacent souls in Xiltra who were still alive.

Wren Ollan.

Marla Serth was dead, according to the records. The two cases that had ended in deaths were obviously no longer candidates, and Hallan Verne, the first case, was dead as well.

Of the orb-overload cases he knew about, only two were still alive.

Wren and himself.

Wren was native to the Soul Realm and carried the imprint of the pre-split language. They had already reached S-rank, which was high enough to make conversation with the Codex possible, at least at the SS-advancement stage.

The problem was that Wren had deliberately chosen not to climb further.

But that didn’t mean they couldn’t.

Wren had written that the resistance imposed by the realm remained manageable at the levels they had reached. If they decided that advancing to SS-rank was necessary to speak with the Codex, they might be able to overcome that resistance.

For the first time, Bruce could see a potential candidate for one of the two souls he needed.

The third—the one native to the Mind Realm—remained a complete mystery. He had no name, no location, and no means of making contact.

Not yet.

But at least he now knew what he was searching for.

An hour ago, his objective had been brutally simple in its impossibility: reach SSS-rank and speak with the Codex.

Now, he understood that the task was considerably more complicated. He needed to find two other fabric-adjacent souls, confirm that they carried the necessary imprint, and somehow work with them to reach the rank required for the reunification.

The problem had not become easier.

But it had become more concrete.

And concrete problems could be investigated, broken down, and tackled one at a time.

Bruce closed the old book carefully and returned it to the table.

For now, finding the other two souls would have to wait. Before he could search for them, he needed to learn more about the theory itself—and whether anyone, in the four centuries since its first proposal, had come any closer to proving it possible.

Kael, who had been reading over his shoulder for part of the time, spoke quietly.

"You understand what this means."

"I do."

"Wren."

"Wren. And a third soul somewhere in the Mind Realm, whose existence I can’t even confirm, let alone locate."

"Does the text offer any clues about finding a soul in another realm?"

"No. It says only that such a configuration is extraordinarily rare and has never existed in recorded history. There’s nothing about how to find the souls involved."

"Then that’s a problem to solve later. When you’re stronger. When you can travel."

Bruce paused.

"When I can travel."

Kael glanced at him.

"You told me the Akashic Codex said your soul would eventually be able to follow the thread back to your body."

"Yes."

"If the thread can connect you to your body in the Physical Realm, perhaps higher ranks will reveal other connections. Between realms. Between souls."

Bruce fell silent.

He had never considered that possibility.

The Physical Realm’s Akashic Codex had told him that the three Codices were connected, even though they no longer communicated with one another. If paths connecting the realms had survived the original split, perhaps they still existed somewhere beneath the structure of reality.

Perhaps a soul powerful enough to perceive or traverse those paths could reach another realm.

If so, finding the Mind Realm’s fabric-adjacent soul might not require searching the entire realm. He might only need to discover a path that already existed.

It was a distant possibility, far beyond anything he could attempt at his current rank. But it gave him another avenue to investigate when the time came.

He filed the thought away.

"When I’m stronger," he agreed. "I’ll look into it."