Chapter 2053: Rebalanced

With Dana in her newly formed Dana space, things in Karl’s body began to change rapidly.

No longer was his soul power balancing with Dana, and only now could Karl tell just how much of a difference that had made. Humans soul power was normally fairly static. They trained it to help them overcome challenges, but it only changed by two or three times during their entire life.

A human baby would have half the resistance to soul attacks as a Peak Immortal who had never trained to defend against them.

However, that was not true for Karl. His had always been growing steadily, because of the effect of the bonded beasts. Their essence was much stronger than that of a human to begin with, and a forceful personality tended to build a resistant soul.

He had a few of those in his group.

But the change in soul power wasn’t just about personality, it was the basis of your power level, the multiplying factor that all of your other spiritual and magical abilities were based off of. Dragons had immensely powerful souls, as they had immensely powerful innate magic.

Humans had to work much harder.

But Karl, whatever he had become, it was something that dwarfed even the Dragons, and now that the tether was gone, all of the suppressed growth that couldn’t be balanced due to the bottleneck was beginning to flow in.

And as the power flowed in, his body continued to change, and his aura shifted.

Karl’s aura was a terrifying thing to begin with, as it was mixed with that of all his beasts. So, it carried Cara’s Chaos, Thor’s placid nature, Rae’s bloodlust, and even hints of Leo’s nature magic.

The overall effect, combined with the presence of the World Dragon that settled over him as an Avatar, was that of a true sociopath, the sort who would kill with only vague curiosity about the process.

Some of that might be true, but Karl knew that it was already intense, and it was still growing.

From the side, Leon and Luminaria watched silently as Karl’s power transformed, and his effective combat power multiplied. The changes to his soul were reinforcing the points of his power matrix, causing each to burn more brightly, and to draw in more power that would flow through his body.

His mana pool expanded, his mana regeneration rate increased, and a touch of Divinity began to leak from his presence, which his was too busy fighting through the backlash of the Soul Bond to suppress.

If there were any others here, they might have been crushed by the oppressive force. But for a white dragon and a Seraphim, it was merely uncomfortable, and would be easily balanced with their own auras if they chose to release them.

Neither did, as they did not want to distract Karl from the efforts to survive the backlash. Additionally, they had enough to do already, keeping the healing force flowing, so that Karl’s essence didn’t split.

That was the most urgent part of their day.

Then, the backlash was over, and Karl’s body began to surge with power, growing to nearly three metres tall, making him look like a proper eldritch horror.

In a tricorn hat that Leo hastily placed on his head.

The hat was important.

Karl opened his eyes, and looked out at the world, which looked exactly the same as he had left it, but felt completely different.

Everyone had gathered around him to watch the process of inducting the Dana Mage into her own space, but they had gotten a bonus advancement, showing off a huge form of Karl before he shifted into Fox Form, in honour of Dana, and became a nine tailed Divine Fox Demon.

Instantly, the oppressive aura shifted into one of playfulness and curiosity, which made the two attending healers laugh.

"That aura is so not you.

I get why you like it, it’s really very gentle and friendly, perfectly suited to a Guild Master who welcomes people to the city. But we know what your aura is really like, and this is just a jarring change," Luminaria joked.

Karl shrugged and toned down the aura, which seemed much more difficult to fully suppress than it had before.

"I think that I need to work on a new technique. The old one won’t bring my aura fully under control anymore," he noted.

Leon nodded. "It decreases it by ninety-five percent, but that still leaves a fair bit leaking out for you. However, if I’m right, you can’t use stealth skills to completely hide your presence. Most Avatars can’t."

Karl sighed. He should have remembered the last time he had run into this problem.

"Well, they do tell me that it is customary for Immortals to travel with most or all of their aura showing, so I suppose that it’s not a big deal."

That made Luminaria laugh out loud, and shake her head. "In what form? If you do it in this form, Fox Charm will have half the continent trying to jump your bones when they get hit by surprise, and if you do it in your natural form, you’ll scare away everyone you’re trying to go visit.

I know Supreme Ranked Unit Commanders of the Dark Gods forces that don’t have an aura as oppressive as yours."

Karl sighed dramatically and placed a hand over his chest with a wounded expression.

"Even my friends are calling me scary now. I tell you, I’m not a bad guy."

"That’s what a Dark God Cultist about to sacrifice you to his gods would say," the dragon snorted.

"Well, I’ll have to work on it then. I can’t be terrifying people everywhere that we go, and getting hit on all the time is a different kind of annoying. I feel sorry for Ophelia, who gets it all the time without a charming aura."

"Can you really blame them, though? Ophelia is the perfect soul mate for half the world’s warriors. She loves training, fighting, showing off her muscles, and flirting with Priestesses. She’s everything that they’ve ever aspired to be, but with boobs," Luminaria joked.

"I don’t think I’ve ever heard it put that way, and suddenly, it makes way too much sense."