Strange Turn of Events Part 1

Nisus leaned back in his chair as he began to explain to Velar what he had found when examining the souls. "I have not finished examining all the souls at the moment, what I have managed to find out about them is quite interesting. All the soul that popped up in Clover Forest does not have any knowledge of how they got there. They seem to have been sucked into some tare in space which brought them all to our world.

Each soul is completely different they all come from various planets, planes of existence, and alternate dimensions. Were ever all those souls were it scrubbed most of them clean of there plane coordinates, but not all of them making our loss of only 3 magi well worth it. Even if we had to kill off a thousand magi to get these souls the Eclipse Association would still prophet greatly.

My probing also shows many of the souls suffer from memory loss this partly reduced the size of there souls, but by not much, the size decrease is quite negligible. The amount of the soul's memory that is lost is not tied to the size of the soul. There are souls In that orb you gave me that are on the verge of extinguishing yet, still, they fully retain their memories. While another similar soul 40 times the size of the previous one I examined completely lost its memories it was unable to speak just scream incoherently every time I jabbed at it.

The scrubbing that the souls received messed with there elemental affinity as well most of the souls are no longer attune to any element. Since it is the characteristics of a soul from birth that forms a bond with an element it was something that couldn't be altered without damaging the subject so for this to happen to so many souls yet be completely fine is extraordinary .This rare case will now be common and have a serge of people with no elemental affinity walking around soon. Well its not like having no affinity to an element is a bad thing anyway, but there are also still souls that kept there elemental affinity so there's that.

Another thing is that these soul are just like you said before parasitic. They require a host far more than regular wandering souls or they will completely fade away. As you already know a soul that has managed to stick around long after there death becomes wandering souls, wraths, ... ect they normally have no need to inhabit a body so they don't fade away.

I latter damaged a few of the souls to see how they would be able to heal that damage. I was not surprised that they were able to heal just like every other spirit type entity by consuming other souls. You know how difficult it is for a person to heal their soul if it's damaged don't you Velar"

Velar nodded at Nisus "of course you could spend dozens of years to your whole life trying to repair your soul that's why magi take many steps to guard against such things. Spirit type entities have the easiest time repairing their souls. While there are spells that a mage could use to do the same thing even more efficiently none would do it unless they had no other options because of the potential corruption you would face. Even if you managed to burn away a soul's consciousness something would still linger around polluting you".

Nisus agreed with what Velar said than continued " these souls retain the ability to devour other souls even after they inhabit a body. If a soul inhabits a person's body and keeps doing that you know what's going to happen?".

Velar looked at Nisus not stumped in the slightest by the question " if a soul inhabits a body and keeps eating other souls while in that body they will explode. This happens because the soul grew too big to fast the body they possessed most likely would belong to someone weak without a strong body there is no way a big spirit could reside inside.

That's why magi increase there vitality as much as they can so they won't end up dying from there own power. If these things also just focus on only eating souls it would cripple any chance they had of advancement such a barbaric way of gaining power is fine when you don't have a body, but if they do that there just digging their own grave. Such actions are only Viable till they reach rank 3 I suppose".

Nisus nodded in agreement again "This would not be a problem for normal spirits, but these are different they would still be bound to the first body they inhabit. Even if those souls managed to escape the confines of whatever or whoever they inhabit there would be little point unless its an emergency for them because the new body would most likely be too weak, or incompatibility since they would have already gained traits from the last thing they inhabited which would limit there next choice, or both.

When these souls possess a body they obtain full control the wounds they receive from non-magical weapons are negligible it only damages the vessel there inhabiting at the time. So trying to kill them that way will not work you need to use magic or chi the same thing warriors use.

Stabbing them with a normal magic knife would ensure actual damage, but it won't kill them the same as tearing them apart even if you use magic to do it. The weak ones won't be able to pull themselves together when attacked with magic the strong ones are different there resilient and can force out the magic still on them.

To effectively kill them there are many ways I recommend just setting them on fire to kill them if you're short on time, but it has to be fire created from magic. Its the connection they have with the thing they're attached to that keeps them alive even though they should be dead. Injecting their body with foreign magic beaking whatever connection they had with what they possessed than a simple stab to the heart or brain would kill them then. You could also purify the body in a ritual like how we do when we want to chop down a tree and kill them then. There are many kinds of weapons and techniques you could use to finish them off. You coul also just directly destroy the soul if your able to".

Velar looked at Nisus unfazed by what he heard "so what your saying is these guys are super easy to kill you just need the right tool. I've fought many mages with far stranger abilities and far more stubborn to kill than what I heard. Yet, I must know have you solved the problem with us not being able to identify the spirits that manage to take over a persons body".

Nisus had a look of confidence that would dispel any lingering doubt that a person would have "there is no need to worry the solution to that is the souls themselves they have the ability to recognize one of their own in the form of a glow around the hosts body. This is a good way to find them at least until they wise up and learn to keep that aspect hidden.

You should also know while interrogating the souls I did face one problem there apparently trying to hide something from me. Everytime I try to force one of them to speak about it they steel themselves and endure anything I do to them. There scared of something what I do not know, but what ever it is they find it more terrifying then me which is a grave mistake on there part".

"Nisus the thing there scared of is most likely the cause for what brung them here so if were find what it is than we can figure out why all these souls are here".

Nisus agreed with Velar once more "you must know were the true value of these souls lye, I've tested it and it seems these souls are able to change there plane coordinate to match that of any world as many times as they want. They only need to either eat a soul from that world or possess an object that originated from there. I think you can guess what that entails can't you?."

"If I'm following your train of thought then that means that we obtained a potentially disposable army of easy to manipulate rank 3 mages that we can groom by force-feeding souls and a little training. With them being able to change their plane coordinate on a whim they can effectively avoid the suppression from the world's will allowing them to use 100% of there power making them the best invasion force imaginable. That means that the rate at which clans everywhere concur worlds will increase 1000 fold and since we were right next to where it happened we obtained a powerful and priceless army for free.

Nisus lapped the table as he laughed because he was spot on "we did practically nothing and now we're going to be showered with gifts. Not just us everyone in the clan I heard the chairman already started receiving all kinds of offers for only a hand full of the souls we got".

Nisus was happily celebrating when someone else knocked on his door. He let the person in to see it was his secretary "what is it?".

Nisus secretary who was a rank 2 mage bowed showing his respect to Nisus and Velar before speaking "I have urgent news an envoy from The King of Beggars has arrived here requesting an audience he is currently waiting in the lobby".

Nisus had a look of surprise on his face as he jolted up from his seat "The King of Beggars envoy, this could be troublesome".