Soul Splitting

[Beginning next phase. Do you wish to proceed?]

Again, another message but the conversation wasn't meant for her.

"NO!!!" She shouted but nothing happened.

"Proceed." A cold and ancient voice sounded from somewhere but it gave her chills even without her body. She didn't know what this next phase was but it didn't sound good to her.

[Dividing Soul Container…]

Soon after that message, all she felt was pain.

There were no words in any language ever developed that could describe the pain of having your soul divided forcefully.

Nay, even if you gave consent and guided the process, there would still be no words to describe that kind of pain.

Imagine yourself being burnt over a naked flame, while also being scalded in boiling water and fried in oil. At the same time, you are instantly frozen. Frozen to the point where you have frostbite but not enough to numb the pain. Then your bones are broken inch by inch, and your skin is cut, then scraped off. And all that happens simultaneously. That would be the best way to describe a tenth of the pain she felt.

It was a good thing she couldn't breathe or she would have been suffocated by the pain. However, it was equally just as bad that she didn't have a body.

A body's instinctive reaction to pain that passes a certain threshold is to shut down, otherwise known as going into shock, to protect the mind. However, without a body to bear the brunt of the pain and take the load by going on the defensive, she had to endure the entire process.

Well, endure is putting it kindly.

She was screaming, crying, begging, raging, and taking all kinds of actions to preserve her state of mind. She kept that up for about a minute until she felt herself slipping into a state of numbness. The pain was still present but her mind couldn't register it. She was dangerously close to developing split personalities at this moment.

'So, this is the soul splitting he mentioned.'

'In retrospect, death was a lot kinder.'

'Ha! HAHAHA who would've thought I'd call death kind.'

'I guess I've seen it all.'

'I wonder what will happen to me.'

'What even is a soul?'

She could feel different thoughts. All seemed to belong to her but at the same time, they didn't. It was like having voices in your head, but on a much grander scale and with far greater substance. She felt like she was drifting away. It was a relaxing feeling for her and she was about to willingly give into it when…

[Binding Error Identified…]

[Debugging recommended… Logs required]

[Initiating mind protection protocols]

Apparently, the entity had deemed her an irregular. As a being that focused on achieving perfection, an anomaly was deemed worthy of study. If such an error was existent in the initial binding process, then who's to say what kind of damage could be done in later stages. Therefore, the orb decided to protect her mind and soul and investigate the cause of her error later.

She felt her thoughts gather and become more compact until eventually, only one train of thought existed. Pulled back from her solace, she was once again drawn back to reality and to experiencing pain.

However, just as quickly as the pain came, it also disappeared.

[Soul splitting completed. 86% successful.]

Splitting a soul was not a stable process particularly when splitting each mortal soul to about 2,000 pieces. Some souls were destroyed in the process, and others had their personalities too mangled to be of any constructive use. 86% was a resounding success in the grand scheme of things.

Back in the white space, Kate could feel a connection to herself in about 199 other places. She instinctively knew that her soul was split into 200 different pieces, not that she knew that it was meant to be ten times that number. Thanks to the binding error, most of her soul was left intact and her core personality was protected.

Although she had no control over the split pieces of her soul, she at least had an instinctive connection to them. Should they come into contact, she had a high chance of fusing her soul back together.