Descent

At first, he felt nothing, then an excitement crept up, and then bitterness, "That means goodbye, right?"

An awkward smile showed on Somer's face, "Yes, it does. Souls are not allowed to overstay their welcome here." The awkward smile then bloomed into a genuine grin, "Don't worry, we'll be rooting for you from here. Twilight's even got monitor privileges, so he'll be peeking in every so often."

"... That's only a bit creepy." Cain sighed, then smiled back. "So how does this work?"

"Very simple, each of the Awakening buildings has another room for sending souls off," Somer explained as he started walking off towards the south. Cain followed along and the two made some idle chatter about booze and Cain's progress in sculpting his soul projection.

At some point during the walk, Godfort from Divine Massage and Spa appeared, making an exaggerated crying face and complaining about how much he'll miss Cain and his perfect body. Cain's response was to hide behind Somer with a conflicted look on his face, eliciting a hearty laugh from Somer.

The Awakening building had a smaller line this time around, but Somer lead him through and into a different door that opened up to a wide room with a whirlpool of glittering stars in the center. The only figure in the room was the one Cain first interacted with after he died.

"Yo, you already look like a whole new person." Twilight greeted with nonchalance.

Cain smiled at first, "I feel like a new person," then he scowled, "And you, why did you make me go through so much pain?"

"No harm no foul, right? Sure it prickled a bit but you're brilliant now, you're practically glowing," Twilight played it off with a laugh.

Cain could only sigh and walk up to the whirlpool, "So what, I just jump in and be on my way?"

Twilight held up his hand, "One moment, you can't just in with your soul projection, it'll hurt a lot more that way," then snapped his fingers. Cain's body started getting blurry and then faded like when he was under the crystal's light, revealing a rather large glimmering soul with sparks of every color and a branching silver nucleus contained within.

Godfort gasped, Somer's jaw dropped and Twilight whistled.

"Wha- How did I not notice something like that?" Somer asked no one in particular.

"The same reason he managed to slip through the net and almost grind his own soul to dust, at some point his soul mutated and grew something similar to a uniqueness based on stealth," Twilight answered.

"It's so beautiful, I want to keep him!" Godfort exclaimed.

"What? What are you talking about, I can't see myself," Cain sounded worried, mainly about Godfort.

Twilight laughed, "Nothing important, you just turned out better than expected. Anyways, there probably won't be too much trouble when you descend, but things might get a bit noisy. It's not often that an exceptional soul gets to incarnate. O~kay, thanks for your patronage and have fun!" Twilight sounded quite jovial as he grabbed Cain's soul, dribbled it twice, then shot it into the whirlpool.

Cain felt like his brain was shaking and the last thing he heard was, "Also, it's fun to act cool!"

-⚪-

Asdea Continent, Gnome Capital Volkland

Engineers were running around in a panic as the routine test run of their War Golem had encountered an error.

The twenty-foot tall heavy-set golem named 'Overture' had suddenly frozen in place, and its core started to emit a strange melancholic melody.

It was not limited to one instance either, reports of every golem across the capital stated the same thing, and the capital of each race was receiving the same reports.

Whether it was man-made, monster, inactive, or in combat, every single golem throughout the world containing a core stopped moving and began to serenade regardless if anyone was listening. Those with the proper magical instruments could detect the energies in the cores surging, some faulty cores could not contain it, and exploded.

The ones who listened were slowly entranced by the melody, it was as if it resonated with their entire being, and once it ended after a minute they were filled with something akin to a sense of loss, and yearned for more.

-⚪-

Grimora Continent, Beastfolk Capital Labyrinthine City

Along with the seizing golems, another strange phenomenon appeared, centered on the dungeon the city was founded around. Deep in the halls of the labyrinth, inside a large dark room behind a set of massive bronze doors, a silver light was flashing. While no one was around to see the light, those with magical aptitude could feel the mana in the air rushing into the labyrinth at a terrifying pace.

Many faces paled, as this could only mean one of two things. A monster break was about to occur, or a very dangerous monster had been born. Most assumed the former, as no-one could sense any particularly strong monster save for the ones very far in. The alarm was sounded and civilians were escorted outside of a perimeter made of city guards and adventures. Sadly their efforts were for naught, as there was no movement from the dungeon, and the signs of anything happening simply disappeared, confusing many, and worrying more.

-⚪-

Island Country, ???

In a massive marble hall with gold-encrusted statues lining the walls, a meeting was being held to discuss and try to find the source of the phenomenon of the singing cores. The figures at the table varied and were made up of every race and wore robes of various colors. The atmosphere was quite serious as a large portion of their production relied on automated golems, and having every single golem stop moving for even a minute threw a few things into chaos.

-⚫-

Location Unknown

Inside a pitch-black room, a multitude of voices overlayed in whispers, slowly rising in volume until it became a cacophony of shouting. Every voice was the exact same as if something was arguing with itself and couldn't come to a resolution. Once the Core phenomenon ended the voices went silent and a single domineering voice rang out.

"Find it."