Book 7, Chapter 54 - Source (1/2)

Book 7, Chapter 54 - Source

Figures began to emerge from the crystals. Where the Source was hard as diamonds for Cloudhawk’s people, to these spirits they were as malleable as water.

Once they exited the crystals their spectral bodies began to give off light. It was the condensation of powerful energy, enough to harm physical matter. Like swords they lashed out at the intruders. No fancy skills, no special abilities – just pure and brutal energy delivered with incredible speed.

Crack-crack-crack! Cloudhawk’s shield was subjected to a flurry of blows. Thankfully these monsters had no intelligence to speak of. They threw themselves at Cloudhawk without any tricks, but their attacks came quickly almost one on top of the other. It was becoming troublesome.

What were these things? Cloudhawk glanced into the crystals, narrowing his eyes for a better look and then suddenly freezing in place. Whatever was locked in those crystals was humanoid. Some of them were so blurry he could only make out the outlines, but others he could almost make out clothing and for a handful even features were visible.

People. They were people. More specifically, demonhunters.

They stared with empty eyes and slack expressions. Judging by their clothes, they came from various eras and Elysian lands. The only similarity was that they were all demonhunters, and capable ones at that.

“These are spirits!”

Cloudhawk hardly believed he was saying it. Could these be the same sort of spirits he first say on the spore planet? Spirits – ghosts – were a special sort of entity that were created with the help of circumstance and environment. They were exceedingly rare to be created naturally, and those that did emerge lasted only a short time.

“Look at their clothes. Demonhunters from the Elysian lands.” As Autumn spoke she was able to make out family crests emblazoned on their clothes. There were even a few Cloude and Polaris family members. “They didn’t come from this area, they were brought here and locked in the crystals.”

Demonhunters from all across the world… how could this happen to them?

Surely it would have garnered attention if all these demonhunters went missing. Someone would have demanded a search. Of course they would come home empty-handed, but to appear all the way out here as spirits in a cursed desert? It seemed unlikely.

Stranger still, there had never been news of demonhunter disappearances. There had to be thousands of bodies in the crystals and that’s just what they saw now. What else would they find as they pushed further in?

Demonhunters were heroes of their realms, warriors of awakened psychic power. Thousands of them – whatever the realm – were of huge worth. It stood to reason that so many being stolen and turned to spirits would leave some sort of trace.

A troubling thought leaped to the front of Cloudhawk’s mind. It fixed its hooks into him and he couldn’t shake it. “They’re corpses.”

Frost and Autumn weren’t sure what he was getting at. Yet before he could elaborate, Cloudhawk’s mind was wracked with stabbing pain. His defenses faltered and several of the spirits managed to slip through.

Autumn reacted quickly, lashing out with an incisive light. The spirits were cut apart and she raced to Cloudhawk’s side to help him fall back.

“Cover us!”

Abaddon raised his arm and summoned sand from thin air. They coalesced into a barrier, replacing Cloudhawk’s protections. From the moment the spirits couldn’t break through.

Meanwhile, Cloudhawk felt like someone was driving a knife into his brain. Flashes of visions, memories, flooded his mind. Were this from the Demon King? In the space of a moment he understood.

“I get it. Over a thousand years there are more dead than living. More perished demonhunters than breathing ones.” He stopped for a minute to get his bearings. “In every Elysian land there is one common thing they always say. When you die, your spirit is given to Mount Sumeru!”

He was right. Elysian lands could be very different, but in death all were said to serve the gods eternally. So long as their faith was strong and their abilities recognized, death just represented shedding one’s mortal body and ascending to the gods’ side.

This wasn’t just some platitude. These were real souls!

Spirits were a special kind of energy that made up one’s essence. The soul is what allowed humans to cultivate and improve their mental power. As one's spirit strengthened, so did their psychic abilities.

At birth that spirit was weak, undetectable by any instrument, and gone when the body failed. One’s soul dissipated out into the universe, only to be gathered again in the formation of a new soul when a new life took shape.