164 Going from an infestation to a plague (2/2)
With his belief of being strongly crushed, of course, his magic was destroyed as well. Penetrating his head and searching for his memories, she located the location of his tribe. Looking at the nearly omnipresent memories of victories, feasts and bountiful meals, it was obvious that they were not a very small tribe. Otherwise, they would have been defeated more often. Starring at the hyena that had seen its master being absorbed by mere darkness, the monster felt that its legs had turned into stone.
Normally, it should have attacked Leilade as soon as the orc had begun his assault. However, for some reason, it felt that anything attacking the dark floating thing would not survive. Turning the usually ferocious predator into something not any different than a harmless kitty. Even now, as Leilade approached, half of his instincts told it to flee as fast as it could, and the other half kept telling it that if it showed its back, it would die. Because of those mixed thoughts, Leilade did not need to catch up a fleeing creature to silence the last witness.
Only races that called themselves intelligent or were controlled by a superior being far away tried to repress their basic instincts, making it a bit cumbersome. Otherwise, any monsters that would even felt a hint of her presence, or even the one of Kardel and Ymir for all that mattered, would immediately panic. That was more or less the same effect dragon could produce, or anything that was of the same power. But with the humans first, and the spiders next, it had been a long time since she could enjoy the feeling of uncontrollable fear in the eyes of her enemies.
However, as she examined the crude memories of the orc, that were far too focused on eating, she had to acknowledge the impossibility of her task. Even if those vast plains were called like that, vast, big, large or any adjective that would be similar, it was just a subjective point of view. One could call a wolf big because he was one meter taller than the rest of the pack, but if the same wolf was compared to a dragon, it would be reduced to tiny. Therefore, the big tunnel network had barely taken her a day to be completely cleaned.
But it wouldn't be the same here. First of all, tunnels were easier to roam in when you were a soul, as you didn't care about all the stone blocking you. After that, none of the spiders would be able to even remotely harm her or impede her progress. As for the orc shamans, they would definitely be able to slow her down, by how much was the only question. And she will already have a hard time finding the tribes in the first place, as they rarely stayed in the same place.
”Well, it's not like they often attack the dwarves anyway.”
”So, the Empress of the Underworld will give up like that?” Hearing the strangely familiar voice, the one interrupted in her thoughts couldn't help but feel something off all of a sudden. Turning back her sight into her very soul, she noticed that the mud statue was now accompanied by a lot more. Starring at the well-defined faces, she recognized all of them. Some were undead, other humans, a few elves and many other races.
”Yes, what do you want me to do, waste my times running in a circle inside something large enough to encircle all the human nations and still have a place for something else?” Seeing them logically brought back the memories of those that had fallen. Like Malakov was not the first lich she personally created, Akama was not the one in charge of the Death Corps at first. Even if he belonged to the first batch, he was actually one of the worst.
But unlike his peers, he was extremely stable when casting magic, often losing parts of the soul he tried to save but never making a mistake in the process. Even if it seemed to be extremely easy when some watched Leilade do it, it was not less dangerous than meddling with space and time like Candaith did. In fact, in some situation, it could even be considered as worst. After all, the caster didn't necessarily have to test his portal, while the mage manipulating the soul couldn't let someone else handle it.
If one mistake was made, the soul or a part of it could try to search the closest host available. Meaning the one trying to save it. If it was the complete soul, it was extremely easy as they were countless counter measures researched over the years. But if only a very small fragment of the decaying soul infiltrated the caster, it could do that unnoticed. And over the years, if more and more of those tiny fragments were left unchecked, the moment a foreign soul attacked, it could attack from the inside the very soul of the caster.
In a way, what she did to escape the spell of Candaith was no different than the thing that killed many of her disciples. But unlike them, those fragments all belonged to her. As for whether she previously did a mistake, she betted on the fact that she was Leilade Octavius. Someone that saved a Demon Emperor, more than once. Meaning that she wouldn't make a mistake.
”Maybe, it would be fun to see new things.” Almost sneering, the main personality couldn't help but belittle those words. ”Sure, like we never saw any orcs before. Or such a barren and desolate plain. What do you want? Truly?” Instead of answering, the white soul kept sculpting more statues. Starring at the mute fragment of her mind, she put her sight back on the familiar faces that surrounded her.
Even now, she couldn't feel any magic in them, meaning that they were no magic totems but just mud statues. Created by the mana in her body, yes, but they were just that. Virtual representations of small sculptures. Even then, the feeling that something was off compelled her to not let anything strange meddle with her control. Raising her hand, she methodically reduced each and every one of them into nothingness, strangely making her feel even more empty than before.
Instead of being mad, the other one just calmly picked up her book once more, letting only one statue still standing. With her own face on it. Because of this, it was spared, as the situation was weird enough, even for Leilade. Thinking that she had already lost too much time with her, the dark soul looked at the outside and saw once more the large empty land extending under her, before returning to the kingdom of the dwarves. Or more precisely, to the peaks above it.