Chapter 81
Lucas slowly opened his eyes, his vision blurry at first before gradually coming into focus.
He looked around and realized he was lying on an enormous king-sized bed, so large that he felt small in the middle of it.
The bed was covered in soft silk sheets that felt cool against his skin, and the pillows beneath his head were filled with what must have been the finest feathers.
The room itself was nothing short of magnificent. Rich tapestries hung on the walls, showing scenes of battles and royal ceremonies woven with golden thread.
A crystal chandelier hung from the high ceiling, catching the afternoon light that streamed through tall windows draped with heavy velvet curtains.
The furniture was carved from dark, polished wood with intricate details that spoke of master craftsmen spending months on each piece.
Everything about the room screamed wealth and nobility.
But Lucas barely noticed any of this. His attention was completely focused on his eyes, which he could feel were still in their Mana eyes form.
The deep blue glow that had helped him escape that horrible place was still there, pulsing gently with each heartbeat.
He remembered how those ocean depths had saved him, pulling him away from the nightmare.
"I need to find a counter attack against that spell," Lucas thought to himself, his mind already working on the problem.
He looked down at his hands, at his body, trying to ground himself in the present moment. "With how powerful it is, it could cause my death if that happens again."
His other senses suddenly screamed at him, overwhelming his thoughts. A wave of dizziness hit him so hard that the room started spinning.
He barely managed to lie back down on the bed, his body sinking into the soft mattress.
"I need to rest," he whispered to himself, his voice barely audible. "Physically I am okay, but mentally and spiritually, I am not."
Before he could even finish the thought, sleep took him. It was a deep, heavy sleep, the kind where the world completely disappears.
In that state, someone could have ended his life and he wouldn't have known until it was too late.
His body was there on that beautiful bed, but his mind had retreated to somewhere safe where the memories couldn't reach him.
Time passed without Lucas knowing it. The sun moved across the sky, day turned to night and back to day again.
Three full cycles of light and dark came and went while he lay there, completely unaware of the world around him.
When Lucas finally opened his eyes again, he saw a girl about his age sitting beside the bed.
She had soft pink hair that fell in gentle waves around her shoulders, and her eyes were the same shade of pink, bright and full of warmth.
She was carefully cleaning his forehead with a damp cloth, her touch light and careful.
She had also been tending to his upper body, he realized, noticing that his shirt had been opened.
The girl wore a beautiful princess dress, light in color with delicate embroidery along the edges. Layers of soft fabric created a skirt that pooled around her as she sat.
On her head rested a small but elegant crown, simple enough for everyday wear but clearly made of real gold and precious gems.
Even through his exhausted state, Lucas could guess her status immediately.
He simply watched her for a moment, still feeling greatly strained, as if his very spirit was tired.
When the girl noticed his open eyes, she gasped softly in surprise, then broke into a warm smile that lit up her entire face.
"Welcome back," she said gently, her voice sweet like honey. "I am Princess Elizabeth. It's nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too," Lucas replied, his voice rough from days of disuse. He closed his eyes briefly, wanting nothing more than to sink back into sleep, but a question formed in his mind. "How long have I been out?"
Princess Elizabeth tilted her head, thinking for a moment before answering. "For three days at this point."
"Wow," Lucas breathed out, genuinely shocked. To him, it felt like an eternity had passed.
He still remembered every single moment of that torture clearly, as if it had happened just moments ago.
Every second of pain, every minute of despair, every hour of suffering, each day, week, month, and year of that nightmare was burned into his memory.
He could explain to someone the different levels of pain he experienced, describe each kind of torture he was forced to endure, recount the many events from his past life that he was made to relive over and over and over again.
Those memories would never leave him.
"And my team?" he asked, forcing himself to focus on the present.
"Your team..." Elizabeth began, organizing her thoughts. "After the demon attack was stopped by them, another person came with you who was also unconscious.
But he woke up after just a few hours. They had planned to leave with my mother to seal the Demonic Mana Beast, which would force the high-ranked demon back to their dimensional prison.
But my mother refused. She wanted your team to first destroy the portal that was created, the one that is releasing endless amounts of lower demons into our world."
She paused, making sure Lucas was following along.
"After a long argument with your leader, your team finally agreed to help. They left yesterday. From what your leader told me to tell you, they should be back in a week or two."
Lucas nodded slowly, taking in the information. His body was here, safe in this luxurious room, but his mind was already turning inward, focusing on something else entirely.
He needed to understand what had happened to him, what that demon had done to his very soul.
He closed his eyes and turned his attention to his Soul dimension. It was a strange place, existing somewhere beyond physical reality.
There, floating in the endless darkness, was his soul, appearing as a silver ball of light. But it had changed. The ball seemed larger now, and it was releasing a higher quality of Soul Essence than before.
The glow was stronger, purer somehow.
Lucas focused his intent and transformed into his Cyan Oceanic Suns form.
He directed all his attention to studying his soul, trying to understand the growth it had undergone.
As he examined it carefully, pieces of understanding began to fall into place.
From what he could discover, the spell that demon had cast was a Soul spell, something that attacked the very core of his being.
He had escaped it by finding that deep ocean within himself, but the experience had changed him.
His soul had suffered through those endless moments of torture, and somehow, that suffering had made it stronger.
Information flowed into his mind, knowledge that wasn't there before.
He had reached what could only be called Rank 0, the Low Stage of soul cultivation. It was just the beginning, the first small step on a long path.
The process became clearer to him now. To cultivate the soul, one must first produce more Soul Essence, that basic building block of spiritual existence.
Then those pieces must be combined, merged together to improve the overall quality of the soul itself.
Damaging the soul and allowing it to heal, along with natural expansion methods, could increase its size.
There were many different ways to achieve this, different paths and techniques, but at the very core of everything, this was the fundamental method.
Lucas was filled with this new knowledge, but a question immediately troubled him. He had only been analyzing his soul, examining what was there.
He shouldn't have been able to understand all of this just from observation. So where had this knowledge come from?
"The very essence of beginning is the Soul Essence."
Those words rang in his head, repeating themselves like a bell that wouldn't stop chiming.
He couldn't understand the rest of the message that tried to follow, it was, unclear, as if written in water.
So he stood there in his Soul dimension, contemplating what he had learned.
There were indeed many ways for the soul to grow stronger. His torture and suffering, the fact that he had maintained his identity throughout that nightmare, all of that had contributed to his soul's growth.
And from what he also noticed, physical growth and spiritual growth helped as well. Everything was connected.
Spiritual growth was linked to Life Force, the energy that keeps living things alive.
Mental growth was linked to both, and at the very core of everything was the soul itself. It was the foundation upon which all other growth was built.
Lucas didn't fully understand it yet. He still wasn't able to use Soul Essence directly or control his own soul in any meaningful way.
For now, it was just there, a source of potential waiting to be tapped.
He needed to study his soul further, to create techniques that would allow himself to finally use that power.
He thought about the spell that Mara had created. It was powerful, yes, but it never used Soul Essence.
It used Mana, linking her magical energy to her soul as she simply sent out the intent of wanting a piece of her soul to separate.
The same with his Soul Contract, it used Mana to form a connection between the two souls involved.
Runes and Seals helped maintain that connection, but someone who truly understood souls could break it.
To the people of this world, such achievements would be impressive, even seen as extremely great.
But Lucas was beginning to understand that without using true Soul Essence, it was all just a shadow of what was possible.
Like using a candle when you could have the sun.
But Lucas didn't know that yet. To him, he was just beginning to understand the depths of what the soul truly was.
In his own way, he was already one of the strongest beings in this world, though he would never think of himself that way.
There was some truth in that thought, a truth he hadn't yet fully realized.