The task at hand was disgusting, but still had to be done.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Robert asked Amelia.
The brown haired woman turned towards the short black haired man. He was currently playing with his knife, twirling it around his fingers.
"Sacrifices have to be made."
Amelia walked up to Robert, holding his shoulders gently, and gazing deeply into his eyes.
"I know you may not think of it as 'Morally Correct' but it's necessary. Not for us, but for our descendants. The people outside the corpora are slaves. We are dregs that they heap. Think of your little sister, Robert."
At the mention of his blood, Robert's eyes widened, and he gazed down at the ground.
"Very well."
…
The Soul Realm was… vast.
They had to start and get on with the matters at hand.
"We were lucky to find this rift."
Amelia nodded.
As far as the eye could see, there was something. Since the Soul Realm was flat, the horizon seemed endless, things only getting smaller and smaller until they couldn't be seen anymore, or being blocked by other objects.
They found themselves in the Star Forest. It was a region of the Soul Realm, bordering on the blue plains.
Weirdly, the skies of the dream realm's regions changed with them.
The Star Forest had an eternal starry night, with beautiful patterns of constellations, and colored stars flying through the sky.
Trees were naturally covering the entire region, possessing purple, and blue leaves that possessed a luminescent glow, and the night sky offered light as well.
Inhaling the soul-essence-rich air, Amelia nodded.
"It's time."
…
Nyx had been training relentlessly these past few days.
Ever since she saw Aurelia, she was struck by a sense of inferiority that she never felt before in her life.
She herself told Caecus not to compare himself to the Zenith.
But who adheres to their own advice?
'When we trained, she was just playing with me!'
The ceiling light shone down at her, as she was swinging her sword at speeds incomprehensible to the human eye.
Her Jian struck again and again, as she was thinking of how she should apply her concept.
'My innate is that I can exempt myself from phenomena of my choice. My only limitation is my soul essence… and creativity.'
Nyx had tried doing something like phasing through a wall, but it didn't work. She knew and she felt that her soul essence didn't suffice.
'Think. What can you do right now?'
She could erase her presence, and… make herself unaffected by the surrounding air.
Her sword struck again.
After a few more strikes, she noticed something. The faster she tried striking her sword, the more wind resistance would come up.
Whoosh.
The Jian cut through the air that was in its way.
'A bummer. If I could exclude my sword– wait.'
Nyx augmented the sword, and then activated her concept. Then she commanded it to exempt herself from the air.
The surroundings changed in presence, but when she struck her sword, there was still air resistance, just not on herself.
'The sword is an extension of your arm.The sword is an extension of your arm.The sword is an extension of your arm.The sword is an extension of your arm.The sword is an extension of your arm.'
Minute after minute she repeated the sentence again and again, gaslighting herself.
She kept the augmentation on the sword active the whole time.
In a stream, her soul essence poured out, but this time she shaped it to envelop her sword.
Then Nyx activated her concept.
It didn't seem like anything had changed for the sword, but when she swung… there was no resistance.
The sword moved through the air smoothly.
When Nyx assimilated, and then struck the hardest, and fastest she could.
She felt it.
Her attack was way more powerful, in speed, and in strength.
It made sense. Acceleration was a vector, and when a contradicting vector, like air resistance in this case, came into the equation, it resulted in less total acceleration.
And what was one thing acceleration was used for too?
Force.
Force is mass times acceleration. If the acceleration increased, so did the force.
It was directly proportional.
'I have found it!'
…
Titus sat in his room, meditating.
The air was heavy, and the cushioned softness of his white sheets made it more comfortable.
In the background, cats could be heard meowing from his desk.
"Caecus is Aurelia's brother."
The statement in itself seemed absurd when you looked at them from an outside perspective.
Aurelia was way taller, the most talented, cold, and ruthless.
Caecus was short for his age, had good talent too but not on the level of her, and was warm. Warm and easily flustered.
'I doubt anyone is on par with Aurelia's talent though.'
It did match up though.
They both had the same jet-black hair, long eyelashes, and pale skin. Something typical for Caelum.
Caecus had soul density on par with one from the main family, of a grand corpus.
'Caecus is from the main family of Caelum. How was I so stupid? They even have matching birthmarks!'
A black dot next to their eyes. It wasn't heard of, that twins have matching birthmarks, but nothing was normal about Aurelia.
Titus rubbed his brown hair, that was buzzed, with his big hand, deep in thought.
At first, he was mad. How could Caecus hide something like that from him?
Then he actually used his mind.
'Caecus is blind. He refused to tell me that he was from the main family. He doesn't have any experience talking to people from other corpora. I've never seen him talk to his sister.'
It clicked.
'It would be bad for the honor of one of the biggest corpora, probably the most powerful, when Aurelia inherits it, to have a blind descendant in the main family.'
Titus' fist clenched.
Caecus' fighting style didn't fit any particular style taught in the corpora either, and was definitely not from Caelum, who focused on pure sword combat, with versatility. He had twin daggers, and focused on agility.
His shortness made sense now too.
'They are stupid! Caecus is very talented, and has his boons from blindness, with increased comprehension speed! If they actually trained him, I'm sure he'd be Rank Three of the year at the very least by now!'
'And Aurelia! Doesn't she care about her brother?'
At that moment, Titus apprehended something.
He was incredibly weak.
He had seen her fight.
Even if he wanted to give Aurelia a piece of his mind, he couldn't.
'I need to grow strong. For my only friend.'