Soul of Searing Steel

Creed was already dead when he understood what was happening to him.

Bright silver runes were shimmering within the murky and narrow spherical space, and Creed, who had just awakened, realized that it was those runes that had protected his perished soul and awakened him.

And now, he was inside a Soul Sphere.

“I’m… dead.”

Before he boarded the Void craft, Creed—who was now in spirit form—had been trained in various aspects and so quickly knew it was beyond doubt that he had perished, his entire physical form destroyed. All that was left was his soul, which had followed a contract spell to instantly move itself into the Soul Sphere, and was awakened by soul radiance that nourished his soul.

Creed was twenty-one years old and did not have a family name. A former resident at Fort Ares in the southern region of the Northern Empire, he had joined the fortress garrison as a part-time soldier who repelled that Dark Tides and supported his family, like most southerners. He was young and fortunate not to have been killed in the powerful monster waves of the Great Mana Tide several years ago, and had held on until the Dark Forest was utterly destroyed.

He had formerly lived frivolously, knowing only how to act under the orders of others and had never once thought about improving his powers or the future. While his comrades and peers gradually found futures they could strive towards, changing their fates as the Great Mana Tide arrived and what Mycroft anticipated as a grand era of upheavals, Creed still did not think of much else. He carried on being a soldier, staying at his station and patrolling day after day, as if it was all he would do until he grew old and passed on.

And it all lasted until that fateful day.

A man had stepped out of an airship and upturned the land, destroying the Forest as tempest and inferno followed in his wake. The enchanted woods that had troubled the southern provinces over centuries were reduced to dust and dirt by his hand—the sight of Joshua van Radcliffe flattening the Dark Forests had stirred the heart of the young guard, and his thoughts that were essentially still waters began to churn. Clenching his weapon, he looked up towards the tiny figure in the distant skies, his dreamless mind now having seen the birth of courage and passion.

“That’s worth living for!”

And from then onwards, Creed had dramatically changed his machine-like living. He bought books to diligently learn knowledge and cultures on his own, as well as attended tuition classes outside of work, cramming knowledge he was once ignorant of. Using all his savings, he did his best in attempting every opportunity to improve—and perhaps by sheer luck, the Imperial External Exploration Department was on the lookout for low-tier Extraordinary individuals who were brave enough for adventure and were filled with vigor. Creed, whose family had been seven generations of border guardsmen in Fort Ares, hence entered their sights and became a reserve member of the third-level otherworld exploration.

Hellish training, bizarre foreign worlds, mysterious Extraordinary things, and passionate, reliable teammates… Creed had very much changed, performing with excellence and improving quickly, having earned multiple honors and several ‘exceed expectations’ in exploration quests. Though he was far behind the exploration team who, under unusual circumstances were always involved in all sorts of trouble, his quests which tend to turn out safe and secure remained first-class.

Naturally, Creed could not boast about any sort of safety and stability now—the fact that his corvette had been detonated by a missile and all forty crewmembers had been killed in action and rolled into the Soul Sphere made it clear that his lucky streak was at its end.

“Tch… what luck!”

Once he recalled that his death was precisely because of his own excellent performance which got him chosen as a captain in the Combined Fleet, there was an irrepressible feeling of dissatisfaction in Creed. At the time, the alien armadas that were positioned between two galaxies were actually quite advanced—their modern warships which had been charging at the Combined Fleet were not destroyed at once and they countered with their own attacks, but their terrific beam cannons were mostly deflected by gravity shields, and only some struck true on their targets.

That was when Creed’s corvette proved to have the worst luck. Just as he ordered the crew to raise the shields and stop a volley of arcane bombs, another ether concussion missile which had been deflected excessively by the main gravity shields shot in an arc that hit the corvette’s hull. Creed still remember the very sensation. It was as if he had been trampled dozens of times by a herd of megaboars, while his body was reduced into a bloody puddle as the corvette disintegrated.

Though he was dead, Creed felt no fear. What gave him confidence, as well as helped maintain his composure, was the Soul Sphere that wrapped around his spirit.

The Creation which the Radcliffe family had blessed upon the world was known reverently by the peasants as the sacred tool that stopped the grim reaper. It was able to prepare and complete a soul over time, reshaping the body through information from the soul and the original body’s bloodline information, the greatest technology in resurrecting the dead.

“Since we are of a small number and would be simply incomparable against the other Void civilizations developed over tens of thousands of years, the vital problem we have to tackle is having no casualties.”

Creed remembered the speech Count Radcliffe gave when he was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet. The black-haired warrior spoke calmly, despite the stunning revelation. “Therefore, our forces will have to refuse to fall in battle or compensations, just as we refuse to back down. We must triumph over death and fear, and so from this day forth, all of you—everyone present—will remain safe from Death himself temporarily, and the price for that is to become our war machines of blood and iron.”

“Not one step back, whatever horrors or dangers there may be. Those destroyed in the blaze shall return from it.”

And he did it—the soul binding from the Soul Spheres provided an absolute life insurance for the expeditionary force. Unless a Legendary being attacked personally and directly crushed the body of a Soul Sphere, everyone would have a chance for revival despite their pulverized forms. Still, they were truly defenseless if their luck was to be so abysmal that alien Legends targeted them, and could only lament their misfortune… and why not go down in a blaze of glory?

Creed was aware of Joshua’s ideals, and that the first thing the Combined Fleet did upon arriving at the Multiverse was to build a Dimensional Hub. The second thing, on the other hand, was to construct a plain building that had actually been a spring—a ‘reviving center’. The Soul Spheres containing the spirits of the dead simply needed to be placed inside the spring filled with living energies, and seconds later, a complete being would step out, alive once more.

Moreover, each Void installation built by the Combined Fleet would have been furnished with basic Restoration Beams and revival systems. After the Stargate activation, the integrated universal redemption system had completely replaced gold as the currency for expeditionary force trade. Everyone could exchange various resources and services in the nearest installation, each of which were provided through flickering silver spheres and terminals. They were near omnipotent despite appearing ordinary, with everything imaginable offered, from resurrection to body modification, healing, and physical strengthening.

Certainly, the resurrection was not without its price. Official sources claimed that everyone could only be revived thrice—any more than that and mortal souls would be excessively worn. They would lose memories if it was minor damage, and their entire soul would be broken if it was serious. Even those in between would be left in a persistent vegetative state, only able to wake up after an indeterminate length of slumber.

Furthermore, those who were killed over three times would be transferred away from the front line to work within the reserves or logistics. Creed knew that he had lost one chance, and the deadly lesson taught him to be extra vigilant.

At the moment, he also contemplated about how he would return to the front line and continue contributing after reviving in base, and had not really thought about the length of time he would be spending in the Void—that was how the young captain remained unaware that the Soul Sphere holding his essence had been sent flying into the Void beyond the Galaxy of Beginnings in the shockwave of the explosion.

Alone, the little silver orb wafted amidst emptiness. It was an object so tiny that it would have kept floating within the silence to the edge of the eternity. To make matters worse, the soul preservation capacity was not eternal. Its internal power sources only able to keep the person’s essence for thirty-one days, and any longer than that, integrity of the Soul Sphere would collapse, with the spirit within diminishing.

A long time passed. Both the Knowers and the Combined Fleet had withdrawn from the front line and left the borders between two galaxies empty. Still, scout ships were dispatched to find Creed, with specialists reliving the battle to calculate the trajectory which his soul sphere would have taken.

If nothing unexpected happened, Creed’s soul sphere would have been found by scout ships, and he would be left panicking for nothing before being revived safely in the springs. However, it would actually be surprising if anything unexpected did not happen in the Multiverse.

Amidst the stillness and the shapeless darkness of the Void, a curling tentacle appeared out of nowhere, stretching and gently wrapping itself around the wafting silver sphere. The main body behind the tentacle was a massive translucent organic ship filled with an alien aesthetic. Its hulls were full of appendages resembling a jellyfish, with sensitive magical vines searching and collecting any noteworthy information.

That was how it found Creed’s Soul Sphere in the silence of the Void, and the tentacle retracted into formless shadow.

***

Meanwhile, at the Combined Fleet headquarters, a diplomatic team of eight Legends were prepared to leave and head for the world where they would enter an exchange with the Knowers. The warrior, being the main organizer of the exchange, remained inside his private cabin within his flagship and spoke to his weapons, whom he had not seen for some time.

“You’ve completed the mission? Well done!”

Joshua pat Ying and Ling’s shoulders in praise, knowing that his weapons would never let him down. Though unable to fight alongside him due to his excessive powers, they still retained purpose.

“Hehe, of course!”

“We have still got it!”

Their master’s praise filled Ying and Ling’s heart with a sense of accomplishment for doing something for Joshua. Nonetheless, they had came through the Stargate not merely to report.

“Master, the dimensional vortex in the Vortex of Creation had shown continuous and exponential expansion,” the silver-haired girl said. “Zero Three has projected that the pressure would reach an unthinkable threshold in three months.”

“Not even your true form could withstand that level of pressure despite the level it has grown to,” the black-haired youth added. “The limit has been reached, which is why we came to tell you this.”

“…Is that so? Looks like even the rapid growth of my true form had reached its limit.”

Joshua’s brow lifted at the news, unsurprised by the exponential rise in dimensional pressure but actually astonished that his true form had been able to hold up against the Vortex of Creation’s pressures for so long. It appeared that the divine circles that the Six Gods casted for him before had assuredly aided his growth exceedingly, and without mulling on it for to long, the warrior contemplated for a moment and briskly made his choice

“If that is the case, Ying, Ling…”

Rising from his chair, Joshua raised his hand and drew up a screen in front of himself. A map charting most of the Galaxy of Beginnings appeared, and he searched for wider regions. “After the both of you return,” he then said quietly, “inform the Commanding Will of the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds and request that it prepared along with Nostradamus.”

“It’s time to send my true form to the Multiverse.”