Chronicles of the True Wizard

Chapter 213 - Book 15

The first order of business was sealing the lattice ring around his soul. That didn't take very long but was more annoying than he had expected. The souls within the ring kept trying to escape and he had to essentially herd them back in. From what he could tell, their escape attempts were motivated more from trying to play than any actual desire to leave.

Eventually, he decided to implement the next part of the process to help him and so, he carefully detached the lattice tube he had run down his arm while simultaneously pushing the ring to spin. A few hundred souls were lost as they eagerly escaped the ring and were completely obliterated but there wasn't anything Felix could do about it. He just hoped they weren't anyone important.

With the ring spinning, none of the souls were fast enough to escape anymore and Felix easily sealed the ring. He wasn't entirely sure if he wanted it to be sealed forever, but it was necessary for the time being while he worked on other things.

Shifting his attention to his own soul, Felix finally fished the in-flow tube he had cobbled together free then carefully reassembled his soul, replacing the lost anima, fusing the gap and smoothing over the intent.

He had expected to feel normal again after having repaired his soul but that wasn't the case at all. The feeling of being sick and ill remained but Felix wasn't entirely sure why. With nowhere else to turn, Felix began diving into the Soul Structure Compendium in earnest. Instead of reading through and performing minor experiments on constructs, Felix began dissecting everything and performing in depth experiments on himself.

On the constructs, Felix had implemented the base form of a basic concept, just to see what it would do. On his own soul, he combined concepts, performed the required math based on estimations and ran mental simulations where possible. Initially, his estimates were proven wrong and his simulations faulty but as he worked, the estimations were refined in precision until they were as accurate as actual measurements through experimentation and in turn, the simulations grew increasingly accurate. Through this process, his mental model and understanding of souls improved dramatically.

The first-and most time consuming-model Felix implemented was to surround his soul within a shell, much like the Rakyt city had been surrounded by their own shield and the blood ritual. The shell was, much like the ring he had created, formed from a lattice. Instead of triangles though, Felix actually had time to carefully craft this lattice.

The finished product looked almost organic with its rounded edges and non uniform faces but in reality, it was a perfectly repeating pattern that allowed for the shell to bend and morph as needed. It consisted of layers with the core structure forming a connected lattice that held convictions based on stability and strength. On top of that, there was a film like layer that held convictions based on flexibility and elasticity. Within the structure, contained by the film, was almost a gaseous substance that would repair either of the other structures if they were damaged and held convictions Felix couldn't really explain well.

What they did was act the opposite of how he expected a gas to work in that it resisted pressure actively instead of spreading outwards, in a sense it was based on a conviction of contrarianism and the insatiable urge to fight. If the film was poked, the gas rushed towards it and pushed back instead of simply giving way.

This shell formed a sphere when it wasn't being compressed or pushed on and completely surrounded his core soul but never touched it. Between the two, there was now a large section of effectively open space. Felix had made the new shell as big as he could while still being contained to his own body.

In that empty space, the ring lived. It still surrounded and spun around his core soul, which still reminded him of a planet in a way.

The next step involved completely rebuilding everything he relied on to function, from the ground up.

His Soul Garden and-now that they were connected-Mind City, existed in a weird in between state of his Mind and Soul. In reality-after

"I went up a bunch of proficiency levels in one of my profession based identify skills then I just asked The System to merge my other profession identify skills into it. The resultant skill swallowed my identify ring and replaced my normal Identify. I used the new skill repeatedly on the item and taught some new tricks until it finally worked."

Melody squinted a little, "In the span of…?"

"A few seconds I guess? Minutes if you count the time it took me to manually analyze the object."

Her face contorted in contemplation, "That's… wrong in so many ways."

Felix nodded, "I thought so too, just felt too unnatural."

"It is… You had the standard identify skill before this?"

Felix nodded.

She sighed, "The System has rules in place where there's a cooldown on upgrading the same skill too much because you're supposed to get used to the old one. It's also notoriously annoying to upgrade your Identify skill… Anyways, what are they? The objects for the quest."

"Uh… I'm not sure… I should tell you."

She sighed, "Fine. You don't have to tell me now but after I help you steal them, I get to ask you one question that you have to answer to the best of your ability."

Felix frowned for multiple reasons but she cut him off before he could respond.

"Yes, you're going to need our help. Peace is going to help you for free because… I don't know he just likes you I guess. As for my question, I'll sign whatever soul binding or System contract you need but you have to answer, got it?"

He wanted desperately to refuse them. He knew he didn't need their help, it was technically possible for him to steal from the vaults himself. Without them though, his odds were extraordinarily low and with Peace nodding along and Melody's relatively low price, he had a hard time saying no.

"Alright, fine."

Melody's smile grew wide, "Perfect. First we're going to need some supplies. I think tomorrow is the best bet."

Peace nodded and Felix looked at both of them for an explanation, "For what? Tomorrow is the best bet to steal them? Why?"

Melody scoffed, "Starting the war, duh."

She didn't get nearly as dramatic of a reaction as she was hoping for as Felix nodded along, "Okay, makes sense. We want to catch people as off guard as possible so we want to start it sooner rather than later but we need supplies. It only makes sense to try and rob them once the war is started because otherwise, the Im- objects won't be in the vaults. What supplies were you thinking?"

Melody smirked, "That depends on what you can afford to pay for them."

Felix nodded matter of factly, "I have about half an A. I'm willing to spend all of it."

She shook her head and snorted, "No, not credits. I handle the credits, remember? I meant other forms of payment. I'm open to suggestions but I think our best bet is getting our hands on a Spatially Aware Phase Change Amulet so you can walk right into the vault."

Felix shrugged, "Uh… That sounds good to me. I was just planning on kind of… literally breaking in."

Melody guffawed at him then shook her head, "Both of the big factions use spatial expansion enchantments within their vaults. If you just punched a hole in the wall, it would explode and destroy everything inside. Not to mention spatial enchantments by their nature make it really hard to just punch a hole through them."

Wincing, Felix sighed, "I take it a portal is no better?"

She shook her head, "Possibly worse. Best case scenario is you step into the vault as a giant then slowly your body starts to fall apart because the atoms were stretched too far from each-other. At that point you just hope you can regenerate faster than you fall apart."

Felix snorted, "Okay. Never mind then. What's this amulet you mentioned?"

Melody leaned in and whispered, solely for dramatic effect, "Something that didn't exist until very recently that only a select few in the entire multiverse have the ability to make."

Felix cocked his head, "How the hell are we going to get our hands on one then?"

"Well… it just so happens that we all know one of the two people with both the knowledge and skills required."

Felix thought through the options but the only person that came to mind was Rathelius but, he was pretty sure she wasn't talking about them.

After waiting half a minute for Felix to guess, which he didn't, she sighed, "Adaline."

"Wait… really?" Felix shook his head.

"Yeah. Remember when we were discussing Erevos and how it used Kryptos enchantments and the only person who had made any headway into deciphering them was a professor on campus? They're her mentor because she got her hands on their research a number of epochs ago and was able to teach herself."

"That's…" Felix's eyes went wide, "awesome. You said it's not going to take credits, what will she accept?"

"Something that makes her stronger. Something that helps with her enchanting or spell-craft…. Those are just guesses based on my miraculous ability to read people, you'd have to ask her."

Felix nodded, "Okay, fair enough. Assuming we can convince her to help us, what else do we need? We need to make sure no one is around when I walk through the walls into the vault. I assume I can't just walk through from the other end of the mountain?"

Melody shook her head in confirmation and Felix continued, "Okay that means we need to get as many people involved in the war as possible or just have Peace walk in and do the robbing since no one can detect you."

Peace shook his head, "I don't have any inventory points and no one but the Rakyt and those with merchant professions can just hand them out."

Melody nodded, "And Ayred's already surrendered and left."

Felix sighed, "Okay, so I need to be the one to walk into the vault then and I'm… well terrible at being stealthy."

"Yeah… you aren't getting past anyone unnoticed, sorry." Peace shrugged and Felix just nodded.

"We need two things to make sure the area around the vault is clear." Melody hopped forwards and began pacing, "First, we need to necessitate all the fighters being on the front lines. Demons would have been perfect here but that's not happening anymore. Luckily, both factions are about even in numbers so, if we can get either of them to fully engage, the other will basically be forced to respond with everything they've got."

Peace and Felix nodded along and followed her with their gaze as she circled the room.

"Second, there are the non combatants. The participants who are profession specialists. The ones who built the vault and maintain it. Those we can distract them by damaging the foundation of their fortresses. They'll be forced to act and repair them but you'll still have to deal with them. I guess there's a third problem, the profession specialists who have nothing to do with the construction of the vaults. Logically, they would be near the battle to help however they can or outside of the event entirely but there are no guarantees."

Melody stopped walking and Felix took that as a sign that she was done with her speech. He summarized based on his understanding, "Right so, in terms of supplies we need something to damage the foundation of the mountains, some way to escalate the conflict-"

"That's my job. All I need are some basic enchantments from you." Melody hopped her bottom onto the back of the couch and swung her crossed legs up.

Felix nodded, "Okay then we just need something big to start the war-"

"I can do that." Peace crossed his arms and nodded.

"Okay then, let's give the plan a once over just to be sure." Felix offered one hand to each of them which they quickly took and he brought them both into his Soul Garden where Felix brought up simulations of the heist and they ran through everything they could think of.

In all honesty, Felix knew he probably could have committed the heist by himself but the odds were so low that it would have been arrogant to even try. With Melody and Peace though, he felt a lot more confident in their capabilities.

With everything to do with the plan ironed out, Felix and Peace followed Melody to a small log cabin on the planet Eramith. Once there, Melody played a single note instead of knocking. A few moments later, the door opened to reveal Adaline.

She sighed as she saw them, her face contorted in the signature scowl of derision she reserved just for Felix. The one he had come to expect from her, "What."

Melody smiled and clasped her hands behind her back as she leaned forwards, "Hey Adaline, remember that amulet you were telling me about?"

"No."

"Right well, the one that I was questioning you about and reading the answers from your mind? We need it."

Adaline's face contorted further with significant disgust causing Melody to thumb in Felix's direction, "He'll pay you for it."

She sighed and began closing the door, "I don't want your credits."

Wrenching his attention back from desperately trying to scan the inside of the room to no avail, Felix nodded and reached forwards, offering her a cube a few inches wide.

She squinted at it for a few seconds and her brow progressively furrowed until she sighed, "Fine."

Melody smiled and nodded then cut back in, "One more thing, we need to destabilize at least two mountains."

Talking things through with Adaline, while she was rather serious, she was also agreeable and reasonable. Felix wasn't sure if she liked Melody, really wanted the computer he offered her or just really liked enchanting. Either way they got a lot more out of her than Felix had thought they would, especially considering he didn't think she'd even open the door for them. She kept her dislike of Felix out of things though and was completely professional and to the point.

She didn't even ask what they were doing or why a single time. It would have been rather hard considering Melody's every sentence had more words than she had spoken the entire time but still, Felix knew he would have asked in her position.

By some miracle or possibly because Melody knew what she was doing, Adaline offered them the amulet right off her own neck and had all the other items they needed-sans batteries-on hand.

That meant the only thing left for them to do was set everything up.

Opening his event marble against the wall of his dorm, Felix, Melody and Peace stepped out into his underground compound. As soon as they were there, Felix transferred all the necessary items over to Peace, attaching consumable batteries where necessary as they went. All the items were from the outside so Peace was able to use his spatial storage instead of his event inventory which would have been impossible considering he had literally 0 inventory points.

Melody cocked her head at Peace, "What did you use your inventory points for?" She proceeded to wander around before he started responding.

"When I was spending time with the Amatarans, we used our points to purchase refreshments from the factions and various wandering merchants."

Felix sighed and Melody giggled.

Once all the items were transferred, Felix nodded to Peace, "Alright, you have everything you need?"

Peace shrugged, "Think so."

"Alright, see you in a bit then." Felix waved a hand and opened a portal which Peace stepped through.

Closing the portal, Felix turned and sighed as he realized Melody had disappeared. Walking down the only hall and following her, he found her standing just outside Zero's training space where he was practicing the same sword strike repeatedly and very robotically.

While it looked like he performed the exact same strike on repeat, in actuality Felix knew he was minutely adjusting each swing and calibrating the Force, mana, range and other parameters.

Without looking at him, Melody spoke, "This is one of the most impressive constructs I've ever seen."

"Thanks. It honestly feels like kind of a waste that he spends all his time here but… I don't want him to die against a random participant."

She nodded, "Have you fought him yet? Sparred?"

He shook his head, "Not a close range fighter and I'm a little too destructive to spar without System protections in place against something that doesn't regenerate."

"You have a spare sword?"

Felix nodded and pulled out Mecada's long saber, "I've been meaning to figure out exactly what this is. My identify gives me nothing of value. Any ideas?"

Melody hmphed then took the sword from Felix's hands. As soon as she freed it from his grasp, Felix felt-and could have sworn he'd audibly heard-a gasp of relief from the sword as it visibly vibrated, shaking itself.

Gripping it by the handle, Melody twirled, spun and swung the blade then nodded. She walked into the room and took the spot opposite Zero, lifting Mecada's blade in the construct's direction.

They both nodded to indicate they were ready then Zero took a step forwards and struck. Melody shifted her stance so her feet were beneath her shoulders and braced herself to stop Zero's strike. The swords clashed and Felix saw the demon blade shiver slightly but it didn't open its maw. In fact, it remained well behaved the entire time their swords clashed as Melody zipped around with the same childlike exuberance she seemed to exhibit in everything she did.

She didn't look like a sword master or an excited child but rather like someone who was familiar enough with a sword and who just couldn't help but dance their way through a battle. Mirroring her wouldn't really be possible for Zero but each and every time she held a strike from injuring Zero, he learned. Not once did he have to hold back from striking her as Zero never got close but he did learn to play into his strengths, specifically his Strength.

Melody was relatively weak to the point where her compensating for her lack of strength became obvious even to Felix, despite the outward appearance that she was a figure skater dancing her way through the battle. Zero gradually learned how to take advantage of her literal weakness and began pushing harder, striking with more force and generally being more deliberate.

They didn't really get anywhere though by the designated time when Felix had to open a portal to retrieve Peace.

As soon as the portal opened, Peace stepped through, nodded to Felix then stepped through the next portal he had opened. Not a word passed between them and as soon as the second portal closed, Felix went back to watching the sparring for a few minutes.

Walking back towards the door and leaving Zero to continue calibrating, Melody handed Felix the sword, holding it by just two fingers and letting it dangle between them like it was a dirty sock, "I take it you got this off a demon?"

Felix nodded, "This and a huge chain."

"I'd have to look at the chain but this sword is definitely cursed."

Felix's eyes went wide, his excitement obvious, "Explain."

Melody rolled her eyes at him, "It's cursed with some derivative of Wrath. It will slowly corrupt the wielder to become more bloodthirsty as they use it and in turn, increasingly reckless until they become completely mindless. On the flip side, it can eat bodies and souls."

"I see, so I should probably just destroy it?"

She scoffed, "What, no! Why would you destroy it? Just sell it for a handsome profit."

"How long would it take to corrupt someone?"

"Not sure. Probably just a few minutes to have an effect, a lot longer until they became a mindless husk though. I can wield it for maybe an hour and keep the effects at bay but… You might be fine, considering how impervious you seem to my machinations but yeah… I wouldn't risk it."

"Okay, fair enough."

So add a layer to Zero's soul then give him the sword, got it.

A few moments later, Felix opened the return portal for Peace and he stepped back through, his spatial storage successfully emptied.

Peace nodded and said nothing so Felix knew his part had gone without issue.

Felix looked at both of them, "Now, we wait."

They spent some of the few dozen hours they had decided to wait in Felix's Soul Space, because it was time efficient but not much overall. Rather, they spent quite a bit of time walking around the vault, talking about the dungeons Felix had encountered, rumors Melody had heard and random stories Peace had on hand.

What they were waiting for wasn't the cover of darkness that nighttime provided but rather the bustling crowds in the middle of the 5th day. Most people had the 5th and 10th off because the classes were scheduled that way. In fact not a single one of them knew of a class on the 5th. That meant most people would be in the event if they hadn't already surrendered and could access it which meant when the war started, they would be ready to jump right in.

They specifically wanted everyone around for two reasons, first was that if people stepped into the event one by one as they heard about the war, they would most likely appear in the compounds and directly around the vault. The other reason was that it ensured maximum effect on both sides when they actually started the war. The shock and fear they were hoping to create would be lost on all the participants outside the event so the more people that bore witness, the better.

Ultimately, a few dozen hours was a ton of time and so they went off and each did their own thing for at least half of the time.

Felix worked on spell designs and constructs while Melody read and Peace meditated for the most part. Melody also spent some of the time endlessly talking to Felix while he worked. He almost completely drowned her out and he knew that she knew he wasn't listening so he didn't really know why she was talking so much.

Once the time came, they all grouped up in the main area of the compound and Felix made sure everyone had the supplies they needed. Everyone confirmed they were ready and Felix opened a portal onto the top of a massive cliff range.

The cliffs were a chain of entirely vertical rocks that formed a large curve around a forested valley below. On top of the cliffs the biome was a rocky desert making this planet look much like Felix's tutorial planet, like it had been pieced together from the pieces of other worlds without much attention to detail.

Walking up to the edge of the cliff, Peace looked back and both of them nodded to him. He closed his eyes and sank to one knee then inhaled a single lung filling breath, closing his eyes as soon as his chest laid still. As his arms slowly lifted up in front of him, ropes of gold and black twisted and weaved their way out of his right palm forming a massive long bow of pure light. The gold formed the core of the bow and black trails, much like those present when using Reaper's skills wrapped themselves around the outside like paint. Other than the black paint though, the bow was completely plain without extraneous bends or carvings at all.

When it was done, Peace held a bow in his hand that was twice as tall as he was and almost entirely black save for the bright golden cracks that reached their way up the limbs and glowed with visible golden rays. Were he not literally on the edge of the cliff, it would have been impossible for him to hold the bow out in front of him on account of its height surpassing his. On one knee as he was, almost a foot outwards from his body in every direction, shadow trailed upwards like fire or liquid smoke pouring off of him more prominently than Felix had ever seen from a Reaper's skill before.

His eyes remained shut as he began to exhale and his other hand very slowly drew back a perfectly white string, moving with the precision of a machine. Every millimeter his hand moved in a perfectly straight line, an arrow grew between his fingers and the bow. It didn't just grow longer though, it was constantly weaved from gold and white threads that appeared from nowhere, the arrow growing progressively brighter as each one merged into its shaft.

Once his hand reached the side of his face, his exhale had completed and black fletching had appeared. The arrow solidified itself and tripled in brightness in the next moment as a single golden tear welled up on Peace's cheek.

Then, Peace opened his eyes. Much like the arrow itself, Peace's eyes were completely covered in bright white light, like miniature suns embedded in his face. They remained that way for all of an instant as released the arrow in the same moment his eyes had opened and simultaneously, the tear fell from his face.

Neither the arrow nor the tear seemed to respect the bounds of the universe itself as they both struck their targets in the same instant they were released. The tear hit the ground and formed a visible ripple that distorted the ground beneath their feet but once passed, seemed to have no effect whatsoever.

The arrow struck exactly where they had planned, right in the middle of the Edras Faction compound on the side of the cliff. The arrow didn't create a hole in the stone at all but rather a small circle about a meter in diameter where it struck looked perfectly untouched. Around that circle and rapidly spreading throughout the rock of the cliff face, a web of cracks reached outwards in every direction like tendrils of destruction. As the cracks spread, the stone crumbled and a massive chunk of the cliff face was reduced to gravel and tumbled free.

Though only Peace had seen the inside of the compound, none of them stuck around to witness the aftermath. The instant the arrow had been released, Felix activated Adaline's enchantments which were much less impressive than Peace's arrow then stepped through their portal. Melody dragged Peace back through and they were gone. No one would know who had fired the first shot, which is exactly what they were hoping for.

Carefully lowering Peace to the ground, Melody pulled out her instrument and began strumming a tune and lightly humming easily the most beautiful thing Felix had ever heard.

Peace's face was covered in sweat and his body was literally vibrating though so Felix actually blocked out most of Melody's playing.

"You gonna be okay?"

Peace gasped for air and nodded.

"Can I get you anything? Is there anything that would help right now?"

Peace nodded and pointed at Melody then coughed up almost a liter of blood.

Despite the… cost, that was awesome.

Felix nodded and just waited in case there was anything he needed to do as his mind wandered back to the plan, his spells and his enchantments.

A few minutes passed of Peace coughing up more blood, Felix helping him keep it out of his throat and Melody playing when Peace finally gestured Felix's ear closer and hoarsely whispered, "Do you have any spare anima?"

Felix nodded, "Yes. How much do you need?"

Peace just nodded so Felix reached into his Soul Ring and compressed down about half of what he had in there into what looked like a small pill. He made sure the pill was as blank as he could make it then he placed his palm on Peace's chest and made the pill appear directly inside of him.

Felix heard a pained groaning followed by Peace vibrating to the point where he was almost seizing for a couple minutes. Then suddenly, he stopped and sprang to his feet looking even better than he had before firing the arrow.

"WoooooaaaAAAAHHH! I… feel awesome."

Melody looked at Felix with a bit of confusion for just an instant before turning back to Peace, "That's because that was awesome. Was that… The Arrow of the Weeping Soul? The Soul Shattering Shot?"

Peace nodded, "Yup."

She frowned, "I thought… No, I know Joledrin is finally dead. How do you… know it, let alone being able to use it at all."

"The perks of being a multiversal assassin I guess." Peace smirked but Melody was not impressed.

Her instrument vanished and she sighed before turning to Felix and ignoring Peace's chuckling, "Alright, I think it's time to rile things up."

Felix nodded and opened another portal, this time near the Archon Faction compound.

Stepping out onto a platform of Force Felix was channeling in midair, they all looked down in complete shock for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, Peace had placed Adaline's enchanted bombs all throughout both compounds and though the destruction wouldn't have been as impressive as Peace's arrow, they had been expecting some kind of effect. The mountain though, seemed completely untouched however.

Secondly, they had expected some kind of a counter attack and were hoping to use Melody's unique manipulation to increase the existing fear but something was wrong.

It should have taken Edras' Faction at least half an hour to mount any kind of resistance simply due to the distance between the two locations. They could use portals to move but they had to commit to going through the portal or not otherwise they might get separated and stranded. They would want to counter with something just as strong which meant some amount of preparation.

All that distance between the two compounds though, was completely gone. Looking down to the left, Felix saw the remains of the compound they had just attacked all of a kilometer away. To his right, the mountain compound of the Archon followers. In the middle, a perfectly straight line where the two areas had been joined together.

Unlike the cliff face separating two biomes though, looking down, Felix spotted multiple trees, rocks and even a river that had been cut cleanly in two.

They had wanted the fights to draw everyone away from their vaults, for the core of the fighting to happen in the middle of the two areas and they even had a plan to deal with any portal warfare. Now though, there was nowhere else for the fighting to happen than right here, just a few hundred meters from both of the vaults.

"Well, that changes things."

Peace did a flip and slapped aside a skill someone had targeted at them and Melody's face just contorted in confusion, "This is all so… weird. The System doesn't do things like this or… didn't. It never gets- got this involved."

Felix shook his head, "We don't have time to dissect things right now. If anything this makes your job a lot easier, right Melody?"

She sighed, "Yeah kind of. Everything will be in one place now which is great for affecting them all at once but there are some people I would have liked to avoid because they would recognize my… effect."

Felix rubbed his temple, "Your brothers."

"Yeah. Well, just Fyrden. Talrain is an oblivious idiot who's soul senses are some of the worst I have ever seen."

"Okay, what about this then. Instead of riling everyone up, you play something happy and playful."

Melody looked over her shoulder with a smile and a cocked brow of confusion, "You want me to just confuse people?"

"Mostly. You probably know all of the objects have a different curses associated with them, right?"

Melody nodded.

"A lot of them didn't really change anything other than being really confusing like making me want to fight a table or feel lust in a fight with a construct."

Melody's eyes went wide with excitement, "Now that, is a fantastic idea."

Felix actually pinched his nose and Melody's smile grew even wider, "The best part is, no one will question what I'm doing cause it's so me to just make things confusing and be a nuisance."

Peace nodded appreciatively, "It definitely fits with your whole 'just not' thing. You aren't helping either side and aren't really fighting but also not refusing to participate. It is aptly confusing."

"Exactly." She nodded quickly to Peace in excited agreement then turned to Felix, "I'm on it. Oh by the way, I'm going to need to borrow Erevos."

Felix just nodded and summoned the Sky Slicer then hopped out and let Melody take the driver's seat. She saluted in a joking manner then zipped down into the battle, giggling to herself the entire way.

Looks like she took the bait.

Grim sighed in his mind, You know that wasn't necessary. She would have done it anyways.

Yeah. Honestly, I just wanted to see if she would notice. I wonder if she knows this was my goal by mentioning the Lust cursed object.

Not sure. It's possible your new lattice layer is making you harder to read.

Felix cut the conversation there and turned to Peace to try and make it less obvious he was having a mental conversation. It didn't seem necessary though as Peace excitedly leapt around their platform slapping skills and spells around from both sides as neither of them knew which side they were on.

"We didn't really expect to have you so mobile right now. In terms of our plan, your job is done."

Peace nodded, "Sure but the plan has gone to shit now that the planet literally shrunk or something. What's the plan now?"

"I think we just embrace the chaos. Any chance you can disguise yourself?"

Peace snapped his fingers and in an instant, his everything changed to look completely different. Suddenly he was a young girl that looked about 10 years old. His face, body and clothes changing was impressive but what blew Felix away was the complete 180 his soul had taken. Felix hadn't felt much from Peace in general given how adept he was with his soul but now, he legitimately felt like a child to Felix.

"As impressive as that is, I don't think that's the disguise you should go with."

Peace shrugged and started skipping around the platform, "I'm open to suggestions."

"Have you heard of that participant that started the whole killing thing? The guy that crashed Ascension Day?"

Peace nodded, "Yes and yes I know who they actually are."

Felix sighed in relief, "Oh thank god."

Peace looked at him with confusion which was frankly adorable as a little girl, "Which one?"

"Figure of speech from my planet." Felix waved him off, "How well can you imitate them?"

He shrugged, "I can do some of the skills, not all of them. Soul skills are easy. Blood is impossible for me and only a few of the magic based ones."

Felix nodded, "I don't have an extra axe but I do have something else. It might be cursed and try to corrupt your soul though."

Peace shrugged as he snapped his fingers and morphed into the form of Felix's persona. Felix reached forwards and offered him Berrdoth's chain which Peace took and started wrapping around his shoulders and arms, "This is nothing. I was expecting something much worse considering your soul and all that."

Felix shrugged, "Yeah well, that's what I was told. You can handle this?"

Peace nodded, "Oh yeah. This is nothing."

"Alright. I know you don't kill people but… That's kind of Arthur's thing."

Peace shook his head solemnly, "Yeah, no. I'll attack and fight people and create as much chaos as possible but any killing is entirely up to you."

Felix nodded, "That's fine. I can work with that. Edras' first in case they try and move things somewhere more stable?"

Peace nodded then jumped off the platform towards Edras' compound.

Felix turned around and stepped back through his portal, activated his Persona and drew his axe then, opened a different portal. This one was a different color and shape that used a completely different spell just to throw people off.

Stepping through the portal, Felix stepped directly into the crumbling halls of Edras' compound.