"You know what they are?" Reign asked curiously as he stabbed his sword through the prince's chest before using his powers to stop his soul from leaving.
Reign couldn't capture the Prince's soul, but he could very much trap it and not allow it to get away.
As for Aethion's words, Reign felt the solemness in his voice. It was clear that Aethion was worried about whatever it was that he had found out.
With the soul of the prince being forced to stay in its dead body, Reign and Aethion could finally talk.
"What are they?" Reign asked as Aethion sighed deeply
"Inhabitants of the Abyss"
"The Abyss, isn't that the power that Tank had gained during his evolution?" Reign asked in confusion as Aethion nodded at him.
"Yes, Tank had managed to gain the power of the abyss back then, but that was merely a small wisp that had combined with his skill in order to form a new, more powerful one," Aethion said before sighing again.
"I should have figured it out earlier, the mist, the traveling between layers of the world, it's something those bastards love doing."
Aethion spoke in disgust as he clearly held no positive thoughts toward the inhabitants of the abyss.
"It's only now that everything clicked, mostly thanks to the souls of these bastards, and well, the lack of some."
"Beings that come from the abyss are different from all the others."
"They can come in all shapes and sizes and one would have a hard time when it came to identifying an abyss creature."
"There are those amongst them that enjoyed watching other beings from another layer, they have special abilities that allow them to not only move across layers but to also observe the beings in other layers without ever being there."
"They spectate the entire life of a being, never doing anything to interfere in it, but never being caught doing so."
"They sometimes even enjoy tormenting others, they will pop in and out of layers and leave traces of being there, sometimes you might look in the mirror and think that you saw something there, sometimes you think you managed to spot something in the corner of your eyes, whilst at other times, you could swear up and down that some 'thing' appeared in front of you for a moment."
"But then, there are rare cases where such a being decides that doing all of that is not enough, they decide that they wish to do more, instead of simply observing from a different layer, they decide to go out and appear in this layer where most beings can be found."
"They assume the looks of any creature they were previously observing, and simply start living amongst them."
"Plenty of times, they are harmless, simply wishing to live like this and mingle amongst others."
"But sometimes, their ambition grows, sometimes they get children, and the children can inherit their powers, but not always."
"It seems the enemy is one of them, a being that decided to join humanity a while ago on this planet, and then had their ambition grow, it wasn't enough to simply observe no more, they had to do something."
"It seems war is what they wished for this time." Aethion paced left and right inside the space he was in, constantly thinking of something.
"The creatures of the Abyss are different than any others, their very souls are connected to the Abyss, and taking the soul of a creature like that is many times harder than any other."
"You can forget about taking the soul of our 'prince', we need to destroy it, we don't know if the enemy can do the same as the demons and bring the souls of their fallen back to them."
Reign nodded at Aethion's words before focusing and using his powers once again.
Even destroying the soul of the prince proved to be a difficult task as the slippery opponent dodged left and right and did not allow itself to be hit with Reign's powers, and when it did, there seemed to be quite a powerful defense it possessed and wouldn't cry out in pain as other beings whose souls Reign has destroyed so far.
"Even if you were to have caught its soul before, I doubt we would have been successful in pulling it out of the body, it's quite a powerful one after all."
Destroying a soul was not an easy thing to do, and Reign had already started sweating because of it.
Even back when he had faced opponents that were as powerful as he was, he had never been forced to use so much power when dealing with their souls.
But this enemy was different, the power of its soul was many times higher compared to those Reign had fought against previously, and dealing with it was many times more difficult.
It took Reign a full 5 minutes to finally start dealing damage to the soul, but there was still a long way to go in order to completely get rid of it.
"How is his soul so powerful?!" Reign asked out loud as he continued attacking the soul and was starting to make the enemy cry out in pain.
"It's because this one knows how to use its soul, and not just use it in primitive ways like the demons who can switch their bodies and take over others, their methods are not bad, but compared to those that know what they're doing, they're nothing special either, merely using the powers that they had been given at birth to freely move their souls between bodies."
"It's actually quite a high-level technique when learned and used properly, as one can enter and take over the body of a different being without the latter ever being aware of it."
"These guys mainly use the power of their souls in order to move between layers, to do something like that is no easy feat and they need to actually gain a high level of understanding the soul before leaving the abyss and being able to do that."
"This guy has definitely never been in the Abyss, thanks to him talking with the other two, we know that the queen is one of them as well, perhaps she is the mastermind for all that has happened here."
"If that is so, then it is she that has taught the prince about the soul, and created those two that you said had no souls."
'How were they able to even exist without a soul though?' Reing asked Aethion whilst focusing on the prince and taking care of its soul.
"They're puppets, puppets that were made out of flesh and blood and then molded to by their creator."
"They at first glance have free will and can function as normal, but that is only so on the outside."
"The more time one was to spend with such a 'puppet', the more irregularities one would find."
"They do not sleep, they have no need for it."
"Food is simply something they have to take in order to keep their bodies at the optimal condition, water as well, but they have no enjoyment out of doing so."
"Their whole being exists only to serve the one that has created them, nothing more, nothing less."
"Their behavior would start making no sense after a while, they would start repeating certain things and wouldn't be able to remember what had happened after a certain time period as well, as all the information that was inside their head was something planted inside of them by the one that had created them."
"I have no idea how strong the queen is, or how strong the rest of the puppets are, but they're nothing to scoff at."
"They have no fear, no ambition, they're the perfect soldiers that will fulfill their duty till their final breath."
"And next to that, they still have some intelligence left, which allows them to know what to do in certain situations and what the best action is."
"We have met quite a formidable opponent this time, boy."
'Yeah, I know.' Reign said as he finally managed to get a grasp of the prince's soul. He had destroyed about three-fourths of the soul, and could even take it out if he wished to, but there was no need to do something like that.
"Just get rid of it, and then destroy this slab of stone, you should be able to get back to the main layer this way."
"Alright." Reign nodded at Aethion's words before taking out his swords and attacking the slab.
Destroying the stone slab was a bit more difficult than he imagined, and he even needed to use some of the mana he had left in order to fully destroy it.
But after he did so, the scenery suddenly changed.
Reign couldn't explain it, but he felt as if something washed over him as he was transported back to the normal layer.
"You were able to get out, good." A voice suddenly said as Reign turned around to look at the person that had helped him out this time.
"You?"
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