"It grew back, not only that, but it's even thicker now." Reign said as he stared at the thread that connected the soul and the core.
'Hmmm, this is interesting, potentially a bit troubling as well.' Aethion stated as he stared at the thread that had once again connected itself with the soul of the leader.
'So, I can't just cut it?' Reign asked Aethion who started thinking a bit. The thread was severed, but only for a brief moment before it reconnected itself to the soul. Reign and he both knew that this was a sort of countermeasure that the core had in place in order not to allow anyone to sever the connection between the soul and the core.
Reign stared at it once again, interested and intrigued by what was happening. He never expected that it would take him a lot of effort to actually take over the base. He knew that the soul was connected to it, and thought that it would merely take a little bit for him to overpower the connection the soul had with the base before taking it over.
Still, Reign flashed a smile before trying again, this time, however, he wasn't going to cut the thread away, but to rip it in half.
Approximately half an hour later, Reign was panting a bit as he had already tried multiple different methods of destroying the thread. All the methods worked, but the outcome was the same, right after being destroyed, the thread would reconnect with the soul, each time being even thicker and stronger.
"Where is this power even coming from, how can it just regenerate the thread so easily each time it gets destroyed?" Reign asked as he stared at the thread that had once again regenerated itself and connected to the soul.
"What if I put the sword in the back of my body, would that help?" Wolf asked Reign who shook his head.
"Nah, the connection would still be there, and it could easily reconnect again, the inventory, and the mark on our bodies where the items can go are not completely cut off from the rest of this dimension, so such a connection will continue existing," Aethion said as the two stared at the thread without any good options as to how they could deal with it.
"Hmmm, perhaps have Wolf try to do something." Aethion suddenly said as Reign glanced at Wolf before nodding.
'He is the one that has control over the sword, could be worth giving it a shot.' Reign said before calling Wolf over. Wolf arrived with his sword, interested in what Reign was planning on doing now.
"Since you are the one that has the swords, and the soul is inside of it, I think there might be a chance to get the core to form a connection with you, or perhaps at least we can try to destroy the connection with the help of the chaos energy inside the sword." Reign said as Wolf nodded in agreement before the two neared the core.
"Instead of cutting the thread away, we're gonna do something much, much different." Reign said with a smile on his face while Wolf gulped upon noticing it.
"Let's just go at the core." Reign said to Wolf who looked at the giant ball of light in wonder.
"The core, are you sure, what if we damage it or destroy it, won't it all be for naught?" Wolf asked Reign who shook his head dejectedly.
"I got no idea, but to be honest, I see no other option right now, we either take this place over, or we destroy it, I don't want to keep it here in the future and risk that guy gaining some strength back and doing something to this base after all." Reign said before pointing at Wolf's sword.
"So, use that to stab inside the core, if we're any lucky, then there is a chance that it will be enough to cause damage to the core and disrupt the regeneration of the thread." Reign said as Wolf nodded before taking the sword and nearing the core.
"Hey, what gives, what are you guys doing?!" The soul suddenly asked in a panicked manner.
"Yo, don't do that, why would you stab it there, you moron, stop it, stop it!" The soul shouted at Wolf who smiled at it, fully confident that Reign's theory over how the chaos energy could potentially disrupt the core and its regeneration was true.
He lifted his sword up high before stabbing it down at the core, easily passing through the entirety of the core.
"Hmmm, it's not physical," Wolf said as he couldn't sense even the slightest resistance coming from the ball of light.
"Well, of course, it mana, well, to be more specific, its mana, soul power, and spatial energy at once," Reign said from the side before nodding at Wolf who let go of the sword and got a bit further away.
"The three form an equilibrium of sorts, so if one was to put another kind of power there, especially one that was highly volatile and uncontrollable, it would be incredibly difficult for the core to continue operating as normal." Reign said before small red sparks started appearing around Wolf's swords before the ball of light and everything nearby started changing.
It was just like Reign had said, the ball of light was actually just energy, and while it was a part of the core, it was not the entire core of the base.
"The reason why it would constantly continue regenerating the thread even after I had destroyed it so many times was probably that I never managed to sever it from the true source." Reign stated before looking around himself.
"But from what I can tell, it seems that this entire area we are in is the core, this whole control room is actually the core of the entire base, masked perfectly so that everybody would think it was the ball of light that was the core alone."
"So, does that mean the sword won't be enough to allow you to take it over?" Wolf asked Reign who shook his head with a smile on his face.
"Nah, it'll be enough, even though it's not the entirety of the core, it's quite an important part of the core, which means that disrupting it will work to our advantage." Reign said as he could see how the ball of light was starting to change shape. The chaotic energy from inside the sword started tainting the ball of light and making it lose control.
The only thing that Reign was currently wary of was the soul inside the sword. The chaos energy that was coming out from the sword was doing wonders to disrupt the ball of light, but with the soul being closer to the core like this, it might regain some of its memories or even powers.
If the soul was to regain enough, it could potentially even ban their entry, which would be incredibly bad for them.
Reign was ready, however.
He never did things without a backup plan ready, and if the soul truly was to go against them, even though it would pain him to do so, he would destroy the sword and the soul together.
Destroying such a powerful and valuable weapon was not something that Reign would easily do, but without anyone present inside the base right now, Reign knew that killing the soul would allow him to take over the base, not to mention that nobody could stop him after he did so.
It was, of course, just a backup plan and he didn't plan on doing it, at least not in the near future. For now, he simply hoped that the disruption that the chaos energy was doing would be enough to prevent the soul from doing anything that would be negative for them.
And slowly, Reign was certain he was right. The thread that connected the core and the soul actually became thinner compared to before and it was slowly thinning out even more. Reign smiled as he saw that, eager to completely destroy the connection and take over the base.
He didn't know why, but he had a feeling that his base was hiding something much more important than what the organization had ever known about. It was a weird sensation that he got after staring at what was around the base from the inside. He had no idea what it might be, but he was eager to find out.
After more time passed, the connection between the soul and the core was becoming weaker and weaker, until Reign finally decided on cutting the thread and positioning himself between the core and the soul. With the chaos energy still present, the thread had a hard time reconnecting itself as the chaos energy was making it very difficult to regenerate.
Reign stood before using his soul manipulation to its fullest in this state. He started trying to get the core to form a connection with him, not the leader.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel