Chapter 163: Purge the Flesh, Forge the Soul [2]
The legacy resting in his consciousness contained the precise solution to handle this chaos.
’...Hmm.’
As the specific details of the Sovereign Soul-Refining Scripture unfurled in his thoughts, a grim, blood-stained smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
This particular method was as brutal as it was peculiar, relying on an equally ruthless philosophy. Known as the Imperial Forge, it was built entirely on a foundation of extreme adversarial cultivation that explicitly required external spiritual pressure, mental trauma, or intense pain to advance.
Furthermore, instead of seeking inner tranquility, the technique demanded that the practitioner utilize hostile forces as an active anvil to temper the consciousness, fusing scattered mental energy into a hardened, unified state. Under this harsh training, greater external pressure merely provided a heavier hammer, forcing the soul to compress and evolve at an accelerated pace.
However, while the logic behind the Imperial Forge sounded simple, the actual execution was fraught with extreme danger. A single mistake, even a momentary slip, could cause a permanent cognitive collapse, fracturing his consciousness into irreparable pieces.
To make matters worse, Soren had yet to truly comprehend the technique. The Sovereign Soul-Refining Scripture had been dumped into his mind not long ago as part of the returns, leaving him with a massive reservoir of theoretical knowledge but absolutely zero practical experience.
He possessed the raw information, but his mind had never actually navigated the delicate pathways required to channel a mental assault into a forging hammer. He was essentially trying to perform complex psychic surgery on his own soul while blind and under heavy fire.
Taking a quick, deep breath to steady his racing pulse, Soren steeled his resolve. He couldn’t afford to hesitate. With a final surge of willpower, he deliberately dropped his instinctive mental defenses and threw his awareness directly into the path of the next oncoming psychic shockwave.
The impact was instantaneous and devastating.
Without his instinctive mental defenses to cushion the blow, the psychic shockwave slammed directly into his bare consciousness with the force of a falling mountain.
A silent, agonizing scream caught in Soren’s throat as his vision went entirely white.
The theoretical knowledge from the scripture flooded his mind, dictating exactly how he was supposed to catch the impact, redirect the trauma along his spiritual pathways, and use it to compress his scattered focus. But knowing the theory did nothing to prepare his mind for the sheer kinetic violence of the execution.
He missed the initial synchronization by a fraction of a millisecond.
Instead of smoothly channeling the shockwave into his internal anvil, the hostile energy veered off-course, tearing through his unrefined mental pathways like jagged shrapnel. A sickening, phantom crack resonated inside his skull. His mindscape trembled violently on the precipice of total collapse, and a fresh torrent of blood spilled from his nose, painting his jaw crimson.
The mistake nearly cost him his sanity, but his stubborn will clamped down at the last second, forcefully anchoring the core of his consciousness just as it began to splinter.
’A..ga..in!’ he snarled internally, refusing to retreat.
He had no time to nurse his injuries or lament his lack of preparation. The curse was already gathering force for the next strike. Forcing himself to ignore the blinding agony, he locked down his focus and adjusted his internal alignment based on the failure of his first attempt.
As the next psychic hammer blow fell, Soren bared his teeth and forced his fractured mindscape to meet it head-on.
The second impact hit like a concussive blast, but this time, he was waiting for it.
He didn’t try to block or cushion the incoming trauma. Instead, relying on the data from his previous failure, he precisely aligned his internal pathways with the malicious force’s trajectory. The moment the psychic strike breached his mindscape, he triggered the synchronization.
Clang.
An illusory, deafening ring echoed through his consciousness. The sensation was excruciating, far worse than merely enduring the pain, as the technique forced his bare soul to absorb the sheer kinetic weight of the blow.
However, instead of tearing his mental pathways apart, the downward pressure was successfully redirected. The hostile energy slammed directly into his splintered awareness, pinning his chaotic thoughts against the bedrock of his mindscape and forcefully compressing them.
For a split second, the roaring mental chaos in his head dimmed, replaced by a dense, heavy stillness. The hammer blow had successfully fused a fraction of his scattered awareness into a hardened, unified state.
It worked.
But the process was far from over. The curse seemed to sense that its power was being repurposed, and the chaotic haze within his head churned violently in response. The psychic pressure rapidly built up once more, preparing to unleash a rapid succession of frantic, disorganized strikes to shatter his makeshift anvil before he could truly stabilize his mind.
Soren spat a mouthful of blood, his vision swimming with dark spots, but his blood-stained smile only widened. Now that he understood the rhythm of the forge, he didn’t give the curse the chance to retreat. He tightened his grip on the scripture’s pathways and bared his soul to catch the oncoming barrage.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The rapid-fire strikes rained down on his consciousness in a frantic, chaotic rhythm. Each agonizing impact sent a shockwave of burning friction through his mindscape, threatening to crack the very foundation he was trying to build, forcing him to adapt to the fluctuating tempos on the fly. He bared his teeth against the onslaught, feeling the agonizing friction of the transformation drag through his thoughts like molten glass.
Maintaining that grip, however, was an absolute nightmare.
Twice, the synchronization slipped as the curse shifted speeds, and the resulting backlash sent blinding white spikes of pain through his eyes, forcing more blood past his gritted teeth. Each failure threatened to shatter his mind completely, but he dragged his slipping focus back by sheer force of will. With every hammer blow that he successfully managed to catch and route toward his internal anvil, the chaotic interference anchoring his thoughts was beaten down a fraction of an inch further.
It was a brutal war of attrition inside his own skull.
Eventually, the scattered fragments of his focus compressed closer together, slowly forming a core of stillness amidst the raging storm. The massive weight of the noise still remained inside his head, but through sheer grit, he forced a tiny pocket of clarity into existence and snapped his eyes open.
’Ethea.’
