Is this really a Game?!



Liara stared at Reign before suddenly sensing something

"Don't move." Reign suddenly said weakly, his eyes still closed.

"Just, don't move, please, any movement, especially further away from me, can result in the connection with the soul growing weaker." Reign said, using what little concentration he could to will his body to actually say the words out loud before fully focusing on what was going on inside the vortex.

Reign wouldn't have even noticed that Liara had regained control of her body if not for Aethion who notified him, which allowed him to quickly speak to her.

Liara asked Reign what was going on, but there was no response. She could feel that something was not quite the same with her, there was a sort of discomfort, and since she knew that Reign was in her soul, she quickly realized it was because of that.

'What is going on, shouldn't he have made the barrier quickly, how did I lose control again?' Liara thought before looking at Reign's face. She could see the sweat that had appeared on his body, which made her realize that whatever was going on, was not good.

'Dammit, I feel so useless right now, it's my body, my soul, and yet, I can't do a thing but rely on someone else, I have to let him risk his own life just to help me out.' Liara sighed before suddenly placing her hands around Reign's neck and hugging him deeply, causing his face to be buried in her chest.

'Thank you, I hope you don't get hurt.' Liara thought something she was unable to say and simply stayed in the same position, making as much contact with Reign's body as she knew that keeping contact would help out.

Of course, she did need to make sure he didn't suffocate as well.

Inside her soul, inside the vortex, the gray smudge was still taking Reign's soul fragment deeper inside the darkness. Even after several minutes had passed, they hadn't arrived at their location, and Reign had no idea where they were going, or what was going on.

The voices didn't stop talking, however.

"To us, come to us."

"Help, a savior, help us."

"We have waited, waited for so long."

"The darkness shrouds us, we have been so patient for so long."

"Help us, help us…"

The voices didn't stop, and Reign had no idea just how many of them there were. He could hear more and more voices each passing second, and he had to admit that it was becoming more and more annoying as time passed as he was unable to hear his own thoughts because the voices were speaking directly to his soul.

Just as Reign was losing his nerves from the constant noise, he suddenly saw something in the darkness.

A light, a very pale, weak light, but he was able to see light.

In this all-encompassing darkness that allowed for nothing else to exist, there was actually light.

'So much darkness, and then some light, is this connected to the Nephilim?' Reing asked himself, to which Aethion scoffed.

"I doubt it, just because there is light and darkness doesn't necessarily mean that Nephilims are involved, boy."

'But still, most of the vortex is darkness, and there is little light, I thought … I thought that maybe this has something to do with a Nephilim that has fallen, someone that was devoured by his own darkness?'

"Usually, they do not get 'devoured', but taken over, their darkness manages to take control, causing the Nephilim to go berserk and only wish for destruction." Jared suddenly said.

"In such instances, the Nephilim becomes the embodiment of destruction, his strength rising higher each second as the darkness inside him slowly starts eroding his body, as well as his soul."

"I have never heard of something being left by a Nephilim after his death, usually, the darkness will simply destroy everything before dissipating, the same was true if the Nephilim was defeated by someone, the darkness would deem him unworthy and would scatter."

"This, although definitely familiar with how it exists, probably has nothing to do with a Nephilim, you can rest assured about it, master." 

Jared was the expert when it came to Nephilims, his database had a lot of information, most of which he was unable to tell Reign as he had not reached a high enough level. From what Reign already knew, the civilization that had created Jared hated the ancestor of the Nephilims, Raziel, and yet, they had programmed the bases they left to recognize Nephilims and help them out, placing all their remaining hopes on the person they hated in the very end.

Reign was very intrigued by that and wished to know just what had happened in the past, but Jared would not budge, even though Jared had recognized him as his master, he still had orders, and he was to never give more information than what was deemed appropriate for Reign's level of power.

More would simply confuse the young man and might even end up as an obstacle to becoming more powerful, and that was the last thing Jared wished to see. He had waited for eons to finally find somebody, and after finally gaining a master, he didn't wish to see him fail.

As Reign's soul fragment got closer and closer to the light, he could see that it was actually a sort of barrier that was keeping the darkness away from hundreds of souls that were inside.

Finally arriving inside the barrier, the gray smudge became pure white before going out into the darkness again. Its white body started turning gray the moment it left the barrier and became gray again.

"Finally, a visitor."

"A savior, he is a savior."

"We do not know that yet."

"Correct, his strength, not enough, not enough to give us freedom."

"Patience, he can become stronger, we have waited long, what is waiting some more?"

"Our power, weaker, the darkness, eating away at us."

"We don't know how long we can wait."

"Please, help us, please."

The souls all gathered around Reign, each of them talking, causing Reign to barely understand some of them.

"Silence!" A loud shout suddenly was heard, making all the souls stop talking and make way for another soul to pass and arrive in front of Reign.

The souls that were inside the barrier of light were small, compared to the soul fragment that Reign had placed, they were larger, but when compared to a normal soul, they were only about 20 – 30% as big.

The one that appeared in front of Reign, however, was almost fully complete.

"A visitor has finally appeared, welcome." The large soul said as it suddenly moved deeper inside the barrier."

"Please, follow me, I see you are confused I shall explain everything."

Reign followed the large soul and went deeper inside the barrier. Thanks to the fact that everything around them was just light and that the darkness was around it, it was hard to guess how large the area that was covered by the barrier of light was, so Reign had no idea how much ground they covered before finally arriving at what seemed to be the center of the barrier.

It was easy to guess it was the center thanks to the pillar of light that was keeping the entire barrier working.

"You have come here because of this, correct?" The soul asked Reign before looking at the pillar. 

Reign was confused at first, but when he looked closer inside the pillar, he was shocked to find that he was able to see, as well as sense, Lieara's soul in it.

"I can sense her soul from outside the barrier, apologies, we have done our best to draw the fragments in, not realizing that somebody was guarding them, we are all relieved to see that we managed to defend this fragment you have sent to explore from the nothingness." The soul said as it seemingly bowed.

"It's alright, but, how are fragments of her soul here, that's impossible, I took them all after defeating the demon."

"These have been here from the very beginning, even before we were placed in this prison, as to how long ago, I have to apologize as I do not know the exact time, too much of it has passed outside, millions of years perhaps."

"What?" Reign's eyes opened wide, as did Aethion's.

Lieara's soul fragments had been gathered by Reign mere months ago, for these to have been inside this place for so long was … it was impossible.

"It is the truth, the fragments of her majesty have been scattered around the universe, we have no idea how many they are, the only thing we were able to do was to use the little power we had and go from fragment to fragment, taking them and integrating them in the pillar, but it is not enough, much time has passed, the fragments are losing power, without fuel, without souls, we can not keep the darkness out."

"The souls from before were a valuable source of fuel that allowed us to try and get the fragments one more time, but you have come here instead, and whether that is a good thing or not, I am yet to fully understand."