Marcus, upon feeling something trying to attach itself to his soul, went wide eyed in shock.
Never had he thought that this type of attack would come at him while he was in the middle of enjoying a relaxing time at a resort.
Nevertheless, while he braced for the worst, the forging object did not cause him any damage or distress and just attached itself to him.
'What in the world is it doing?'
Focusing on the thing that had attached himself to his soul he tried to find out what it was affecting and found that it had managed to link up with him and was able to record whatever he saw or heard.
Frankly Marcus was baffled by whatever this thing was.
It felt sort of like a fragment of a soul but was completely hollow.
All it did was link up with him to save whatever he saw or heard.
'Hm, it seems that it should be able to transmit this information somewhere as well. I do not know who or how they made this thing, but they are going to regret using it on me.' Marcus thought with a furious expression on his face.
He then activated his Soul Devour unique skill for the first time in a long while and consumed what he had dubbed the pseudo soul fragment.
In an instant it was absorbed completely into him, and its function was completely destroyed.
Fortunately, it was hollow and had no sort of emotions or memories that could affect Marcus and he simply just gained a slight boost in his spiritual energy for a moment.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt'Looks like I cannot use it to find the source once I have devoured it. Still, this begs the question. Was I targeted specifically by someone or is everyone on the island being indiscriminately infected with what is essentially a surveillance device that attaches itself directly to the soul.' Marcus thought as he looked towards Mrazivý.
When he did, he could see that she had fixed a concerned look at him. Obviously having noticed the sudden change in his demeanor.
"Marcus are you alright?" Mrazivý asked him in concern.
However, hearing that she was not in any distress like he was, Marcus could gather that either she had not been infected, or that she had not noticed it.
"Yes, I am fine. I just remembered something unpleasant for a moment." Marcus said putting on a fake bright smile.
He then immediately connected Mrazivý with telepathy and told her what was going on.
'Mraz, there was something in the drink I just had. It managed to latch itself onto my soul and was able to gather auditory and visual information from me. You do not need to worry about me as I have already destroyed it. But it is possible that you have been infected as well. We need to head to our room, and I can examine your soul in private there.'
For a moment Mrazivý's face twitched, showing her distress. But as a princess she had been trained to be able to mask her emotions and quickly she had a plastered-on smile on her face as well.
Swiftly but not so fast that they might garner attention they headed back to their room.
The second the door was closed behind them Marcus rushed Mrazivý over to the room and had her sit down on the bed.
'Okay I am going to possess you for a bit. I need to be able to interact with your soul without resistance if I am to find and remove this ting from you should you also have been infected with it.' Marcus said to Mrazivý with his telepathy.
'I understand. It has been a long time since we have done this, but it seems all that practice that went to waste during the tournament will finally have a use.' Mrazivý said, doing her best to hide her worry.
Going into his ghost form Marcus entered Mrazivý's body and took her over without any resistance.
In fact, this was the easiest that he had ever taken anyone over.
The bond between them allowed Mrazivý to trust Marcus completely with her body and soul and she did not fight him at all.
Slowly Marcus spread his senses out and delicately examined Mrazivý's soul.
He had never really done this with anyone else and it was an experience that was quite difficult.
Normally when interacting with another's soul he had been in the middle of battle or about to destroy his opponent and was not used to needing a soft touch. He would simply start crushing them or rip their soul straight out.
'It is hidden fairly well. I only found the one that infected me because my entire form is my soul. For anyone that is flesh and blood the soul is a more unconscious thing inside of them. Truly someone has made what could almost be considered the perfect undetectable surveillance device.' Marcus thought as he searched for the pseudo soul.
At first, he was not sure if one had entered Mrazivý and he was ready to believe it was a specific attack against him, but eventually he did manage to find the same anomaly.
It was hidden deep within her soul and difficult to get at without harming her.
Still Marcus was not just going to leave such a thing inside his wife and grabbed ahold of it.
At the same time, he used his spirit healing specter power and ripped off the pseudo soul fragment.
This caused what could be considered an abrasion to Mrazivý's soul which would not have fixed itself on its own, but Marcus' spirit healing soon had her recovered.
With the pseudo soul fragment captured Marcus exited Mrazivý's body.
"You know that really hurt." She said the moment Marcus reappeared.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmYet despite her protests she gave him a very thankful smile.
"Now that it is no longer attached to your soul you should be able to see it." Marcus said, holding up his right hand that was still ethereal so as to grip the pseudo soul fragment.
To Mrazivý it honestly looked like he was missing his hand, but when she channeled some spiritual energy into her eyes his hand along with the pseudo soul fragment became visible again.
"Yeah, I can see it now. So that thing had attached itself to my soul. And you said that it was some sort of surveillance device?"
Nodding his head Marcus explained everything that he had figured out by examining the thing when one was still attached to his soul.
"I am pretty sure that only a spiritual being or someone that is really sensitive to outside influence would notice it. I mean the thing is hollow and not trying to cause any harm so it would be difficult to notice. Its only function as far as I can tell is to store information and then transmit it at constant intervals. I suppose it is similar to someone installing spyware on a computer." Marcus said.
However, Mrazivý did not understand what the last thing he said meant and he had to give her a quick explanation of computers and viruses.
"I see that does seem to be fairly similar. So, can you track it. If it is like those computer viruses you told me about, you should be able to follow the signal back to its source, right?" Mrazivý asked.
Naturally she wanted to pay back whoever had infected them.
"I might be able to, but I think that it would be a bad idea. Whatever made this is likely very powerful. They are likely beyond us right now." Marcus said trying to get Mrazivý to understand the gravity of the situation.
"That might be true, but we cannot just leave this alone. Presumably every guest that has ever coem here has been infected by that thing. This could be leading up into a plot that could put the entire world in danger. I think we should investigate at least a little and once we have more information, we can call Boreas and get his help." Mrazivý suggested, not willing to give up.
"Fine. But you should get far away from here before I try to follow the signal. If I get attacked immediately afterwards, I might be able to use a dark portal to escape, or at the very least I have my revival skill to bail me out."
Grumbling, Mrazivý tried to argue why she should stay as well, but Marcus insisted that she be somewhere else in case a threat they could not handle appeared.
"Okay, but I will not go too far. I want to be close enough to help." Mrazivý said firmly.
Giving in, Marcus allowed her to wait in the common area within the building and come to his aid if it seemed like they could take the opponent on together.
'Now can I even activate this thing to make it start transmitting.' Marcus thought as he sent some of his spiritual energy into the pseudo soul fragment