Spirit Soul

Kyle knew that the Krysal stage soul would be much more powerful than a Vitae stage soul.

But the difference in the energies of the two was huge.

As such, he was frozen on the spot and unable to move.

He could do nothing as his body was seemingly torn apart from the inside.

Unsure of what to do, Kyle felt helpless for a moment.

In the end, he had to change his plan from vitalizing Felix to strengthening himself.

He chose to nurture his Spirit Soul, Arashi, whose azure-colored path he satiated in the blink of an eye.

This took less than a tenth of soul particles that had been released into Kyle's body.

But, it partially released him from the toll his body had taken.

This caused Kyle to satiate the remaining paths to the brim too.

Unbeknownst to him, he had even satiated a brand new path that had just emerged for Arashi.

It changed something extremely important, yet seemingly simple about the Spirit soul- the ability to absorb energy from within Kyle's body!

If Kyle wouldn't have been in this situation, his excitement would be unfathomable.

But unfortunately, the current conditions didn't allow him to feel anything other than the sudden decrease of lots of energy!

It was when he was free of the pain he felt from his organs that seemed to start rupturing, that he sagged with relief.

Kyle couldn't help but feel burdened by his own stupidity and smacked his forehead.

What on earth had made him think that it was a good idea to devour the soul of a being at the Krysal stage, while not even having reached the low Fortification stage himself!!

And all of this to rescue someone, who was supposed to help them…even if Kyle was not sure if he could trust him.

Kyle was in no condition to focus on anything that happened in his surroundings.

Neither he had any clue of what Arashi felt, or what he had achieved with the satiation of the azure-colored path.

All he could feel right now was Selene's hand around his.

When he sensed this, he could also perceive the hues he was able to nurture.

It took him a lot of effort to just turn his head that was throbbing in pain.

Despite that, he smiled at him only to say,

"Accept the darkne--...!"

The words had not even left his mouth when suddenly the heavy armored earthworms erupted with their energy.

This created faint shockwaves that blasted over the unprotected Lohars.

All of the crowd went hysterical as panic overtook common sense.

But fortunately, before a stampede could occur, Johana shouted at them.

It was only when she ordered them to follow her, did they start moving again.

Their instincts were telling them to protect the noble in front of them.

But, Selene's words had been to focus on survival.

Thus, they chose the logical option and followed her outside the settlement.

They could see the outskirts of the forest which was their ticket to safety.

Johana was sure that the earthworms wouldn't follow them there.

The forest was filled with gigantic trees and their thick roots had embedded themselves deeply into the lower layers of soil.

Their roots were 100 meters deep in the ground and would obstruct them heavily.

Furthermore, the territory they were about to enter was that of a Krysal stage beast.

Even the earthworms wouldn't dare offend the beast by trespassing its territory.

Given the two factors, Johana hoped that they could flee.

While the three thousand Lohars and Johana were fleeing, Gaby had arrived in front of Kyle, and Felix. He could barely move only to see that something about Kyle was seriously off.

Just at that moment, the energy surging within Kyle began to recede. Selene cried out in pain as a black mist was released from her body that clung to her.

This mist enveloped Selene's body, as she was slowly turning black.

But barely seconds later, the darkness mist instinctively returned to Selene's body.

After utilizing a large amount of soul particles inside his body, Kyle's muscles relaxed.

Now he was able to feel everything within him slowly calming down, only to feel the aftermath.

It was painful, but at the same time, he knew that he was not seriously injured.

As such, after he could finally move, Kyle was satisfied with himself.

As such, he continued to use the soul particles that were gradually released into his body.

Slowly, these were converted into energy for his Nurture ability.

Vitalising himself, with one hand touching his chest, he let go of Selene's hand.

When he touched her, she stiffened for a moment.

The energy she had received through her darkness affinity seed had been nurtured and forcefully released.

With his now free hand, he forced his way to Felix.

But the change in his demeanor made Felix step back a little.

Felix's eyes stared straight into Kyle's cold eyes that glowed brightly.

He attempted to draw his hand back, but Kyle managed to grab it.

The moment Kyle touched Felix, he too stiffened like Selene.

What followed later was a soothing sensation that swept over him.

It even increased to the extent to which he could use his own affinity to heal himself.

Using the remaining soul particles to empower the Nurture ability, Kyle tended to his own injuries and that of Felix.

The young prodigy had stopped bleeding which was a good sign. Only in a few seconds, the entire energy the Nurture ability had was used up.

'If I knew that it would take that long, I wouldn't have done something so stupid.' Kyle lamented but what was done was done.

Grumbling to himself, he turned around to see that everyone except himself, Selene, Gaby and Felix had disappeared.

There were only a few Nasga left behind alongwith the heavy armored earthworms that kept uprooting the huts.

Meanwhile, the entire crowd of 3000 Lohars could be seen at the outskirts of the settlement.

It had successfully escaped the dangers and was about to enter the forest.

With a shaky yet relieved breath, Kyle jumped up.

He grasped Selene's hand once again which was ice-cold.

Kyle shot her a worried glance and she returned a weak smile.

Selene wanted to reassure him that she was fine but Kyle knew that she wasn't.

He had made a huge mistake by devouring the Krysal stage soul.

It had caused him insufferable pain and turned him immobile for a while.

But now he realized that a threat looming over them was caused due to his pity.

He had helped someone who could become a potential threat later.

As such, Kyle had learned a lesson, which made him feel a little bit ridiculous, considering his soul's age.

Now, he knew that he should be more careful before acting like a savior.

Instead, he should think about the consequences of every single decision before making a move.

Never in his life had Kyle felt so happy about being proven wrong.

The worry about Felix being a potential threat dispersed the moment he profusely thanked Kyle for saving his life.

Even if he didn't know what exactly Kyle had done, he had felt vigor seeping into him when Kyle had touched him.

This allowed Kyle to feel a little bit less worried.

After healing him, Kyle pulled Selene as the four of them rushed after the crowd of Lohars.

The sounds of cries and destruction behind them were unsettling, to say the least.

But, Kyle didn't even spare a single glance backward.

Only now was he feeling the aftereffects of devouring a powerful soul.

It felt as if his entire body had been overexerted just to get a sudden energy boost.

This boost was slowly wearing off making him feel exhausted again.

In the end, this was not what he had planned while invigorating himself.

The entire empowered Nurture ability was utilized to heal the internal injuries.

These were caused by the overflowing soul particles that had released ripples of torment energy.

Nevertheless, Kyle simply ran, dragging along Selene, who looked pale and blank.

Meanwhile, Felix was feeling much better than before.

Kyle's short boost of energy enabled him to heal himself with his own affinity.

Thus, he managed to stop the bleeding of all wounds, while his adrenaline prevented him from feeling any pain.

This would change in no time, and Felix was fully aware of this.

However, they were far from safety and he couldn't waste time focussing on healing himself.

Doing so would only slow down his pace.

Thus, he adjusted it to the rest of his group which gave him the opportunity to avert most of his concentration on his affinity.

Weirdly enough, escaping the heavy armored earthworms was easier than Kyle and the others had assumed.

As they were running towards the forest, Selene flinched suddenly.

Shaking her arms, she freed herself from Kyle's grip.

Instinctively, she placed them on her ears that began to bleed all of a sudden.

This was shocking, to say the least and Kyle only caught her faintly mumble something.

Hearing her, Kyle instinctively turned around as if he knew that something was going on.

"Noise...tribe!"

There was a noise originating from the tribe's settlement.

It seemed that only the Lohars could hear this noise.

No sooner had she said this, Kyle spotted a chubby Aldra walking towards them.

Right next to the chubby Aldra was the largest heavy armored earthworm from the entire batch of earthworms he had seen.

Realizing what horrors were about to unravel themselves made him curse loudly. "Fuck!"

From the looks of it, they had run into the trap of the chubby merchant.

Either that, or maybe they had destroyed one of his plans, but Kyle was not sure about that.

Nevertheless, the moment they entered the forest, he felt much safer.

His eyes flicked back to the devastating battlefield that had once been a large Nasga settlement.

Now, it had gone eerily silent and devoid of large earthworms!

'Just what is going on, and who the hell is this fucking merchant?'

The mystery around the chubby merchant was just increasing. Kyle would have wanted to figure out more, but there was no way to do that right now.

Not only was the situation out of his control, but other things had a much higher priority.

Saving themselves was far more important than figuring out the plan of the chubby merchant.

Though he couldn't fathom how the merchant could control the heavy armored earthworms.

This might be worrisome as at least one of the earthworms was at the Krysal stage.

It might even be considered one of the strongest beasts inhabiting the Sadorla forest!

Still, Kyle couldn't care less right now because he was overjoyed to be alive.

However, all of a sudden, his exhaustion intensified, only for his senses to be partially shut off.

Only the sound of his wildly thumping heart was blasting his eardrums off.

Soon Kyle was drenched in sweat as his shirt stuck to his body, revealing his toned body that was filled with compressed muscles..

He was unsure of what was happening to him.

Due to the sudden change, he almost tripped over an uprooted root but managed to not fall.

Ignoring his wildly beating heart that shook his entire body, he could feel that something about Arashi was changing.

He had fed his little Spirit Soul with a large amount of his Nurture ability, saturating all paths it had left.

There were not many paths of Arashi that Kyle could nurture. But the azure path, as well as the growth path, had been fully saturated, changing a lot.

While Arashi still required some time to be fully matured, it had reduced to the bare minimum. Now that it was done, the aftermath of the saturation of the azure path was kicking in.

This was probably what caused Kyle's sudden health issue, or at least that was the only thing he could assume.

Nevertheless, he was not worried because they were finally safe now. Or at least he hoped that this was the case.

Kyle was on the brink of losing his consciousness after overexerting himself in all aspects.

As such, running away was the last thing he was capable of right now!