Fortunately for the citizens of Avenio, the direction that Ymir indicated had not a single village or even a small hamlet directly on the way. A few could have been seen from where the soul was, but she was not in a hurry to rampage the country. In fact, she was not in a hurry to do anything, merely thinking a lot. Only that, unlike normal situations, none of those she called answered, all still inside the Vault of Souls in her original body.
To break free from the spell of Candaith, her only choice had been to split her soul to directly attack the s.p.a.ce mage soul and force him to release her from the spell. However, due to the fact she was nowhere near her former glory, the best she could do was to infect the different mages responsible for the spell. Even after removing their control temporarily, her different souls were a bit too weak to efficiently fused into one, creating a bit of a mess in her mind. And as much as she hated to admit, something Candaith personally created was not any weaker than her own spells in their own.
And now, she was stuck with that nasty personality she obtained in her early days. Her main persona still remained inside her body, protected by the Viscount until she came back. In addition, no matter how much she called Master Agnil or anyone else, including the annoying dragon, none of them were present with her. Reminding herself to not destroy everything she had worked for, like waking up the Saksa, she kept floating forward.
With her mind still a bit in a turmoil, the time she spent in such a pensive state was far longer than she first expected. She also couldn't help but feel that something was wrong, and it concerned the Saksa. But the best she could come up was the fact that it was the dwarves the closest, so, in the end, it made sense she went to them to ask some questions. Looking under her and seeing the lush vegetation, she wondered how huge was the distance.
Inwardly hitting her head after remembering that globe Malakov created, it was still not precise enough to allow her to guess where she was. At the same time, this forest did not seem to be any different than the one near her base, or should she say, former base. Getting irritated for no reason, besides thinking useless stuff again and being to slow to remember things, the darkness surrounding her expanded and swallowed a nearby tree.
"No, no, no. I will kill all those dwarves if I stay like that. I hate this young Leilade." She was barely conscious enough to know how she should act, but not enough to repress her personality. Searching the surroundings, she found an unlucky group of travelers that were calmly sleeping. Only one was still up, and from the looks of it, they had gathered many herbs and plants. Not caring whether the awake human saw her or not, she approached the group.
Since she was way above the ground, the sentry did not even notice the strange black and white girl looking at him from above. Neither did he notice that the night was getting a h.e.l.l of a lot colder and darker. Subconsciously s.h.i.+vering a bit, he pulled his clothes closer to him, in an attempt at warming himself. Looking left and right and seeing his friends still sleeping without making a sound, he was feeling better. Or at least, that was his last thought.
Looking at the blue soul that was in her hand, she carefully manipulated little threads of mana to turn it into something useful. A few minutes later, she had created a pale version of an alarm. Fundamentally, she used it to just allow her body, or what looked like a body, to keep moving while she was dealing with her fractured soul. Not knowing how long it would take and not wanting to miss the big river, that was her best option.
Retreating inside her mind, she saw the more or less ten Leilade playings everywhere, some happily singing together while others were fighting to the death. However, none approached the one that had the same colors as the physical main body, who was calmly reading a book. Even now, the real soul of Leilade was still in the same state, completely darkened besides her white eyes and hair. Realizing that sending it to deal with the Archmage may have not been the best choice, she still accomplished her role perfectly.
Slowly taking care of each of the fragments, she eliminated the most belligerent ones first. She could not allow more problems to come up anymore. Without feeling time anymore, she had no idea that her presence was getting more and more known. If she was too fast to allow the humans to warn themselves, they were still able to report seeing her heading toward the fallen Kingdom of Pankow. But at the same time, conflicted hearings began to obscure what was really happening.
With the half-baked soul in charge of doing only one single thing, the darkness that usually spread were restrained by Leilade. Because of this, there was no attack anymore on any humans. This was fully displayed when one time, a hill had appeared and the soul had completely disregarded. But the adventurers on it that saw the ghost pa.s.s mere centimeters away from them were left terrified, all their muscles frozen in fear. Of course, none of them tried to even attack Leilade, since they had no idea what thing was.
On the other hand, the news that she had escaped from the spell of the Archmage was beginning to be heard everywhere inside Avenio. With the capital situated in the West, the region around Archet was one of the last to get it. So, the story about the ghost of a little girl flying silently without attacking anyone mixed up with the orders to avoid at all cost the fleeing Dark G.o.d. Thankfully, common sense dictated that in both cases, it was better to just flee in panic.
"So, here we are." "Yes indeed." The two remaining Lelaide just stared at each other, one grinning happily while the other looked visibly irritated. The two were the complete opposite of each other, both in mentality or in colors. Closing the book she had in her hand, she threw it to the main persona. "Here, take a look." However, instead of listening to the annoying fragment of her soul, Leilade just burned it immediately.
"Don't you think I already know its empty? You already played that trick years ago. Now, be obedient and stop struggling." Even now, some pages that were still burning began to fly around, showing their content. And as expected, even if the t.i.tle seemed real, there was nothing else that was written. Curling up slightly, the young soul began to have tears in her black eyes. "Why are you so mean? Can't you let me enjoy a bit of freedom?"
Raising her eyes to the sky, Leilade only began to march toward the uncontrollable little kid, to finally get rid off her. But the moment she touched her doppelganger, she met nothing but emptiness. Seeing the white body beginning to disappear, she turned around, looking everywhere. "Hihihi. Good luck finding me. You are not any stronger than me this time." Fuming inwardly that she had to fight inside her own soul, Leilade could still not deny the words she heard.
Knowing that, she had no choice but to compromise. If the Viscount was here, he could have immobilized the renegade one quite easily. Not wanting to remain in such a state any longer, Leilade surrendered. "Fine, you can live a bit longer. But you won't take control of me." Appearing out of nowhere, the smiling girl had her eyes wide open. In truth, she did not expect that inflexible old crow to be like that.
Picking up the half-burned book that was on the ground, she pa.s.sed her hand above it, revealing what the Archmage had written on it. Now all alone, free of the incessant noises of the other souls, she did not cause any additional issue to Leilade. Staring at her self that was leisurely reading a blank page, the Empress of the Underworld couldn't help but feel relieved. Besides being malicious, naughty and infantile, she was still herself. And sometimes, she regretted not being that way anymore.
Opening her eyes, she gazed at the furious river that was right in front of her. From where she stood, she could see the living environment around her, with green gra.s.s and a few bushes here and there. Sometimes, her eyes could see a few trees grouped, but even if it seemed quite empty, it was still a normal plain. Nothing compared to what the other side had to offer.
In truth, it was not as disastrous as some humans had memories of it. Most likely, it was not even memories but just their imagination that created the scenes she expected. A ground filled with ashes, fire spreading everywhere as all the trees were reduced to just burned trunks. A vision of a nightmare. However, even if it was visibly tainted by something, it was just that. The gra.s.s was less green, the trees were thinner and the bushes that should have fruits were only branches.
There was a clear difference, but it seemed it was possible to live on the other side of the river. For a human, of course. She knew countless races that would love to be in such an environment. Staying far above the deadly flow of water, she gazed at both sides, seeing nothing moving at all. The nearly thirty meters large river was so violent that she could hardly see anything from this world managing to walk through.
Soon after, she arrived at a point where the river was getting a lot thinner. This did not reduce the intense speed of the water flow, but apparently, the humans were scared enough by that reduced size that a tower had been erected from the ground here. When she saw the dumbfounded soldiers that were at the same height as he, she almost waved at them. Restraining herself, she bypa.s.sed them entirely, not caring that they were shouting warnings everywhere.
This kept going, except the part where her younger self tried to mess up with her, as the days pa.s.sed. Sometimes, even if it was clearly not possible to travel through the river, a group of soldiers could be seen guarding the place. On other locations, where the water level was dangerously low, what could only be considered as a little fortified town was nearby. But even then, she had not sensed any undead lurking around, making her wonder if they were as threatening as those humans imagined.
SKRIEK
Lifting her head to stare at the dark birds that were circling in the sky, she couldn't help but notice they were similar to something Kardel said. Very large black birds, supposedly bringer of bad news, namely the Dark G.o.ds. Or at least, that was the way the humans described them. Deciding to take a closer look, she approached the abnormal vultures, to see how they will react. As for the humans that never let their eyes lose the wandering soul, all they could do was hope those d.a.m.ned birds and that d.a.m.ned Dark G.o.d fought to the death.
SKRIEK SKRIEK
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Sensing a stranger defying their territory, the biggest birds began to approach slowly the foreign thing. After all those years, most have lived for a very long and had also been inside Pankow long enough to see something similar. Only, it did not look like a smaller version of what they loved to eat, nor did it look like the one on top of that tower. Feeling danger, they were smart enough to realize that whatever that thing is, it was not completely unrelated to where they came from.
Starring at the vultures that were slowly flying away, she wondered how soft their feathers would be. Shaking her idea at this idea, she resumed her travel, feeling she had lost too much time. As long as the Viscount did not warn her about something, that would mean her body was safe in that time bubble. Funny that the very thing that trapped a part of her was also the same thing that kept it safe for the moment. Safe enough for her soul to do as she wished in the meantime. If time prevented their bodies to leave, it also served as a barrier to anything from the outside. That was why, even if that spell seemed incredibly powerful, it reinforced the reputation of Candaith to be completely harmless. Even one of his strongest spell could do nothing but trap something.