Chapter 41: Everything's Going To Be Just Fine

"So...What are you gonna...be his partner or something?" Carter asked as he took deep breaths. He was sure he still had internal injuries, but he continued descending the stairs anyway. 

"..." Rhys stayed silent, though it wasn't really her choice. 

After Ira and Dietrich fell through the floor, Rhys and Carter looked for an alternative way down. That way being a spiral staircase hidden in the throne room. 

"I'm not sure his wife would like that." Carter smiled weakly. 

"..." Rhys being Rhys continued to maintain silence. Other than clutching her side, she showed no indication of conversating with Carter.

"You've seen her before. Dark purple hair, silver eyes, always carrying a Saber. She goes by the name of Avery Thynne." Carter continued talking, they still had hundreds of steps to go down so he decided to make conversation, even if Rhys didn't speak back.

Rhys did recall seeing someone who met that description the second time she met Ira.

"I went to the Academy with her you know. Her first day in and she obliterated all her sparring partners, they even recommended her for elite courses right after." Carter showed undisguised admiration when he recalled the scene.

"It makes me curious as to how they ended up together. I mean, Avery Thynne seems cold and distant, and Ira is...He's...He's something." Carter seemed genuinely surprised as he looked over all the previous circumstances.

Rhys continued forward, she had no way to engage in the conversation so she was forced to listen.

Eventually, Carter stopped talking and they continued descending. They finally reached the bottom, entering a large well lit room, a humungous vault door, that was wide open, was the only thing of mention in the room. That and the fact that the ceiling emitted light. In the Grenitian  Kingdom, it was expensive to use or create Mana lights, but the entire Palace seemed to have them.

 Entering the vault room, the first thing they noticed was the lifeless body of King Dietrich. His head was crushed and was nothing more than a fleshy lump. His armor was gone and instead, he was dressed in robes. His sword was sticking out of the vault door. 

Overall, it wasn't a worthy place for a king to buried, Rhys had no opinion on it since Dietrich was attempting to kill them first. While Carter felt regretful that a monarch couldn't have died in a more suitable manner. It was a bit of his romanticism leaking, he guessed that King Dietrich would've been a formidable warrior in his time.

As they stepped inside they saw Ira meditating for some unknown reason. The air around him seemed still, not the normal stagnation of air found in old caverns, but an unnatural and forced stagnation. 

Rhys immediately thought of Ira's ability to nullify, the only difference was that whatever he was doing currently, he didn't emit any black mist.

"...Ira?" Carter called out with a hesitancy, he clearly noticed something was off. The previously subtle feeling was now impossible for someone to miss if they were strong enough.

Ira slowly opened his eyes.

....................

A few minutes ago.

"Ugh..." Ira groaned while clutching his head. Black fluid dripped from every orifice on his face, and a sharp pain filled his skull. Fragmented memories flashed through his head as his mind tried to process them as best as possible. He coughed up a black inky fluid that had no smell and faded away as it touched the ground.

"Damn it," Ira mumbled as he climbed to his feet. He coughed into his palm and looked at the liquid. It slowly disappeared in his hand. He knew it was strange but had no way of knowing why it was happening. The truth is, it was void residue, his rapid teleporting didn't seem to agree with his body, and as a result, he suffered a weird side-effect. He walked found his sword near the lifeless body of King Dietrich, whose armor reverted into a steel bracelet. His headless body was dressed with robes instead, as that was what he wore before using the armor.

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Ira sheathed his sword and then grabbed the bracelet from Dietrich's limp wrist. He waved his left hand, and it vanished. 

"Your Highness." Ira mockingly bowed with a chuckle. He turned around to see a massive vault door. There was a slot that looked to be the keyhole, but its weird shape was similar to a sword.

"Ah," Ira exclaimed before he picked up Dietrich's Claymore and placed in the slot. 

The door lit up, and after a few moments of repeated clicking and creaking it slowly opened.

Strange artifacts and contraptions, piles of metal ores, weapons, armor, glass spheres, books, and large cube shaped crystals. There were no piles of gold in the treasury, King Dietrich wasn't one to keep riches, he literally put almost everything he had into his Kingdom. 

Ira walked through the vault, he immediately grabbed all of the glass spheres. He didn't finish digesting the knowledge, but the spheres were similar to what the Polyphemus and King Dietrich had. After he picked up the glass spheres, he walked toward the seven large cubes that were all affixed onto a tripod. Upon closer inspection, there was clearly a rectangular slot which was almost the exact size of a status card. 

Whoosh!

Ira waved his left hand over the cube and stored it away, leaving six cubes. Seeing as he hadn't gained Dietrich's knowledge completely, he didn't know what the cubes were for. They just seemed significant so he grabbed one, ignoring all potential consequences. 

"Ugh..." Ira suddenly threw up more of the odorless black substance onto the ground. After a few seconds, it seemingly evaporated into the air, leaving no trace of its existence. To make things worse, Ira's head felt as if it were aflame. More bits of knowledge appeared, but the most prominent one was a technique. The one that Ira showed an obsessive desire towards. Ira sat down and closed his eyes, letting all the knowledge in without resistance. He looked as if he was meditating, which was more or less accurate. Trying to focus on the memories and move was too difficult.

 Ira had begun to absorb King Dietrich's experience. The soul was a complicated thing, it was like an energy source that never ran out, but only when used under certain conditions. To properly use it the first step would have to be purification. 

One needed to have a baptism of sorts, but religion was specifically needed. Spells, rituals, and ingredients could help purify someone's soul. Making use of the flames of a dragon or drinking the sap from the Sacred Tree that the Elves protected deep within the Great Forest. Using immense magical power to rework one's entire being was also acceptable. Ira understood all of this, it was just too bad he couldn't use any of it. Not because he lacked the ability to use mana, or he was unable to gather those materials, it was because of his soul. 

Ira had never understood what people meant when they commented on his soul. From Harper's own cryptic description, The Will of Purgatory's reaction, and King Dietrich himself who said it was "strange." Now as he performed a literal soul search, he could see it, and he knew something was off. In a reddish expanse, his soul was dead center.

"Empty?" was Ira's first thought, but that was wrong. It was a black hole. It was nothing, but it was also something. 

The reason Dietrich said it was impossible for Ira to learn how to wield his own soul was exactly that. A normal soul was like a  candle flame and a stronger soul was like a blazing fire. Ira's soul was nothing close to a flame, that wasn't to say that it was weak, but it definitely wasn't normal.

Ira instinctively knew his soul's appearance was due to his time in the void. He could almost recall the feeling of being ripped apart, layer by layer until he was nothing but a faint consciousness.

 If Ira feared anything, it would definitely have to be the pain the void produced. Pushing back his memories of that time, he finished evaluating his soul. It was like an opening to a void contained inside of him. The Red Moon was likely located there as well. So while his soul was very much something, it made him unable to use any of Dietrich's techniques. So he wouldn't use them, but rather build off of them. 

And so he began to create the foundations for his own ability. Instead of drawing on his soul, he would draw from the void. Ira wanted to laugh, he couldn't help but think he reached some sort of enlightenment.

"Ira?" Then he heard a voice. Not the voice of the childish figure that called out to him previously, but the voice of an adult man. 

Feeling that the moment of enlightenment was over anyway, Ira slowly opened his eyes. 

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