The boy’s ugly grin would set off anyone that was in their early teens, so Louis had to act accordingly, with the majesty of a noble of course.
“Sorry good sir, but your grin is an uncanny one that belongs to a man who wishes to partake in the cherry of an unsuspecting victim, so I am uneased by it you see… May I excuse myself?” Louis politely bowed while walking away to his earlier destination.
The boy visibly frowned, before fixing his grin into a smile, one that a charismatic merchant would have rather than a mysterious man in an alleyway.
“Sorry, I get like that when I’m excited.” The boy apologized, scratching the back of his head.
‘That wouldn’t exactly help your case.’ Louis continued to briskly walk away, he briefly considered how this man was able to cause a reaction from his soul, but he would have to retreat for now, draw up a plan, and deal with him later.
“I am Llamiryl’s friend, son of a wealthy merchant that hails from the Fox province. My name is Cale Sanders, pleased to meet you, Lord Louis de Leon.” The boy, named Cale, bowed about thirty degrees; this was a formal form of introduction in Invicta.
Louis turned around at the mention of ‘Llamiryl’s friend’; a lie would get Cale nowhere and potentially executed for treason, so he had no reason not to believe him.
With that logic, he responded.
“LLamiryl’s friend, huh, why might you be interrupting me at this time?”
Cale walked ahead of Louis, before speaking a few words.
“Well, we wouldn’t have wanted you thinking we had any plans of ditching you, right?”
“Right.” Louis answered.
The two walked into building G, their footsteps echoed in the halls, the whole walk felt very ominous. Even if the building was not in use, there should still have been a few academy staff walking around, fixing things up.
But no, it was almost as if someone had intentionally sealed the building or something of the like.
“We just picked the right time.” Cale said, with no intention in particular.
With what had felt like hours of time, they eventually made their way into the third floor, a wooden door with a golden plaque, the numbers ‘306’ attached to it came into view.
Cale opened the door; there was uncomfortable feeling of dust flying into his and Louis’ nose as soon as they opened it. While the room and furniture were of acceptable quality, everything was gathering dust and hastily cleaned. There was a simple wooden table and exactly 4 wooden chairs with cushions on them prepared for the occasion.
Standing in front of them was Llamiryl, arms crossed and tapping her foot. It seemed as if she didn’t want to take a seat in worry of getting her uniform dirty.
“Welcome to room 306, hopefully our future club room and base of operations.” Cale spoke.
Louis scanned the room, visually he could confirm only three presences, including himself, but his instincts told him there was a fourth.
“Is someone hiding in here?” He questioned.
Llamiryl was the one to answer his quarry.
“You were a bit early, sorry. Elizabeth, you may come out now.”
A female in the academy uniform seemed to pop out from the corner of a room in a blind spot. She had auburn hair and blood red eyes, a trademark of the Enriquez family. Louis had suspected Ellysa, but in no way did he expect her sister, Elizabeth Enriquez. Her uniform donned the numeral two, and she had some sort of purple double-headed thin snake-like entity coming out of her ears. The two ends seemed to converge in what seemed to be a rectangular box floating around her waist.
‘Is that a soul weapon? But that doesn’t seem like a weapon.’
Louis had so many questions running through his mind, and he would get his answers.
“So what now?”
Cale turned to Llamiryl.
“Llamiryl, would you mind putting us in a separate space?”
Llamiryl put her two hands on her waist.
“I do actually, but it it’s worth it.”
With her eyes still grey, she performed some sort of action. She didn’t move, but Louis knew she did something, she put something in the air, something that was not qi, but the world rejected it in the same way. It did not look as powerful or mystical as QI, but it had much better control. Conversely, it had a much better hold on the world.
Something sliced the room they were standing in, as if reality was a pie and the unknown matter was a fork slicing it, with the mission of bringing it into the mouth of whatever person wished to consume the pie.
The room appeared to be the same, but there was a notable lack of dust, as if the dust was simply not cut along with the room.
No room should be so clean, everything felt off.
‘Spatial formation?’ Louis asked himself.
“Right, let’s get to our actual introductions.” Cale spoke, he walked towards the chair at the end of the table, but before getting seated, he turned to Louis in order to introduce himself.
Louis found it weird, haven’t they already been introduced to each other?
Cale brought out a ghastly purple lamp. The lamp had an eerie glow inside of it, but there did not seem to even be a wick of flame burning in the lamp.
Then it hit him.
Everyone in the room had a golden glow within their abdomen.
“My soul weapon is a lamp; it has many abilities that deal with souls. But one peculiar one is-“
The charismatic smile on Cale’s face had turned into an ugly grin once more.
“It can detect reincarnated souls, if I ‘ignite’ the lamp, the ‘light’ will reveal to me unsealed memories of the past. Before you ask, I am 100% sure this can only happen with reincarnates.”
In an instant, millions of thoughts ran through Louis’ mind, trying to figure out what to do in the situation. The conclusion he ultimately thought of was to activate one of his most powerful flags.
Li’er’s flag. While the flag did not do things like patch up holes in Louis’ plans or make it better, it made everyone around him ignore faults in their own plans. It was a reactionary flag too, so it would be much harder to detect.
Upon sitting down on the cushion of the wooden chair, Cale withdrew his lamp.
“My name in my previous life was Paul Quincy McArthur. I lived in a planet called Earth, it was a place without magic nor whatever mysterious power you have such as Magic, Qi, Divine Power or whatever.” He paused for a moment, gauging Louis’ reaction. The name he gave sounded strange but it was still understandable.
Louis purposefully showed a positive reaction the moment Cale uttered the word ‘Qi’.
Cale visibly frowned, before looking at the ceiling with a deep sense of loss and longing.
“Ah, I see, so a Xianxia world then. You can call me Quin when we’re in private. If you have any questions, please save them for other occasions.”
‘…Immortal…hero?1Translation of 'Xianxia' in English’ Louis questioned Quincy’s choice of words in his mind. It sounded like a phrase you would see on a book or oral tale.
Elizabeth walked towards the wooden chair on the left. Louis didn’t notice earlier, but since he was paying a lot of attention to her now, he noticed that she had a very serene expression on her face, so different from the worried one she had when she was with her sister. Her eyes seemed devoid of life.
“My previous name was Suzuki Nanami. They call me Nana in private. I actually have two soul weapons… though only one actually counts as a weapon… the second… is sort of armor.’ After a polite bow, she pointed at the snake-like objects coming out of her ears. Her name sounded extremely foreign to Louis, almost unpronounceable, the nickname was more manageable.
“I lived in the same world as Quin, although in a different country. This thing is from there, it’s called an mp3 player, it produces sounds directly in my soul through these ‘cords’. My hearing has always been sensitive, so every sound is distinct and gives me a ‘feeling’; it makes me good with dodging.” Nanami said her piece, and sat down on her chair.
“That’s an understatement; she’s like really good at dodging.” Quincy added, to which Nanami showed no visible reaction.
Louis’ eyes widened in surprise, two soul weapons were not recorded in any of the history or story books he had read. Nanami’s case was unprecedented, especially since a soul weapon manifested as well, something you could use to poke at someone with the intent to harm.
No one had materialized plate armor even if they were of the protective nature, for example.
Llamiryl was the last to introduce herself, although Cale and Elizabeth, no, Quincy and Nanami were points of interest to Louis, Llamiryl seemed to be the strongest point of interest.
He thought that she could either be his greatest ally on this world, or the opposite.
She slowly walked toward a chair on the right side of the table. She turned towards Louis, doing a curtsy, although it was not the same as the one she had done during her first meeting with Louis. It felt foreign, unknown to any traditions that Louis knew; to which he had studied human, dwarven, elven, orken and even draconian traditions.
Llamiryl smiled, her eyes were still grey, but the reflection of the magical chandelier on the ceiling seemed to reflect on her eyes, causing a shining glint to form.
“Anzhelina Novikova, I originally came from a world where people could cast magic without the aid of mana crystals, we used particles embedded in space-time called magicules. Such arts are far superior to anything of this world, or those two over there. ” She boasted. Her name was surprisingly not foreign to Invicta.
Quincy and Nana only seemed to roll their eyes, as if this was common behavior of Anzhelina
“I was originally born as an ordinary noble in said world; my parents had great expectations of me, judging by my name. I exceeded it in every way, for I became the Angel of Death, Messenger of the End, and slayer of-“
Nanami coughed.
“Anzhel, you are sounding like Quin when he’s talking about our plans.”
“Right, right, don’t be chuunibyou2Google this for more info. In this context the word was used simply because Anzhelina thought that she was acting overly dramatic.. As you can tell, they call me Anzhel which I don’t really mind. My soul weapon is already in my hands, by the way. I just got it, so I can’t exactly use it well yet.” Anzhelina shrugged and sat down on her chair.
Louis looked at a thin, purple, needle grasped firmly within Anzhelina’s hands, he remembered the shape and form in his mind.
“Your turn, Mister de Leon, or should I say~? Anzhelina spoke in a tune.
Louis stepped towards the nearest seat, he clasped his hands together, and offered a formal bow of greeting.
“Daoist Dai Gengrui. I have many names fellow daoists like to call me by, but the most prominent of all would be the title, ‘Great Conqueror’. My world is rich in Qi, and allows even mere commoners to have the strength to face off against a puny ‘dragon’ from this world.” He discreetly left out information such as how he was 10,000 years or had an empire that spanned a world near the size of sun.
Quincy raised his hand.
“Can we call you Gengrui or Geng?”
Louis immediately raised his voice.
“ABSOLUTELY NOT.”
He coughed.
“Ahem, pardon my manners, a first name basis for my world is quite a sensitive thing you see… especially when it comes to nicknames. I permit you to call me by my family’s surname however, seeing as no one in this world could possibly possess the surname “Dai”.” He continued.
“As for my soul weapon, you all probably know.” Louis saw no need to bring out his soul weapon to show and tell. He even left the statement open-ended in order to prevent Anzhelina from using her eyes of ‘truth’.
Combined with his flag, the lie would probably pass, sadly, Nanami existed.
“You’re lying, or plotting something against us. I know this uncomfortable music…”
Louis sighed.
He took out the real form of his weapon, the cutting board and the knife. He also deactivated his flag.
“This is my real soul weapon; I can create any food as long as I know the specifics to make it. I can add properties like making it scalding hot or very cold, as long as it is within the bounds of food, it does not even have to be safely consumable.” He explained.
Nanami relaxed, it seemed whatever music was playing inside her soul was gone.
“Ahahahaa! You know I have a feeling your soul weapon might actually be a painter’s tool due to how creative you got there. Well then, I guess we don’t need to have to prepare food for our meetings anymore.” Anzhelina jubilantly exclaimed.
Louis sighed.
“As long as no one except us four are observing. Do tell me the specifics of your organization though; I do plan to join as long as the goal or requirements aren’t too stupid.”
Before the conversation can continue, the four felt something looking at them, or at least trying to. It was a scrying spell trying to cross over to their ‘space’ and peer inside.
“Shit our illusion wasn’t convincing enough. Anzhel cast a counterspell!”
“Do I look like I have a house-sized crystal on my body to cancel this out? No! Ugh, it’s fine, I’ll just use magicules to seal=”
Louis butted in, sending a message to all of their souls.
“Trust me on this one. You will all feel something tugging at your souls; please do not try to resist the tugging. Anzhel, you can undo whatever you did with your magicules.”
Louis quickly sat down on his chair, his body suddenly stiffened, and his eyes movement came to a halt. Anzhelina complied and patched up space, seeing no reason for Louis to do something that will harm them. Everyone except Louis felt a tugging force at their souls, but it was not forceful, it was more like an invitation. An invitation that they all readily accepted.
They all found themselves in a jade palace, with purple, true, dragons majestically flying around. There were particles in the air similar to what was in the academy, but on a much, much, grander scale.
The palace didn’t seem to end; it was as if the place was only one room that stretched for all eternity. Countless statues of scholars, officials and consorts all lined up the hallway.
The hallway of statues led to a grand throne made of jade, on the throne was a man in purple robes, hair done in a queue. He had a profound aura to him, and he looked as if he was the god of the world. The only sign he was still Louis was his golden eyes.
“Welcome to my inner palace, make yourself at home. You do not need a seat, for your legs shall not grow stiff in this place. Merely think of an object, and it shall appear in your hands, any and all limitations to your way of ‘thinking’ are lifted. We may continue our meeting in here.”
Quincy still retained his former appearance, although now he sported a casual t-shirt and jeans. Nanami looked very much different, her hair and eyes were now both black, and she sported the appearance of a pretty girl in her late teens, she was in what earthlings would call a ‘hoodie’, along with a knee length skirt and sneakers. As for Anzhelina, her appearance was simply divine, she retained her white hair, but now she had the eyes she showed Louis and a much more mature form, she still sported a black dress, although it had much more Victorian elements when it came to style.
Regardless of Louis’ words, they all summoned what would be considered a ‘comfy’ chair in their respective worlds and buried their backs on it.
“Well damn, now I feel like a final boss in a meeting, plotting for the inevitable demise of the world.” Quincy chuckled, he had a grin on his face, but this one looked more genuine and charming rather than ugly.
“Right, you know what this is?” Quincy pointed to a mana crystal in his hands.
Louis nodded.
“How about this?” Quincy pointed to an equally sized crystal, it looked similar, but Louis could obviously tell the difference.
From what Quincy was referring to, Louis immediately made a connection.
“So it really was the worst case scenario…” He held his palm against his face in deep thought.
“Indeed, according to what Anzhel says the world is basically bleeding. Around the core of the planet you have these world crystals, which is composed purely of World Energy. As it goes up to the surface, it ‘dilutes’ and sort of dies, like an atom reaching the end of its half- wait you wouldn’t understand that. Basically, for some reason, this world has a paper cut that can grow into a big gash that can't be patched up, to that we have no clue until now. Even when we had an expedition to the core.”
Anzhelina raised her hand.
“It’s related to the king.”
Quincy shook his head.
“That is speculation. Not a lead.”
Anzhelina shrugged, and relaxed on her throne.
Louis snapped out of his thoughts.
“So, you three are trying to save the world?”
Anzhelina was the one to immediately answer.
“Hell no, we’re trying to save ourselves, saving the world is just a part of that. If slaughtering the world population was all it would take, we probably would have done that.”
Quincy’s expression did not show a visible change, as for Nanami, she had sunk too far into her bean bag for any observations.
Louis’ expression grew annoyed.
“Well, how much time do we have?”
“10,000 years, I’m sure we all have a way to expand our lifespans longer than that. The pace the world is ‘bleeding’ is speeding up, it would take a million years at the current pace, but Anzhelina did some math, and we trust her when it comes to this World Energy stuff. “
Louis nodded in understanding, he knew how World Energy worked, and a world had a very hard time keeping said energy inside of it. If he purposely cut a hole, even he would not know how to fix it.
“Got it, well that’s a long-term goal, how about short term?”
“Well, it’s investigating the mystery of this world, it just doesn’t make sense.” Quincy complained, his expression turning into annoyance.
“I know.” Louis said.
“No, you don’t! Its laws are all fucked up! You see, in earth we have this thing called science, it allowed us to do things like magic without magic, we use natural laws to use stuff like electricity and heat, it’s amazing really and I miss it very much.” Quincy’s annoyance quickly turned into depression.
Louis widened his eyes; he had read fiction in his world about mortal civilizations who harnessed the power of things such as water, fire and lightning using all these weird contraptions and machinery. Of course, it was all fiction, but Quincy was implying that it could be done.
Quincy snapped his fingers and showed Louis a strange contraption.
“That’s a boiler, it generates energy from heat. I was no expert in my previous life, but I and Nana were able to make a rough design that could generate power from a simple create fire spell. But, it simply didn’t work, I don’t get it. We checked so many times, it should work.” A hint of insanity could be heard in Quincy’s voice.
Louis scanned the contraption, confirming what was inside, he spoke.
“That won’t work in my world either; the water element would boil, sure, but it would produce no qi, and thus no power.”
“But- but-“Quincy put his two hands on his head.
“The fundamental laws of my world and this world is different, this world shouldn’t exist, without qi nourishment things simply die, and yet they live. Your Earth is no different, your science would be as mystical and unrealistic to the people in this world as this world is to you.”
Quincy let out a dry laugh, and Anzhelina simply had a face of ‘I told you so!’. Nanami sunk further into her soft and plush retreat.
“Ah, so it’s like that.” Anzhelina had told Quincy something along those lines, but she was always very cryptic when it comes to her advice.
As for Louis, he gave it to him straight. In a way, their ways of speaking are the exact opposite of each other.
Quincy simply shook his head along with his thoughts; he had long since come to terms that he was special because of his power, and not because he came from Earth.
“Well, anyways, we have some outstanding missions, but I think I will save my explanation so I won’t have to repeat it to our next member. We currently need one more member so we can form as a club and act officially instead of from the shadows.”
“Yeah, I was kind of growing tired of that, even though we had only been working with each other for like a year and a half.” Anzhelina added.
Louis nodded at Quincy’s subtle request.
“I’ll look out for a fifth member, could you share with me a bit of the light you use?”
Quincy nodded.
“Yeah, I can, actually. I’ll give it to you after this meeting, which won’t be much longer.”
Louis had one more thing to say before the meeting is adjourned.
“So what do you require of your members?”
Quincy replied.
“Well, not much, aside from attendance and when three or more of us collectively decide it’s an ‘oh shit, we all need to act’ moment, the Secret Society of Reincarnated Souls is more of an ‘I scratch your back you scratch mine.’ Type of thing. We even keep track of favors from each other, you can call on a favor from someone if you have one and then they’ll have a very good reason to help you in whatever personal issue you may have. We barely get to use em anyways.”
“Oh, since I recruited Dai over here you two owe me one of those.” Anzhelina quickly spoke.
Louis nodded, satisfied.
“Well, since I’m allowing myself to join your organization and help you pursue the mystery of this world. I suppose that would mean you all owe me a favor?”
Quincy vigorously shook his head.
“No, no, that’s not how it works! I don’t care if you’re a Xianxia protagonist, your powers should be limited in this world anyways, we have enough members who can cause global catastrophes here, in fact, three more than we need!”
Louis was confused.
“Xianxia protagonist? Why do you speak as if talking about pieces of fiction?”
Anzhelina answered him while nursing a cup of wine in her hands.
“You should get used to hearing us talk about this world as if it was a fictional book; it’s practically something like that to us anyways.”
‘That’s an interesting way to put it.’ Louis thought.
He stood up from his throne, walking towards where the three were seated.
“Fine, if I beat you all 1v3 in battle, you will all owe me a favor.” He arrogantly smiled.
Quincy slowly got up from his chair, summoning his soul weapon.
“Very well then, but if we win-“
Nanami jumped up from her bean bag, her face exclaiming ‘this is a bad idea’.
Anzhelina screamed.
“YOU FUCKING IDIO-“
It is well known in the cultivation world that you should never attack a soul in their inner palace, for they are the deity of their own small world. Although, Louis only gently kicked the three outside the doorway.
The four were now back in an a totally normal room within the academy, well, they never left, only their souls did. Consequently, their meeting didn’t even last a second.
The scrying eye scanned around the room, before fixing it’s gaze upon Anzhelina, then to Louis.
The eye was gone.
Louis double-checked to see if no one was truly watching them, after confirming, he brought out his soul weapon.
He laughed.
“Since I’m in a good mood, I’ll treat you all to some qilin meat.”
While the souls of his three new coworkers were already within their bodies, they still look soulless, aside from a glare directed not at Louis, but at Quincy. The man himself had an apologetic half-smile on his face.
He could not summon plates, but the room was kind enough to provide them with the necessary utensils, after a thorough cleanse spell of course.
Towards the plates, he waved his knife, summoning what appeared to be medium-rare steak, the sauce on it was some sort of brown sticky liquid.
The three slowly took the spoon and fork, gently cutting the qilin meat and placing it within their mouths.
Their expressions immediately brightened. The food was possibly the best they had consumed in both lives. They had even ignored the condition of the table and chairs.
Silently, they all ate the food until it was all consumed, then they gave their comments.
“Woah, this was the best damn steak I’ve ever eaten. I thought that eating rare creatures was a wasteful thing, but if whales tasted this good3 they don't., well I could understood.” Quincy complimented, picking out the remaining crumbs of meat.
Nanami nodded in approval.
Meanwhile, Anzhelina made a dangerous comment.
“Hey, what’s this brown sauce? It’s really good, I’d say it was even better than the meat!”
Louis answered.
“It’s the vitality of a dragon of course; the vital energy of a dragon is rich in nutrients and nourishes the body, greatly strengthening all aspects.”
Quincy and Nanami choked on their pieces of qilin meat. Anzhelina was confused as to their reaction.
“So, you mean this is dragon cum?” Quincy timidly voiced out.
“If you wish to be so vulgar about it, then yes, it is indeed the semen of a dragon.” Louis nonchalantly spoke.
“Please excuse me and Nana.” Quincy and Nanami stood up from their chair, rushing out of the room, going off to who-knows-where.
Meanwhile, Anzhelina’s eyes were bright purple once more, slowly, she stood up from here seat. A faint blush of pink could be seen on her face.
‘What? There’s nothing wrong with eating the vital energy of a dragon?” Louis questioned, feeling so wronged.
As for what events occurred later that day, the author shall leave it to the dear readers.
DarklyReadsBooks· Aug 5, 2021
