A year has passed since we last saw Marcel being used as a lock opener and mocked by his friends and what’s up with him?  

Well, let the snake inside him tell you. 

 

“Don’t die on me, boy! Don’t die! Don’t you dare die!! Remember if you die, I perish too. If you die, who will be my meal!! I have nowhere left to go now~ Don’t die, damn it!” It slapped his face with its tail. 

Yes, Marcel, age 19 and a half, counting in Nephavion years, is dying!  

How did it get to this point? Well, I’ll show you! 

 

[Flashback] 

Like these things usually do, it all began with an illusory dungeon cube. He spent many days at what can only be considered slavery at the hands of his ‘wicked’ witchy friends making goods he rarely sees the gains of because, um... little rich boy wife! Right after that day was over, Claude helped him in physical training and Sephana ordered him around for magic training because apparently, expert control isn’t enough for a monster like him. 

With all that finally over, he decided to engage in his idea of fun: terrorize a dungeon beast’s soul and send it back where it came from. Yes, entering an illusory dungeon to ‘train’ his soul and accumulate soul power.  

He had no idea that this time, he’d met any spiritual-body owner’s worst enemy: a half spiritual-type dungeon beast specializing in spiritual attacks and feeding on the soul power of others. Apparently, the creator of the box coloring the entire thing red to signify danger wasn’t enough. 

Entering the dungeon space, he was quickly brought to a pitch-black cave. From his perception of the ground underneath his feet to the strange sense of space, ‘air’, and a pair of eyes staring at him, he formulated the theory that he was in some kind of dark, mountainous cave. He was in a very enclosed space, where the beast lived while alive. 

Unlike how usually, he’d have to be the one to go find the beast, the moment the snake and himself confirmed that they were doing this once again, it came to them. 

A moment after they readied themselves, ‘it’ came. How nice of it!  

The beast was a humanoid of about a meter-and-half tall. Its entire body was black. It had no other humanoid features except for its body shape and a white slit in the middle of where its face should be. 

“That’s... Oh no, a Shrieking Soul Eater!” The snake said. 

“What? Once again, I’m not going to ask you how you know that, but... know anything useful about it?” Marcel asked. What else could he do? 

“It’s a hybrid beast, like a composite of spiritual elements and darkness, though, the latter doesn’t have much use now that it’s trapped here. Its kind is one of the few at the A-class from birth. They’re very dangerous!” The snake informed him. 

“Anything else?” Marcel rudely asked. 

“Well, screw you, you son of—Ah, never mind! They...” The snake, for once, prioritized giving information than insults to his companion. This beast was dangerous, after all. 

The Shrieking Soul Eaters live in packs in dark, mountainous caves where they ambush their enemies, perfectly cloaked thanks to their darkness-type bodies. What dungeon it lives in varies, but it mostly sticks to the irregular domain and hundred-floor type dungeons. The moment a visitor enters their lair with their guards partially let down from being unable to see properly, they came out of their hiding place in the darkness.  

They initiate spiritual attacks, immobilizing their victims as they hold a spiritual battle. If the victim has no way to fight their attacks, then their lives are forfeit. They primarily feed on the victim’s spiritual body and soul, sending the rest on its way to the underworld. They’re the few beasts capable of causing a ‘broken soul,’ a phenomenon leading to anyone with it spending a lot of time in the realm of the dead if it can be repaired or a permanent loss of life if the damage is big. 

As for their victim’s cadaver, they have very little use for it, so they leave it for lower-ranked monsters to fight over, and in the chaos, feed on them as well. No one who encounters these terrifying creatures is spared, but those witches managed to not only find those elusive, darkness-hiding creatures but also captured one of their souls after defeating it to make a dungeon cube. It’s like they're trying to torture anyone unfortunate enough to pick that box out of the pile. 

 

“So, spiritual attacks, it is!” Marcel readied himself to start the battle. The snake rolled its eyes and looked around, hoping that some light would be present to illuminate their dark surroundings, when suddenly, glowing blue rocks appeared in various parts of the cave to light it up. 

“Ha, sometimes, I think I have the power to control this guy’s soul power.” It thought. 

Over the past year, as in more than 15 months, counting in Nephavion years, that they’ve spent together, strange things have happened that reaffirmed its motion that they were undergoing soul fusion, with Marcel’s link to the Dragon Database becoming increasingly more accessible to the snake as well and many other strange things. It’s learned more about months and the world outside than it ever did on its own. For that, the snake was grateful, but this also piqued its interest in the possibility of someday gaining a physical body again even more. 

“This monster shrieks! Be careful!” The snake hollered, though now, Marcel was wondering how it did that. As far as he saw when looking at it, that thing possessed no mouth. It looked like someone’s very unfinished creation that was allowed to exist because they were too lazy. The inch-wide white line across its face was how it managed to do that, or maybe, there was something he wasn’t seeing. 

Soon after it came out, it vanished into the shadows again, only to later reappear for a sneak attack. 

The monster reappeared from the shadows, right behind him. It attempted to let out its infamous, high-pitched shriek that Marcel had yet to experience. 

Marcel launched his own ambush for when it would appear with the method he used to fight spiritual entities ever since learning about it: the green flames of the [Poisonous Three-Colored Inferno Serpent] skill. 

To his surprise, when the attack hit the shadow-like beast, nothing happened to it. Its entire being ignored the attack. It suffered next to no damage. 

“Its spiritual body has been heavily reinforced. The green flames aren’t strong enough. We need something bigger, more powerful.” The snake used a less-distracting method of messaging him in battle, but from how sudden the telepathic message and Marcel’s startled reaction was, not very much! 

The Shrieking Soul Eater, after it ignored Marcel’s attack, prepared to launch its own, putting some distance between itself and its prey. After reaching five meters from its target, it let out its first shriek. The surprise on Marcel’s face when the attack reached him said everything. 

Sensing the impending attack, he conjured up walls of steel from soul power to protect himself from the sound wave attack. These walls were fifteen centimeters in thickness and additionally reinforced with extra soul power to increase its rigidity, but after all that... why? 

Why did the Shrieking Soul Eater’s attack easily break his walls and hit him like a punch in the gut? The attack’s strength should have been around B-class, from what he sensed from the beast’s presence, but, like an underestimated assassin, their blades turned out to be lethal for their overly protected target. 

His face was wrapped between an expression of confusion, disbelief, absolute certainty of himself, and impending grave crisis all at once. It was a disarray of emotional panic that he hadn’t experienced in a long time. 

This was bad! Very bad! Right after that attack hit him, he felt a feeling of dread like none before. 

Whenever some powerful monster attacked him, he always had this strange or even deliberate feeling of safety and eventual passing of the danger in front of him, but not this time.  

This time, he felt like the entire world had abandoned him. Like all hope would be lost if he didn’t take this on with everything he had. If he didn’t tread carefully in front of this beast, he... would die! 

Unfortunately... it was already too late! 

Right after the beast’s first attack, it prepared soul power to launch its next. Marcel also funneled power to be used for his next move. Unlike always, he took out as much as he could in one moment and channeled it all into the skill he would use. 

“[Golden Lion’s Roar] should do it!” He thought. 

Um... 

[Golden Lion’s Roar] didn’t ‘do it’. He realized that he’d been tricked. The power of the first attack was a hoax, a very bad one. It was far stronger than that. It had wanted to test his strength. This freaking beast was a true S-class spiritual beast. 

When it launched its deadliest attack, despite meeting it head-on with triply enhanced [Golden Lion’s Roar], the attack was easily canceled out and continued heading towards him. It was the worst thing he’d ever experienced in his life. 

Unfortunately, something else was going to claim the number one spot as the most devastating experience in his memories. 

The glass-shattering shriek was loud enough to put his eardrums out of service if he was in his physical body, but the effect it brought with it was even more devastating. 

Heading to him with the force of several high-powered A-class bombs combined, it devastated his entire being. It shouldn’t be possible, but he sustained cuts from the waves alone, and then... the worst happened.  

Right before the attack by the Shrieking Soul Eater was almost over, he heard a crack somewhere on his being.  

When the attack was finally over, a silence like none before spread through their battlefield. In this silence, he realized how bad the damage he took was.  

The force of the attack itself transcended his spiritual body to his physical body, rupturing the nerves, veins, and organs inside him, turning the body that laid across the treasure pile into a blood-gushing mess that seeped into his treasures and down unto the ground. 

Back to the dungeon space, 

Marcel heard multiple cracks from within himself. In a few moments, after he started hearing them, the sound spread outward, followed by his spiritual body developing cracks all over until suddenly, he was knocked out from the amount of damage he’d sustained. He didn’t even have time to react or even do anything about the damage. The pain he should have felt from his spiritual body cracking and damage reaching his very soul was nonexistent. 

It was an instant defeat for him. His enemy, the S-ranked Shrieking Soul Eater, had won, with nothing but a single attack after testing the waters, which brings us to this new development. 

* * * 

 

Marcel in his current state in the dungeon space, a terribly cracked mess of a spiritual body almost beyond saving, unconscious and unfeeling of anything, rested in the boundary between the realm of crossing: a suspended realm where all souls stayed before their death was finalized, with a small possibility of coming back to life if something was done. This realm, famously known as the ‘light beyond the tunnel’, ‘the light which beckons’, and um, ‘the place you see illusions of dead grandparents and loved ones’, is where he currently was. 

As he didn’t have any loved one who could possibly be dead at this moment, he stood there, cold and apathetic as he waited for the light, transit for the underworld, to claim him when it was his turn. 

Meanwhile, in the dungeon space, the snake... was an ugly mess of metaphorical tears of snot, though, it was crying. 

Now that Marcel was in this state, the snake finally decided to stop acting like it didn’t care what happened to this brat he’s been hanging out with for over a year, 

“You absolutely can’t die! Not while I’m still alive! I’ll figure something out! Don’t give up on me!” The snake exclaimed with a worried expression on its face at first, although its somewhat arrogant and prideful words were from it not admitting that it doesn’t want Marcel to die. It soon began sobbing as it cried out for him, showing genuine grief and unwillingness to see him go. 

But in this case, what was it supposed to do? What could it even do? 

Marcel’s spiritual body has incurred a significant amount of damage, and the body’s deterioration has already started. The only thing it could do was sob and slap him, you know; be with him in his last moments, was what it thought at first. 

Marcel’s spiritual body was deteriorating fast. If nothing was done, then really, goodbye Marcel!  

The spiritual body, housing the soul of a person, when it deteriorated, meant the soul no longer being able to stay in the realm of life anymore. Quickly after that, would be a decline in the vitality of a person and the death of their physical body would follow right after. They head to the world of the dead, and depending on how they lived their life, they either earn salvation, leaving for an afterlife; suffer in hell, or head off to reincarnation. 

Physical lifeforms possess spiritual bodies which house the soul inside the physical body. Depending on where evolution takes you, the physical body can be abandoned to become a semi-physical or spiritual lifeform. 

A spiritual body is much harder to destroy and depending on the conditions of the physical body, if one has one, it can dwindle or increase in rigidity. Generally, the stronger one becomes, the tougher one’s spiritual body is, though, only when the increase is gradual and steady. Like glass, a sudden and irregular increase in power over long periods of time can make it very brittle.  

Luckily, Marcel’s growth isn’t affecting his spiritual body too much as a hero’s soul is robust and quickly produces large amounts of soul power. Reinforcement of his spiritual body happens naturally as he grows, but um, the damage he’s just received is far greater than what can be repaired in a short amount of time. If nothing is done, his spiritual body will crumble and his soul will soon lose the last connections it has to his body. With that, he’ll board the grand light ‘train’ for the underworld and his physical body will be a corpse. 

After the damage sustained by his spiritual body; resurrection might prove impossible to perform. It’s not only because of the time limit a soul has before they become stuck in the underworld until they’re ready for reincarnation or eternal rest. It also depended on whether the spiritual body can be put together for the soul to be summoned back in the duration of time before said time limit.  

There’s a reason why spiritual bodies are built to be strong enough to hold souls before one receives the breath of life. It’s supposed to keep a physical being’s soul intact inside their body only once. When it’s heavily damaged to the point of deterioration, one needs a qualified expert in souls and the underworld to do something about it. I should maybe remind you all that there aren’t many of those around. 

With a time limit varying from two weeks to forty-nine days for different races before a soul is officially unable to be resurrected, with the most powerful souls like dragons and elves having almost two months in the underworld before permanent residency. It’s safe to say that Marcel might be toast if nothing isn’t done soon with his terribly damaged state.  

Ains can’t help because his soul is connected to Marcel’s via his physical body; a body that, I should remind you, is currently losing connection to his master’s spiritual body. Right now, only the snake can help him through his predicament, and it probably just figured out what to do. 

[End of Flashback] 

From the idea that suddenly popped into its head, it would be an all-or-nothing type of situation.  

This boy can’t die, it thought strongly. It was the one major thought swirling through whatever little was left of its unclaimed soul. This boy was not only his food but also an annoying bastard who drags him around on spiritual adventures despite its ‘unwillingness’ to do anything but be a slouch. Although the adventures they’d been on together whenever he picked up one of those boxes was fun and he held a heavy grudge against the boy for controlling it, that didn’t mean he wanted to see him die now. 

 

Snake’s POV

All my life, my biggest priorities were to feed and to survive. What else was one supposed to do in a dungeon where the status quo changes by the day, even amongst the most terrifying dungeon beasts to be unfortunate to be born into. 

Originally, I was but a simple poison snake who came into this world. A weak creature who struggled to get its daily fill of food. Dungeon beasts don’t care about each other, so I, at the bottom of the pile, was left to struggle all by my lonesome. The only thing in my mind was the idea to feed and eventually evolve, but my options were very limited even with that. I would either end up some overgrown poison snake still weak enough to be eaten or be lucky enough to change races into something suitable for evolving further, but still, none of those options were very good, so I took a chance. 

One day, I saw an ordinary scorpion enter the fire pools, and they lucked out, turning into an A-ranked beast from its former rank of F. That thing... could change my destiny and soon, it became my goal in life. 

Despite its ability to change destinies, many ordinary animals and beasts were reluctant to throw themselves into that thing. Despite not being able to successfully communicate with each other because we were mindless beasts, this idea of the pool being a surefire way to death was quickly established. Nobody in their right mind would throw themselves into that thing for power, but from how I also lucked out like that tiny scorpion, I’d say that I was also just as insane. 

On the day I threw myself inside those flames to be bathed by its tremendous power, I successfully changed my destiny. I became a C-rank beast unlike my former loser F-rank self, but soon enough, I forgot all about what being weak once felt like. I became a power-hungry mongrel of a beast whose only goal in life was to evolve further and stand at the top as the king of beasts.   

All my life, I have done nothing for anyone but myself; from when I first changed my destiny, to the second and third time, to when I picked a fight thinking those witches would be easy prey, to when I got killed and trapped in that damned box, to trying to possess ‘his’ body. Everything was about me, me, me. Nobody else mattered as long as I survived in this harsh world. 

Hah, for once in my life, I would like to save someone, even if it means I break the cycle of fighting for my survival to do it. 

No, I will do it! I will save him even if it means I perish! As long as he lives on, I will be remembered as the nasty ‘snake’ with a foul mouth who never let him live down a mistake, but, oh well... that’s fine! 

Marcel’s spiritual body is heavily damaged and crumbling away. His soul should have also taken significant damage from how brutal that thing’s attack was. The only thing I can think of to save him is... um... that... 

Oh well, Complete Soul Fusion, it is! 

 

Narrator’s POV

Soul Fusion: The method of fusing two or more souls into one individual being. Under normal circumstances, such a thing is as impossible as the chances of a sinner entering 'salvation zone' or 'heaven', as some call it, under the watch of the rulers of the underworld, but... figure it out.

By undergoing soul fusion, the weaker souls give up their individuality and essence, as in, the rest of their memories, skills, hopes, dreams, personality, everything. They give it all to the stronger soul of the bunch and essentially cease to exist. 

Yes, this snake plans to give up everything it’s worked so hard for all its life to save a boy who not only killed him a second time but also managed to push it around for over a year. 

If it gives up the last of its remaining spiritual body containing the remnants of its soul that has yet to be absorbed by Marcel to him to hasten the rate at which they’re fusing, then maybe, Marcel can be saved, although, whether he’ll take on its traits and whatnot is still unknown.  

Accounting for what happens whenever something foreign enters Marcel’s body, its ego will probably be purified, and everything considered ‘Not Marcel’ will be erased. It’s a sad end for a snake like it, but hey, it’s lived twice already. At this point, dying for a dungeon beast like it was a regular phenomenon. It didn’t mind being erased this time if it meant that its life would be devoted to saving what might be the greatest monster in existence. Dying is no big deal... at all! 

Also, when he enters Marcel’s spiritual body, he plans to quickly mend some cracks before it disappears for good. By doing so, maybe Marcel can wake up and even defeat that scary thing who watched silently as its prey perished. It showed no interest in the meal whatsoever for some reason and leaped back into the shadows to watch the boring drama of Marcel's death from there.

With that, the snake entered Marcel’s spiritual body and replaced the portion of him that had been heavily damaged, spreading the last of its influence over as much of an area as possible to begin the mending process. An unexpected change happened, however, neither the snake nor Marcel had expected it. 

For now, goodbye, snakey-snake.