Chapter 398: The Sealed Soul

At first I thought I was hallucinating due to the stress, but I blinked, and the status screen had not changed. I relaxed and read through what I was seeing again, and an uncomfortable premonition began to pass through my guts.

I had seen the so-called True Name and Time Arc before, briefly, when I was in space, and my status screen had glitched into static. I had dismissed it as a side effect of being outside the world’s reality parameters. But now I was back. I was home, and the error was still there.

Worse, there were new entries. Faith. Blessing. Soul Condition.

Although when I checked my memories, there were slight differences; for instance, the True Name I saw while in space was far more broken. It read:

[ True Name: Drh?_...Error]

But what I could see on my status screen now was,

[ True Name: Druhg?_...Error]

And then in space, the notification had read,

[ Time Arc?: 1.9086.009.223.221 ]

While what was here now was,

[ Time Arc?: 1.9086.009.223.222 ]

They were nearly exact, but one number had changed in the end, becoming two instead of one, and I trusted my memories and the ability of my soul to perfectly hold everything that I know.

What in the heavens was happening? I had never seen these before. I had never even heard of them. There were rumors that our status screen was different before, but over time, it began to change, and as I thought about this, that suspicion I had about what was happening was slowly being solidified.

The Academy’s texts spoke of Titles, Skills, Disciplines, Attunements, and Auxiliary skills. There was no mention of True Names or Time Arcs. There was no mention of Faith or Blessings that were not inherited. And there was certainly no mention of a soul being sealed.

I focused on the Soul Condition line, and a description emerged.

[Soul Condition: Sealed]

[The bearer’s soul has been bound by an external authority. Access to core Celestial functions is restricted. Warden authority is suspended. Law comprehension is limited. The bearer’s true nature has been obscured, even from themselves.]

[Unlock Condition: Locate the Temple of your Patron god and complete the Rite of Unsealing.]

I tried to access my Warden status; the section was greyed out and unresponsive. The seal over my soul was blocking it.

Then I tried to touch my spells, but I could not, except for my Lightning Law Shard that I had comprehended, my domain which had shrunk to barely twelve feet, my Lightning Resonance, and my Adamantium Titan; everything else was sealed deep in my soul, and what was frustrating was that I could not even properly identify the nature of this seal.

What was clear was that any of my skills that had reached the Sovereign Tier were free from whatever seal had been placed over my soul.

I do not know how long I lay in that mountain, and pushed away the despair that was trying to worm its way into my chest.

However, it helped that despite everything that was happening, my body was still putting itself back together.

"Whoosh..."

I was surprised when my lungs suddenly inflated, and I began to breathe, since I had not been aware I had stopped. Then hearing, in the sense that I became aware of a faint dripping somewhere below me and understood that water had found its way into a mountain I had broken. Then the pain... that one I did not miss.

Since I could now feel and most of my senses were coming back, I knew the danger period had passed, and any crucial healing inside me had become complete, and the rest of my body could now be fully healed.

My bones were the first to be completed; they had knit the first time badly, even my right arm had come out wrong before, and it was being broken down and remade properly.

Fuck... I could have done without the pain when this was happening. I could only console myself that without the Law of Flesh, I would have died here, and I did not want to die until I understood everything happening.

My channels took longer. And I have several thousand of them, ten thousand and eight to be precise, and next time when my instincts tell me not to open my domain inside a Spatial Storm I should listen, but if I had listened to those instincts, I would not be here right now, and would likely be dead... so, good tradeoffs I guess.

I lay in the dark listening to them seal one at a time, and I found it amazing that I could shred my soul, but it was these channels that held it together and kept me sane.

I gasped in pain as my right hand and part of my left foot exploded, as the weird space erasure that took them appeared, but my Law of Flesh patiently reworked what was broken over and over again until my body was slowly becoming perfect.

Another gasp came out of me, but this one was not because I was in pain, just the insane growth that my body was experiencing.

Adamantium Titan: 145 → 149 (Sovereign)

It took what it took, but my hands came back, then my foot, and then my jaw oddly took a while to be fully perfected, which meant that for a long stretch I could think perfectly clearly and not speak at all, and I would not recommend that combination to anyone.

∞

There was a limit to how much I could distract myself with my healing body before I turned towards the one thing that was not changing... the seal in my soul.

There was a small hope that when my body finished healing, the seal would break, but it did not.

I slowly brought my aching body so I could sit cross-legged and meditate, trying to reach the core of my soul and understand this seal, but it was as if I was trying to punch the air.

I could touch my Law of Stillness, but I could not properly wield it, and I decided that I needed to change my Title to Lightning Arcanist, but I could not touch my Titles, and I tried not to let the frustration I was feeling break my meditation.

However, I was slowly reaching my limits, and a new anger was beginning to rise inside of me, especially when my suspicion about what was happening was slowly being confirmed.

I glanced at my status screen again.

[Soul Condition: Sealed. Unlock at the Temple of your Patron god]

You want me to find my patron god? Fine, I will find them.

Suppressing the anger inside my chest, I turned towards the obvious solution to my problems, which was my overall strength. Everything that had touched the Sovereign Tier seemed not to be affected by this seal, so it meant that I had to break more of my skills to the Sovereign level.

The last time I gained my first lightning law, I had been able to use its powers to break through my Lightning Resonance, but I had eight more shards of lightning law waiting for me to decipher.

It was time to unlock them all.