Why did the soul of the birduomera explode at the end?

  Zalanir replayed the final scene again and again, but he couldn’t explain what had happened. In his peculiar journey into the mind of Verizss’ia, even after the humans or a creature died, their souls were just either floating above the body or destroyed without any trace left, but never exploded and even affected others. Given that this was a god and a D-grade creature, any comparison or interpretation would be silly, but as of now, Zalanir could think of three possibilities.

  The first one was that the soul of the birduomera was special. Perhaps it was a creature that would do a suicide attack like that after it died to drag the enemies with it to the grave? Zalanir had seen robots do that in a movie before. There was a built-in trigger that, if the robot’s control center or connection was destroyed, it could explode a bomb placed somewhere inside its body. Though that was with automation and robotic stuff only, so maybe it was too far-fetched to link it to a fleshly creature like the flying beast. But again, he had seen a puppet moving as well and real as the one he had fought back in that parade, so even though it was unlikely, he couldn’t really write this off.

  The issue could also lie with the summoning altar. If Hiina’s guess was correct, and this wasn’t a typical birduomera but a special variant, then possibly the summoning process had gone wrong somewhere. Wrong creature? Inaccurate place? A rushed process? Broken guardrails but carried on anyway? He could name a ton of them, so the real reason would likely be something within this issue.

  The last one was also one of high probability, but also one that Zalanir had no idea how to solve if it was the case. Perhaps the issue lay in a combination of the environment and the lack of control of the soul for that monster. The fact that the two ants killed by Verizss’ia had their souls intact might just be because of the simple reality that they were god-level monsters, not some random D-grades. Their control over their soul realms must've been so good that even though they died, their souls could linger around. This cause could go hand-in-hand with various environmental effects in the sense that the birduomera couldn’t control its own soul, and when it died, the soul was triggered by unknown reasons and exploded? It could be related to his whirlwind, his salvo of air bolts, or the assassin’s flame slash. Or possibly all of them.

  His fingers caressed the top of the altar. The urging, nabbing sensation was dancing around his mind, pulling him into taking action. Now that Zalanir knew what it was, he could easily focus and feel the true objective of that feeling. What it pointed at was the illusive lantern staying somewhere inside his mind. He had no idea how to pull that out, as simply casting the skill led to nothing happening.

  [Lantern of Verizss’ia] — Universal unique: Allows you to capture and store souls inside a replica of the Lantern of Verizss’ia, one of the finest and never-seen-before creations in the universe.

  Reading the skill again did somewhat answer his confusion. The skill said that it allowed him to catch souls and put them inside the lantern, but never pointed to anything about making the lantern real. Perhaps it wasn’t even real to begin with, considering this wasn’t an item, but a skill.

  Wait? Why do I need to see the lantern? If it stays inside my mind, then so be it. Can’t my mind just become the lantern that houses the souls? Doesn’t that mean my head is the lantern?

  There was still the issue of doing dangerous experiments with his mind and head, as they were probably two of the three most important parts of his body, but seeing that his thought just now had some merit to it, Zalanir opted to at least try it out.

  He couldn’t feel the souls back to when he first acquired the skill, but now that it was just here for him to take, it could be stupid to discard what could lead to him activating the skill before B-grade. If he found a way to utilize this skill before needing to have access to his soul realm, didn’t it feel good? He could be a pseudo-prodigy in that case, similar to how big of a deal that was when some kids could do university math in the sixth or seventh grade. That kind of “neighbor’s kid” could finally be him! A cheeky grin formed on his face without him even recognizing how dumb that looked.

  Zalanir went right into the action by purposely desiring the soul to come to him. It was like he had to learn how to take an affinity when first trying to cast Adaptability Bolt again. He imagined there was a transparent teacher hand guiding a toddler on her first day at school. The toddler kept on holding onto its familiar altar, but occasionally she poked her tiny fingers out onto his palm, and immediately shrank back after touching it. Don’t be shy! He kept on goading and probing her curiosity by moving the hand around and making his fingers dance and form different signs and shapes.

  Slowly, the toddler was drawn into the activity and, for the first time, let go of the hand holding onto the altar and leaned forward. She kept going back and forth between the two points, one step closer to Zalanir’s hand as time passed by. It was just a small distance, but she really took her time until finally, she extended her arms forward, embraced his middle finger, and started to play hide and seek all by herself with his five fingers.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  Zalanir pulled the translucent hand back to his mind, thinking that he had her hook, line, and sinker already, but the action resulted in her jumping through the air back at the altar and hiding there for a long while.

  When he successfully lured her out again this time, he receded back by playing a game of tag, one step at a time. After he finally succeeded in moving her onto his mind and thought that it was over, to his absolute bewilderment, the toddler began to … chew the air, or whatever it was inside his mind, causing his body to convulse and fall on his butt. He reacted by whacking the wicked little rat, and once again, failed to prevent her from retreating back to the altar.

  Third time’s the charm. Zalanir encouraged himself and redid the process again. It took her even longer to come out, but eventually, he got her back to where he wanted. This time, with preparation, Zalanir imagined a cage to trap her inside, and he prevailed on the first try. Somehow, the cage did look similar to the first floor of the lantern, with a hexagon shape and a pointy at the bottom. Perhaps it was meant to be, since he had seen and become familiar with the lantern in many shapes and forms, from when it was still on a painting, to its first prototype, its raw shape, and finally when it was in action.

  Succeeding in doing this also instilled confidence in himself that with time, he could make this translucent object a real replica of the lantern, with all of its intricacies and expressions. And who knew — a man could dream — if he could one day make the real item? What would happen then? Would he have two lanterns to store souls? That would be overpowered.

  Refocusing on the soul, now that he had captured it, even though it was still inside his mind, the toddler had stopped chewing and instead stayed motionless in a spot. Content with the current progress, Zalanir moved onto the next step of mending it, as stated on the main skill Soul Collection.

  [Soul Collection] — Universal unique: Grants the ability to mend and preserve souls with your energy, and allows you to become their expression. Grants the [Lantern of Verizss’ia] skill.

  This skill was easier to understand compared with its associated skill, though it still took Zalanir quite some time before learning to guide his mana toward the lantern. It was a similar process as if he were directing mana into a skill to cast it, but if that process was being aided by the System, this time, he had to direct it onto a target that wasn’t a skill. There was no assistant at all. This made him question why it behaved this way for a moment, but whatever, the mending took priority for now.

  His mana became like a meal for the toddler. She just devoured it to her heart’s content, which signaled that the attack earlier wasn’t intentional but just a primal urge to eat whatever came into contact with her.

  After witnessing its behavior, Zalanir concluded that the soul was non-sapient, and it radiated a vibe of something pure and instinctual. No matter how much he teased it, it didn’t sulk or fret, but instead kept going after his mana like it was its favorite food. When Zalanir stopped feeding it mana, it just remained there as if it had found a new home, though not entirely stationary. Sometimes it played around with the lantern, bumping here and there, but still on most of the occasions it just lay motionlessly in place.

  The process was all nice and chill, but it just ate too much of his mana. He lost about 30% after two feeds, but the soul showed nothing different. That was when Zalanir realized that maybe he had stumbled upon a rather luxury skill. He needed his mana for training as well, so this just put him under even more pressure for a good recovery.

  Suddenly, he found himself looking closely at Intelligence and Spirit, as these two were the attributes that gave him mana, with Spirit edged out purely on the fact that it also granted him mana recovery. If Soul Collection turned out to be as powerful as what Verizss’ia had displayed with his lantern, then maybe Spirit had just shot up into the position as his most important attribute, even eclipsing that of Constitution.

  As he had to reserve the leftover 40% of his mana for any potential surprise assaults from the bats or in case of the cultists, Zalanir stopped experimenting with the soul and shifted his attention toward the altar again. He still had no idea what the soul was, but the fact that it was here in the first place meant that the cultists had indeed used this altar to summon something. The obvious answer could of course be the birduomera, but then what was the soul he just captured? A fragment of the birduomera, or another creature altogether? Or maybe something else altogether that had already left this cave before the arrival of his group.

  He no longer felt any other soul on top of the altar, so this structure was good to go. Better to destroy it rather than leave it intact for other cultists to use. However, before that, Zalanir decided to take a closer look one last time just to make sure he didn’t miss out on anything. The water stream pattern that spiraled along its frame and surface was really well made. Its light blue color blended well into and even added a bit of life to the brown dirt structure.

  A clear sky that somehow got tangled to wrap around the desert showed up in his imagination when looking at the altar. The pointy top was clear of the blue pattern and stayed pure brown, but judging from the overall decoration, it kind of stood out on its own. Zalanir’s hand stopped at a couple of spots on its frame. The cold sensation and its chilly vibe just pleased his hands too much to ignore. But outside of that, nothing of it signaled anything special.

  Zalanir came to the assassin’s body, apologized with prayer hands, picked up the sword, and went back to demolish the altar. A heavier weapon would work better for sure, but this sword could do. He had one heavy weapon in the form of his staff, but he was afraid of damaging it for this mundane task. He had already lost the hauberk — a major setback on his quest to fully equip himself with good armor — so he couldn’t really afford the same thing happening to the provider of his amazing whirlwind skill.

  With everything done and dusted, Zalanir came over and leaned against the wall, waiting for his turn to rest.