A finger ticks against the center table of the war room. Three tables form a horseshoe. The middle holds a crimson leather throne. To the right, a handful of nobles sit with worry-stricken faces. To the left, every general present wears the same look. At the center, the man with the tapping finger—features carved out of basalt, iron-gray beard and hair—looks to be in his fifties, though he is much older.

  The doors burst open. An officer staggers in on bated breath, sweat rolling off him as the stone floor shudders.

  “Marshal!” He snaps to attention and salutes.

  “Speak,” Krieg says, flicking two fingers for him to stand at ease.

  “Sir—Anreik scum and the traitors are about to break the array—”

  “That’s ridiculous. How could our array fall?” a general cuts in.

  “It must’ve been tampered with,” another says. “It’s stood for hundreds of years. It would take the whole of Anreik’s Wish Core—and even that might not be enough.”

  “Quiet. Let the man finish,” an older general near Marshal Krieg says, silencing them.

  “Continue,” Krieg replies.

  The officer nods, swallowing. “Anreik and the traitors have brought all their attack mages, but that’s not all. There’s a foreigner with them—a man with… strange powers. He’s the only one touching the array. Just placing his hand on it. We tried everything—bullets, our mages—none of it so much as scratched him.” His voice thins. The room seems to breathe in the despair.

  “What—how could a single man break the strongest array on the continent by just placing his hand on it?” one of the nobles says, almost as if to deny the cruelty of this reality.

  The older general sighs and looks over to Krieg.

  Krieg suddenly stands and looks over his men. “Right. Now that it has come to this—have the civilians retreat into the catacombs and begin evacuation. Alert the inner-city defenders of the change in plan. Remember, even this was planned—so stick to it.” He walks over to the mantle behind him and lifts a blade—an unassuming ceremonial one, but as soon as Krieg floods it with mana, it roars alive, its presence oppressive enough to make the air vibrate. “Officer, let your commanders know. And gentlemen—good luck.”

  He finishes and vanishes into thin air, though no one seems surprised except the younger people in the room.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  The older general stands and shouts, “You heard the man!” jolting everyone into motion.

  The officer bolts. Generals call their runners.

  And the ticking returns—now the clamor of boots.

  ***

  “Urgh!” I scream as the first drop of my soul is ripped out. My body bursts with pain, but my eyes stay fixed—my head locked forward. It’s been countless tries, countless refinements for this single moment.

  Mana leaks through the instant the tearing begins. I force my focus toward shaping an attack from the fragments of my soul. I pull and twist every strand I can reach, weaving with the freed mana. The work of countless loops has given me control—if nothing else.

  I break a piece from the stream flowing toward the Leech. My mana hammers it into shape—a needle, no, a string—curved like a knife. I fill the spine, and a small blade takes form, carved from my soul itself.

  It shoots forward in silence. The blade slices the Leech’s index finger clean off. He reels back in pain and surprise. I drive the blade after him—into his chest—before it shatters, leaving only a shallow cut and the sound of his breath.

  “Wow—nice trick,” he sneers, standing tall again. His boot crashes into my ribs—once, twice—before he resumes the ripping.

  I failed. Again. This is the pinnacle of the method I found. The twelfth time I’ve forged that blade. No matter how I push, I can’t see a path beyond that limit.

  The solution to this blight runs circles in my thoughts until my body falls silent after the torture is over.

  ***

  I wake standing right behind Swart, in the void again.

  “Square one,” I sigh under my breath.

  I have to reevaluate how to shape a soul attack. Manipulating the soul with mana clearly isn’t the way to go—at least not with my current strength. But this challenge shouldn’t be impossible, which means I’m missing something.

  “Observe again.” I sigh once more, coming to a conclusion on what the next steps are.

  ***

  Dozens more loops have passed in searing, blurring pain. The only thing keeping me going now is the solution—which I think I’ve finally found.

  But first, the problem. The problem is that pulling the soul with mana, while possible, is just not feasible. Yes, it works in practice to an extent, but the effort, precision, and mana required are absurd. At my current access to mana—even if I had my total reserve—it still wouldn’t be enough to form an attack strong or durable enough to defeat the Leech.

  Now to the solution: I simply need to pull my soul with itself—or, more accurately, my ego, or its color.

  How I came to this revolutionary and simple method was through sheer, indefatigable observation. I noticed like before that my mana erupts the exact moment my soul starts to stir under the Leech’s interference. But my mana erupts after the soul—the soul seems to precede the mana—meaning the soul drags the mana with it, not the other way around.

  So, trying to pull my soul with mana was like rowing against the current—and the current happened to be a waterfall. But my efforts weren’t in vain. Through all that rowing, I discovered a certain feeling—hard to describe, but distinct. A look, a taste, a sense that was uniquely mine—my soul, or the color, as I decided to call it.

  Now, with that out of the way, the rest of this solution is just conjecture at this point, starting with the soul—it is controlled by the ego, or its color, if we’re talking visually. I started thinking about this when I considered what this void is, and the void inside my own head. I think this void is Swart’s soul, and the one in my head my own.

  And the body I’m operating in here—it’s either a piece of my soul, the whole thing, or maybe just a projection. Personally, I think it’s the part of my soul containing my consciousness—my ego, my soul’s color.

  With this in mind, why couldn’t any of my attacks land if this body was literally made out of my soul? I strongly believe the intent and will behind the soul decide this. My body right now is made of my soul yes—but that soul carries the intent and will to represent me as a being of blood and flesh. A being of blood and flesh can’t strike incorporeal things.

  What made that blade and needle different was that the Leech had transformed them with his will into something incorporeal, and I simply hijacked the substance.

  So, I just have to will my own soul into action—into a weapon, a body capable of cutting the Leech. Luckily for me, this impossible-sounding task got a lot easier after my days as a rowing captain. With the feeling of my own soul memorized, I think, I can use that to control it.

  Hopefully.

  ***