Kai's body rose 5 feet in the air, his limbs hanging limp in the air. His eyes turned flame red as a red ball of energy shot out of his body. It traveled at an incredible pace and faded after a while.
Kai's entire body relaxed and he gracefully landed on the ground.
"What the HELL JUST HAPPENED?!" Mia shouted as she looked from Sera's almost tearful face to Kai's blank face.
"That was a soul and not just any soul. It was her soul." Sera said and flapped her wings happily. Mia was even more confused and she raised her eyebrow at Kai.
"It was Mariel's soul. She is the ruler of fire spirits." He said quietly as he looked around to see where they were.
They were on a beach or rather, an abandoned beach as no one was around for miles. The sun was pouring down on their skin and wherever they were, they knew that it was hot.
"Now I know how you woke up in the forest without any memories and all that. You didn't have your soul. But what you just saw was only half a soul. Half a soul is worse than a full soul or no soul at all." Kai said in a definite voice after a few minutes.
"Why is that?" Sera and Mia asked at the same time.
"A soul keeps you you or in other words, gives you everything that makes you what you are. Its absence affects everyone differently. Some become cruel monsters as they will not feel anything whereas some will go brain dead and will stop thinking and will be just alive. And then there are some who will become mindless zombies who will do anything you ask.
But with half a soul, you start feeling things but not things like love, compassion, loyalty, etc. Instead, you will only feel the dark emotions inside you and will thus turn into a deadly tyrant. You will kill anything and everything that's in your way or you will just kill them because they annoy you. Without the balance of light, the dark emotions will completely control you and you will be its pawn." Kai said in a grim voice and Mia's eyes darkened.
"My harem's souls are tied to me. It looks as though every single one of my lovers born on this planet didn't have their soul when they were born. I appeared about a year after your births and half of your souls were released from my body whereas the other half stayed with me.
What happened right now was the perfect example for my explanation. This guarantees that I have to be near them so that they could receive the other half of their soul. But in your case, since I didn't touch the planet's ground and was not considered alive till then, I didn't feel your soul detaching from me. And since I was near you, you still received the other half of your soul. The thing I don't know is the distance that is required to do this. I was in the sky for 16 years and I think your soul was released on the 15th year." Kai finished his explanation and dismissed Sera.
"So this means that I turned into a brain-dead girl who just kept roaming here and there until I received my soul." Mia said with a short laugh.
"And one more thing is why did you not have the other half of your soul? Which brings us to the question, who kept you alive and why? But one thing at a time. Let's go and find Mariel." Kai said and started flying.
Mia too started hovering in the air and Kai used a cloaking formation on them.
"Can you feel her as all of us are connected to you?" Mia asked as they flew southwest from their current location.
"I am not able to pinpoint her location. I can only sense her direction and the closer I reach to her, the stronger the signal gets." Kai said as they kept flying.
They saw many towns, villages, farms, and cities pass below them as they kept flying. After an hour of it, Kai suddenly stopped and gazed at a very huge city in front of them.
A huge red palace stood in the center of it and a symbol of a Phoenix stood on top of it. This was the royal palace of the southern continent as the royal palace of the western continent had the symbol of the White Tiger.
"And she just had to be a princess. Those people I first met were definitely being ordered by her." Kai said as he they hovered over the palace.
"Well, I have a score to settle with those guys. Let's go and raid a palace full of soulless people." He said and torched the palace with normal fire.
Screams were heard from the palace and people started running outside. Cultivators that had the water element tried to extinguish the flames but since it was Kai who used those flames, it was a futile attempt.
"Are we going to reveal yourselves or are we just going to kidnap her and take her with us?" Mia asked the two most obvious plans that came to her mind.
"The first method is too stupid and the second one is too cowardly. We will instead do a little bit of acting." Kai said with a grin as he told his plan to Mia.
She would not call this the best plan she had ever heard but she had to admit, it was a plan that will definitely work.
"Hey, who are those people?" Someone from the crowd below said and everyone gasped when they saw 10 masked people flying through the air. Since only heaven spirit realm cultivators were able to fly, the people gathered below knew that all these cultivators were in the same realm.
The crowd panicked and people started running. One of the hooded figures threw a ball of flame towards them and just when it was about to hit the surface, Kai appeared in front of them and saved the day.
"Kill them, Mia!" He shouted as Mia appeared behind the hooded people. Ice emerged from her body and she threw spears made from it at them.
As soon as the ice touched their bodies, it spread instantly over their entire body and they were frozen alive. Mia then proceeded to shatter the ice and thus, killed them all.
"Who were they?" A commanding voice was heard and an 18-year-old girl appeared in front of Kai and Mia, who was now hovering above the crowd.
[ Is that her? ] Mia asked Kai with a spiritual message.
[ Yeah, that's Mariel. ] Kai and stared at the girl's appearance.
Knee-length flowing blonde hair and flaming golden eyes. Mariel, the ruler of fire spirits was standing in front of Kai and Mia in royal red robes etched with the Phoenix symbol near the heart, just like the western continent's white tiger symbol.
"Who were those people and who are you?" Mariel said in a threatening voice and started flying in the air.
[ She is already at the heaven spirit realm whereas I was crawling in the sky spirit realm? ] Mia asked as though she was scammed and in reality, she was scammed.
[ Unlike you, she is currently linked with the Phoenix spirit of this world, and her cultivation is boosted because of that. ] Kai replied before giving Amber a small bow.
"Your highness, my name is Kai and this is my partner Mia and we are from a hidden society know as the FBCI. Its full form is the Federal Bureau Of Cultivators Investigation and those people who my partner just killed were part of a huge criminal syndicate known as the CIA, Cultivators Interested In Action. Members of our organization have been spread throughout the planet to search for the CIA and exterminate them as they plan to take over the entire world.
They were on the western continent before they suddenly vanished. Our investigation led us to finding a portal that teleported us from there to here. But we found out that those guys were careless in their planning as though they had completely changed. That's how we tracked them to here and killed them." Kai said as Mariel's face turned into a thoughtful expression. She called for a few people and started discussing things with them using spiritual messages.
Whereas Mia was trying hard to control her expressions and maintain a neutral face. But Kai's words had confused her so much that it was almost impossible to control her expressions, almost.
[ FBCI and CIA? What the hell are those?! ] Mia couldn't take it anymore and asked Kai.
[ That's something I found out after taking a peek at another universe. The original names were FBI, for the federal bureau of investigation, and CIA, for the central intelligence agency. I just changed it a little and voila! We managed to fool them. ] Kai replied.
As you might have guessed, those clones were created by Kai so that he and Mia could investigate what the southern continent wanted with the western continent while trying to help Mariel recover her memories.
"So let me get this straight, you guys work for a hidden society that works undercover to kill rogue cultivators like the people you just killed?" Mariel suddenly asked as she pointed at Mia, who just nodded.
"Well, that's understandable and I have to admit, your society has done well to stay under our radar for so many years." Mariel said with an impressed look which made Kai frown on the inside.
"You are too humble your highness." Kai said with a disarming fake smile while sending a spiritual message to Mia.
[ That was way too easy. They are planning something. We have to figure out what that is before... Well, nothing can happen to us so what's there to worry about? ] He said and Mia looked almost horrified but she slightly nodded after hearing that.
Some might say that Kai was being too arrogant and ignorant but in reality, that was the confidence Kai had in himself and her.
"Please come and stay with us in our palace or what is left of it. But beware, if you try to do anything funny or suspicious, well, let's just say you will definitely not like us when we are angry." Mariel said with a smile that made chills appear on everyone else's backs.
But Kai just gave her an evil smile before opening his mouth to say -
"I would like to see what will happen if we do overstep our boundaries." He said with a dangerous glint in his eyes and the place was entirely silent.
"You..."