While preparing a batch of soothing cream for his beasts, Klike was deep in thought.
A human child was currently unconscious, lying down on his bed.
'Was it the right choice to chat with that human?' He asked himself as he ground up a few materials into a smelly paste. 'Should I have avoided mentioning a taboo so early in the conversation?'
Ever since he was a young goblin, Klike was fond of the ancient scriptures that his kingdom-city's shaman actively collected. He dreamt of basking under the sunlight or learning techniques from the 'masters.' He wanted to see whether all those stories held any truth in them.
He desired answers. Confirmation.
Thus, when he saw what was likely a human child sitting right beside Bedrock Worm, Klike could barely stay calm. He debated on what to say and how to do it for hours on end. He was not familiar with human customs despite the stories he had read and heard. He did not know what kind of approach would allow him to have a conversation.
Thankfully, this was Beleyal, where an incredibly strict order was set in place. The thing about humans being his enemy mattered not here. If this was in some other city, Klike doubted he would have the opportunity to speak to a human on equal terms.
'But... human children are easy to scare,' Klike had thought, as he recalled the word for 'human.' Thankfully for him, Acivis and the human languages had the same word for it, and thus he was able to approach the human child.
He had many things to ask.
'Thankfully, the human... no, Mister Orien, was very calm when I went up to him.' Klike was grateful that despite his many worries, things turned out alright. He let out a soft sigh as he poured the smelly paste he made into a clay jar.
Feeding his fantasies and curiosities had been a part of his life for as far as he could remember.
And now, with the human child right in front of him, he could get the answers he so wanted.
"Urgh..."
A light groan shook Klike out of his thoughts.
"Mister Orien?" He glanced over and saw the human child sitting up. He rushed over and handed the boy a cup of water.
"You've been unconscious for more than an hour. What happened? Is it related to the Zodia— I mean, 'them'? What did you mean by 'try something' and did it work?"
Klike watched as Orien sipped on the cup with a conflicted expression.
"How should I say this... I'd say it worked... but there might be a few unexpected repercussions... I'll tell you... later— Cough!"
The water in the cup was spilt, as a wad of gooey blood flowed out of Orien's mouth and nose.
"Cough, cough, cough!"
More and more blood came blasting out of the boy. An Acivis curse left his lips as he lost consciousness once again.
"Mister Orien?" Klike lunged forward, catching the blood with his clothes and body. He couldn't risk dirtying his room with such stains, else he gets booted out of Beleyal or worse, disintegrated. "Mister Orien!"
Klike felt helpless as the human child fell back onto his bed. Orien's lips were pale and the blood that had come out of him was irregular. Like blobs of jelly, Klike was able to grab hold of it without it creating a great mess.
It was baffling for him. He had never heard of these things in the legends and stories he so loved.
'Note to self,' Klike thought wryly, 'Do not mention the Zodiacs in the presence of humans I want to talk to.'
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.
.
In a distant place, within the stars of Oxhor's night sky.
"There goes another one..." A voice mumbled after it witnessed the disappearance of another [Soul Marking].
"This increase in deaths is peculiar... Could those ants be once again acting out? Their Holiness, Libra, needs to know." Another voice sounded out.
A grunt of agreement came out from the first voice. "Mm..."
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.
.
"I think I need to place this here... and then pull that in... plus a bit of this..." Athelei muttered hurriedly from within his mental space.
Strings created out of his consciousness fog stretched out from his fingers as he mended the wounds in his soul. [Mana] poured out as fast as he could regenerate it. Every bit of [Energy] within his control was being used utilized in a frenzied attempt of keeping things together.
Athelei was using all he could to keep his now-weakened soul from falling apart.
'No wonder it was hidden so deeply,' He thought in belated realisation, 'It had become a part of my soul as I grew, so of course, erasing it like that was going to be the same as damaging my own soul.'
The Mystic Pattern that signified the Zodiac, Libra had been branded onto his soul through his baptism. It held a part of the Zodiac's mind, allowing Libra to monitor and protect those who placed their faith in them.
Such a fact was probably why the Nefarious Icon could exert power over it, despite it being an ethereal entity.
It was an intimate mental connection with a god.
—At least, that was what Athelei guessed.
Because now, in its absence, he felt abnormally vulnerable. The Mystic Pattern circle left behind by the robed Ogre Magus in his mind also felt threatening all of a sudden.
It messed with his emotions at every chance it could get. It was a good thing that Athelei's consciousness was unique, else he would've become a bestial being, only functioning on instinct after an all-out collapse of his mental state.
"Shunning a god and wishing to survive alone, is it?" Athelei recalled a certain villain's line in the fairy tales he was told, "By abandoning all that I can abandon, I have become free."
It was a line Athelei had found interesting at the moment he heard it, and now he found out first-hand how it felt.
At the same time, he couldn't help but wonder how those legendary villains erased the Mystic Pattern in their souls.
'Just how did the Exiled get 'exiled' in the first place? There is a high likelihood that they have a less volatile technique, especially when compared to what I just did using the Nefarious Icon...'
Such were Athelei's thoughts as he repaired his soul to the best of his abilities. He was somewhat familiar with the structure of a soul thanks to his past identity as a Denizen of Infinity. There were fundamental rules that almost all finite universes had in common when it came to souls, and that was its natural intangibility and close linkage to the mind and consciousness.
The more complex topics on the soul would wreck Athelei's mortal mind, and thus, he made no attempt to recollect such memories. Everything else though depended on the universe. And in this infinite universe, it was very much beyond Athelei's knowledge.
Which was why, when Athelei was 'finished,' his soul could be said to be barely healed. His soul was akin to a jigsaw puzzle with several missing pieces. The absences of those pieces were filled with badly-fitted paper cut-outs to at least make it seem complete.
'At least it won't fall apart anytime soon,' He thought awkwardly. In a figurative sense, the edges of the jigsaw puzzle were more or less intact. The majority of the missing pieces came from the middle area of the puzzle.
Thus,
'I won't die just yet. I have about... nine days before it falls apart and I am killed..? I'll have to remember to repair my soul at least once before the eighth-day then.'
On the bright side, Athelei was now no longer affected by the taboo mentioned by Klike. That, and he found another research subject: The Soul.
As for his physical wounds... those were going to have to wait until he woke up.
'I also have to find a way to repay Klike for his hospitality...'