It was just for a spilt second, but Caspian had experienced death. It was a wisdom unlike any other, something that he could never have understood through any text.
For a moment he had been sent to the void, to nothingness, it was both scary and pleasant, sweet and sour.
The moment he could feel his limbs again, he thrust his right fist at the knight's throat. The knight instinctively slammed him into the ground and tried chanting, however it was too late. His throat had been destroyed, his voice box deemed obsolete, and hence his only source of power cut.
Though he was a trained knight, the shock from having his throat shattered still gripped him. Caspian rushed towards him, looking to cause more damage.
The knight easily defended Caspian's attacks even with the unbearable pain radiating from his throat. He tried to scream, but all that came were choking sounds, and unfortunately, it would seem his partner was far away.
The scuffle continued on for a few more seconds, each collision Caspian sustained more and more damage as he was utterly outclassed by the injured knight. However, the knight's throat had begun to swell, it would seem that Haden's right arm had been powered up along with its transformation.
The knight tried his best to make as much noise as possible, breaking windows during the scuffles and attempting to run outside. However, Caspian's unrelenting attacks paired with asphyxiation soon got to him.
~So this is what it feels like to kill someone?~ Caspian thought to himself, as he watched the knight foam at the mouth, and slowly cease to move.
If he had to be honest, he felt no sympathy for the knight's death, though he did feel some weight from taking a human life. He was no miscreant, no hardened killer... he was still a boy, and it took him a moment to process it all.
~The other knight will be back soon,~ he realized, before quickly grabbing a steel sword from the knight's scabbard and sneaking out of the church through one of the backrooms.
~Right, the codex,~ Caspian thought, before waving his arms to bring the codex into existence.
~~You are now a novice soul weaver. One who is familiar with the gift of death. All souls desire to go back into the cycle of rebirth, even those still trapped in their skin prisons. You are a guide, one who can show these souls the path, whether that is the path they desire, or the path you create,~~ the top of the page read.
Below the text were a string of words that Caspian could somehow read, but not understand.
"Luos Erutpac," he whispered, and suddenly he felt something, like a string, pulling his hand back into the church. He tugged back at this string, and a white wisp came flying towards him.
~The knight's soul,~ he realized as the wisp circled around his hand.
~So what? I can pull souls out of dead bodies?~ Caspian thought to himself, making sure to check around as he snuck his way through the compound. Sprawled all across the floor were the corpses of former acquaintances, teachers, 'friends.'
~ At least they died quickly, they were all going to live crappy lives anyway... right?~ he thought to himself, trying to justify his lack of empathy.
It seemed that not even the horses were spared as they all lay dead in the stables.
Once he finally got out of the church compound, he ran into the forest. Sure, there were wild animals and monsters lurking about, but he had a higher chance of facing them than the glaciomancer.
He had been lucky that the pyromancer was both caught off guard, and only had a weapon-type artifact. The glaciomancer on the other hand was an emitter-type, meaning he didn't necessarily require words to activate his powers.
~Still, I've never heard of an artifact that only requires gestures to activate,~ he thought to himself, waving his arm back and forth to bring his codex into and out of existence, all the while the white wisp still circled around his hand.
Once he had gotten a good distance away from the compound, and his lungs were starting to hurt, he stopped running.
~Now what? They already reported me to the church, soon the entire inquisition will be after me,~ Caspian thought to himself as he read through his codex to find out how 'soul weaver' worked.
~~Only one who has practiced domination can hope to dominate a soul. Attempt to contain a soul within your body and dominate it,~~ the bottom of the page read.
"So I'll have to complete these... these quests to gain my powers?" Caspian whispered to himself. Even though this was unheard of, unlocking powers was not a thing artifacts did. You got what you got, and that was it. He was both grateful and annoyed that his powers were coming like this.
On the one hand, why didn't they just come all at once like everyone else's but on the other hand he was happy to be getting more powers.
~Though I doubt any powers I get will be enough to take care of the inquisition... not even a disaster class can handle those,~ he thought to himself, remembering how he had learned that the inquisition were a division of disaster class artisans trained within the church.
~I need to make my way to the closest town and get something to mask my face,~ he thought to himself. Even in the solitude of the church, he had heard stories of famous masked adventurers, so although it was uncommon, nobody would question him too much because of it.
~Hopefully, they haven't started putting posters up by then. Anyway, for now unlocking as many powers as possible seems to be the only sensible thing to do," he thought to himself before attempting to guide the soul into his body.
The whole thing was kind of intuitive to him, dying somehow made him understand how to move the soul, though it didn't make sense to him either.
The moment the soul entered his body, he felt a burning pain pulsate from his core out towards the rest of his body. His brain felt like it was being melted, and he could feel the soul rejecting his body.
If he tried to hold it in any longer he was going to go insane... so he let it out and it floated off toward the sky.
~The fuck was that?~ he thought to himself, still recovering from the shock of it all. As he recovered he thought over it and came to the conclusion that the soul must've just been too high-willed for him.
~After all, it did say only 'one who has practiced domination can hope to dominate a soul'... the only thing I've ever dominated were the girls back at church,~ he thought to himself, before getting up.
It was late afternoon, and in a few hours, the sun would be completely gone. Being in the forest in the dark was an automatic death wish, even for an artisan. That's when monsters came out of their dungeons, not to mention the time when dungeons start to spawn.
~The closest town from here is... Erandel... which is west of here if I'm not mistaken,~ he thought to himself before looking around. ~Where ever direction west is.~