Reaching the Meeting Hall, Caelus slumped in the throne seat.
He was emotionally drained more than anything.
While being escorted by Gouki; Hikari, Asahi and Akihiko arrived one after another. He didn't explain anything yet because it was not the right place. But his mind was running in full gear while piecing together everything.
He was just missing some pieces of the puzzle but he had his own speculation.
"What happened? Why was there a goo of blood there? Did you do that?" It was Gouki who was frowning and looking intently at Sho.
"Not even I can do that. He self-destructed."
"Self-destruct?"
"The assassin?"
"Let me explain everything first," he started telling the story about his adventures on the First Zone that he entered when the Super Phenomena happened.
He really didn't tell anyone about what happened before because the feeling of pain still hasn't vanished. The feeling of grief and helplessness was still eating at him before.
But after ferrying souls, he discovered that he grew stronger mentally and emotionally.
When his story described the peculiarity of the Savior Gang, he frowned every now and then. He was not sure how to explain it clearly. And when he reached the part where the Savior Gang self-destructed everyone had a different look on their faces.
Hikari was covering her mouth and she was thinking deeply. There was hesitation in her eyes.
Akihiko gaped at the brutality, even after he had seen countless brutality before.
Asahi had his face stiff frozen, it was as if he had seen a ghost.
And Gouki… he was muttering under his breath.
"It seems like some of you have insight over this? My theory is that it's related to Wandering Souls."
Everyone paused and looked at Sho.
"Did you obtain information regarding Wandering Souls? You seemed certain." Asahi questioned curiously.
"Yes. I ended up ferrying a whole village of Wandering Souls. Ah, is everyone able to remember information regarding Wandering Souls? If so, then we can increase your Wisdom and Intelligence with this information."
"Increasing Intelligence and Wisdom?"
"I'm still not sure how it works. But when I've gotten information about the Wandering Souls, my Intelligence and Wisdom increased considerably. When I said considerably, it increased more than ten points for Wisdom."
The four sucked in their breath.
"What? What kind of magic is this?" It was Akihiko who was extremely excited.
"Is that even possible?" Hikari muttered while blinking.
"It is. It's the same principle behind Qi that I'm practicing, Energy and Mana that everyone could learn. If you do the natural way, you're increasing your stats. So far, I plan on having Sanctuary collect data with the people we have. This way, if we discover other things that could increase our stats, it would be helpful for everyone."
"We're being led off the topic."
"Ah! Sorry." He grinned slyly towards Gouki. If he didn't say it, he wouldn't notice. It was very common for him to have random thoughts. "So, I've discovered that Wandering Souls are Souls who had departed for a long time and became corrupted. I'm not sure what corrupted them.
"However, all Wandering Souls have strong lingering feelings towards staying where they are. That's why it was necessary to ferry them so they would undergo purification and reincarnation."
"You're saying that they are ghosts that couldn't let go of their attachments?"
"Yes. But unlike ghosts, they could corrupt living beings. That corruption could help them take over a body. In a sense, after they corrupted the soul of the living body, they could take over the body and control everything. From memories to skills."
*I… also think that I am one of the Wandering Souls. But I wonder why I can't see the corruption in me.*
"But there are holes in my knowledge. For example, I don't know what happens if Wandering Souls take over someone's body. All I know is they have control to take over the memories and skills too. I'm not sure if the corruption would always stay.
"For the person earlier, he is a case of someone who was so corrupted that he felt like a creature in between a human and Wandering Soul."
*As for me… I'm a case where there's no lingering corruption inside me. It feels like I'm a normal human being, but I can also see cracks inside my soul…*
"Anyway, I'll teach you how to ferry souls, it might come in handy later. I just don't know how you would do it without my Qi techniques. But knowing you all, I know you would be able to use this information. Ah, right, we would also need a creation of a pill or something similar that has stored energy inside. It's a crucial element in ferrying a Wandering Soul."
And he proceeded to explain how to ferry souls. It took quite some time because he was not good at explaining things and the four asked questions here and there to clarify everything. Only after the four were satisfied did they move on towards the next topic.
"So, Savior Gang huh… I think I heard from some of our members about it. I'll have to talk to him before I can be certain."
"Thanks, Asahi, it would be helpful. If the Savior Gang is indeed Wandering Souls… we need to stop them. Wandering Souls only know how to kill because of their corruption. It is still clear to me how the corruption sounds when I touch it.
"All the corruption wanted was to kill and kill. I won't even be surprised if the cause of the insanity for the other entities to become monsters is corruption. If we don't stop them… we won't know who will be our enemies next time."
"That's very reasonable. Hikari, you should also start inspecting our people. Also, we should look for people with Mental skills. It would be too much for Hikari to inspect everyone."
"Got it. Sanctuary should note it while registering everyone."
[Understood.]
"With this, we can clean up everyone while also having our registry fixed. And with the additional data, we can also start researching faster. I'll have to talk with Alisa and ask her group if anyone would want to participate with this."