The concept of the soul wasn't something that had been proven as of yet. Neither religion nor science held a firm universal belief on the subject, and that made it all the more interesting to discover.
As a soul, Griffon had lost his senses. His body was left behind to rot at the altar. He had no need to recognize his surroundings, yet he was granted vision. An eyesight far better than what was limited by the cones and rods and optic nerves in his physical body. He could also sense the metaphysical.
He could sense foreign energies in ways he couldn't even comprehend.
The tunnel warping him to his destination granted him pure euphoria. A curious mind like his wished to sit around in the vortex and study every inch of the space that curved around him.
This was the world beyond life. The concepts he wished to study and prove and him of all people was granted the chance.
It felt like eternity, one he wished would never end, but the objective came to mind when he was once again greeted by darkness. It was familiar.
Rather, everything felt familiar, yet so foreign.
He suddenly felt stiff, cold. Senses were sinking back in as if he returned to the catacombs called the human body. Disappointment set in, but he knew what he must do.
'So this must be my new body.' Griffon thought.
Through some difficulty, he cracked open his eyes. It took a moment for his vision to adjust, far longer than what should've been acceptable. For a moment, Griffon was worried the fragment gave him a sickly body.
"Maybe that was what it meant closest to death?" He spoke to himself.
His voice was hoarse and breathy, talking was difficult yet he felt no pain. He felt numb. Numb and cold. Was he numb from the cold? Or from something else entirely?
When his vision became bearable, Griffon was greeted with the view of a canopy provided by trees. Between the leaves, he could spot the night sky. Vague stars peeking through the little windows the leaves provided told Griffon that light pollution wasn't a problem here.
He could hardly see the stars except from very few places on Earth.
He sat up and wow was his back as stiff as wood. Forget his back, his entire body seemed like stone. He looked at his hands.
The tips of his fingers were an ashen color. That's when it sunk in. As someone who frequently studied the dead, it came to his mind instantly.
"I'm a fucking corpse." Griffon blinked.
He underestimated the being closest to death bit, didn't he?
He checked his pulse in various areas and the results were the same. No pulse. Griffon raised a palm over the left sternal border on his chest. He had no heartbeat. Not a single trace of residual warmth.
This body had to have recently died. There was no visible necrosis. His skin was in tact and there was no blood leaking anywhere, and that alone made him wonder how exactly he died.
Poison? Illnesses? The body didn't seem exactly frail, likely only a bit better than the average adult man, so perhaps a cardiac arrest or a stroke?
The fact that he couldn't exactly feel anything at all left many questions unanswered, and Griffon was on the fence of being able to deal with a body that may slow him down in some factors.
He wasn't a fighter. He was a licensed firearm user and that was just about it, but he doubted this world was advanced enough to create guns, was it? He saw castles and villages, so this had to be some medieval era.
Speaking of questions, Griffon raised his brows and remembered the artifact death gave him. It should have the information he needed.
"Will it to appear, huh?" Griffon tilted his head.
He extended his hand, palm facing up, and thought of the same cube appearing in his grasp. And so it did.
Purple energy fluttered through the veins of his wrist and broke through the skin of his palm, manifesting into a dark cube the size of the standard Rubix cube. It was enough to comfortably sit on his hand.
It had no actual weight to it, almost as if he were grasping air, but Griffon numbly felt the hard edges of the cube. It certainly existed.
Griffon chuckled to himself. Now that was interesting. This entire situation seemed very dreamlike.
He brought the cube closer to his face to inspect it. That was a habit since his previous body had poor vision. He didn't expect the vision on this body to be much better given it was dead, so its bodily functions shouldn't work, but it did.
Even a corpse had better eyesight than he did, huh?
Griffon tilted it from side to side, looking for a mechanism to activate it. A button to push, a fingerprint to scan, anything.
But there wasn't.
Since that's the case, it might work the same way as it did when he willed it into existence. Thus, he willed it to stop withholding its secrets.
It worked.
The artifact clicked a couple of times before it turned itself like a Rubix cube. Instead of a puzzle to solve, more lines with whisps of purple energy running through were revealed like a new layer, and a familiar voice came to answer.
"Ah, I'm assuming you grasped the method to unlock this artifact now. Good work, Griffon. I also hope you've found the body to your liking, but I imagine it'd take some getting used to before you can comfortably use it. You've never piloted a corpse before, after all." The being spoke.
"It's still something new to learn." Griffon began getting to his feet like a doll with its strings cut off while the being spoke.
The cube seemed to have realize that it was tilting around so it left his grasp to levitate before him, prompting Griffon's dead eyes to glitter with interest.
"This cube is an artifact tied to your soul and as such, is something only you can perceive. Others cannot see nor hear this so I'd recommend not conversing out loud if you can help it. Some areas are sensitive towards those with mental illnesses. They may make your life here difficult." The being added.
It may be pointless to tell it to Griffon of all people. He was accustomed to being treated like a madman anyhow, but the instance of having his path made more difficult had him considering being quiet when speaking to the cube.
He spoke to himself often so that was a habit he needed to work on on its own anyhow.
He looked around while the being's voice in the cube gave him information. It was a recording so it didn't seem to be able to respond.
"The body you're in is one I personally sought out. It belongs to a villager named Alex, who is in his early twenties and helped his grandmother with her farm. Both of his parents were killed by beasts while they were out gathering herbs when he was young."
Griffon wished he could see his appearance. He began looking for a nearby water source to clean the dirt from his body, though stopped before he made himself even more lost than he already was.
He wouldn't need to drink nor eat since a corpse had no business with functioning metabolism. Something strange kept him alive... perhaps the death fragment's ability.
"A pitiful background... makes it easier for me actually." Griffon wholely accepted having no family members in this realm. He preferred it. "Now, about the grandmother." He tapped his chin.
"The grandmother is deceased. The entire village Alex is from is gone as well. The village was razed to the ground by what I assume to be bandits, and there are no survivors. Alex, or you, may truly be alone in this world. A perfect body for you."
Hearing that, Griffon raised his brows. "Nevermind, convenient."
That settled that.
"This world is called Euloria. It's similar to your Earth, except it's technologically behind and fueled by magic instead. There are two empires on this continent alone that belong to the human race, Vurmir and Reladoria. The rest belong to other races, as they've all been split and granted their own lands by the primary goddess Marina. You'll learn of them eventually, but right now focus on the four pillars in the human continents. I recently sensed a few."
During the entire speech, Griffon found himself examining his clothes. He wore common clothes and the fabric was rather thick. It may be rough but he couldn't exactly tell.
Of course, he was listening. "Four pillars here, huh?" He hummed.
His shirt was a long sleeve the color of beige, and his pants a dusty brown. Mud and green grass stained his pants, and he roamed with bare feet.
"Also, your body was a sacrifice presented by a local small cult. I don't know if the bandits and said cult were related, but the final memories of this body say that this cult could be dangerous. Alex was running towards the north, likely to another village for asylum."
The information had Griffon looking at the cube. Sacrificed by a cult? What if the cult sees him up and alive again? Well, he wasn't alive, but still. It may freak some people out, wouldn't it?
"The cube is pointing to the north. The opposite direction should be where the burned village is, but I recommend settling at the northern one instead." The being's recording advised. "Whatever I know, the artifact knows. Though it's good to know the smaller details from this world's inhabitants."
Griffon watched the cube in his palm change shape. It turned into an arrow and levitated beside him, pointing towards north.
He could choose to walk the other way, but the burned village had nothing to offer him... perhaps some insight?
At that thought, he turned on his bare heel and made his way in the opposite direction of the arrow.
He'd like to try something out.
There was also the danger of coming across bandits or the cult members, but he didn't run on common sense when curiosity was involved.
...
The way to the burned village was relatively long. Perhaps a bit above an hour. Griffon assumed that the cult was close to the village for the sacrificial site to be not too far away. Either that, or the cult blended into the village itself.
In any case, Griffon realized he couldn't feel tired. Fatigue didn't slow down his running, but the stiff joints did. It became easier the longer he ran but even then, it took him around an hour to arrive.
He soon came upon seeing a corpse being fed on by some forest creatures. He approached it, and he could tell from the fine hands and the chest that this might've been a young woman. He couldn't guess her exact age since her face had been picked clean by the ravenous forest creatures.
The strange animals that were eating away at the rotting meat resembled chickens mixed with vultures. They looked like turkeys yet much more hideous.
One of the creatures raised its head from the stomach cavity, torn entrails clasped in its bloody black beak. It made eye contact with Griffon.
It was a fascinating creature.
It had large beady eyes. The eyes looked almost too large for its small head.
"Its brain must be small." Griffon observed, making his way past the corpse.
The birds watched him walk past and when he drew close, they readied themselves to fight for their meal.
Griffon waved them off. He wasn't a cannibal, but he'd do far better work dissecting the body than they ever could.
"I'd really do much better." Griffon affirmed himself to, well, himself.
The birds waited until he fully left before diving back in.
...
Griffon found the village, or what was left of it. Rubble was charred black and there were hints of smoke still rising to the air. The bandits must've kept the fire from spreading to the forest since the trees lining the village were relatively unharmed.
The moonlight made it far easier to see through the ashes, but it still wasn't enough. He squinted his eyes to focus as he walked among the ashes.
Occasionally, he'd step on sharp wood and it'd puncture skin, but he was more worried about infection than the wound. He was happy if he just didn't lose his feet.
Then there'd be corpses burned to black, or crushed under rubble and roasted by flames while they were unable to move. All both old and young.
But there'd be a few with gashes across their throats and stomachs, or stab wounds anywhere fatal. Most died with one fatal slash. Some were unfortunate enough to suffer from multiple.
Griffon scanned each body he came across until he got enough information.
He came across a house that hadn't entirely burned down. He began searching through, examining things that weren't too burned to be deciphered.
He both picked up quite a bit of intel on the state of common items in this village, and found himself some shoes to put on. They were sandals and unfortunately, they were a bit large.
"It'd be best to wear these." He spoke.
Griffon tossed them to the ground and slid his feet into them. He found some other shoes of varying sizes.
"This home must belong to a family." He looked up.
Griffon half expected to see a picture frame somewhere, but he didn't think cameras existed for that.
He was about to climb through the fallen door of the house and leave when he heard some rustling noises coming from under some rubble.
He turned to look, just to make sure it wasn't some creaking caused by instability.
It was silent, before more rustling and this time scratching could be heard, followed by a low groan.
Griffon returned inside and began lifting the rubble away.
Beneath it all, there was a trapdoor. Some dark blood was spilled over the wood.
The scratching stopped the moment it heard rubble moving.
Griffon gently knocked on the trapdoor with the back of a finger.
"Hello? I'd like to talk with you." He called out.
There wasn't an immediate answer, not that Griffon exactly needed one. He manually unlocked the trapdoor using the hatch and pulled it up. Dust poured inside like a river, prompting the person inside to release heavy coughs before they scrambled as far from view as they could.
The space inside was rather small so there wasn't much hiding that could be done. Griffon waved around the dust and waited for it to settle, before his gaze locked on a small figure clutching his knees to his chest.
"A kid, hm?" Griffon dropped the trapdoor, letting it fall back with a loud crash startling the boy into a shivering mess.
"I'm not a bandit, so take my hand." He reached out a hand as he spoke.
And the child stared at him, eyes moving between the hand and the face that greeted him. He could hardly see a thing since Griffon was faced away from the moonlight.
Pure darkness, and the only bits that were accentuated by moonlight showed deathly pale skin and dark hair.