Black Onyx - Phoenix Resurrection

Thalza was a strong woman, an elite among the Drow, a Ranger. In her own words, she was a mix between a warrior and a scout, an aspiring position to hold in their society. She was important, respected, admired...

And yet, she was captured by me.

Going through her memories as I did seemed to bring her a great deal of pain. I was drilling through her Soul like a parasite, after all. No matter, it was a necessary sacrifice to improve my skills, a sacrifice I was more than willing to make. Her, not so much.

The Drow, Thalza, as much as I could gather, was close to two centuries old, though you really couldn’t tell from her face. Her skin was tight, her eyes bright, and her gaze firm, when not filled with tears and blood from pain, of course.

She served under a High Priest or something like that. But apparently, she was being punished for some indiscretion or another, being banned from joining the war effort at the front lines.

I mean, many would probably think that was a reward, but apparently, it was not so for the Drow. They couldn’t die, or most of them couldn’t anyway, so they liked to fight, trying to outdo each other and gather prestige and glory on the battlefield. Being barred from participating or not daring to, brought great shame to a warrior.

The punishment, as laughable as it was, meant a lot to Thalza. She felt great shame because of it, not daring to show her face in the big cities, and instead choosing to roam the wilderness.

Now imagine her surprise when she accidentally stumbled upon a group of humans trying to infiltrate their lands.

At first, she was shocked, and frightened, thinking we were the elites, but then we all went down with one sleep spell. She even infused illusion into the most aggressive one, me, trying to keep me to toy with later.

She just had to kill us all and she would be doing her homeland a great service, bringing her glory and honor.

But, oh… The memories were so sweet, going from the highest highs to the lowest lows in mere moments. When she realized she was trapped, her heart nearly stopped.

The funny thing was, as sloppy as I was, while I swam through her memories, examining them one by one, she also experienced them all over again. To be gain reminded of her mistakes, brought her great shame.

I had never before tried extracting memories from a live specimen. It was apparently quite painful, and served great as a torture technique, though that was not the original intent.

There obviously existed ways to extract memories painlessly, but those needed preparation, materials, Formations, time, and all kinds of other nonsense I didn’t have.

With all the muffled screaming, the rest of the men present appeared to be getting more and more uncomfortable, until one of them spoke. “Boss, should we really be doing this? I… We don’t think this is right. I mean, she’s…” He hesitated.

[Because she’s a woman? Is that what you were going to say? Are you saying it's unfair I am going hard on her just because she’s a woman? Are you trying to paint me as a misogynist? I would do the same thing to anyone!] I barked, the illusion having awoken some long-forgotten memories.

“…Well, no. It’s because she’s the enemy. It’s dangerous keeping her alive. We should probably just kill her.”

I paused, the response sounding way too logical for my slightly on edge mind. [Oh, haha, that’s funny. Heard that, Thalza? Should we just kill you and get this over with?]

Unfortunately, her answer was yes. A strong desire was suddenly born in her mind, wishing for death. Fuck that.

[Tsk, tsk…] I shook my head. [Come on, Thalza. You can’t be seriously wishing for death? Oh, do you by any chance have one of those extra bodies hidden somewhere, waiting for you?]

Judging from her immediate subconscious reaction, the answer was most likely yes.

[Well, that’s too bad! Because you are not going anywhere.]

I was not even close to satisfied with my memory extraction technique. It was way too intrusive, way too obvious, and absolutely garbage at gathering information. I barely managed to pluck a few easy-to-access memories, those that were the most important to her or the most recent ones.

Leaving her alive and extracting deeper secrets proved to be quite a hassle. But as I already had a volunteer to help me, I decided I might as well take the chance to learn. How awesome could it be if I could just read people’s minds without them even knowing it, stealing their knowledge as casually as I could fly?

“But, boss, what is she escapes?”

I rolled my eyes at the paranoid team member and called for a break. I took Thalza, folded her over my knee, and began working on her collar. I inscribed a whole bunch of Runes into the metal with my claw and then merged a thin Spirit Metal wire into them for better Qi conductivity. Also for stability and durability.

[There. Now the collar has a tracker as well, in case she escapes.] I shook my head at the absurdity. As weak as she was, with every source of her power locked, that was never going to happen.

I also added a tiny little secret to the collar, but that one didn’t need to be made public. It was a… safety measure. Just in case.

“Oh… I guess that’s fine then.”

[Yeah, yeah… We are getting close, right? Let’s go!]

The compass carrier nodded and gestured for us to follow him. The needle on the Soul Compass would move significantly more than before whenever we had to avoid a group of Drow or a settlement that crossed our path.

Combined with a bit of sloppy trigonometry, I figured we should reach our destination in about a day or two. Depending on the amount of detours we had to take.

“I wonder where the mole is…” One of the guys said out loud. “I hope it’s not in some kind of fortress, that would suck.”

“Yeah, I’m not good at blending in. Not to mention we would stick out like a sore thumb compared to these freaks.”

Thalza turned and gave him a death stare, but he just smirked back at her, showing her his teeth.

I curiously lifted an eyebrow, having detected some changes in her mind. For a moment there I got a vision of some important-looking building.

[Doesn’t matter. After we find our target we will also visit their capital, doing as much damage as we can.]

My underlings gave me weird looks, but I just focused on the changing memories.

[No need to keep back either. Just kill anyone and everyone. Women, children, animals… It doesn’t matter. There is nobody strong enough to stop us anyway.]

I felt anger flare inside Thalza, and images of some impressive-looking Drow flashed through her mind.

She tried to say something, a cuss word, I figured from her shackled mind, but only a quiet, muffled mumble came out thanks to the gag keeping her quiet.

[Haha, I knew it.] I grinned at my prisoner. Whenever I mentioned something, her mind automatically recalled the relevant memory. [Thanks, now I know who to look out for.]

[Also, I already know who is your boss, as well as what you did to end up here.] I bluffed confidently. [It seems like you don’t actually know what the purpose of this war is. Pathetic. All of those facilities, all of that research, it is all wasted on you. Not to mention that your magic is so incredibly weak, I can’t believe you still think that is the correct way of using it…]

I kept speaking with a big grin on my face. The memories just kept flowing in! Whenever I mentioned something, especially if I insulted her, calling her stupid, her mind would try, in detail, to examine her knowledge and where she made the mistake.

The thing was, she didn’t! And I was slurping up all that delicious brain candy. It was so much easier than trying to sort through a deadman’s Soul! A cheat code!

“Wait... So we aren’t going to burn down the capital?” One of the guys suddenly asked.

[Of course, not, you fool. This bitch here can’t control her mind, giving me all the information I need, and I’m taking her for all she’s worth, haha!] I laughed, speaking with the guy. Of course, I created a sound-isolation barrier around Thalza so she couldn’t hear me.

I needed her nicely clueless while I explored her mind. If she knew how I was exploiting her, she could retaliate. I’m not exactly sure what she could do, but if I were in her place, I would start singing myself a kid’s song or start scrolling through memes in my memory. That would make the one sorting through my brain really fucking confused.

[Alright! Now, about those body possessions, that you guys like to use so much…] I spoke in Thalza’s ear. [Would you believe me if I told you that you are damaging your Talent every time you do it? It’s true! Just think about it, all that accumulated damage..]

I barely contained my smile as the knowledge of the Drow’s deepest secrets came spilling forth.

Ah, having a willing, cooperating specimen is so nice!

[Good news, Onyx!] I called after a long night of experimentation and theory crafting.

“What is it, Master?”

[I think I finally got a way to get you out of here.]

“Oh!”

I could feel the excitement in Onyx’s voice. We nearly reached our destination, the Soul Compass going wild whenever we took a detour. We should reach it shortly.

Before that though, I wanted to prepare. I extracted a lot of knowledge out of the Drow, their secrets to body changing, and a whole bunch of things relating to the Soul. I also finally learned how to counter their Souls escaping.

It wasn’t really easy to explain, suffice to say it worked by shifting the Qi in the area so that the beacon signal they had for the Soul to return to would be disrupted, giving too many false positives. The Soul would get confused, making it easy to capture.

Heck, sometimes they would try to return to the source of the disruption, practically trying to possess the one trying to capture them. So long as you were stronger than them, then that wouldn’t be an issue.

Of course, having the attraction powers of a Soul Eater helped.

Anyway, I looked at the bracelet on my arm and then summoned a certain beast core.

[Get ready, this is going to be… intense.] I said to Onyx and then sat on the ground, placing the beast core on the ground beside me.

[Take a break guys. I’m going to be busy for a bit.] I told the rest of the team and then summoned a barrier around me. I isolated the disruptive properties of the scepter outside the barrier and reinforced it with all kinds of enchantments. Nobody could see or hear inside. Breaking the barrier was also out of the question. As small as it was, probably only those in the Sky Realm could break it, and even then it would take time. I really couldn’t be disturbed.

I took a moment and focused.

[Ready? It’s now or never.]

“I’m ready Master. I trust you!” Onyx answered with palpable excitement.

I nodded and then my Qi surged. My skin returned to its original red color and my entire body shifted, the transformation coming undone. Power flooded my veins, and the air around me twisted under immense pressure.

I gripped the bracelet, my palm wrapping around the black crystal to guard it from damage. Scales grew across my forearm as the relic tried to retaliate, but my body was too strong for it to harm me. I gritted my teeth and squeezed, twisting the enchanted jewelry.

The metal cried under my grip and then snapped.

I was free.