Soul Venerable (Re-written)

 

 

Within the temporary lead-shielded shelter, a war council meeting is ongoing.

“The Geneva War Manual written by the Great Archmage suggests that we should make use of the battle resources that we can get, especially if we can procure them locally. I don’t think there’s a problem in using the Fultherons to lure out the greenskins. After those fungoids fought with the greenskins, we can swoop in for the kill. Not only can we get rich blood-path materials from the greenskins, we can also harvest various wood-path and poison-path materials from the Fultherons.”

Li Xiao Bai made his stance clear. He supports Hana’s decision to use the Fultherons to take the brunt of the greenskins forces. 

“The Geneva War Manual also urges the reader to use poisonous chemical gas, incendiary armaments, and other types of terror warfare such as genocide, psychological propaganda, scorch earth tactics, and many more cruel, inhumane methods… Do you have the means to achieve all that?” Shion replied. “What you’ve read, I’ve memorized it. What I'm trying to say is, the manual is only a guide. You don’t have to follow them like a bitch.”

For daring to preach something that she personally wrote, Shion gave Li Xiao Bai a plus for shamelessness and bravery. Of course, she wouldn't tell him that she wrote it.

This little conflict has been ongoing for half an hour. 

To siege Fort Esela, Kobayashi Hana of Thousand Flower and Li Xiao Bai of Radiant Desolation are in favor of inciting conflict between the nearby Fultherons and the greenskins.

Their strategy is actually very beneficial in the grand scheme of things. But to achieve it, someone will have to be bait.

And, who was the best for that?

Of course, that would be the pair of the best vanguards, Yukikaze Shion and Arakawa Kenji of Twin Helix. Even if a team of ten humans are put in exchange for those two, their chances of survival might be questionable.

The two possessed great survivability as Kenji had crazy defensive and regeneration methods while Shion’s dynamic defense made her almost untouchable.

“You’re just brute forcing your tactics on me. Fine. I want to bring Ayame and increase my spoils of war shares by… 10%.” Shion changed her stance.

Hana, who was silently watching her, frowned hard. ‘She suddenly altered her stance after Sumire made that gesture.’ She saw Sumire snap her fingers in a weird way. It does not produce any sound, but Hana wasn’t an idiot. It must be a hidden method of communication because Shion is a sound-path antimage. Silent communication must be one of her forte.

Even if Hana didn’t know what Shion schemed, her decision is still beneficial to her. Thus, she can only play along. “No. At most, 7%. No more than that.”

Shion chuckled when she heard Hana denied her proposal. “I can sing a song that will make their children kill each other and make this entire plan fail in infancy. It has a range of… 100 meters. The choice is yours.” Her smile made Hana’s face turn dark.

That would be blatant sabotage. If she breached the team’s contract like that, she would suffer great harm to her soul, but seeing her openly threatening Hana, it means she doesn’t care if she would suffer a heavy soul wound. There’s a high chance of Shion’s threat being a bluff, but Hana wouldn’t dare to bet. 

Shion is an antimage despite never showing her mage-slaying methods. As a mage herself, Hana will be meat on the chopping block if she fights face to face with her. Despite having a higher cultivation base, it wouldn’t help because she’s not even a direct combatant. Therefore, she has to use a meat shield. 

Hana secretly glanced at Li Xiao Bai and sent a telepathic thought message towards him. Despite his looks, Li Xiao Bai is both a martial artist and a mage just like Akane Sakuya. He had a greater chance of surviving if he confronted Shion.

“You want a 10% increase but only for yourself? Sure, but there’s going to be strict objectives that you need to fulfil during the operation. We will not tolerate any intentional error or misinterpretation of instruction that’ll happen in the field.” Li Xiao Bai said.

Skirting around the contract is insulting their intelligence. 

“Am I that untrustworthy?” Shion scoffed. “I haven’t schemed anything noteworthy. Anyway, the three of us will be preparing… All of you can waste time with Sumire, she will be responsible for any arrangement.” Shion left the room, bringing the confused Kenji and Ayame out of the war council.

‘Hahah. Shion! You’ve hidden it very well. They are worried that we have other objectives but our goal all along was… Fort Esela. One way or another, you’re all being made use of by us. What will take us weeks or months will be shortened to days if our siege is successful. By making them think that they are exploiting us and then asking for compensation… you’re a deep schemer yourself, Shion.’ Sumire glanced at the departing trio with a solemn expression. She found herself fond of Shion more and more as time passed by. 

“Now then, let’s discuss how we start the siege.” Sumire brought back their attention.

…

The next day, early morning.

Three humans, all wearing a protective suit that shielded them against radiation and poison, are looking at the nearby village. Kenji and Shion wore the same-designed combat hazmat suit, while Ayame’s military outfit changed to black-scale pattern to mimic the two. She also wore a type of active carbon mask, but it was obviously more advanced than Shion’s creation.    

Shion’s heavy weapon and her mobile furnace were nowhere to be found. They didn’t bring a lot of stuff on their person because they knew they'd be running a lot.

The village inhabitants easily reached a few hundred, but they are not human or greenskins. 

They are Fultherons, a fungoid wood-path minor lifeform who have the same intellectual levels with variant humans. They have a body type very similar to centaurs, such as a horse-like lower body, four strong limbs, and a humanoid upper body.

However, instead of furs like the typical horse or centaurs, they are covered with moss-like bio armor. Their body is decorated with multicolored mushrooms and large tumour-like glowing green blisters who take roots in their moss-like bio armor. 

Even a retard could guess that the large glowing green tumour that attached itself on their bodies must be containing poison or radioactive substances.

From a glance, their moss-like bio armor looks easily flammable especially since their white mushroom flesh looks fragile, but they have actually evolved to counter their weakness. The moss absorbs some level of moisture from the air, granting them a bit of resistance against flame attacks.

“So we have to attack these sentient mushrooms and act as if we’re greenskins… any idea, boss?” Kenji raised a question.

“Ayame.” Shion nudged the petite figure next to her.

“Right away.” She interacted with her omni-gear as prismatic spell formations manifested all around the three.

“Rank 0 information-path magic spell, [Light Refraction]!”

In that instant, the spell formations changed the air around the three. The light that shone down from the greyish-green skies are altered to give them a new form. 

The three humans now look like three greenskins of various sizes. 

“This will only give us the shape, not the smell and abilities of greenskin. Smear this on your armor to cover your human smell.” Shion took out a vial of green powder from her dimensional storage ring. The two followed wordlessly as they waited for Shion’s next instruction. “Stay here and try to look as menacing as possible but don’t say a thing. If I start running away, follow behind me.”

Shion left them quite a distance away from the village.

As she moved silently towards the village’s periphery, she saw that there are no village walls to speak of. Instead, a small fence circled the village to protect them from harm.  At this point, Shion should've entered the Fultheron sentinels senses, but she’s immune to most passive detection method other than sight.  

Since she’s far away from others, she can use her methods without holding back. After ensuring there’s no long range spying methods used from the basecamp (at least ones that are effective against her), she activated her methods. 

The village is large. Even for Shion, it’s impossible to scout every nook and cranny in a short time. Also, her passive echolocation isn’t strong enough to cover the area. Therefore, she chooses another method of investigation.

“Ymir, come out.”

A dark, formless lump of soul slithered out of Shion’s body. More specifically, from her Soul Phylactery. The original goblin leader who turned into a boneling, Ymir, was already dead. His soul was used by Shion to refine a new spectral soul injected with a portion of her Truesoul so that the end product wouldn’t be flawed. 

Ymir is exactly like Nyx, he is a split soul whose Soul Quality is a Spectral Soul. As for why his name is still Ymir, Shion didn’t bother with the naming at all. This isn’t her 10th, nor 100th time splitting her soul (if her previous life is counted). Splitting her soul is one of Shion’s methods of cheating death. As long as she’s willing to pay the price, she can split her soul into a hundred pieces. 

Unfortunately, with the loss of her Transcendent-level attainment in soul-path, her truesoul lost its ‘indestructibility’, and thus made her unable to freely split her soul like in her previous life. Doing so poses a slight risk of severe soul damage which requires soul resources to heal. Fortunately, the process of refining Ymir was successful.  

Originally, she didn’t want to make a split soul after Kasumi and Nyx. However, project [Wild Hunt] requires a lot of manpower. She needs to prepare them as early as possible, so she secretly refines Ymir’s original remnant soul into a Spectral Soul.

Ymir’s soul fluctuation indicates that his soul strength is at 10-man souls or in cultivation terms, 1 transparent star. He is weak, especially since Shion is now nearly 60-man soul strong but his role isn’t for combat, but infiltration. He will be the invisible eye and helper for Shion during this operation. 

As a split soul, he has a strong reins upon other Spectral Souls that Shion refined. 

That’s right, Shion didn’t only have a single spectral soul, she had a unit consisting of 9 Spectral Souls, excluding Ymir. The other spectral souls are not clones, but soul slaves. As their master having ten times of their soul foundation, Ymir has absolute reigns upon their being.

“Scatter and scout the village.” She commanded the spectral souls. They did as commanded and returned 5 minutes later. 

“Two… three… four… six hundred and ninety souls. The current information is consistent with what Kasumi told me a few days ago. Even with Sumire, I cannot eradicate this Fultheron village alone unless I use their souls as fuel for my methods, but that would be putting the cart before the horse. If my guess is correct, then Hana should be aiming for the elite young Fultheron to make herself… a cavalry unit. The ents in her hands are strong and durable but too slow for comfort. It is a major weakness that she wanted to cover by having a Fultheron cavalry...”

Shion entered a deep contemplation as she planned her move. “The village is mostly inhabited by mid-stage and late-stage rank 0 Fultheron, with the elites at peak-stage. The village elder is an early-stage of rank 1, it would be impossible for my spectral souls to get closer and possess some of the younglings…” 

The task of baiting the Fultheron to assault the greenskin-infested Fort Esela isn’t simple. Otherwise, Shion wouldn’t fork for additional benefit. 

“It seems like I need to take drastic measures.” Shion muttered silently as she infiltrated the village.

….

“Should we run now?” Kenji whispered at Ayame in a very low voice. 

“Shhh. Be quiet.”

The village is burning, the Fultherons are panicking left and right. 

Whatever Shion did… It was effective in inciting something amongst these fungoids. 

Five minutes later, they saw a hobgoblin running for her life because she’s being chased by a group of Fultherons. On one of her hands… was a mushroom-like humanoid head. From the small size, it was obvious that it came from a young fultheron. 

When the hobgoblin, Shion, passed through the two, they instantly followed suit as they asked what happened.

“I’ve killed 31 Fultheron children, including the most promising youth in the village. She, I think, was the daughter of the rank 1 village chief. Of course, I left traces of that indicate it was me, a greenskin, was the one who murdered her. That being the case, I’m sure the village chief will be fuming in anger for a mere second before calming down. Rank 1 should not be underestimated.

That’s why I burn their warehouse containing their supply of food. What I can’t burn, I took them all with me.” She emphasized her dimensional storage ring. 

“With this, even if the village chief realizes it was a trap, he will have to appease the masses by marching towards the greenskin fortress in a desperate attempt of survival.” She explained casually as they ran for their lives.

The two shuddered as they felt their scalp tingling. Killing children… Moreover, she also burnt down and stole their food supplies. The fultheron village truly has to attack Fort Esela if they don’t want to eat their own kin. 

“Boss… I’ve never known you were this cruel.” Kenji commented. 

“So your claim of memorizing the Geneva War Manual seems true.” Ayame added.

“Heh. Being kind to others is cruel toward oneself, and being kind to oneself is cruel toward others. What does it matter anyway, they are not of the same race as us.” Shion retorted. Her racist remarks are actually being shared by almost everyone in this world. As long as they are different races, then they will be treated differently, sometimes even less than dirt. 

It took a lot of factors to make multiple races live in harmony without prosecution and enslavement. 

Kenji understood her points, but did not agree. Even if the fultherons are currently their enemies… Shion slaughtered children...   

“Kenji, steel your heart.” Unexpectedly, it was Ayame who tried to comfort him. “If you ever dive down to a minor plane and participate in dimensional warfare, you will understand that this is reality. It’s either you or them. This is the common conception of the world.” 

Kenji nodded, but he kept his silence. He kept this lesson deep within his heart. 

“It’s weird...” Ayame made a remark after reaching their predetermined safe location. Evading the pursuers is easy because she can use information-path methods to lead them astray. “If the village chief is rank 1, then he could’ve chased us without breaking a sweat. Why are they not chasing us?”

“Heheh.” Shion chuckled evilly. “I did something to his wife. Currently, she must be suffering something worse than death.” 

Ayame and Kenji looked at each other, they noticed the frown on each other’s face. 

“When I threatened Hana about singing a song that would make Fultheron children kill each other… I wasn’t joking. Instead of singing that song to a wide audience, I concentrated my effort in affecting the village chief’s wife. She’s now on the verge of mental collapse.” Shion lied as naturally as she smiled.

The truth was, she used a trace of her Dark Mist, the Infestor-strain Violent Desecrator nanomachines, to infect the village chief's wife's body and soul. 

The Dark Mist concentration is too low to infect and dominate her body and soul directly. Instead, it acts like a persistent poison that slowly erodes her body and consumes her soul. 

It was like having one’s body and soul being bitten by microscopic ants while one’s mind is perceiving the pain without any inhibition. The only cure of this erosion is to kill every single nanobot unit of the Dark Mist or to kill her and get on with it.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t end with just a death.

Dark Mist is originally an infestor-strain nanomachine, it excels in infesting mechanical objects. After being combined with Violent Desecrator, it can infect even dirt, rocks or corpses. Therefore, the village chef’s wife’s infected body can be used as a host.

Like a zombie.

According to Shion’s calculation, right now the Fultheron village chief must be trying his best to cure his wife from this ‘poison’. His master-level attainment in poison-path should be telling him it’s possible, but reality isn’t that simple. 

All paths have their own specialty. For example, sound-path methods are typically more permeable and penetrative than other paths while fire-path methods are more destructive. Lightning-path is especially good in bursts while dark-path excels in stealth. So on and so forth.

For poison-path, their methods are infectious and enduring. It is very close to dark-path as well because of it’s subtleness and covertness.

To kill the nanobots which can self-replicate, the village chief will have to use his mastery of poison to kill each unit, not giving any to repair each other or further replicate. If they are pure nanobots, then it’ll take him less than five minutes to do it, but the Dark Mist contains the profundity of soul-path. 

The village chief is helpless in this.

Because some of the Dark Mist nanobot units can somewhat shift its material composition into ethereal.

Shion ordered the two to rest for half an hour while she meditated. 

Exactly 30 minutes later, Shion opened her eyes. “Let’s join the siege on Fort Esela with the main army. They should be seeing the chaos right about now.”

“Our job… is finished? That’s easier than I thought. There was no need for me to be here, is there, boss?” Kenji raised his eyebrow.

“You fool. If it was too easy, we can’t ask for compensation.” Ayame shook her head.