Crusade – Chapter 65: Souls and Solutions

Aperio watched with interest as Laelia rose to her feet, testing the weight of the bow in her hands. As her Scion didn't seem quite able to carry it with the same ease, it seemed that the weapon was heavier than expected. Or does she think it could break?

She knew that the weapon could take a bit of punishment from herself, and Aperio was very certain her strength vastly eclipsed that of her Scion. "It will not break. Feel free to handle it as such."

Laelia directed her eyes towards the winged Goddess, an awkward smile on her face. "I know it won't break, it's just a lot heavier than I thought a bow would ever be. I don't think I will be able to use this anytime soon."

Oh… Can I make the weapon lighter? She probably could, she just did not know how. How did I make them, anyway? From observation, she knew that they were made of a material that could withstand her strength, to a degree. She was certain that, if she wanted to, she could break her weapon, but she would much prefer to keep it intact. Unlike any normal weapon, hers would allow her to fight properly.

A thought was all that was required for Aperio's swordstaff to appear in her hand — free of the traitor's blood, of course. She spun the weapon, a motion that came frighteningly easy to her. Using a bit more force to grip the weapon did not bend it, just as she had thought. Still, she could feel that there was a limit to the material's resilience, one that she knew she would hit far sooner than the limits of her own strength. If there even is a limit.

That was something she wasn't quite so sure about yet. There had to be one for her physical self, but whatever her body could not do on its own, a touch of her magic should solve. Do I even need a body? It was an interesting thought, but Aperio had no current desire to do any testing of the theory.

"Are you ready to return?" Aperio asked, resting the butt of her staff on the invisible ground. That she could stand on the nothing in her Void still felt surreal, but considering that her home would reflect any change she wanted to, it was most likely not the most outlandish thing she could do here.

"Yes," Laelia replied. She slung the bow over her, an action that garnered a raised eyebrow from the winged Goddess.

"Do you not have a storage skill?"

"I do, but I would rather carry the weapon with me. It feels wrong not to."

She does that because I gave it to her, doesn't she? "You do not have to treat it with reverence simply because it was me who gave it to you. It is a weapon; use it as such."

"Then I shall keep it at the ready," Laelia said, a small smile gracing her features. "Just in case I need it."

Aperio shook her head at the reply. Does she have a skill that lets her make arrows? The answer to that was most likely yes; making an arrow from mana should not be that much harder than making a fireball. They won't be as good as what Inanis used, though. The now-dead Goddess had to have used arrows that Aperio herself had made once upon a time, seeing how they managed to evade even her grasp for a moment.

With another thought, reality rearranged itself and the two of them reappeared just outside of the house of healing, where they had been just moments ago. The first to react was Laelia’s adoptive daughter. Brenia ran towards her foster mother, hugging her as soon as she was able to. Aperio noted with mild amusement that the girl was wearing the feather she had given her, fastened to her head with a matching black strip of cloth.

"It would seem your daughter missed you quite dearly," Aperio said, a warm smile on her face.

"Yes," Laelia replied, shifting the girl in her arms to better hold her. "It would seem so."

"I think congratulations are in order," Ferio said as she stepped closer to the newly minted Scion, interrupting further talk. "It has been quite a while since I saw someone with that title."

Aperio tilted her head at the statement. I had Scions before? What happened to them? It was hopefully something she could find an answer to sooner rather than later. Then again, do I even want to know? What she had learned about her previous self did not exactly inspire confidence in what else she might uncover. I wasn't really nice, was I?

With a shake of her head, Aperio focused on the surroundings, leaving her daughter and her Scion alone for the moment. She still needed to deal with a mass of people that no longer had a place to call home. Or a purpose in life. She also had to check how many of them had been marred by Vigil. Aperio was certain that at least a few of his moon-based followers would bear similar runic soul scarring to that of Laelia. All his paladins have it, according to her.

Taking a step towards the group caused a few of them to shuffle backwards, trying to keep their distance from the winged Goddess. Aperio tried her best to ignore them. That they were scared was to be expected. I did kill their God. It did not matter how easy the deed had been for her, it still resulted in a fundamental change in these people's lives. And for some, perhaps, freedom.

"Who here was a paladin of Vigil?" Her voice echoed through the street, easily reaching everyone in the crowd before her. And I did not even raise my voice.

Nobody answered her question. In fact, most of the people cowered instead, some of them even attempting to hide behind her daughter's followers. "I have not come to judge what you may have done; may have been forced to do. I merely wish to make sure that everyone here is free from the traitor's influence."

There was a moment of silence following her statement, but soon a man wearing a white robe with intricate gold ornaments stepped forward. "Who, exactly, are you?"

Aperio tilted her head at the question. Natio's fanatic knew who I was, but they don't? Despite knowing that Vigil and Inanis had tried to erase all memory of her from existence, she had expected their followers to know how she looked. Perhaps not what I am, exactly, but at least a name and an image. Something that would at least imply that I am a danger so that they would know if I was found again.

The lack of an immediate reply caused the robed man to take a step back, seemingly taking the silence as a threat. His actions had also caused the last stragglers of the group that had not paid attention to Aperio to cease their intermittent talks and focus on the winged Goddess.

"Aperio," she finally said.

The reveal of her name did not garner much of a reaction from the crowds — only a few sporadic murmurs and confused looks. They have no idea, do they? Shifting the swordstaff she still held in her hand got more of a reaction, most trying to further distance themselves.

With a sigh, Aperio shook her head and let her weapon return to her Void. "This will only take a moment."

A wave of mana followed her words, tearing innumerable tiny holes in the fabric of reality. She had no desire to bring the entire group into her Void, but bringing a fraction of her Dominion into the mortal realm? That she could do. It only requires a thought, after all.

Aperio ignored the panicked yells of the people as they were cast in darkness, the homely feeling she got from even the tiny bit of her Void obviously not spreading to the mortals in front of her. The tendrils of mana that spread from her to each individual in the group garnered no reaction, the mortals either unable to see them or too concerned about the darkness of her Void to notice.

Perhaps it was somewhat cruel on her part, but Aperio found she cared little for the people in front of her. She was certain most of these mortals were following Vigil of their own free will, and as such were undeserving of the level of care she had given in healing Laelia. She expected to only find the soul-marring marks on a few.

Weaving the countless threads of her mana through tiny passageways to the soul of each mortal was a surprisingly easy task. It still required a far greater amount of her concentration than most anything so far had done, but concentration was something she had plenty of. All in all, it was still a surprisingly negligible strain on her abilities. What have I become?

Knowing what she could do and actually taking advantage of her abilities were vastly different things. She knew she could check on every single one of them, but actually doing it — with what felt like too little effort — was something else. Aperio might not have cared much for them, but she still did not want to kill them. It would only take a slight mishap on her part for a mortal to perish. Shockingly easy.

It only took a moment longer for Aperio to realise that, out of the group of over a hundred, only four other people had markings on their soul. Having found what she was looking for, she brought the four that had been marred to her Void, letting her Dominion fade from the mortal realm.

While she most likely could have done what she needed to do while they were standing out in the open, Aperio felt a lot safer doing it in her Void. She tried to ignore the shaky breath and darting eyes of the four people she had brought with her, but could not.

"Calm… I brought you here so I can help you." No-one replied to her, all of them simply continuing to peer off into different regions of empty blackness, clearly trying to look for a way out of her Void.

With a silent sigh, Aperio focused on the souls of the people in front of her. Each person seemed to have a different assortment of runes carved onto the core of their very being, most of which she could not yet decipher. The only ones present on every one of them were Servitude and Obedience. Disgusting.

Even if she herself was currently acting against the will of the mortals, Aperio would not stop until their souls were whole again. But how do I do that without blessing them? It wasn't like healing a body where she could just let her mana be guided by the person's own. Their soul saw no reason to repair itself, seemingly thinking the runes engraved upon it were supposed to be there. There was only one thing she could think of that would heal a soul and not imbue it with her power.

A thought later, Aperio and the four marred mortals were floating above the river of souls that flowed through her Dominion. Wanting to avoid another potential fiasco similar to the one she had set in motion when she had carelessly approached the river upon her first remembered arrival in the Void, she had chosen a section that had far fewer orbs flowing through it. Another small flex of her mental muscles provided a large bath house made of marble, into which a part of the soul river was diverted.

As soon as the invisible flow touched the marble, a silvery liquid became visible. Its radiance coiled and shimmered beneath the surface as it quickly filled the bath Aperio had made. She knew that the river returned a soul to its original state; to how she had first made it. Now I just have to stop them from forgetting who they are.

Aperio did not know exactly how she would do so, but a warm, reassuring feeling at the back of her mind spurred her onwards. "Please, step inside."

The mortals simply stared at her, not moving a single step towards the silvery liquid. Seeing that her words would do little to persuade them, Aperio herself stepped into the shallow liquid. She spread her wings and gently let herself fall backwards, landing surprisingly softly on the soul-water.

A tingle ran up her spine as she drifted on the surface, whatever it was that flowed through her Dominion clearly reacting to her. Why didn't it do that when I touched the souls? She pushed the thought from her mind for the moment, righting herself and gesturing towards the mortals.

Nothing happened for a long moment. Then, after exchanging glances with the others, an older man tentatively stepped forwards. First to try his luck, he very slowly stepped into the liquid, then stopped briefly to stare at his reflection. When nothing dire seemed to happen, he continued onwards, further immersing himself in the liquid that still contained surges and shimmers of silver. He stood there for a moment, staring at nothing in particular before he slowly lowered himself into the river’s water and said something that Aperio did not understand. The other three people then reacted, moving to join the old man in the pool. Did they not understand a thing I said? ...They probably didn't.

Aperio still kept watch over their souls, waiting to see how the river's water would heal them. It was not as obvious or fast as her more direct intervention, but she could see the marks on their souls fade. That was, however, the only change she could see. Nothing inside the soul changed, the lightly glowing and swirling mist within remained untouched by the river's water. Does it only heal them because I want it to, or because they have a body?

Watching their souls slowly heal brought a calm and happiness to Aperio's mind that she had not expected. A large part of her felt she should not be happy that people who had worshipped the God that had killed her were getting healed. But, did they have a choice? It was a question she would likely never get an answer to, but neither did she truly care. Knowing that she could remove the filth Vigil had brought into the world was good enough for now.

Time seemed to pass slowly. How long they floated in the silvery waters of the soul river, waiting for the last vestiges of the runes to vanish, Aperio did not know. At last, when all four of the people received the [Sovereignty of the Self] title, it was time for them to leave her Void. Aperio stood up, and the movement seemed to startle the mortals. Perhaps they had forgotten that she had been there, floating on the shimmering liquid next to them.

Her dress was not wet, a fact that went ignored as she brought them back to the house of healing with a thought. Now I just have to find a way to do this without bringing people into my Void.

GamingWolf

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