The pain of cutting into your soul was something few people could handle, but it was a pain I was all too familiar with. I had done it once to myself in a swift and violent strike, but this time was different. The girls once said that my God soul was too large to be cut in half as it had once before. However, I wasn’t cutting it in half this. This time, I was merely cutting away a small sliver.
The Kingpin’s eyes widened and his pupils began pinpricks as he saw the blade enter me. His mouth fell open in utter shock and horror as I began to cut. To a normal person, it would look like I was carving into my gut, chopping my organs to bits, yet for some reason, no damage appeared and no blood flowed. I was cutting, and the thing I cut was something far more precious. When I finished, Alysia disappeared, retreating to her home in my soul world, as if wanting to immediately comfort the part of that world that was now torn and damaged.
I held out my hand, and a small white light started to form in it. It formed into a small glowing white orb with flecks of blackness roughly the size of a marble. As the Kingpin looked at it, his eyes were extremely sharp. He was well aware of what I was doing, and what it implied. I pulled life force from the life that was in my soul world, sans Alysia, and slowly healed the damage to my soul.
In the short term, this damage would weaken me. I’d suffer for it. However, I wasn’t particularly worried about the long-term effects. After all, I knew that I’d be able to heal all of the damage. I had the Waters of Life, after all. I could rejuvenate and rebuild the parts I cut away. As for what I lost, it had been things that weren’t that important anyway. I didn’t think about the fight I’d have in a few days with King Roth. That was a problem for later.
Once I was done stabilizing myself, my focus turned to the catgirl in front of me. With the most gentle care I could muster, I put the soul down into Lydia’s chest, placing my hands gently on her bosom. I then began to cast a series of spells. As soon as I used mana, I could feel the pain. The soul was the conduit from which mana worked through the body, and I had just cut off a piece of my soul. Even though it was healing, the mana fluctuated and burned wildly, but I forced myself to work.
I using my karmic influence to control her soul, binding a piece of my soul to it. Instead of removing the karmic infection, I began to realize that the Kingpin was right. It had to run its course. So, instead, I sped it up. Lydia’s brow furrowed, and she started to make pained noises in her unconscious state. Was she still not strong enough to survive this, even with my soul transplant? I initiated Enslavement, taking control of her as a slave. Unlike the other girls, the fragments of the slave bond that had once held her to me were no longer there. It had been burned away with the rest of her soul.
With her status boosted with Slave Master, her expression started to look better, and the karmic infection progressed far easier. I did what I can to heal and support her while pushing the infection. This was normally something that might have taken another month, but I was able to progress it to the end in a mere hour. I ignored my pain, focusing purely on her as I repaired her soul as much as I could. When I was finally finished, I was covered in sweat, and when I stopped channeling mana, the ache in my soul magnified, and I nearly collapsed to the ground.
“It’s done.” I declared, panting.
“Don’t tell her about any of this... or me. Just tell her she survived, and let her decide where she wants to go and what she wants to do.”
“You won’t force her?”
“I only ever wanted to make her happy. I did what I could. That piece of my soul is hers now. It will connect her to the mana of this world, and allow her to live the rest of her life in peace. That’s all I can do.”
“Is that it? You’ll leave with that?”
“If I had decided to take her, would you have let me?” I asked.
He gave a dark smile. “Goodbye, Deek Deekson. I hope you don’t regret what you have done here today.”
I looked down at Lydia one last time before using my dungeon point to open a portal. “I never will.”
I had given Lydia chance, but this was no longer my Lydia. I left her behind to find her path.