Chương 106: Soul Glyph of Legacy

Acrypha wasn't as surprised at the surge of power from Ryland as she should have been. It wasn't unexpected. If anything, it was par for the course that his magic was inconceivably extreme. Rippling pockets in space? Sure, why not. A Glyph that attacked her soul itself? Nothing unbelievable. What had rocked her, however, was the response from the Living Mana. How was it this alive? How did it act as though it was being tortured? Why was it striking her so deeply?

Acrypha couldn't even close her eyes when the light erupted out of everywhere as the Living Mana was being torn off everything. The tentacles wrapping around the grass were falling apart, dissolving away and acidically pooling on the ground. The rocks clasping the trees crumbled and fell apart, turning into a storm of dust. And in the air, the Living Mana ripped away from the surfaces and bodies they had overtaken now floated like wispy, formless ghosts. Tortured ghosts.

Their shrieks struck Acrypha's ears like lightning, their presences seeming to gather closer and closer towards her. What in the world was going on? As if in response to the Living Mana and its potential threat, her manasoul responded. The shock of how violently it arose without even any bidding from her, of how every magical circuit overflowed with crackling energy, rooted her to her spot. This was bad. Why was her magic acting up? Someone or multiple someones were saying something.

She couldn't hear anything over the rush of blood in her ears, nor the general din of livid magic all around her. Acrypha tried to cast her magic to keep herself safe." [Afterlife Guardians]." She had barely managed to breathe out the spell. Was that enough to cast it? Magic was powered by intention, shaped by the will of the caster, and vocalizing spells aided greatly in that process. And yet, she had never really pondered or experimented just how much vocalization was necessary. Could she whisper out a spell?

Somewhat distantly, Acrypha realized the wildness of her musings were probably a bad sign. She had to get a grip on herself.

Her spell formed even as the Living Mana appeared to coagulate right on top of her. It was a last-resort type of spell. One she wasn't supposed to use unless she was in mortal danger. Unless it was absolutely necessary for her survival or that of someone close to her. That also probably contributed to the fact that she felt like she was exorcising herself much like how Ryland was doing to the Living Mana. Maybe that even explained why it was interacting with her guardians. Acrypha's mental functions froze.

It was interacting with her guardians. With the spell that shouldn't be messed with. A panicky grip closed around her arm. She couldn't take her eyes off what was going on, though. She couldn't pay attention to anything besides her magic. Besides her manasoul now revolting against her own body. Her eyes were watering. The guardians had come alive. They were back. She could hardly see them through the blur of her tears.

How long had it been since she had last felt that incredible sense of power from those two figures on either side of her? How long since she had felt their warmth? Their love? The Living Mana attacked. It wasn't a flashy assault. The leftovers of the Incursion didn't rush in and try to suffocate them. There was no magical blast that had them rushing for cover and trying to protect themselves. Instead, all the Living Mana just entered her two guardians. A jolt burst out of her.

Her manasoul had been rioting all this time, and now, it grew furious. The grip on her arm loosened and she found that Viren had been flung to the ground, his body sparking and jolting with the sizzling mana spiking out of her body and her two guardians. Viren. Right. He had been the one trying to pull her out of her funk and knock some sense into her.

"I—" Her manasoul writhed as magic condensed all throughout it over and over. Power turned white-hot all along her spirit. If she cast magic, now, just how strong would it be? What in all the Realms was going on with her magic? Her eyes fell on the two guardians. They looked terribly solid, far more real than they should have ever appeared. And just like Acrypha's manasoul, they were sizzling with power, brimming with so much volatile magic, she could only stare.

Especially because she could feel that overwhelmingly strong mana trying to burst out of her too. What was wrong with her? The Grand Frame decided to clarify. [Achievement Recognized: Living Conduit You have integrated Living Mana into your manasoul. Rank up from Silver [38] to Silver [85]. Reward: Soul Glyph of Inheritance evolved to Soul Glyph of Legacy.] What? What? No. No. This couldn't be happening. Why was her Soul Glyph evolving? Was this why it was acting so out of control?

Was this why it felt as though it was going to burst free from her at any moment?

"No!" she cried out. Despite some great resistance, she finally managed to move her Calamity-cursed body. Her hands clenched into fists, her heart beat like ceaseless war drums.

"This wasn't supposed to happen. I can't let this get out of control!" She might have blurted out her intentions, but Acrypha didn't have the faintest clue how exactly she was going to do any of that. Yet, her guardians now did. That alone frightened her more than just how quickly they had not only grabbed her, but had also dashed away from the local area. The speed of their response and the depth of their connection to her very being were terrifying.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. She herself still wasn't sure if leaving the area would be the best decision or not, because she was vacillating between wanting to get away before she hurt someone and accepting the help of someone like Ryland. Someone who would probably understand what was going on even better than she did, and might therefore be able to find a remedy.

But before that could happen, her guardians had already sensed her thought and taken her away. Acrypha didn't even get the chance to protest or even scream. This was insane. The trees rushed past them all with frightful speed. Everything shook. The air rumbled and cracked, the ground fractured at their passage, and the newly-returned trees shattered and splintered as her guardians cared for nothing except for the execution of Acrypha's integral wish—some space to figure things out before anything terrible occurred.

Yet space was at an absolute premium. There was almost none at all. No matter where they went, more of Ryland's spatial pockets popped up everywhere. No matter which direction they turned, an incredibly powerful Glyph was branding itself into reality. Pushing out even more Living Mana that was trying to join up with her just like the ones earlier had. No, it was trying to join up with her guardians. As if they weren't far too powerful already.

By the time she managed to speak, they had arrived at a location where things weren't trying to toy with her manasoul. Which, thankfully, had calmed down just a bit. Acrypha herself had grown calmer too. The rush of wind blowing past her and the sheer helplessness that she had never really experienced before had put things into an odd perspective for her.

"Enough," she said. The guardians obeyed with the same snapping response as they had before. They came to a stop so suddenly, Acrypha felt as though she had left half her organs behind. She almost hurled then and there. Thankfully, she managed to both control her tortured guts while also forcefully extricating herself from her overenthusiastic magical guardians.

"What in the blasted Realms were you thinking?" she cried out. For a moment, she glared at her two guardians. At the two blistering pillars of magic she was now regretting summoning up in the first place. Well, she tried to glare, but the magic empowering them had essentially turned them into living lighthouse lamps. Too bright didn't cover it. She might as well have gouged out her own eyes. Even more frustrating was the fact that using her voice was pointless. These two were just spells.

They couldn't feel anything. They wouldn't understand her anger. If anything, Acrypha ought to be blaming the people who had cast and Inscribed the damnable spell ages ago. She wanted to shake her parents. It took a while before her head could wrap around her current circumstance. Something terribly odd had happened back there.

The Living Mana had been forcefully ejected from everything they had been occupying all this while, and in the volatile form they had been forced out as, they had somehow latched onto her manasoul. Onto the spell she had cast as protection. The activation for the Inscription her parents had set for her when she had first started learning magic, far too many years ago. What exactly was the mechanism behind this interaction, though? She couldn't quite figure it out.

There had to be some specific property of the local Living Mana interacting oddly with some specific property of the Inscribed Tier [18] spell.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked the two guardians. She tried to dispel them, but it wasn't working. They almost felt… living. Life. Replicas. Souls. Possession. The words revolved around in her head like snow caught in a blizzard. There was something there she couldn't quite put her fingertips on. But none of that mattered right now. What mattered was stopping the Living Mana from possessing anything else.

Because from everything Ryland had said and shown her, it was obvious that the Living Mana had penetrated deeper into the local environment than any of them had expected. However, Ryland's magic had now ejected all of the Incursion from its many vessels. Acrypha didn't know if that meant the Living Mana was eradicated or not. She glanced at the glowing figures of her two guardians. Right. Definitely not eradicated just yet. So how was she going to get rid of the Living Mana?

Going back to Ryland was the obvious choice. But if he was still beside other people, then Acrypha couldn't go just yet. She had no intention of putting anyone else in any danger. She still wasn't sure she could prevent her guardians from doing anything untoward. Even now, their power was far too incredible. It felt like her manasoul was straining just trying to keep them contained next to her.

She wasn't even giving them any explicit orders, yet it felt like they could just read her mind and determine what they should do by themselves. That level of autonomy was frightening, especially when they were this strong.

"Alright, new plan," she said. She pointed two commanding fingers at the two guardians, just like how Grandma always said she ought to do when she was half her current age.

"I'm going to go and try to find Ryland. You two need to stay put. Is that understood?" They gave absolutely no indications that they had comprehended her command. That was the problem. If Acrypha couldn't trust her own magic, then what in the world was she supposed to put her faith in? Even now, there were those ghostly, shrieking wisps of Living Mana moving in and joining up with the two guardians. Their shine was getting a little too bright. Maybe she could command them to exercise their magic away somewhat.

That might also relieve the strain on her manasoul. It was starting to make her feel a little too on edge, like she had drunk far too much coffee. Something rustled to her left. Acrypha snapped her head around. All this time in the warped and twisted forest, she hadn't met a single other animal. Of course, with the departure of the Living Mana thanks to Ryland, it was possible they were coming back out from wherever they had been.

But she had been right to turn with alarm, for what came before her definitely wasn't an animal. Although, it was hard to call it a person as well. The man had a face the colour of ash, and it was just this face of his that could be seen properly. Everything else was covered up in wooden armour, with little grassy and leafy touches here and there. Despite his strange getup, he exuded a sensation of power that, even without Glyphs that pinpointed such things, Acrypha could feel right to her bones.

"Ah, how nice," he said in heavily accented Androvian.

"All this Living Mana they've been talking about has been gathered in one convenient location. I couldn't have asked for a better opportunity." Acrypha's skin was buzzing with alarm.

"Who are you?" He tilted his head a little, as if puzzled by her question. The features on his face were all wrong. His nose appeared more like serpentine nostrils, his eyes were basically slits, and his mouth was lipless entirely. She couldn't recall any race from any of the Accorded Realms that looked like that.

"You're concerned about me instead of the fact that you have two Manifestations of Living Mana on either side of you?" he asked.

"They're almost Pure Manifestations too." Acrypha frowned. Where had she heard that term before?

"You're evading."

"Not at all. Merely pointing out the wrongness in your priorities. Which I'm about to fix."

"What—" The man distorted space and time to rush Acrypha down. She couldn't even begin to fathom the right response, was hardly even aware that he was attacking her by the time he was a mere handspan away. All that saved Acrypha from getting her head blown to bits by his strike were her guardians. They had flashed in at the right speed to block the thrust of his arm. The larger male guardian's arm had stopped the aggressor's strike, with the second guardian supporting the first's defence.

Yet, despite not getting hit directly, the shockwave from the impact sent Acrypha flying. Her scream was cut short as she tumbled and rolled on the ground, her training kicking in and allowing her to regain her footing in seconds.

"What in the blasted Realms was that?" she shouted, spitting dirt and wishing her hair hadn't chosen this moment to turn into a flyaway mess.

"Why are you—""Compromised," the man said with ease.

"The Living Mana is inside you. I can't take any chances. I've waited too long already. Now that he has acted, I mustn't dally any longer." He flickered through space again, appearing to her right before she was even aware of what was going on, much less even form a proper reaction. This man was insanely powerful. His hand was already thrusting towards her neck again, and this time, there was no guardian to keep her safe. There was nothing at all to protect her.

The only fleeting thought she could summon up was the fact that she had been utterly inadequate in the face of her death. A glowing hand emerged from her neck and grabbed the man's thrusting arm. They were both shocked. Acrypha screamed, jerking away from where she was standing as her reflexes kicked back into gear. Even as she moved, more of the guardian—the woman's form—emerged from her, maintaining its death grip on the man.

"Ah," he said.

"I see your power has risen substantially. No matter. I can find a way to deal with you both, and then I'll deal with the little one."

"No, you will not." They all turned, even the guardians, to see Ryland walking in. Acrypha gulped down the growing lump in her throat. The look on his face did not portend anything good. The man completely forgot Acrypha and her guardians, his face morphing into an expression of pure hate.

"You! Who are you to dare take the form of my master? How dare you steal one of his bodies?"