Chương 254: The Joy Of Creation

"My Lady, I have never felt more powerful! I think my claws might be capable of tearing through steel with ease now!" Coco wasn't the most talkative of my band of monsters. He usually just remained hidden in either my or Xlown's shadow without making a single noise. He was perpetually lying in ambush for anything and everything. I do not know about others, but I get the feeling that when he is like this, he is pretty much undetectable. I might be wrong, though.

Perhaps his presence is obvious to people with actually good senses. It is hard to say… Nara tells me that he conceals himself well, and–Apparently in an attempt to mimic me–Releases an absolutely dreadful amount of bloodlust and killing intent when attacking. Not when he lunges, only when he gets his claws on the target. Only Nara could tell me about this. I can't tell anything about the usage of energies outside of negative energy.

All I know is a bit of trivia about them, such as the fact that bloodlust and killing intent are indeed completely different, and that they–In fact–Count as energies on the same level as mana. I do not have the faintest clue what a killing intent mage would look like, but the more I think about it, the more curious I become. … In any case, my favourite coyote had indeed received a quantitative boost in sheer power as a result of my evolution.

He had actually steadily increased in strength over the course of the month I spent dormant, but unlike me, he hadn't needed to 'shut down' for a while. He had been just as active as he normally would be. This was good to know, as it meant that despite him being directly connected to me for the purpose of his growth, he wasn't beholden to the same drawbacks. As such, when I would evolve again in the future, if necessary, he could defend my unconscious body.

Technically, I could release my ghostly little sisters to do the same, but I didn't feel comfortable leaving them outside without me around to monitor and protect them. That damned masked spectre was still around, after all. I still don't know what his deal is, but he is definitely still around, and he has a vengeance… For some reason. I really don't know who the hell that guy is or what he is so damned mad about.

If I killed him, he should just calm down and go to whatever afterlife is prepared for him, instead of being an annoyance. Anyway, Coco actually got a new ability as well, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that his ability to dwell in shadows has received an enhancement. He wasn't just able to dwell in the shadows of my daughter and me. He could also hop into the shadows of inanimate objects and low-consciousness beings–The latter was mostly about trees and plants…

Additionally, he could get into the shadows of my little darlings, too, now. I suppose that it was a sign that he was a stronger part of the family now. It was also reflected in how he acted. Previously, he would hyperfocus on me as being 'His Lady', and liked to hang around Xlown while ignoring the others, but now, it seemed like he had grown more fond of my little sisters, considering that he let Ophelie and Gigi ride on his shoulders. How cute. Apart from this, Coco hadn't gained anything else.

I had actually thought that he would gain something curse or spirit-related, since he took after me and all, but it seemed that he was currently set on a path having to do with shadows instead. As for Xlown… She hadn't had the occasion to absorb much negativity. I didn't want to stifle the progress of my daughter, so I feel like I'll need to somehow find a way to bring her along with me on my future missions so that she can do her thing and become more powerful.

It was important that my girly pops were able to defend themselves in case I wasn't around to slaughter anyone who dared look at them wrong. I would have liked to discuss upgrades with Mari, but this girl was still knocked out. So I instead went into dormancy to test things out in the Mindscape. The first thing I did was grab a bunch of ghosts I had devoured whilst in the dungeon, and shoved them in the Melter. The process was quite swift. They struggled in an attempt to escape, but I had already feasted upon them.

There was nothing they could do to resist. They were all melted into a singular vial. I grabbed the glass bottle and inspected it. From the looks of things, while it had seemed like a painful ordeal, the spirits used in the process were still very much intact. They had been melted and combined into the same liquid, but that was it. They were otherwise unaltered. I see… My next move was to place the vial in the Furnace to torture them, but that was a failure.

The different spirits inside the vial reacted differently to the flames. Ah, I was too hasty. I placed the vial inside the Closet for future usage, and instead shoved other spirits from the dungeon into the Melter, but instead of going straight to the Furnace, their next stop was the Press, where they were all smoothly melded into one properly. Compared to my previous usage of the Press, it was like night and day.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The process was impossibly smooth. No damage was done in the process, and I was left with a single spirit, albeit one with several personalities cohabiting in a single vessel. If I made a ghost out of this, after giving it the typical Furnace treatment, it would definitely be powerful, but I could tell that the result would be unstable.

The different personalities weren't quite at odds with one another, but they all acted like they were still separate beings. A spectre created from this would tear itself apart eventually, and probably struggle to follow orders. Alright, let's try something. The Furnace, being the oldest of the machinery present inside the Mindscape, I had experimented with it a lot. I was very familiar with how it functioned and could control the flames it gave off with precision.

This included the more recent fuels added to the mix. Negative emotions were good to push a spirit toward a certain direction when torturing them, burning them with anger would increase their strength and ability to interact with the physical world in direct, aggressive manners, whilst burning them with sadness could grant them improved haunting abilities, but at the cost that they didn't really control their powers with great precision.

It was a very interesting endeavour to try and find what extremes worked, and how to strike a balance to create spirits with strength, but a general set of abilities. Specialists were great, but they tended to have obvious weaknesses. Also, specialists had the strongest tendency to ignore orders or follow them in a wrongful manner. However, the most interesting of the available fuels were the essences. Cursed Essence could add… Well, a bit of curse powers to the mix. So far, I haven't seen much success with this.

I would probably need to also fuse some Curse Essence into them at the Press… Which should be easier now that I have the Smelter. What I was most interested in using right now was Ghostly Essence, however. It was the most effective flame for what I had planned. I had been thinking about how I was going to restore Faelan's soul, or how I was going to convert Anathema into a spirit, for a long time now.

Although my previous tests had understandably been greatly flawed due to my lack of proper equipment, I had nonetheless made progress through sheer force of will, alongside a healthy dose of brute forcing. The flames produced by Ghostly Essence were the most precise of them all. They didn't have any real effect. The entire point of them was how accurate and powerful they could be. They could target things that the other flames would never be able to do with any amount of precision.

They could allow me to basically transform any ghost or soul to be whatever I desired, but what was currently important was that I had discovered that the flames of Ghostly Essence were able to destroy a soul's or spirit's ego entirely. In short, it was as if I were able to remove the mind of a person, rip away who they were entirely, leaving a living, but completely empty husk. I believe that by doing so, I will be able to safely mend Faelan's soul and convert Anathema into a little sister.

Technically speaking, I could have attempted to do so earlier, but I wanted the best result, and I wanted a method that guaranteed success. Blank souls and spirits were what I believed to be the perfect solution, not just to these two situations, but also to increasing the strength of all spirits in general. The process I eventually came up with was as follows: First, I melt several spirits into a liquid. Second, I melt several souls into a liquid. Third, I press the results to meld them together fully.

Using Ghostly essence with the spirits in particular to empower the result. Fourth, I use the Furnace to erase the ego of both products, erasing all sense of agency or instinct for survival. Fifth, I press both products into one. Sixth, since the result is somewhat unstable, I placed it back into the Melter, and then back once again into the Press, creating a singular product whose name I didn't bother thinking about. Once I have the product ready, I carefully bring Anathema out of the storage.

The issue I had with making her into a spirit was that she didn't have a soul. When I absorbed her, I gained her raw form as a Living Curse instead, and I simply wasn't able to make her into a little sister due to this. Now, I am confident that this is no longer the case. I place her in the Melter to liquify her form, and then place her into the Press alongside the product I created. I feel quite nervous.

Afraid that my calculations were incorrect and that I might ruin all chances of Anathema becoming part of the gang, despite me promising otherwise. The idea is simple, the product is blank, it is nothing but matter. Meaning that Anathema, who still has a form of agency and strength, will be the dominant force once they are pressed together. Once put together, she should be able to turn into a spirit, being given a powerful composite soul without an owner, and a composite spirit without any thoughts.

I watched anxiously, but the process is a swift one. Anathema is fused into the product, and the result is… It is… Not quite stable! I quickly grabbed Anathema, while the Press worked as intended, it seems like a Living Curse isn't quite compatible with the product. It could very well work out even if I did nothing, but I had thought about what to do in case of such a situation. I threw Anathema into the Furnace and brought out flames manifest from Curse Essence, producing flames as powerful as possible.

This quickly allowed Anathema to stabilise, allowing her to truly absorb the product into her mass. I left her in the Furnace until the stock of Curse Essence depleted. It would take a few days for it to fill back up, but it didn't matter. Anathema was in my arms. She was perfect. She was ready. There was only one thing left to do, and it was to manifest her into a proper spirit.

I held the sphere that she was currently up in the air as I willed for her to transform, and after a flash of dark crimson, instead of a sphere, I was holding an adorable mass of darkness with dark red eyes and a mouth. Shaped like a little girl wearing a big, puffy dress.

"Welcome to the family, Ana!"