48 Pay with your soul and protect it all, or lose it all

“So… er… yoohoo, answer us, Yi! The instructor says we have to keep talking to you so we can know where you are, but, like, aren’t you everywhere, since your body is the whole temple… Ah, right, your core, please show us your core. I just hope you didn’t hide it on the top of the roof or, like, twenty meters underground, it’d be troublesome to get it… Geez, seriously, this is too ridiculous,” Noah snorted. “Do we have to keep talking, sir?”

Without answering, Yamazaki turned to Axel.

“How’s his reaction?”

“…” The Sunclaw swiftly dodged a big splinter that flew past him from the floor and sunk into the ceiling. “As you can see, the spirit is in a bad mood.”

Inexplicably, Axel seemed to be enjoying this. Well, as long as Yi kept attacking him, I supposed—or at least hoped—that he wouldn’t attack us, let alone Ray, Zeeta, Styzz, or Eder who had stayed behind in the meditation hall, searching for the binder item.

I had expected Yamazaki to teach us some complex technique to locate the spirit’s core, but it seemed that all we could do was draw his attention. The stronger the reaction, the closer the core… or so Yamazaki had told us. In other words, the closer we would get to it, the more likely it was for us to face some misfortune.

“How about saying something to provoke him?” Yamazaki suggested.

Provoke an already angered spirit? Did he want to kill us, after all? I sighed and looked around at the room we had entered. There were pillows and pallets piled up in one corner. What seemed to have been a bedroom for boarding disciples was visibly not being used anymore. However, just as the old lady had said, there was not even a speck of dust. Yi’s spirit was allegedly the one cleaning everything. Sure, all of it gave off scary vibes, even scary-eerie-spooky vibes like my big sis would say, but… Yi’s behavior also had me wonder. Wasn’t he just taking care of the temple? Wasn’t he just trying to live on in the temple… just like I was trying to live on?

“Sunbrick Company. Sunbrick Company. Sunbrick Company.”

As soon as Axel’s repeated the name of the company that had ruined Yi’s life, the wood of the walls emitted a cracking sound and no less than three pillows were thrown at us, with such speed that it sent Noah and me to the ground. Under our look of protest, the Sunclaw just pointed out:

“He reacted.”

“Er… Interesting,” Yamazaki said. “That confirms one thing: the spirit can not only hear us but also listen to our words. It means the damned soul has kept some memories from his past life. More often than not, damned souls lose all their memories so… This damned soul is not a simple one.” I straightened up at his words. Did he mean…?

‘It doesn’t mean Yi has kept his inner soul,’ Ray said through our necro-bond. ‘It just means he remembers a few things about his past life.’

Eh… Was Ray able to read my thoughts, now?

‘And, no, I can’t really read your thoughts.’

He had just done it, though?! Well, in a way, I was glad my master was so perceptive since I didn’t know how to talk through a necro-bond. He added:

‘We’re doing fine over here. We’ve found a room beside the meditation hall that’s full of junk, spiritual books, and the like, but we didn’t find anything that could be called an enchanted item yet. Zeeta says his good hearing is useless with all the racket made by the rain… I wonder how he planned to use it anyway. Styzz is fumbling along the walls but didn’t explain why… He seems very focused. As for Eder… Ahem. He is trying to come up with some logical reasoning that would justify that the wife is actually the murderer…’ What?! ‘I wouldn’t bet a Corn she is, though,’ he confessed with some exasperated amusement. ‘And he wouldn’t either, I think. Actually, I met him in Europe last year, just once, in the Swanbell Clan’s main castle. That guy is a born decipherer. A puzzle solver, in a way. But he’s got some serious iss—Ops, sorry, it’s not the time for that. Yamazaki is talking to you, Armen.’

I blinked as the instructor tilted his head and waved his hand before me.

“Armen? Armen Moon, come back from the Moon, please.”

“Aaah… Sorry, sir,” I said, getting to my feet. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“I saw that.”

A thunderclap louder than the others made Noah flinch. Was he afraid of storms?

“You laughing at me, stupidstar?”

“Eh? No way. I just remembered a story my grandpa told me about a sailor who died after being struck by lightning. Apparently, the story was real and the sailor was one of my ancestors.”

Noah widened his eyes then frowned.

“You serious?”

“I’m serious.”

Yamazaki cleared his throat.

“Forget the storm, guys, we’ve got a spirit to take care of. Anyway, it’s good to stir Yi up, but let’s not go too far or the core’s emotions will be all over the place and Axel won’t know how to locate it. And by the way,” he paused then scowled at Noah and me, “you guys really have no imagination. When you want to get someone’s attention, do you keep talking about how ridiculous it is to keep talking? That would only bore your interlocutor! Talk as if you were a storyteller!” he exclaimed, waving. “Think about your public! Reawaken past memories! Beg, insult, recriminate, praise, and commend! Reach to his heart!”

Holy Gods, he was fired up. Our public, huh. I wished I had brought my violin with me. Maybe Yi’s soul would have appreciated my new melody.

We began to do as he said. Noah insulted Yi’s soul, calling him a coward for not dying properly and letting himself turn into an evil ghost—which kinda offended me more than it seemed to offend Yi—he also called Yi a damn spiritual snob, a cursed loser, a bad husband, a crappy teacher, and things that even seemed to shock Axel a bit. As for Yamazaki, he had turned pale under the stream of abuse.

Thanks to Noah, we were hit by a particularly strong punch of qi. Well, Yamazaki said it was qi, but when the energy touched my forehead, I didn’t absorb it automatically. Besides, I could see rather neatly the dark energy in the punch. Yi’s ghost was attacking us with necro-qi discharges.

Which meant deathforce was flowing through the walls.

Which meant that the temple worked indeed just like an undead body.

As it dawned on me, Axel walked away, saying:

“His bad mood is getting stronger over there.”

I followed the others through a dark corridor, and taking off one of my gloves, I let my hand graze along the wooden wall. I didn’t feel anything. Well, that made sense. I was far from being a necromancer. But what about Ray? Given his knowledge, wouldn’t he be able to not only feel the deathforce flow but also even locate the core and its “master”, be it a person or an item? Or maybe it was not so simple. Anyway, if Yi was an undead…

I froze for an instant.

What did he eat?

Obviously lifeforce. But whose? His wife’s? His nephew’s?

The question troubled me so deeply that I just put it aside for now.

We were arriving at the kitchen when a sudden cry of alarm flew through the necro-bond:

‘Armen, lie down!’

I had no time to process his words, but my core did: I threw myself to the ground, just when a deafening burst resonated in the whole temple. A wave of energy shook my entire body, and for a moment, I couldn’t feel anything at all: nor my core, nor the deathforce flowing within, nor could I even see or hear anything. Even so, nothing scared me more than feeling my necro-bond with Ray disappear in a flash.

As if it had never existed. As if my best friend, my master, my very life was gone.

Dread overwhelmed me. I opened my mouth to cry Ray’s name. He couldn’t have died, could he? My core was on fire, incapable of thinking straight.

I wanted to dash to Ray’s side, but something was preventing me from doing so. My hand was scratching the floor of the kitchen. Because of my life-lust awakened by Ray’s order, I was somehow absorbing the energy of the temple. Not lifeforce, but deathforce. And maybe because of it, images flashed across my mind.

First, I saw a cheerful child tiptoe up to his grandpa, who spun around and frightened him instead. The same child, as a teenager, was sitting cross-legged on one of the verandas, reading a book. I also saw him sneaking out of the temple at night, and then him as a newly married young man rather embarrassed as he faced the heated discussions between his wife and his mother. I could feel his happiness when her daughter laugh for the first time, the joy of a middle-aged man living a peaceful life by his beloved wife’s side, and his pride in his own achievements, in his disciples’ success… and his unconditional love for the temple and the sacred hill.

He protected it with all he had. But then his wife fell ill, he couldn’t pay for her treatment, and he found himself on the verge of losing everything.

‘PAY WITH YOUR SOUL AND PROTECT IT ALL. OR LOSE IT ALL.’

The image of a gray-faced woman with white, blind eyes popped into my mind.

In his desperation, he gave in to her offer and swallowed a white pill. He paid off his debt and helped his wife recover, but he never left the temple again: his life slowly began to leak out of his body and mix with the temple. He felt like he became a burden and poisoned himself, but the relief he felt upon dying was soon replaced by hell. A disciple was hit by a door. One of his closest friends almost lost a hand in the meditation hall. Even his own granddaughter got injured.

‘I am sorry for believing that devil. I was naive. I should have sold the temple instead of my soul. I left Yana behind. I defiled the temple. I destroyed everything I loved. So please, please make this hell stop. I regret. I just want to be punished for my deeds alone so… I beg of you, whoever you are, make this hell stop.’

‘As you wish.’

Suddenly, the deathforce flowing in the temple stopped. It took me a moment to understand that the one who had answered the spirit was none other than Ray.

I could feel the necro-bond again. I could hear again. I could barely move though. My core was pounding erratically.

What the hell had happened? I had just experienced some of Yi’s deepest memories, probably because I had been absorbing his deathforce. And despite the fact I had ceased to feel the necro-bond for an instant, Ray had still seen and heard the same as me… obviously because the necro-bond hadn’t really stopped working. So… what exactly happened?

‘Sorry I ordered you earlier, Armen,’ Ray then said. ‘I panicked. Lightning struck the temple, and the spirit apparently let it through to kill us all, but Styzz managed to control it with his power. He said he couldn’t hold so much electricity in his body, though, so he left the temple in a hurry.’

I was filled with horror. Kill us all… Didn’t that mean he would have killed his own wife, too? I was starting to understand what kind of hell he was referring to. The damned soul was really… a damned soul.

‘Everything should be fine, now,’ Ray added. ‘Yi helped me find the core, and I destroyed it.’ Already?! Wait, weren’t we supposed to catch it? ‘I also think I know what item was binding his soul to the temple. The only problem is… I did all this without thinking. Kind of a reflex… How am I going to explain that to Yamazaki?’

Ah. He had destroyed a damned soul haunting a temple “by reflex”. As expected from my master. If I had been able to move, I would have laughed.

‘Your core was shaken by the electric shock, but it’s not that you can’t move,’ Ray pointed out, embarrassed. ‘It’s that you cannot stand yet because of my order.’

He was reading my thoughts, wasn’t he? I sighed and finally listened to Noah’s alarmed voice calling me.

“Stupidstar! Stupidstar! You hurt? Hey, you hurt?!”

I turned my eyes to him and answered:

“I’m fine.”

Noah breathed out, sitting against the cooker.

“Geeez…”

There was a silence. I could hear the water flow in the gutters outside, but it seemed that the rain was letting up and the storm was blowing itself out. Well, not that it mattered anymore: the core had been destroyed.

But there was no way Ray could explain it without admitting he was a necromancer.

I tried to raise my eyes, but my body stubbornly kept glued to the ground. I asked:

“Where did the instructor go?”

“To see what happened. He looked pale. Maybe they really died. Hoodie, Ghost, Electromorpheus, and the actionphobic guy.” His voice was gloomy but wasn’t shaking. He cursed under his breath. “Mr. Huang is right. Wherever I go, people suffer. I must be a damned soul, too.”

The hell was with that defeatism all of a sudden? I had just put on the glove I had taken off earlier. Lying on my belly, I clicked my tongue, annoyed.

“Nonsense. That Mr. Huang is a damn demon.”

“Hah? Do you even know who he is?”

“Your supervisor from the Champion Institute. I know he doesn’t think twice before drugging innocent people just because they have dangerous powers. He’s a piece of trash. So don’t listen to him.”

I could hear Noah’s breathing speed up.

“How do you know…?”

“I saw you and Andrea on the train. Anyway, you have nothing to do with what just happened. There was a storm. And the temple’s spirit attacked us. That’s it—”

“Shut the hell up.”

His rudeness brought a grimace to my face. After an awkward silence, he added:

“If you pity me, I’ll beat you up.”

I snorted.

“You a five-year-old kid? I’m just sad to hear you compare yourself with a damned soul. Do you even know how much Yi’s soul has suffered? He couldn’t do anything to stop himself. Just now, he could have killed his wife.”

I fell silent as Noah shoved me to make me face up, drove a knee into my stomach, and punched me in the chest. I felt nothing, but I could guess he didn’t hit me with all his strength. His eyes, though, were glaring when he growled:

“Killed his wife? I killed my parents when I awakened my power. Isn’t that just as bad?”

His words shocked me, of course, but I couldn’t really feel surprised. I still remembered Mr. Huang’s inflexible retort: ‘Don’t try to understand our methods: they are not meant for young men like you, but for people with dreadful backgrounds.’ Dreadful backgrounds indeed. Dammit. I shouldn’t have said anything. I sighed, tried to find an answer, then confessed:

“I don’t know what to say.”

Noah snorted and stepped aside.

“I wouldn’t know what to say to a monster like me either, stupidstar. Anyway, what are we even doing? Maybe, right now, your friends are dead just like your ancestor, you know? Shouldn’t you be more worried?”

Still lying, I pulled my mask down and smiled.

“They’re alive. That’s how much I trust them, champ.”

“… To hell with your trust. I only believe what my eyes see. Let’s go. Get up—”

“I only believe what my heart tells me.”

“… Could it be you cannot get up?”

My smile broadened.

“No way. How could that be?”

“Then get up.”

“I’m fine here.”

A flash of worry passed through Noah’s eyes. He grabbed my two arms to pull me up.

“Don’t you know you shouldn’t be moving an injured person?” I protested.

“… Are you injured?”

I looked sideways.

“You never know.”

“You said you were fine. Are you hurting?”

“No. But dead men aren’t hurting, either.”

“Are you trying to drive me mad?”

“I’m saying it’s not good to act rashly.”

“I’m leaving.”

“Don’t! What if Yana walks into the kitchen and sees me like that?”

“Who’s Yana?!”

“The old lady.”

“Was that her name? Anyway, stop fooling around, stupidstar. I’m really getting the urge to punch you harder than before.”

“Relax, champ.”

“How can I relax when all you do is spout nonsense? Get up already. Did you hit your head?”

“Maybe it’s an effect of the lightning bolt. But I think I’ll be fine in some minutes.”

“Minutes?!”

“Patience is a virtue.”

“Let me strangle you. It’ll be over sooner.”

“If I may interrupt your useless talking…” We both turned our heads to Axel, who stopped near the door to the kitchen. “Unfortunately…” He paused and stared at us. My core squeezed with worry. Unfortunately what? He stated: “It seems everyone is okay.”

“Damn you,” Noah snorted. “Don’t say it in such a misleading way.”

“It also seems that the core has been destroyed or at least left inert by lightning.”

“What?” Noah exclaimed.

“I can’t feel its emotions now,” Axel went on, his eyes fixed on me. “Apparently, Styzz attracts lightning when he’s charged, so he was struck by lightning several times before he left the temple, which could explain why the core couldn’t resist… Oh, and Eder reacted in time to protect the other two with his energetic barrier. Happy ending.”

His tone was everything but happy. Well, all’s well that ends well, but… did Yamazaki really believe that the successive lightning bolts had destroyed the core? Even Axel didn’t seem to believe it…

Noah gasped.

“It’s over? Wait… doesn’t that mean Electromorpheus did all the work? Though he almost fried us in the process, but… wow.”

I rolled my eyes and said:

“Thanks for the info, Axel. Now I can rest in peace.”

The Sunclaw glared at me with a moody expression, paused, then asked:

“You can’t get up?”

Geez, why were they so worried about my position? Was I looking so weird lying in the middle of the kitchen? I smiled painfully and heard Ray whisper mentally:

‘Sorry.’

There was a hint of guilty amusement in his voice.