Slave-Mark Onion

Four symbol pills were orbiting Foel's soul, one of them burned brighter than any fire yet gentle like the warm embrace of another beloved. Like a lucid dream, that no person would want to wake up from.

Some of the soul essence were exchanging places, giving a similar wavelength to each other. This exchange nourished Foel's soul and increased the volume of MF's soul domain.

But Unlike MF, Foel was deeply unconscious.

Was it because MF's soul was stronger? Molded in ice and forged by the fire that was tied around her neck by the imminent fate. She herself noticed the change of her memory and it seems like some of the bits began to deteriorate. Quite strange that the center of consciousness could actually store memories and do critical thinking without any medium.

'Am I a higher being now?' MF playfully questioned herself.

For now, there weren't any abnormalities on Foel's soul. It's like a fruit getting put in a freezer, her soul reflexively hibernating the moment she is unconnected from the body. MF didn't know that a metaphysical matter such as the soul has some kind of coping mechanisms or muscle memory in any kind of sensory system. If only she could grasp more of the knowledge, she might be able to enhance her own soul effectively in some way.

Safe to assume that this practice wasn't compatible with anyone who had less willpower than her.

'Now it's the time to revive ourselves.'

The complicated process was to put the anchor back to its place. Thankfully, MF had memorized the exact location and orders to put the 42 roots. She slunk away from the Schrodinger space on Foel's soul dimension to her own once again.

Alive, she couldn't feel the beat of her heart as it was badly mangled. Luckily, there was a sliver of excess surplus from the cancer generator that she could convert into energy.

She began to repair her damaged brain. The longer the damage stayed, the more permanent it becomes. The temporary memory and processing power on her soul would deteriorate into nothing if she kept her brain like that.

This finding also made her slightly relieved. Not to mention that she won the bet. The goal was to 'survive', not alive. Although indirectly, MF won't need to hassle her hustle when encountering a fate bending gods or some cosmic deity. This victory did put a smile on her face.

"I'M ALIVE! BITCH!"

MF immediately gasped like crazy afterward, squeezing every oxygen she could cramped. "Ah, Foel!"

MF did the same to Foel, reconnecting all of the uprooted anchor to its former place. Not even a minute later, the tanomobi's eyes yawned abruptly as if she was chased by a ghost in her dream.

Her mouth was wide open, she got up with her inaudible scream trying to comprehend what was happening. It seems like her consciousness needed some time before adjusting again.

Then after a few times glancing around, the monotone scream decided to come out.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—"

She then anticlimactically dropped like a cut down tree. "I feel weird. Is this the afterlife?"

MF sluggishly came to her vision, blocking some view of the sky with a shady smile. "Yes, and I'm the god, are you a good child or a bad child?"

"Stop playing, I'm over four hundred years old."

"Silly Foel."

Letting the tanomobi rest, MF approached the unconscious Elon, sliding one of her mangled legs while regenerating every part of her body every second she was alive.

The unknown realm was no more, the world was stitched back to where it began.

"This lucky bastard… He is still alive."

Elon was unconscious, his heart that got clawed out was connected to its blood vessels again. There was no irritation greater than not being able to kill this man after the trouble he had given.

All of the revelation had been evoked, if it reset, then MF had no choice but to turn him into her slave after Foel recovered.

MF frowned in anger so bad, her mouth shaped like a croissant. "You have used all of your luck. It's time to die!"

She sharpened one of her nails and coated it with hazardous mutagen. A single stroke, the nail pierced the skin on Elon's neck.

By some weird possibility. Elon's immune system was on standby to hurriedly eliminate the mutagen, something that should be impossible. The moment the dangerous substance was injected, it goes through an irregular mutation that turns the RNA factory to be vulnerable and gives a signal to the white cell to kill them instead.

"What in the actual fuck. THE. WHOLE. PHASE. GOT. RESET!? AAAAARRRGHHHH!!!"

MF bashed her head into a boulder near her multiple times, because if she would bash Elon's head instead, there might be some wild random projectile from 10km coming in the right time just to keep Elon stay alive.

With a forehead full of blood, MF sighed. "Let's just hope that the slaving process will go through his plot armor."

In the right time, dense white clouds were forming a humanoid titan before erupting into a thunderous chain of explosion. MF and Foel were there to see it happening around 50 meters near them.

From the black smoke of explosion, arose a steel made from titanium, pulsating all across the body part except for the white skull on the highest part of this gigantic savage. As if it came from thin air, the titanic armored skeleton blasted into the scene.

The empty space within its eye sockets glowed in a deep red. Taking its first step, the ground shuddered in tremor as the shockwaves from its stomp gave a foreboding anguish to the Citadel's protector.

"So that is the Avalanche Bringer," Said MF in awe. "Beautiful."

As dangerous as it was, the Citadel won't give up without giving resistance. It might have taken a whole day for the whole fortification to be razed to the ground.

"As much as they resist, they are just praying in a blizzard for a summer that won't come."

The Calamity appearance inspired Foel to immediately wake up with a clear mind. It might be the effect of having a high amount of void in her body that the Avalanche Bringer decided to cast a buff on Foel.

"That was convenient, still think you're in the afterlife?" MF chortled.

"I still don't know how we're still alive, but there is an important case." Foel with her poker gaze curled her lips and gestured her thumb to Elon as if she was signaling the source of annoyance. "That boy is still breathing?"

Feeling beaten, MF replied with a deadpan as blood dripped from her chin. "Yup."

"Did we just fight off life and death, like a mutt being thrown to a well just to scrape their nails to climb over the deep hell hole, for nothing!?"

The rage ensued once again.

Without wasting any time, Foel casted a slave-mark to Elon's body. Surprisingly, there were no unknown forces trying to interrupt the process.

This made MF anxious. So to ensure the safety for the long run, she ordered Foel cast more layers of security for the magic circuit formation.

"Foel, cast one more."

"A protection?"

"Yes."

The slave formation was now amplified with anti tampering.

"Foel, cast more layers."

MF then guided her to place the slave mark upon his soul. Meticulously, it took a couple of minutes until the delicate curse was given.

"Foel, cast more layers."

"Again? Where?"

They then stacked another contraption magic circuit to fortify the slave mark.

"Foel, cast more layers."

Another fortification was placed.

"Foel, cast more layers!"

"I-I think we've put in too much."

"CAST MORE LAYERS!"

Just like a tyrant trying to assure its follower obedience, MF voice boomed into the surrounding.

"MOOORREEEE LAAAYEEERRSSS!!!"