122 Tear of the Cycle

Yuri stifled a small snort.

'Vehran, named after the Right Hand of Ishvala, meaning Justice. Behran, named after the Left Hand of Ishvala, meaning Mercy. They want to be recognized as my hands. Lucky for them, this isn't outside my plans at all.'

"You two seem quite capable. Vehran, you have already garnered quite the faith among your people. I hope you can continue to guide your people towards proper acclimation and smoothen the transition. Behran, if those tattoos of yours are any evidence," Behran flinched a bit and the peanut gallery let their eyes either light up slightly or dim with pity. Yuri ignored this. "then you are highly intelligent. I hope you can work with your brother as an advisor and study the changes this world brings to stay ahead."

"Changes?"

Yuri only nodded mysteriously. What happens when you resurrect the majority of a race and bring them to a world with mana in the next instant? Pure mana was nothing if not highly responsive to intent, and the intent of death and rebirth dripped off of this populace copiously. He wouldn't be surprised if most of them awakened some kind of inheritable clan technique.

'Whatever happens, I need to make sure these two are ahead of it so a talented wild card doesn't hurt them and take over new Ishval for their own purposes.'

Yuri set his hand lightly on their shoulders, Vehran on his right and Behran on his left. The two of them didn't know what happened, but they felt something within them open up and the air they breathed felt alive with some kind of fresh and ineffable feeling they were suddenly aware of.

'Don't give up on your old practices, Alchemy and Alkahestry will arrive to this world in time as well.' Behran heard Yuri's voice say this in his head before Yuri himself vanished from the place.

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'My clone has already brought back the Elrics and is still talking to them. Best I get on with my next project.'

Yuri arrived in the 'Royal Palace' in one of the many shielded and experiment-ready rooms, and Toni happened to be available so she asked if he was done and came to him as well. He got to work, pulling out the stone made of the bodies and souls of all the damned in the Ishvalan war.

'Doctor Marcoh's memories were quite helpful with Philosopher Stone and Biological Transmutation theories. I think I gained a percent or two in the Record Acquisition with his knowledge alone.'

'Did the Ishvalans acclimate without much fuss or should I sneak in and do some "crowd control"?' Toni asked mentally.

Yuri smiled lightly, 'They are fine for now, but if I they need some heads cracked I think Sca-Vehran will have it taken care of.'

'Scar is named Vehran?'

'His brother is named Behran too. They're very close, I think having both of them at the helm will work out splendidly.'

'Better than dead.'

The red marble hung in the air and glittered ominously, only people like the Nightingale squad would able to perfectly feel the resentment, regret, and the curses that came from it but it would still give a normal person a bad feeling.

'Is that...?'

'A Philosopher's Stone, yes. Not the biggest, but certainly not the smallest either.'

'It's very rare to find that kind of power in a person in Nirn.'

'It's not that much energy in the grand scheme of things, but it's not done yet either. Hopefully, it never will be,' Yuri raised his other hand and an eight-armed starfish with a crystal at its center appeared in its space.

The arms popped off one by one and turned to black dirt and then dust, leaving the purple crystal core by its lonesome. Yuri looked to his right at the Black Star's core, a spiritual world that collected and preserved all the souls he took from his entire career including today's war, then to his left at the imitation PS he collected all the lifeforce of the damned into.

'Spiritual energy is extremely hard to come up with compared to Lifeforce and Mana, at least for me at the moment. This needs to not only capture both the soul and essence of whoever I deem, but refine them for me and act as a filtering feeder for my body. The capture method of the Black Star is continual and much less rigid than the PS, but the PS can absorb lifeforce where the Star can't.'

'You'll have to receive, filter, and refine two different energies in one artifact and then pass them to two different storages which are bonded to two different parts of you. I wouldn't know how to do that in your position, I'm sorry I can't be more help'

'You're thinking too much. The Eternal Heart is already bonded to my soul, I don't need to tell the different energies to go anywhere they won't already be since that's where I'm putting this thing.'

'Just like the Skeleton Key.'

'Precisely. I'm 2-0 on you two in taken slots, you can cheat off me with this stone if you want but you guys will never catch up at this rate.' He jabbed.

'Alera and I are on two different projects with that.'

'...Since when?'

'Don't worry about it! Just don't get too comfortable is all, especially since Ally came back from that fight. I think she got Accelerated Adaptation or something, she is almost stronger than me already.'

Actually, this next artifact might spread that gap wider again. But he needn't mention that, or remind her of the fact that he would get RP for anything they make and know what it was instantly. Maybe he could erase that memory and take one for the family?

'We got bored of the family life rather quickly, didn't we?'

'Pssh, you must be looking for an excuse to escape if you think a little workout and some DIY can break this family apart!'

'Whatever you say, Dominic Torreto. Now let me focus'

'Who the hell is Dominic Torreto? And you started the tangent!'

Yuri ignored her and continued. He brought the Black Star core before him and wrapped it in a series of formations. Text of fully Spirit language was derived across its surface in details that were smaller than grains of sand. Being in Avalon gave him the added bonus of being extremely difficult to fail at an enchantment, even giving him the capability to reverse the time of the experiment to its start to spare himself from almost any consequence of failure.

The light shining within the core expelled from its purple crystal and cast that same colored light on both of their faces while he worked. Yuri didn't need to change the actual dynamic of the Black Star, only give it a few more properties. The star core started to compress and shimmer and the light within it seemed to shift to one side while the other lost its light. The extremely small text started to file into lines of a runic circle formation on the dark side surface before it sank into that side of the gem as if it was a mire of ink. The formation straightened and became rigid in the exact dividing line between purple and black. This was the filtering and refinement formation. On the surface of the purple side, another formation was forming into a circle but only covered about half the size of that half of the marble. A wound seemed to open behind the circle inside the gem as it remained on the surface, but it was a stable and intentional hole. This formation was designed to destroy the memories of the souls that entered the gem so they could be filtered and refined without being likely to harm the refining array. Unfortunately, none of the souls which currently resided in the core had gone through this process, so he brought them out into the mimic PS he made and ran them through again.

Being the Akashic Assimilator and his title 'Ignorant Man' would nullify an overwhelming majority of the chances a defeated soul could have to possibly overwhelm him, but why take chances at all when it comes to his inner safety?

'Now I can take the dislodged souls of anyone within my Soul Power range, or my Domain if it's active obviously.' As a spirit, this range of his spiritual senses and power was close to 10 miles long. Not anywhere close to his ESP, but ESP can only sense through the realm of the physical so there was nothing he could do to solve that yet.

{Remember in the Soul Cairn when I displayed him levitating and moving shit while his ESP was still locked and explained it as Soul Power then?}

Yuri moved his gaze to the blob of lifeforce created in an almost identical manner to a Philosopher's Stone, and contemplated.

'What's wrong? It's harmless, right?' Toni asked after a silent lull.

'This one is, but that's just this Record. There are examples out there of some experts' Lifeforces behaving like a plague that can resurrect using the body of anyone who tries to consume it. I'm not skilled enough with Lifeforce Intent to create a filter that can defeat those kinds of people yet.'

'Well sure... but you can cross that bridge when you get there, right? Avoid consuming people you consider wildcards or those from Records you don't recognize yet?'

'That's true, but it means I'll need to edit this artifact later when I can collect more information.'

'And where will you be getting this information?'

'Life Spirits. I think it's getting about time for me to talk to my new relatives.'

Fun fact, Lifeforce is the only abundant and reliable source of energy that can form intent, that can be found on every living planet, in varying amounts. Information about it is so widespread and so numerous that it's impossible to sort through it with any certainty that it's the best possible direction to take or will apply the best to every scenario. The only reliable source of information he found was that Life Spirits are the perfect creatures to study under to create a perfect foundation. Why listen to all the white noise when he can just learn in a way conducive to his disposition and find a way to treat it as malleably as possible?

'If we progress through that Martial Arts style too far we would be stuck with Martial Intent only. Unless, of course, you're okay with that.'

'I don't imagine a scenario where I would have to use my Lifeforce Intent for anything else?'

'There's plenty of paths, best keep your options open.'

Yuri was scanning the mimic PS thoroughly while he was communicating with Toni, formations crafted from Elvish and Draconic started lining the entire surface and weaving in and out of it without any visible semblance of organization. Elvish likes to take swirling designs inside of circles that form variations of loops, but Draconic formations refuse to operate inside of a contained shape. This array would be used to capture any Lifeforce he was actively subsuming from the ambient environment automatically, or theoretically, he could activate it on those he had just killed or could kill with ease.

The array would consider anyone from this Record as easy pickings, except for a PS inside of a Homunculus. When both of these gems were activated on a single item at once, like a PS, it would tear it apart and sort it with the same ease as if Yuri did it himself. But Yuri can't use these glorified sorting machines to pull out a strong person's respective life core, the owner would obviously resist and that might damage the delicate enchantments depending on the person. Yuri would have to pull out the cores himself and detach them from whatever was holding them.

The stone that was once the PS was now tinted green instead of red, the plethora of corpses was already boiled down to its barest element as the rest evaporated as it inevitably shrunk. A green stone and a purple one, one in each hand hovered with equal glints. The purple one was already fast at work, a few white starlike motes having passed through the filtering array to shed like in its pitch-black half.

Yuri clasped his hands together while his right burst with black script chains to pull the two stones, willing the two artifacts to be bonded as a singular entity while the processes remained separate and the enchantments held. He did not want the two artifacts to take up a slot each and hoped that his theory about them being similar enough to bond was correct.

He was. The stones rapidly changed shape as they were pulled closer and their enchantment features seemed to seep into the background of the items' very essence instead of letting the formations remain visible. The half and half soul stone blended together in a mix of cosmic purple dust and blank space background while the body took a curved teardrop shape. The life gem spun around and its formations also seeped into its very essence, retaining the same enchantments while its features altered to match. Like green jade, cloudy white marbling fused into the soft green stone while it took another teardrop shape that curved in the same direction. As expected, the two circled around each other and their heads nestled within the curves of each other's tails.

[Arcane Artifact Record: <Unnamed> Obtained - 6,000 RP]

'A name... The Sorcerer's Stones? Too on the nose. Twin Stars of Life and Death? Too dramatic. Ah, how about a nod to Arkay? System, name the new artifact: Tear of the Cycle'

[Tear of the Cycle has been recorded]

"Congratulations, right?" Toni hummed, also receiving the notification.

"Yes!" Yuri brought the gem forward and held it between his fingers, letting it glimmer in the sunlight. "If you want to use the blueprint to make something like this, I'll help you. I can't imagine going around without this kind of thing now that I have it and realize how simple and helpful it will be."

"More than that, Yuri. Absorbing Lifeforce and souls might be the next level for reinforcing Avalon."

Yuri raised a brow, believing he was catching on but wanting to confirm anyway. "Go on..."

Toni tilted her head and smirked. "What's a couple of hopeless worlds with nothing but monsters on it worth, except to siphon for Avalon's extra Lifeforce and our own personal banks?"

'She did mean it that way. She's right though, there are probably dozens of animalistic worlds that could be harvested for our benefit'

"A couple things about that though. World Wills exist and will always resist being pulled on, and these wills can exist in a variety of forms. Most would sooner destroy a world or take advantage of its surface population before they try to suck an entire thing dry because of this. I would need to take over the Record before I can do anything to a living world inside of it safely."

"An easy fix. What about the other thing?"

"I can't drain a world with residents that contain any Karma. Well, not can't but won't. I can develop a sorting ritual, but I'm not draining a world with living mortals aware of their decisions."

"That's not a problem, I expected that."

Yuri nodded. "Good. I hope you can hold yourself to the same standard. Actually, you would forgive me no matter how many worlds I destroyed so maybe we should ask Ally."

Toni snorted and punched him, but didn't deny it. They both knew it, she loved him deeply. Dangerously so. There weren't many moral prerogatives that would take precedence to her over Yuri's request.

"Very well, she can watch both of us," She muttered.

Yuri closed his eyes while the Cycle was held in his enclosed grip, his consciousness receded and the pair of stones followed him.

A familiar white space stretched before him, like a soft soil devoid of color but rich in the hope of fertility. He saw shrubs and sprouts here and there, with colors that he couldn't really decipher and meanings that slipped his grasp. He even looked down and saw through the ground like it was a small contained bubble of water behind a transparent glass floor. Two fish swam vivaciously within, circling rapidly. One would destroy the other and the other would simply form back together, over and over again.

Yuri had been seeing a lot of opposing pairs recently. Anu and Padomay, Destruction and Reconstruction, Life and Death, Good and Evil, Unlock and Seal, Light and Shadow. But Yuri didn't believe they were opposed, just that they were two necessary intervals in the same process. One he wanted to control at both ends, no matter which was referred.

Yuri brought Tear in the Cycle before a familiar blue plant, one with a beating heart flowering at the end of its growing stalk. He kneeled down in the unfinished earth and held his hand with the Cycle before the plant.

"I know I don't need to chant anymore to do this, but at this point it's kinda customary?" Some parts of him will never die, like his big fucking mouth.

"Origin of my blood, foundation of my spirit, unhallowed dead sow the seeds of eternity. Upon this gift, a new blood is born. Upon this, Lord Nightingale declares."