97 The Soul

{TW///Mentions of Loss}

An imaginary membrane was passed through on his imaginary way down, and he opened his eyes in the new world he had arrived in. Or rather, it wasn't new at all. Yuri found himself submerged in a translucent sea of gold. Below him, no bottom could be found and all that existed was more golden waters. Above him, the surface of the vast and incredible sea washed in placid rhythms yet Yuri understood he could not reach it no matter how far or how fast he swam to try. This was not a real ocean. This was his soul.

Yuri wasn't spending all that time refining this sea of gold. No, this was already here. Most likely a gift from the god who reincarnated him. What he was refining was the body he was using currently, the soul image he projected inward to conquer the rest.

Wisps of black and beams of red passed him like rogue aquatic life in his ocean, showing nothing but their blurs and vanishing quickly. These were thoughts of malice, scorn, hatred. Yuri did not hold onto these for long, and they did not often direct his actions but they existed nonetheless. When they approached, the memory they were attached to resurfaced in his mind and tried to press the emotional reaction he had at the time to his forefront. Like grievances they whispered. Yuri found it easy to cast them aside, but the fact that they remained even in this life was proof that he never was fully reborn. That was up to him now.

In a direction he could not determine except by feel, and a distance he could not cross or see beyond, floated something larger than he believed he could manage, however.

It did not wisp through the pristine waters nor fly with impressive speeds, it settled in his golden ocean and sank closer to the bottom for as long as it was allowed to. A black and dense mass of mucus and darkness, it seeped into his ocean and attempted to infect it further and further. Like a swamp, it swallowed more water and turned it into mud.

Yuri knew what it was, for it had already killed him once.

"Ah," He uttered tearfully. "So I had not been healed nor purified, merely made much larger than you for a time."

He spoke to his murk and uttered its name:

"My sorrow."

The truth of his conscience encapsulated the ocean around him and forced him into a dreadful pause. He had to drink this ocean and spit out all he would rather not keep or suffer to live with it for the rest of his eternity. His malice, he may keep. His hatred, he may keep. His scorn, he may keep. His desires and sins, he dare not cast aside. Pettiness, aggression, possessiveness, who would he be without his flaws? His humanity was his and his alone, none may tell him otherwise.

But did he have the ability to destroy his sorrow? To swallow it all, accept it yet take exception to it, and spit it out once more? All of it?

He smiled with all the scorn, the pride, the wrath, the joy, the grace, and the love that his soul reflected and he already knew his answer.

"To back down now? I'd sooner die a second time than back away a single extra inch!"

A ripple blew out from him in a perfect orb as he flexed his whole 'body', golden waters being pressed away from him in a wave, then it came back to him and collided with every inch of his pure and naked spirit. Upon this, a boom resounded and the waters which retreated came back and flooded into every orifice.

His skin drank the waters beside him and his nose and mouth became whirlpools which drastically sucked in the waters around him and competed with the ability for the water to replace itself. Yuri held himself out, his fists clenched and his arms and legs wide open, his eyes burning with a white light as he took what was his and felt more and more complete.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Above the Tower of Ada-Mantia, Yuri's companions and the locals waited tentatively for what seemed more and more mundane as time passed. Alvanir was convinced that nothing could go wrong and he wouldn't have to rely on the Psijics for these sudden outliers, but he wouldn't ease up until they were gone.

And he was correct in doing so.

*BOOM FWOOOOOO*

A blast of golden tinted air erupted from behind Yuri's ward and passed through it as if it didn't exist, forcing the locals back twenty feet as they abruptly shielded their faces while the girls held their ground as their hair was whipped away from Yuri in two directions.

The locals, besides Alvanir who recognized it wasn't an attack, drew their weapons while the girls looked at Yuri with a small amount of shock before drawing themself.

"Is this his idea of meditation?!" Alvanir shouted over the continuing winds as he tried to press closer to the Tower.

"At his level, you can't fathom what needs to be done to reach higher!"

"Back off! No harm, no foul, yet!"

"Kelfex, Durias, at ease."

The winds started to cease as they pulled closer to Yuri, attaching into a thin membrane that halted at his skin and pressed with incredible force and chaos yet couldn't escape Yuri. The pressure on the people in the world of the physical was no longer physical, but it felt like Yuri's spirit was slowly becoming heavier than anything around it and acting as a separate entity than the world.

"At this rate, I won't have to call the Psijics. They'll come themselves."

───※ ·❆· ※───

Yuri couldn't see his sorrow yet, but as he pulled more and more water to him he started to feel the lingering grievances get caught in his current. Dozens of wisps, green and red and purple and black they were, traveled like a school of fish around his rotating current of water as they reached closer to him.

Without fear, he sped up his process. He felt like he was filling up, but so far everything was assimilating just fine.

A red wisp closed in on his face first, throwing his head back lightly as it arrived and entered him while Yuri was caught in the glimpse of a painful memory.

*BOOM*

Alvanir's heart leaped in his throat as the air and the field around Yuri turned momentarily red and a phantasm of Yuri's open and red glowing eyes was envisioned before it returned to the normal image.

Yuri's real body shut its eyes tighter while his spirit image glared brightly and started swallowing his grievances faster.

Pops started resounding at odd intervals outside and his body erupted in multiple colors, sending waves of pure and unadulterated rage, pity, lust, envy, guilt, joy, hope, love, happiness, peace, patience, and altruism repeatedly rocking the air around him and sending the audience through a rollercoaster of emotions that faded quickly without their root cause attached.

"U-Uncle, what kind of esoteric meditation is this?"

"The insane kind. We should back up a bit further."

"Ay, Al. I'm not liking the implications of this kind of psychic magic."

In the Isle of Artaeum, hidden beside Summerset, in the Tower of Ceporah, the Chief Proctor of the Psijics abruptly shot his eyes open. To the North, his gaze panned, and for a third time he could not find the source of this preposterous event.

"This…might not be safe. It's pressing against the fabric. Lilatha!"

"Yes, master!" A woman in blue Psijic robes burst through the door the very same second, as if waiting, and asked: "Are we finally going to investigate?!"

He frowned once more. She was, once again, too eager for confrontation. If he knew the reason behind this, such a thing wouldn't be needed, but it was important to be prepared.

"Call for Ministers Kardine and Leyloran. We are moving out."

Yuri felt like he was moving along smoothly. Every single small grievance he had so far was being handled with a newfound Pride, a greater resolve to cast aside, an uncontestable Wrath that he would dare be forced into such a situation in the future. The Yuri of today would have no need to put any of these past stains in his eyes.

That was until a certain event appeared on his horizon, even before Sorrow arrived.

It should be mentioned that his soul, like any other, had no sense of organization. Memories he had already tackled that elicited a certain emotion in him arose once again when they had another emotion tied to them, or sometimes emotions that built upon each other in a series of unfortunate events were forced to be handled as a group. The Sorrow on the horizon… he had no idea how that happened but assumed it was a kind of prevailing force. A vice that consumed him thoroughly.

He consumed most of his other emotions easily because as he grew up they meant less and less to him, but the later these memories showed up the harder they became to swallow.

A great big ball of grief was fast approaching and he was tempted to slow down. But the more he did so the longer the digestion took until the grievances started to overlap with each other. It was all or nothing.

In the outside world, Yuri had thoroughly become a kaleidoscopic and dizzying panorama of every imaginable color that blotted out the sky. What to Yuri was taking only moments and giving a gap between the next, the real world saw as a rapid replacement of fearful spectrums.

The four Psijics arrived in a confusing storm of colors and were immediately forced to ward themselves and back up. The wards were like paper and offered no protection from this kind of attack, and they arrived in the same locale as the ever-backpedaling Direnni squad.

"What in the hell is going on?!!!" Yellendor shouted to Alvanir over the imagined sound and distracting mix of feelings.

"Meditation! Can't you tell?!" Alvanir quipped while providing all the information he had.

Yellendor had an idea of why he replied such, but he was ever more confused on how those women were staying that close while seemingly fine.

But they were putting on a brave face. If Yuri knew what he was doing to the outside world he would have long told them to flee, which they knew. They refused to use their Sigils to distract him, and they refused to run away from everything he was evidently dealing with. They wanted to accept all of him, they saw this as a challenge of love and didn't need to say or motion anything to each other to realize that neither of them would move from their place.

For a single brief moment, the colors and the feelings stopped and the skies seemed to have cleared even if Yuri was supplying subconscious pressure yet. A stillness resounded and the locals all breathed a sigh of relief.

"So it's finally over. The Shadow Lord needs to supply an explanation for this when he wakes…up." Yellendor wiped his brow but when he noticed the consternation on the girls faces, his relief was slowly replaced and the feeling of a calm before a storm arose.

It was vague, but the girls felt Yuri's anxiety as he prepared for the coming grief.

{Recommended listening: Music under the Mountain by Kelsey Woods}

It wasn't a single blob, not a confined wisp or a condensed object. Like the ring of a tree which confined every other ring that was smaller, his Grief spanned his vision in every direction and darkened his sky. It grew closer, tighter, even before he was forced to confront it he remembered and the muscles around his heart tightened. Even in this spiritual form, he started to feel claustrophobic. He hyperventilated and forced himself to calm down, and he barely succeeded just as the shadow descended.

Thunder rolled and the blue sky above the Tower abruptly rang an ear splitting crack. The sky began to darken and the locals didn't bother looking up, because their heart was sinking in their chest and they had long started seeing in the same color as the sky.

Yuri's vision turned into a haze and he saw and felt everything that happened back then. A phone call from an officer, a quick and panicky hunt for his keys and a silent hour and a half drive to his parents state while his hands clenched the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles remained white. He shook his head, he cast aside and denied any surefire claims of dread.

The sky was nearing pitch black and bolts of uncontrolled lightning fell among the deathly still crowd of onlookers, hitting no one and startling no one. Seven men and women floated silently as they clenched their fists and waited. Two women stood still on a Tower, tears streaming down their face because they already knew the answer. And so did Yuri.

He was no longer meditating. His back was hunched as he fought spasms, his white teeth were bare and firmly clasped his hands were no longer cupped but clenched together and spilling blood from his palms, tears of crystal clearness that shined in a bleak background fell from his face and were snuffed out quickly among his lap.

A yellow police line came into view, two cars barricading a now empty street aside from the dented commercial truck and a vehicle he wished he didn't recognize. He ripped the police line out of his vision and barely registered reprimands from the officers as glass crunched under his feet. It had to be more coincidences.

Two bodies under tarp, he quickly identified from the still revealed faces. A roar of indignance echoed past his throat and he couldn't even hear it. He shook, he pleaded, he demanded to no avail from the people who already gave the most to him and couldn't give any more.

The winds whipped to a hurricane and the thunder grew violent. Nobody moved a muscle, but every single citizen on the Isle of Balfiera and many into Wayrest and beyond High Rock shed tears they couldn't rationalize. The winds seemed like they should destroy everything below it, but they did no such thing. They were felt, they were certainly felt roughly on every face, yet no building was torn up and no home was torn down. The thunder above made enough noise to drown out every other thought, the lightning struck enough times to ruin a civilization, yet no ears bled and no land was so much as burnt.

Yuri finally stopped pleading and laid his head, and he was overcome. Yuri wept.

The winds stopped, the thunder quieted, but the clouds did not lighten. From the sky depressed an unequaled downpour which covered the heads, the faces, and the clothes of every single person in the lands. The edges of Hammerfell knew rain for the first time in many years, yet none rejoiced for they joined the sky and wept. Yuri no longer clenched his body or his fist, he raised his physical head and his face succumbed to the rain.

Yuri knelt below the stretchers and collapsed as the memory faded, and in his soul world he opened his eyes once more. A hazy cloud of darkness remained, and Yuri learned to accept what he failed to last time. With clear eyes he inhaled deeply while refusing to choke. With every breath the smoke in his soul receded into his skin, his nostrils, and with every breath the water he could see grew a bit lighter.

The sky above them cleared little by little and the noise ran for the hills. The breathing of the locals all grew more peaceful as a wave of acceptance washed over the land and the bright sun revealed a trace of tears on every face. The Psijics and the Direnni looked at each other with a hint of embarrassment before wiping themselves off and refocusing.

"This *sniff* can't be allowed to continue." Lilatha proclaimed.

"Look below us. This event has not damaged a single thing, and we still don't know the nature of what he is performing."

"His presence is getting heavier!"

"If we interrupt him, this could be catastrophic. He seems to be at the edge of some kind of epiphany, but if the spiritual becomes physical it could create a new Dragon Break. Then, it will be OUR fault!"

"Minister Kardine is correct, we don't have the wherewithal or the urgency to intervene just yet."

"For all we know this could be a mass psychic attack!"

"Attacks have intent, this was a leakage. For all we know, this might be over."

Yuri felt the final obstacle approaching as he handled the final rest of his soul, pulling on a string that extended from the back of his right hand to investigate how he was looking out there.

But the moment he touched the string, he felt the girls were feeling his grief and just getting over it.

'Why didn't you tell me I was projecting my turmoil!' He transmitted outside through the bond.

The girls were startled awake and their gaze grew unfocused like they were focusing on a call. This was not missed by the Psijics.

'You need to leave. Go to Avalon. I will not let you taste my last hurdle.'

'What?! I will stay with you for as long as you are suffering! What we feel out here can't compare to-'

'That wasn't a question. Go. Now.' Yuri interrupted before Alera could also speak of her solidarity, but they all felt it.

'There are powerful mages out here. What if they intervene?'

'They should worry for themselves. Go, I'll be fine.'

He's never been this stern with them, so they begrudgingly agreed before vanishing in front of the seven mages' very eyes.

"That can't be a good sign." Alvanir groaned.

Above the Tower, Yuri now stood alone and shined like a beacon of incredible golden power that didn't conceal his actual form. The space around him was bending inward towards him as if it treated him as another planet and all physical light refracted in odd mannerisms. The other mages had most likely lost their chance to approach him or disrupt this event horizon in the first place, but in their hearts, they denied the lack of possibility for some semblance of control.

Yuri patiently collected every ounce of his soul within himself as Sorrow grew visible. It was not a single event, but a curse he was burdened with overlapped with hundreds of events and memories and self-realizations. Every thought of hopelessness and defeat, every step he took down from his ambitions or what he could have become had congealed into a nasty and towering mass that currently eclipsed his horizon.

And Yuri couldn't help but sneer.

Every ounce of power his soul had, every joy and victory he had realized after his rebirth, every victory he had just achieved over his grievances had fueled his path here. And now this disorganized mash of his previous weakness was trussed up like some kind of final boss?

"Bullshit."

The space around him now provided a perfectly white backdrop as Yuri thrust his hands forward and grasped at the Towering mass of Sorrow.

A ripple blasted through it just like the earlier pool of his soul as the entire amalgamation started to condense and shrink. Sounds of roaring rapids sounded out before him while he clenched his teeth once more and multicolored suffuse was coughed out and dyed them, dribbling down his chin.

"That can't be good either. Don't tell me he's failing?"

"What happens then?"

"Only the divines may tell... We should start putting some kind of psychic wards around him."

"We've never dealt with this level of psychic attack!"

"Anything will help, just move!"

But strangely enough, there was only one beyond Mundus who could notice this phenomenon.

Yuri closed his arms as gradually and with as much force he could muster as his Sorrow shrank less and less, refusing to be swallowed up by this force inside him. In seconds that felt like decades, the Sorrow remitted and was reshaped into a marble-sized and completely pitch black sphere which Yuri brought to his face.

"Bon-Appetit," But Yuri would certainly take it on his own terms.

He grinned maliciously with a bit of trepidation, then marble flew into Yuri's mouth.

Time seemed to stop without warning, the blue skies and the green trees and the clear blue waters and the brown earth and the white houses were eclipsed into a deep and dark grayscale all at once as the pupils of every single mortal in High Rock and the Northwest of Tamriel beyond tightened along with the hearts in their chests.

The seven mages, like every bird in the range, fell from the sky at once as they clutched at the receding skies with one hand and their chests with the other. The people kneeled and gasped for breath, and the animals cried out in terror and could not understand the depths of which they felt.

{Felt like a good place to stop. Next Chapter: Sorrow, Waking Dreams}