Note to Self: Never Do that Again...

"Glad that worked."

The energy that Ixa sensed which signified something alive moved to the complete other end of the spectrum of what he can sense...𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡.

"My intent on a sole living thing can kill them from such a great distance, useful, but deadly, welp, time for to snatch up a new body!"

Ixa started to traverse over to the new corpse, and as he did, he tested if he could still communicate with Dua through intent, simply saying to stay put for now so they can reconvene.

"Wait, how can I tell if he even got the message, hmm... I guess I can just ask Dua when I arriv-Oh! Already here, guess I wasn't that far off."

Both the "eyes" of his root body, by which he means his sense for the damned & living, along with the part of the skill, which allows him to leave his body and find a nearby dead one and take over, were telling him that what marks the 13th and final one of the group of nutjobs and/or murder-ees, dead, was right in front of him...of course, Ixa had no clue that was the case, he just knew it was something non-human was threatening Dua's life that he accordingly had killed, which was actually human.

"I haven't possessed anything besides a rabbit ever since waking up, and it was straightforward and easy to grasp, let's hope this thing will follow.'

Once again, he approached the corpse, and let things take their course, the feeling of the immediate change of surroundings, the freedom of movement of his legs and arms, although they were longer on both ends this time, and much heavier, they were just that much stronger as well.

•••

"What in the-"

From Dua's end, it was like the enemy just had a heart attack and died; the man ended up on the ground, facing up towards the sky which was obstructed by the entwining dry branches of the dead trees, along with the dark clouds the made up the sky.

He lowered his blade, which was ready to receive the guard's mad, all-in attack, and slowly approached, still on guard for the supposed corpse; this was just too random to be just a coincidence.

Before he breathed his last a little while ago, the guard was trying to reach for his heart, to feel his heartbeat as it would beat its last, but before he could even remember he had armor over his chest, his hand dropped, taking its last position on his abdomen, unable to grasp the last few beats his heart would ever take.

Before Dua could question the chances of such an occurrence, he felt something intrude into his mind once again…his blade stuttered in surprise for a moment.

'Ixa?… I guess you had something to do with this after all.'

He had an initial suspicion it was Ixa's doing, but not fully believing in it, until he felt him again pop into his mind.

The feeling was telling him to stay put, it seemed they were going to meet up much sooner than expected.

He looked around for the bunny Ixa possesses, but nothing showed up…

He looked around the field of dead trees, the cold, marsh-like ground, and the stiff, crisp dead leaves that littered the floor, it was then he heard something that made him want to twist his head faster than the speed of light.

~Shick~ ~Click~ ~Clack~

Before, Dua didn't even bother to care for the various assortments of sounds the guard's somewhat thin, but sturdy metal armor made as he paid more attention to the wearers of the armor, but at this specific moment in time, the sounds rushed pervasively into his mind as he heard them once more.

…It sounded like it was directly behind him... where the corpse was.

Immediately, he whipped 180 degrees with his blade following along with that momentum, pointing it straight at the neck of the believed cadaver that was now standing.

As his eyes met the other's, his wielding-hand drooped a little as the corpse's eyes were familiar.

"Ixa?"

The eyes were completely sunken in, just like the bunny's, nothing but darkness filled where the eye holes for the helmet were, which was the only opening the armor had, well, that's if you didn't count the various small holes in a uniform 4-sided star pattern where the mouth is.

This was the only guard with a helmet...for whatever reason.

It shook its head up and down rapidly, the helmet being obnoxiously loud, and it attempted to take a step forward but instead started to wobble with the foot midair for a moment before it ended up falling backwards.

A loud clank of metal sounded out along with various other noises of armor shifting around as Ixa tried to get back up, which he failed spectacularly in as he squirmed around like a worm...

Dua was just deeply afraid of these sounds not even a moment ago, and now they were a source of comedy...

What was even worse was he fell in the same spot the corpse was in a moment ago, what was once a spot where someone suffered such a horrible death and was presumed to be their forever burial grounds as that was where their body would decompose was now a... he didn't want to think about it, this was already insulting enough to the previous guard who was now being indignified...Dua was trying his best not to laugh, while System laughed like a madman in the background of Ixa's mind.

If the guard were here to see his killer making a fool of himself, in 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 literal sense of the word, he wouldn't be able to tell if it was embarrassment, anger, or even a mix of both that would lead him to wanting to choke the living heck out of him, despite that meaning he would be technically choking himself out...

Dua shook his head as he stopped thinking about it entirely before sheathing his weapon back into its sheath.

Lowering his hand down, Dua allowed Ixa to grab it as he lifted him back up so that he was standing, finally stopping him from dishonoring the dead man any more than he already has...

Not even thinking he just touched what was until a couple of moments ago, a completely fresh corpse.

"Thanks for that Ixa, although it was just a single one, I honestly didn't think I would get a clean win without another wound to worry about."

The knight nodded as Ixa once again intruded into his mind, however, it was only then did he truly took a look at the body he took over, his body shaking for a moment in surprise.

"By the looks of it, and from what you just said, you didn't know this was another guard?"

He shook his head in agreement with a tad too much force, still getting used to the body, bit by bit.

"Why don't you just talk? Shouldn't you be capable of that now with a person as a...host? I still have no clue on the how your abilities work, and to be completely honest, I never would have expected you to be able to take over a living person's body like that..."

Ixa transferred another message through intent, crossing his arms at the same time.

"I know I could've just asked you then, okay! Anyway, just what did you do to make him act like that?"

Ixa tilted his head to the side in confusion.

"Did you not see what happened? Just when he was going to pull a risky move, he just randomly fell to the floor and started spewing gibberish, and..."

Dua spoke of each detail, from start to finish, although he had no clue how the person felt, just the way the guard responded, convulsing all over, speaking incoherently, and that last bit of his body just ceasing to move from the edges of his body to the center... something not easy to forget.

'... just what did that person experience to give a reaction like that... System, do you have any ideas on how to accurate assess that feedback?'

[ I have a few ideas, but the most accurate way I can think of is to just read the memories of the necrotic essence, after all, the easiest memory to dig out of it should be of the soul's death whilst alive.]

'I can do that? Well, I guess it makes sense the most memorable part of a soul after death would be its death, and as I have authority over both the elements of it, necrotic essence should be more than clay to me.'

[ More of a theory, but it should be very much possible as you do have authority to 'pass' on souls to wherever they end up, so I thought you could very well just see the memories the soul contains...at the very least while they are necrotic essence.]

While Ixa was slightly concerned about the morality of killing a person with such a seemingly painful ability, he was primarily curious to just how painful it was to bear, as, in a way, he needs to know as this 𝐢𝐬 a skill he'll be using a lot for both the protection of himself and Dua.

These notions were the small things he felt pop up in the corners of his mind, which he promptly shook his head to rid himself of them(which Dua found weird for him to shake his head randomly after being quiet for a tad too long).

He was still putting all this moral consideration on hold for a later date to deal with, as of right now, it was a necessity for his safety, so he still has his excuse to ignore the dilemma for now.

Also, he would be lying if he would say he wasn't interested in the fact necrotic essence and a soul classify as different things, meaning that when he made those corpses into necrotic essence, whatever he did changed the very soul into something he could use, but not only can that be researched in the future, he had no use for necrotic essence besides healing someone... 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐧𝐨𝐰.

'Considering what I saw when I combined my vision with the bunny, I take the entire occupancy when possessing a body, however, I have no clue how a soul moves on normally, along with if possessing something with a soul forces it to move on or not, I still don't know what a soul itself even looks like, much less to 'handle' one...

I guess the best option is to feel for any abnormality in this body, to at least confirm one thing.'

First, he closed his eyes, and focused on the guard's body, at first, it felt just like the bunny's: from the feeling of the dulled out sensory of what the body was feeling: the coldness of the thin armor on the clothes, the mushy-ness of the ground interacting with the metal of the armor's boots as he reaffirms his stance, however, there was one odd part, a feeling in his chest, like something was pressuring it... now that he noticed, it was actually a bit annoying, but, it gave him his supposed answer.

'I guess that answers one question, huh, well then, next step is to find out how to access your memories, and since you wanted to harm my friend, I don't think I need to be gentle...'

For a moment, he thought he felt it shiver.

'But before that.'

Ixa faced Dua again and spoke into his brain that he was going to walk back to himself, which took an extra second for him to make sense out of.

"Oh! All right, it was nice seeing you again I guess, despite it not even being an hour before I left that little enclosed field you call home, well, bye Ixa, I'll see you in about a week."

He started to walk away, and he waved just before the dead trees covered his figure.

'I guess him actually waiting here for me shows he did receive my message earlier... OH SHOOT! I FORGOT TO ASK HOW TO WALK!'

Ixa slowly turned in fear to the direction of his body, to anyone, it would've been a small trek, at most, an annoyance to those who are too impatient, but to him, it was an uphill battle, somehow, in a way, worse than the fight from before.

Just then, something in his head made itself known.

"Ahhh-ow, I forgot about you too."

Only now did the headache from the fight decide to return after being shoved to the furthest recesses of his mind, which only got further suppressed when his intelligence grew and he unlocked his new Feat skill, which made it all the easier to overall process mental pressure.

"This just got more difficult... well, there is nothing to do but walk forward...if I even can- no! Let's be hopeful! Maybe it is easier than it looks-"

-𝐓𝐨𝐨 𝐌𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫-

As Ixa crawled-ahem, walked into the small field where both his real & bunny body was...

"THAT TOOK TOO GOD-DAMN LONG."

Initially, he simply fell & wriggled around like a worm, like before, but after a good bit of struggle, Ixa eventually managed to learn how to get up consistently, of course that didn't mean he stopped struggling to take a simple step forward; he didn't want to count the amount of time he wasted, alone how many times he fell, and after taking two steps forward before falling again, he, at long last, learned how to walk, albeit awkwardly, occasionally losing his balance, and the headache did nothing but elongate the process.

The System couldn't stop laughing the entire time, which only fueled Ixa's annoyance even more.

But his thoughts only lingered on this subject for a moment before he noticed his body of the bunny lying limp on the ground.

"I didn't think about it, but I guess since my main body is a root, it looks no different when I leave it, but with actual bodies, it will simply just be treated like any other cor-Ahpse! Shoot!"

He rushed over to the body, and turned it over, luckily, it was not rotting like a corpse would, despite it already being close to an hour since he left for the new corpse to possess.

"Huh? System, why is it not rotting despite me not actively possessing it?"

[ I am unsure, however, I can start to look into it if you wish, however, this will require you to leave a piece of your consciousness in it for me to have an access point to research the body, small enough so you don't influence the body in any way, but enough that I can have a means to approach & start to digest the information; I'll still be with you, but I won't be as free to comment about everything you do, but I can still answer questions you may have.]

"Alright, go ahead, and while you do that, I'll figure out how to get the memory I want out of this body's soul."

Ixa, at first, cut off a small part of his mind to share with the bunny's corpse, it only allowed him to see out of it, no control, not finding it satisfactory, he cut down the piece even further, till he could barely even feel anything out of the body, now, at the most, he could feel for its location...and still struggle to find it with that alone.

[Thank you, I'll get to work.]

"And I'll get to work on my thing."

Ixa walked over to his root body, standing right in front of it.

"Alright, let's do this."

First, he separated himself into two equal parts: one for his actual body, and one for this guard's body, for him to examine the memory, he would need to take the memory, and "process" it, so he felt like he needed to take the soul, and a place to process it, which would be in his Treant body.

He definitely didn't have complete control over souls, so he can't just force the soul to allow him to see it, however, there isn't a fixed process to obtain the memory, so he just needs to get creative.

"Considering it heard my thoughts from earlier, when it shivered in fear from my indirect threat, it must be able to hear me, so perhaps I can reason with it...

Hey, guard or whatever, I know you can hear me, so, how about this, you show me the memory I want to see, and I will let you go, out to the great beyond or wherever souls go once unbound to their body."

It did absolutely nothing in response.

"...okay, either its just ignoring me, which would be understandable, as I did kill it while it was alive, or something else is going on... maybe its asleep?"

If a soul was essentially the immaterial, dead form of a living thing, it would act more...well, he didn't know how it would act, but he knew it shouldn't stay still, unless perhaps it was in a state of sleep, or just something similar to it, maybe it is that way for a soul not to be overly conscious of its death, too shocked, and resist moving on?

"If that is the case, it probably just responded since it felt an instinctual sense of fear... well, I can scratch conversating it off the list then..."

Throughout the night, Ixa kept trying various things, from trying to wake the soul by shifting it around, which he discovered he could push it to any part of the body, even pressuring it against the boundaries of the body, which had no effect, both on the physical body, or the soul itself, which bummed him out, to even trying to annoy the soul to attack him in the hopes it would somehow utilize the memory as an attack to make him feel how it felt when he forcibly killed him by intent, which would, in the end, answer his question; earlier, Dua mentioned that Ixa was kind of disgracing the guard with how he treated its body, and he hoped it would be good enough to really rile up its soul enough for it to wake, but it ended with the same result.

"I guess all these results not working says that it clearly can't wake up, at least, not how it is now..."

Ixa was now planning to make it necrotic essence, that way, he'll have full control, and can just pry the memory from the soul, however that might be.

"... what am I waiting for?"

A part of him didn't want to, for the sole reason of a single small thought he has...

"Can the soul still move on as necrotic essence...?

I assume not, as the whole point it was addressed as something different than a soul is that they ARE different, maybe they lose the characteristic of being an actual soul, being what is left of a living thing after they die...

But does that even matter, they are asleep eternally, and if other souls are the same way, there's no difference between them being that way, and losing that characteristic..."

His thoughts were carrying him to still turn the soul into necrotic essence, however, a part of him still incessantly wanted him to give up on this venture, that there was something wrong about it, before, he had at least a use for it, but now...

After dileming over it for a while, he, at last, understood the crucial bit as to why it felt so wrong.

"A soul moves on somewhere... that's why...of course! There is a place souls go to afterwards, else there's no point in souls existing at all, and that they will simply cease to exist after death, but what does necrotic essence do when left alone... if my conjecture is correct, and they do lose that quality of being a remnant of a living person, asleep, then it has no point to move on, and it will just continue to exist, however that may be.

...I have no use for necrotic essence besides to heal, I don't even know if can store necrotic essence material, much less the actual essence, I only know I can absorb the material right now as a prerequisite for growth, and I still don't know any of the qualities of necrotic essence, for all I know, they still somewhat exist as a person thanks to the necrotic essence being made of a soul, as the essence theoreticaly keeps the memories, heck, I heard music & ethereal voices as I used it..."

A part of him started to feel sick, he used the entire dead remnants of multiple people as an actual resource, even if they did heinous things, to actually use their body & soul and make them into something else... to not allow them to have eternal rest...

It was like a part of his brain that was never fully on since waking in this forest, was finally working: the part that empathizes with others.

But, just as quickly as the dreadful feelings came, they went, with a sole thought.

"I used them to heal a friend from life-threatening wounds, at least they were put to a good use."

He moved on from that subject, and left it at that, he had things to do, and thinking about all this, while philosophically is good, is not what he's trying to do right now, maybe another time he can truly reflect on all of this, but even then, it would be better to go slow.

"Okay, so making them into necrotic essence to reave the memory is a no, with or without use, I am not senselessly taking peoples possibly peaceful afterlives, whatever that may be, be it a good or bad person, unless I believe it is necessary & worth it, before, it was necessary, for my friend's life."

Once he fully grasped this self-made rule with the emotions that came with it, he felt something.

"A...instinct?"

For some reason, it was coming from both <Hands of Life and Death> and <Fallen Treant>, but, he wasn't trying to do anything but-

"Trying to get the memory... so I could've done this at any time, but why did it only show up now, when I... fully...understand the cost of making a corpse into necrotic essence.

...Heh, I guess even my racial skills have, in the sense of the word, a conscience, at least I actually discovered an active use for <Fallen Treant>."

He let it take over, and it turns out in the start, he did have the right guess, he needed control of both bodies, of the host of the soul, and of his own body, but as it turns out, it was much more than just to "process" the memory...

More like the soul.

From the center of the guard's chest, from inside the armor, the soul was leaving the body; a bright white liquid flowed like a vortex but in reverse, but once it got outside the armor, it started to course back into a vortex, into Ixa's core.

It was different from necrotic essence because there was none of that dust, and it was much more bright, more in tone with white than grey.

Ixa was immediately worried he was accidentally absorbing the soul, but it wasn't even close to that, his vision and senses immediately changed, turning into a dream-like state, of a lucid one, immediately, a scene appeared, it showed the location of the guard before, although not exactly in the same way, the surroundings were in a sort of haze, the edges of his vision were covered by a sort of white light, like he was looking through a lens of sorts.

The only thing that didn't follow this logic was the guard's body, which only showed the shape of his figure, filled with the same white light as the soul, however, this peaceful scene didn't last long, as the figure radiated a white light, as the surroundings reflected that light, suddenly Ixa felt 𝐞𝐱𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐥𝐲 like how the guard felt before he died.

As Ixa bore all that pain & torment as his victim did, unable to be expressed in either body, in the real world, the white liquid kept flowing until the last drop entered it, and the moment it did, everything came to a stop, the process ended, and Ixa found himself simply as he was before, not even an afterglow of the pain existed for him to revel in.

Ixa examined himself through the guard's eyes, and the guard's own body, he didn't really notice anything besides feeling more comfortable, which was probably due to the fact the soul no longer pressured him in his chest.

"So that's how I allow souls to pass on..."

The soul was nowhere to be found, it was not in his core as no sign of anything different appeared in his <Status >, and there was no other place for it to go, so he could only assume that his core has the function of being a gate to where souls presumably go after moving on from their body.

"Although I still have no clue how souls actually move on, but based on everything I learned, on how souls exist to move on, and how they can't leave the body forcibly, most likely they do move on when given their burial rites, or at least when the body rots enough to where it loses its capability to be able to contain it."

'...note to self: never do that again.'