Ruins (Part 2) - The Soul's Embrace

If you have any ideas for cool powers type them here :3

I'll be adding some new characters and it's hard to think of unique powers for every one of them, if any come to mind, please comment on this :>

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"When the soul departs, it leaves behind whispers of its essence, a haunting reminder of the life it once knew."

(POV: Ryomen Sukuna)

I am currently reading the book titled 'The Prison', which is quite useful actually.

It has a few chapters, the first one, which I skipped, basically told the life story of every skeleton present here. Yeah, hard pass.

The second one teaches about a mysterious power, the Soul.

"The Soul, huh?" I mutter, intrigued. "Let's see what you've got for me."

Soul exists in every living being, no matter how miniscule it is. It also plays a huge part in our lives. It governs life and death.

When the soul disappears, the body dies, but when the body dies, the soul doesn't disappear, but instead, roams around looking for a suitable vessel, an 'empty' body.

The Soul also loses energy and becomes 'smaller' as time goes on. This process takes place faster if the soul is not contained in a body.

The size of the Soul can be increased by taking energy in from the environment, or the more intriguing one, devouring other souls.

My lips curled up into a twisted smile. "Devouring souls, huh?" I mused, my interest piqued.

All of the natural deaths happen due to the complete drain of energy from one's Soul, which means that the Soul completely disappears.

While, during any unnatural deaths, for example, accidents, the Soul either roams around, or stays in the dead body.

It is difficult for normal souls to take over another body, even though it is possible.

Stronger souls can do it easily, which I have to be wary of in the future.

An instance where a 'normal' soul can take over another body, is when the body is alive, but the soul is dead.

This is an extremely rare event, which probably has happened only a few times in human history.

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You might ask why the Soul is explored in this book, well that is because 'The Prison' is made out of souls.

It does not get affected by physical attacks because it is reinforced by souls of hundreds, maybe thousands of individuals.

Though this fact might make is more challenging to escape, it does mean that training the Soul will be much easier in this room, as there must be an abundance of Soul Energy in it if it is literally formed out of it.

The book says that there are only two ways to escape this prison, first, have a strong enough soul to overwhelm all the souls present in the walls, so that you can use a soul attack to cut through it.

Or second, which is more possible, is hope for the 'Prison' to choose you.

What that means is that only 2 people have managed to escape this Prison, and both escaped because suddenly, the souls reinforcing the walls near them diverged and 'ran away', leaving the walls susceptible to physical attacks, which allowed the persons to escape.

Even though the damage to the rocks was immediately undone afterwards.

"Luck," I muttered. "Or not?"

There is a speculation that the 'Prison' chooses who is worthy of getting out of it.

There are more points about souls which I shall discuss later.

Well, I will deal with that later, firstly, I will have to train myself to 'see' souls, as the book calls it, which is basically the ability to perceive the presence and 'size' of souls.

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This task was quite easy for me, due to the great conditions this room put me in, which is extremely saturated Soul Energy, which I found out only after I got the ability to do so.

The ability to see souls did not come gradually.

At one moment, I just began to see souls, as if I could always do so.

It took me some time to adjust to the brightness of these soul, which was almost blinding.

The first thing that came out of my mouth was...

"Oh hell no."

I could see the souls of the skeletons still in their bony frames, their energy depleting at a visible rate.

I decided to devour them, starting from the weakest, which was about 25% of mine's size, going to the strongest, which was about 50 times my size.

My soul was the same as a normal person, and the souls of the dead people, even after being drained for maybe hundreds of years, were still bigger than mine.

"How many souls have you eaten, people?" I muttered as I started absorbing the weakest soul.

It took me close to 10 minutes to devour all the souls.

I have to say though, eating souls is really comforting, it feels as if something new is being added into me, something warm and...comfortable.

Souls became my second favorite after coffee...I will never betray coffee.

As per my understanding from the book, my lifespan must have increased, but that will depend only on my 'activity'.

The soul also depletes with every attack one does, so for example, if a hunter does a small fire spell, then it will take a small amount of soul to perform it. The amount will be so small that it will basically be negligible, but over time, that adds up.

It has also been told that the bigger the soul, the faster its energy is drained.

But that is not too important right now, the important task is to escape this prison, which will be hard is the prison doesn't choose...me.

My eyes widened as my mouth went agape.

The souls around me were running away, as if scared to even come near me.

At first, I thought that the prison had chosen me, but this is different compared to what was written in the book.

It was as if these souls were frightened of me.

I went close to the wall and put my hand on it. Using cleave, I cut it down, revealing a passageway with a light shining on its end.

The escape was pretty quick honestly, but I still learned an important thing, the Soul, that is.

I will probably never reveal this information to anyone, with the exception of Eva and Nect if I feel like it.

Anyhow, I walked into the passageway as the rocks behind me fell back into place, blocking the way back.

As I reached the end of the passage, there was a sign hanging which said...

"Welcome, Ryomen Sukuna"

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(With the Students...)

The tension in the air was palpable as the group of students made their way through the seemingly endless corridors of the ancient ruins.

Each hallway and chamber was shrouded in darkness, with only the flickering light of mana stones guiding their path. The oppressive silence was broken only by the occasional whisper and the soft footsteps echoing off the walls.

"If only he was here," a whisper reached Silvas's ears.

His expression darkened. These people were correct, that boy was a complete monster when it came to combat.

But unfortunately, he was suspended right now.

A short sigh escaped his lips, thinking of that kid wouldn't help their current situation.

As they ventured deeper, the ruins began to divide into narrow passageways and branching tunnels, which forced the students to split into smaller groups.

"Stay close!" Silvas called out, his voice echoing through the cavernous halls. "We need to stick together!"

Eva, determined to find a way out and desperate to rescue Sukuna, took a sharp left turn, Nect following closely behind her.

The students scattered around, hoping that their path would lead to safety.

But the maze seemed to stretch endlessly, each step more confusing than the last.

Suddenly, a low rumble echoed through the halls. The ground began to shake violently, sending a wave of panic through the group.

Suddenly emerged a horde of monsters. Their eyes seemed to be glowing with a deep crimson light, and their low growl filled the air.

The silence was broken by a loud scream. "RUN!"

Someone had shouted, though it might have been too late.

The narrow corridors offered little room for escape. The students who had been split up from the main group were the first targets.

Cries of pain and terror reverberated in the hallways.

Eva and Nect, hearing the screams of their companions, turned around and immediately started running.

Eva's eyes were filled with determination, not containing a drop of guilt for leaving her allies behind.

After all, the principal himself said that they were sacrifice material.

Nect's usual bouncy demeanor had completely disappeared, the air around her uncannily indifferent and calm.

Even Eva was surprised looking at her acting in such a manner.

"We escape as far as we can, we'll figure the rest out later," Eva said as she kept running.

Nect nodded in return, increasing her pace.

A few minutes later, all the students were completely split up. The ones who could not escape died a gruesome and brutal death.

However, these sacrifices allowed the others to escape, with some minor injuries.

They realized the danger when they noticed that the provisions they had carried—little supplies of food and water—were scattered among the group.

Worse still, those who carried most of these essential supplies were either missing or feared dead, their rations likely devoured by the monsters.

This realization spread panic across the students, some of which, driven by fear and desperation, started to run wildly through the corridors, calling out for their companions, their voices echoing in the emptiness of the silent halls.

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Alexia and Johan were together along with a red haired girl who is very unimportant to the storyline, hence she will not be given a name.

They had ended up falling down a hole which led to a maze-like structure.

Firstly, they tried going up the hole, but the walls were polished enough to not let them do so. It was also pretty high so they gave up and started to explore the maze.

Ever since Anny died, Alexia, Johan, and Ryogaku had become distant from other people, mostly giving their time to training and practicing.

They did not even try to talk to their new teammate, who got annoyed with them pretty soon.

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The team of three encountered many dead ends, and arguments, before finally reaching an end of the maze, which said . . .

"Congratulations for solving the maze with pure luck and no skill whatsoever, solve this puzzle to get out safely back into the hideout"

Ignoring the true insult, it was quite easy to deduce for all three of them that 'the hideout' referred to the ruins. This might also mean that the maze was not a part of the ruins.

There was a little square hole through which one could go. Seeing a room on the other side, Johan confidently crawled through, followed by Alexia and finally red-hair.

This room was not too big, with each side assumed to be about 3 meters in length at most. It had a few inscriptions on the walls, along with 5 raised plates on the ground.

Red-hair tried touching one and it went down according to how much force she put.

"I think these are like pressure plates," she said, her voice echoing in the small room.

There were five altars on the other side of the room, each having a cube placed on it.

Alexia tried to pick up the cubes, and noticed that the cubes were of different weights.

Johan was not useful in such scenarios, so he just sat in a corner of the room, watching Alexia and red-hair do their work.

The two firstly tried to place the weights in ascending order.

After placing the last cube, a loud clicking sound was heard. After a few seconds, red-hair awkwardly spoke. "Nothing happened."

Alexia ignored her, altering the position of the cubes.

Red-hair's expression twisted into one of annoyance, her brows furrowed as she looked at Alexia, who was placing the cubes one by one.

She placed the weights in descending order, but again, a loud clicking sound was heard and nothing happened.

Now, everyone was confused. They were pretty sure that it had something to do with the inscriptions on the walls, but they had neither the ability nor the time to deduce what was written.

So finally, they decided to try basically every combination of weights they could think of.

If the lightest is 1 and the heaviest is 5, they tried placing the cubes in the order 1-2-3-5-4.

Another clicking sound was heard, this one louder than the ones before.

But this time, it was different, the clicking sound didn't stop at one, it kept playing, each time with a higher pitch than the one before it.

"I have a bad feeling about this, I think we should leave," red-hair put up her thoughts, but Alexia continued, still trying to place cubes on the plates.

"I think so too," Johan said, trying to get Alexia to go out, grabbing her by her hand.

"I've got this, hold on," Alexia said, getting out of Johan's grip and placing the cubes again.

She was the weakest out of their group, the only thing she could possibly be useful in was brainpower.

Even in that, Anny was much better than her, having received better and more focused education.

She had always felt inferior and...incompetent.

Now, she finally had a chance to do something, to be helpful.

Sadly, this feeling of inferiority had finally got to her head, turning into stubbornness.

After Anny's death, their group started to fall apart, and she was the only one holding it together.

Red-hair had finally had enough of these two, and she decided to leave from the tunnel they came in from.

As she was crawling through the tunnel, the clicking sound stopped, and an eerie silence ensued, it would be appropriate to say that it was too silent.

A sound of rocks grinding against each other was heard, Alexia and Johan, noticing the danger, ran towards the tunnel.

"Alexia, we need to go! Now!" Johan shouted, his voice filled with urgency and fear.

The floor beneath them began to crumble, the ground giving way beneath their feet.

They both screamed as they fell, desperately trying to grab the walls, but the speed of their fall tore their fingers away.

"Johan!" Alexia screamed, her voice breaking with terror as she tried to cling to the wall, her fingers scraping against the rough surface.

"Alexia, hold on!" Johan screamed as he reached out for her.

Their bodies got closer to each other, they were now hugging tightly, the fear of death right on top of them.

"I'm sorry Anny," Alexia mumbled, her voice drowning in the sound of whooshing air.

Alexia turned their bodies, now her back was facing the ground, so that she would be the one to land first.

"What are you doing Alexia?!" Johan screamed, trying to turn them in mid-air again, but it didn't work.

He could see the ground closing in on them.

"This is the least I can do," she said, tears falling out of her eyes as she closed them, accepting her fate.

"It won't help much, but I'll take the force of the fall," she said, her voice soft yet filled with endless pain.

Johan couldn't hold it anymore, tears threatened to fall from his eyes.

"Don't you want to meet Ryo again?" he screamed, desperate to stop her actions.

Alexia's eyes opened, devoid of any life, as empty as eyes could be.

"I love him, Johan, make sure you let him know," she closed her eyes one final time, her body fully relaxing.

Johan saw the ground getting closer and closer, tears falling out of his eyes, but being carried upward to to the air.

In the last moments of the fall, he clung tight to Alexia, the ground getting closer and closer, until they finally landed.

A loud sound echoed by the walls, blood splattering on them.

A few seconds later, a tired and pained groan reverberated in the deep hole.

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I had to go out for some stuff yesterday, sorry for no chapter :<

Anyhow, have this one, it feels a lot like an info dump, but I suppose it'll be important in the future.

It's quite long as well xD

gimme power stones :3

Anyways, cya next chapter :D