Kassorith sat atop his coiled tail in stern concentration, shaving small chunks of his soul one after the other to infuse into his bloodstream.
It had already been a couple of days since Percy and his host returned from Oll, and they hadn’t slacked much during that ti. Well… okay… They may have given themselves an hour or two at first, mostly to calm down and purge the unsettling imagery of malford people and fleshly hills from their minds. Even for seasoned mages such as themselves, there were things that could churn one’s stomach in all the wrong ways.
Once they decided to stop procrastinating, they used a terminal to swiftly locate the nearest inn, making sure to book a room that wasn’t on the ground floor. As beautiful as the sight of the Maradorian ocean was, Percy didn’t want to look at it without pause.
He wasn’t sure how the natives could handle staring at the endless abyss all day long. Perhaps, as amphibians, they were used to spending a lot of ti underwater, to the point that the aquatic expanse looked no different from one’s garden. To them, watching a bunch of fish swimming beneath their webbed feet was probably like listening to birds chirping outside their bedroom window.
Leaving the Maradorians’ architectural preferences aside, Percy had been more than happy to rid himself of the distraction. He might have even enjoyed his stay in the cozy room if not for the Thess’kalan’s agonized groans.
‘Can you stop letting your pain spill through our connection?’ Percy asked, and not for the first ti. ‘There’s no reason to make us suffer alongside you.’
‘Easy for you to say. You only have to lean back and use so of your mana to nd my wounds. anwhile, I’ve spent the past few days doing the spectral equivalent of skinning myself alive. It fucking hurts,’ Kassorith protested.
Percy rolled his borrowed eyes. ‘I assure you that I’m quite familiar with every manner of soul pain. If you think this is bad, you should try absorbing a couple of spectral fiends. Besides, my job isn’t as easy as you make it sound. It takes a lot of focus to heal your wounds while keeping the stitches in place.’
He could practically feel his host’s irritation bubbling up, though the scaled man ultimately kept his thoughts to himself. Everyone understood that they didn’t have ti to waste on pointless quibbling. It didn’t look like they would manage to replace all of Kassorith’s blood before their first match, but even a third of it might make a difference.
Pulling up his Status, Percy read the last section again, focusing on the new entry.
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[Penitent’s Decree] – Allows one to shed small pieces of their soul to infuse into their bloodstream, producing spiritual blood.
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Stripped of all the notes and caveats, the Penitent’s Decree appeared relatively simple. Of course, Percy would have struggled to figure out the applications of his host’s spiritual blood if not for the millennia of research notes that the Void Hand had generously given them access to.
The first application was relatively straightforward, on top of being quite relevant for the tournant: saturating one’s veins with spiritual blood accelerated their physical recovery.
Percy was convinced that this was, in fact, the original purpose of the Decree. Piecing together what little information Nawko and the docunts had shared about Nergal’s past, Percy had co up with what he felt was an educated guess about the titan’s motivations.
As a god with a soul affinity, Nergal had been unable to directly affect his people’s flesh with his Decrees. He had instead attempted to boost the potency of their magic by altering their souls, and he had clearly succeeded at that.
What the titan hadn’t expected, was that the Ollorians’ bodies weren’t able to withstand their empowered souls. That had resulted in a lot of damage accumulating over the course of their lives and across generations, slowly twisting their forms into the monstrous visages they wore today.
To undo his mistake, Nergal had tried to cast a second Decree that would heal his people. Unfortunately, he must have still lacked the ans to directly enchant their bodies, so he had sought a way to accomplish that indirectly, by infusing their souls into their blood.
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And the rest was history.
For better or worse, the titan hadn’t lived long enough to witness his second failure. Percy wasn’t sure how the Ollorians had managed to repair their original Decree in the end, since they hadn’t shared the information with the rest of the alliance. Or maybe the Void Hand just didn’t bother giving the tournant’s participants access to that knowledge.
Based on what tatron had told Percy about collaborative Decrees, it shouldn’t be easy for a titan to modify another’s spell. It was more likely that the Ollorians had created a second Decree – likely cast by a god with a life affinity this ti – strengthening their flesh enough to properly contain their empowered souls.
At least, this was the first thing that Percy would have attempted, had he been in their shoes – and had these people even worn shoes, though that was sowhat impractical for obvious reasons. Sadly for them, the new Decree or whatever else they had done had only prevented further damage to their bodies, yet failed to turn the clock back.
All of this was admittedly just Percy’s speculation.
However, assuming thathe had guessed correctly, he had certainly made the right call by not asking his main body to send a clone to Oll. Had he done that, he might have acquired Nergal’s Decree, but not the second one that the Ollorians had used to counteract it, dooming himself to a ghastly fate. If he figured out a way to grab the second Decree as well – or another like it – he could potentially reconsider, but that was more of a long-term project.
Either way, faster regeneration would be useful in the competition – especially since Kassorith wasn’t allowed healing potions or any other external source of life mana.
Even outside the tournant, spiritual blood supposedly synergized well with other forms of healing, aning that Percy was in for quite a treat once he returned to Remior.
Life mana worked by bolstering one’s healing factor. An experienced life mage like Archibald could accomplish that far more efficiently than a mindless potion, but the underlying principle was the sa, so both would further multiply an already-boosted recovery rate.
Consequently, Percy hoped that his spiritual blood would work well with his trollsfury tattoos. Having easily endured Yellow potions during his fight against Deimos, he’d long been confident in handling even the Green tattoos without crippling himself, though it would have still been sowhat unpleasant until recently. Thanks to his reinforced bones and new Decree, he was now much more eager to put the powerful tattoos to the test.
The second application of spiritual blood was more relevant to their bloodlines.
Apparently, it would allow a severed limb to survive a lot longer, and even maintain a faint connection to its owner. According to the research notes, Percy might be able to chop off his hand and still move his fingers or feel their touch from afar.
In many ways, it was analogous to how he could control his soul constructs remotely, and even have them move by themselves. The difference was that this applied to flesh fuelled by spiritual blood rather than constructs made of mana, but it wasn’t very surprising that the two effects were similar, since they had been caused by the sa affinity.
Not that Percy had any intention of mutilating his main body just to see what happened – a few half-dead limbs wouldn’t be all that beneficial either – but that was not to say that this ability was useless.
Micky could already detach pieces of his elental body and control them remotely, albeit with severe restrictions. At the end of the day, his body required his cores and soul to function, so his discarded body parts currently worked more like mana constructs than true extensions of himself.
But what if he combined the two effects?
The water perating the Huehuan’s icy veins was functionally identical to blood, so he should be able to alter it in the sa way. Hopefully, that would allow him to produce full-sized, independent copies of himself, much like how Archibald’s life clones worked.
Due to his shapeshifting abilities and connection to Percy, they might be able to do all sorts of additional things too, though it would probably take a lot of testing to determine what was or wasn’t possible.
Interestingly, Kassorith’s bloodline was also a great fit for the new Decree.
Whenever the Thess’kalan activated his ability, he discarded a damaged husk of his flesh that carried most of his injuries. anwhile, his true self receded into a new body that was smaller and healthier than before. He could even consu the excess flesh to swiftly recover much of his lost mass.
Having discussed the effects of the Penitent’s Decree extensively before claiming it, Percy and his companions were confident that spiritual blood would bolster Kassorith’s bloodline in three major ways.
Firstly, his enhanced recovery should minimize the damage before he activated the bloodline, aning that he would shrink less than usual. Secondly, he might be able to maintain so control over the empty husk, using it as a scout or distraction. Finally, Kassorith would potentially regain more mass after consuming it.
It would still be difficult to find an opportunity to use his ability during a heated battle. However, Lanthaniel had ntioned that the group phase of the competition included a few special events, so Percy wouldn’t mind having another trick up his sleeve or two.
The last two applications of spiritual blood were even more exciting, as they mainly concerned soul affinity users.
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