The Astral soul system-Chapter 225: Darkness

Darkness, everywhere.

In every direction

It wasn’t just that light was absent,it simply wasn’t allowed to exist. Darkness was the natural law. It was order

The same set of laws that stated that what went up must come down, now seemed to reject the existence of light in its entirety

"Law..."

A disembodied voice mused

"What is a god"

Another rang out

"Gods... hold laws"

The darkness immediately receded replaced by a maelstrom of color.

"What..."

"Lord black. What have you done?"

"They deserved it, they all did. They made me do this"

"I will stop you!!! In this life or the next, you will never succeed!"

The surroundings changed again and something resembling static reverberated

...

...

...

The world was suddenly assaulted by hundreds of thousands of voices,all overlapping and intertwining into one cursed symphony

Instead of being overwhelmed, the disembodied voice seemed enlightened.

"Yes,I remember now"

"Yes I see it now "

A similar voice repeated, overlapping with the first

"It’s...

"It’s...

Wake up....

Wake up....

Wake up!!!

"Zen, wake up!"

*Gasp*

His eyes flew open

He immediately got up and started coughing and gasping for air

"Hey, slow down. Slow down "

Theia urged gently

"What happened?"

"It felt like i was-"

"Drowning?"

Zephyr completed

"You! What did you do to him?"

Theia yelled accusingly

"If you hurt him i-"

"Enough,you damned sprite. I did not harm the boy."

He ignored them and started mumbling

"Melting... transformation... integration... Something familiar but not"

"Zen? Are you okay?"

"Zen?"

He asked

"Who’s that?"

He suddenly twitched, his body trembling.

Theia looked down at the choker and noticed that marks on it were faintly pulsating.

"It’s active. You’re Azrael "

"I-"

Illusory chains suddenly appeared all over his body before shattering, and like a puppet whose strings had been cut, the body fell back to the ground

*******

Zen’s eyes gently opened and he found himself in the castle.

Looking around he saw Zaine and Zyro who were also just waking up.

"You’re back!"

Freya said as she came running into the throne room.

"Back?"

"You disappeared "

Lilith answered

"All three of you"

Theia suddenly appeared in the soul realm

"We need to talk. Now"

"..."

The body slowly got back up and Zen got back in control

"What happened?"

"I’d like to ask you that"

"Boy,do you remember anything after i started?"

Zen shook his head.

"I see"

"Same as the last time. The original personality returns, but they have no memory of what happened"

Zen looked at the choker, gently rubbing the gem in the center

"It’s able to manipulate us, change us against our will"

Theia hummed, scrutinizing him

"There should be a way to control it. So far it’s just triggered in important situations. If we ever figure it out,you guys can return to how you were before. You can finally be whole again!"

Theia looked at Zen’s face and was a bit confused. He looked thoughtful, contemplative

"I was... expecting a different reaction,if any at all"

"Speak up boy. What’s on your mind?"

"I’m just wondering. Whenever we turn into him we lose memories of his...our actions, like we were never there. If it becomes permanent, would we just...stop existing?"

Theia’s enthusiasm faded almost instantly. She hadn’t thought of that. With how self centered the three of them were,it only made sense that they wouldn’t approve of loosing themselves.

"I don’t know "

"..."

Theia laughed awkwardly. She hadn’t considered the implications of what exactly she was saying at first

"Let’s forget that for now. I noticed that the suppression disappeared when you became Azrael ,so maybe your skills weren’t only suppressed but also divided."

"..."

"Hehe...Zephyr. What did you do?"

She said, quickly trying to change the subject.

"Quite simple. Look down "

Zen looked down and saw something most people would consider normal but he found strange

"My shadow is back?"

"Not exactly,but..."

The shadow’s hand reached out towards him. It resembled more of a reflection in a lake than a normal shadow,at least in his perception.

He moved his hand to mirror its actions,both of their hands touching each other and to Zen’s suprise,he felt something against his palm. A dark aura suddenly trailed up through the shadow’s hand and up his like a bridge

"What the-"

"Just hold still"

Zephyr said, and as he did, Zen could swear he saw the shadow’s mouth move

He checked and his hand was stuck to the shadow’s.

The shadow’s other hand suddenly came and latched onto him, rising out of the ground and directly holding his body

The image looked like something out of a psych horror show. Tendrils of darkness rose out of the ground, latching onto him before rising back out in the image of his hand

The shadow slowly became less solid, like a reflection in rippling water and Zen suddenly felt a strange feeling in his chest. Before he could make sense of it, another hand pierced out of his chest, grabbing his shoulder as it attempted to pull itself out.

Zen stared blankly. It wasn’t painful, the sensation was just...weird. like sludge flowing through his body.

"tHiS iS dIfFiCuLt"

Zephyr’s voice came out warped and twisted. It sounded like he was in pain

The hand suddenly became less solid, resembling something more like sludge.

It looked like it was... struggling

After a few seconds it firmed up, becoming more stable.

"Is it..."

Another hand suddenly ripped out, trying to push away from him

"hElP mE"

Zen nodded and started pushing as well

The system screen suddenly started glitching out,random figures bugging in and out.

Slowly but surely, the two separated more and more, the shadow periodically destabilizing and stabilizing again before finally

*Bang!*

"Ugh!"

Zen crashed into the ground

"Ouch, that looked painful"

"Huh?"

Zen looked up, that voice hadn’t come from his mind,or at least not completely

In front of him was his own shadow, holding it’s hand out to him

It’s eyes were just two white lights like gems

He took the hand and it was surprisingly solid

He got up with it’s help, looking at it curiously

"Zephyr?"

"The one and O-"

His body suddenly glitched like a computer screen and Zen’s hand passed through the shadow like normal.

In a split second it was back to normal.

"This is troubling. I’ve never encountered a problem like this before...I also don’t remember ever doing this before as it would seem"

"You’re having trouble?"

"I think... it’s because... you don’t have a shadow,or at least you aren’t supposed to"

He took a deep breath, though it wasn’t certain if a shadow could breathe and all the shadows in the room flowed towards him, solidifying the body

"Hmmm... This is interesting"

Theia said

"Interesting?"

"Your body is still rejecting his power, but not as much as usual "

"Hmm"

Zephyr was still examining the shadow body he’d created

"The way i am now i can at least act more directly, though I still can’t fight Zephyr myself,I still need your help . My core still resides within you. This body is a temporary construct"

"So it’ll disappear in a while?"

"I can’t keep it indefinitely but it’s like one of your skills, with a duration and cooldown. For now though, let’s test this body’s limits"

"You want us to fight?"

Zephyr nodded. His body suddenly melded into the shadows on the ground before sliding backwards, putting some distance between them.

"Come on,boy. Let me see what you can do"

"I don’t know... this is clearly an unfair fight "

Zen said, observing the body’s ability to shift between solid and shadow state.

"What’s wrong, you can become intangible too"

"Yeah but not as smoothly. My skill level -"

"Right, the suppression. Your physical and mystical abilities are less effective. Can’t you just..."

He pointed to Zen’s neck, specifically the choker.

"When you join with the others your stats return right?"

"I don’t know how it works"

Zephyr’s body melded with the shadows again and he pulled himself closer to Zen

Zen nearly flinched instinctively. The shadow looked almost exactly like him,if he had no features except complete darkness. He could even almost see the hue of his mutation in it’s right eye

Zephyr gently reached for the choker’s gem

"This seems to be the object’s core. You said it’s color changes according to who’s in control of the body"

Zen nodded, holding still

"Can you stop trying to act cool already? You barely remember anything other than your own name "

Zephyr’s cold shadowy hands kept probing the gem despite her pessimistic remarks

"Perhaps...but-"

"Aaaah!!"

The choker suddenly reacted to something he did, lighting up and before they could do anything, the shock function suddenly activated, assaulting his senses with pain

Zephyr and Theia watched Zen go down with blank looks, neither saying a word for about a minute before she suddenly turned to look at him

"What were you saying again?"

"..."