Nafız, after managing to repel the second corpse, moved on to the third without even being able to take a breath, and it was followed by the others in turn. Each of their troubles, reasons, and final wishes were different, and they clung tightly to the body part matching it.
Some wanted to take her eyes, some her tongue, some were obsessed with replacing their no longer existing arms with hers, and they would all be disappointed until the last person remained. The Blood God, figuring out the purpose of the druid's ability when the bodies moved by darkness first touched her, took pleasure in facing the enemies wanting to tear off a piece of her.
She saw again how much she didn't know despite the heaps of information, documents, and paperwork passing before her when she worked in the copy shop in her previous life. She couldn't do it even if she wanted to because she declared herself the main culprit for not being able to overcome the loss she experienced and dressed the heart-wrenching ache of the pain with victimhood, but what she learned in the orc body, which was much more primitive than the modern human, was enough to close the gap.
Thanks to the extraordinary experience she lived through, carrying three different consciousnesses in the same body, and showing the courage to face the pains tearing her soul apart, she could now understand. Even though she could see each consciousness separately, she had been able to realize how the trouble in one affected them all. During the solitude lasting for centuries, she had plenty of time to talk to herself.
She grew up in a society that says 'they call those who talk to themselves crazy', and she ultimately witnessed that people whose tongues wore out from talking went crazy because they didn't have the courage to talk to themselves. Not a single one of the twenty people who stood against her on behalf of the Mercenaries and gave their lives was at her level of awareness; there could be no other explanation for them trying to rip the body parts where their traumas were etched from Nafız.
Soul and consciousness couldn't be handled separately from the body, likewise, it couldn't be denied that some bodily troubles were due to spiritual traumas. The human body, whether aware or not, records everything; a person screaming while a muscle group in their neck, which they strained during a car accident decades ago, is being massaged is not physical, it's due to the record of that moment being read again.
A human breaks spiritually but continues on their way to avoid dying; meanwhile, their body both hides and does its best to express it. It was obvious that the deputy leader of the Elemental Ten was testing her with an ability that used these records to make a spiritual attack using the dark element.
The first nineteen people hadn't come with questions that would challenge her; attempting to tear off a piece from her body, baptized with the blessing of God Berkut by discarding all impure parts, was a bite much bigger than they could chew. They all returned to where they belonged, under the earth, but the last enemy, putting only one hand on Nafız's shoulder and having no missing part on his body, was still before her.
"Tell me, what do you want?"
Nafız looked like an on-call doctor accepting the last patient in line ten minutes before her shift ended; there because she had to do her job and tired enough to say 'let's get this over with and go'.
"I want your soul!"
At that moment, her eyes gleamed; she suddenly turned into a therapist welcoming a client possessing an illness she had only read about in books and encountered for the first time. The pouffes of the armchairs they sat in were so comfortable that someone leaning back would have had to drink liters of coffee that day not to fall asleep within ten minutes.
The light hitting her face by leaking through the thin tulles also whispered 'sleep', and the warm yellow lullabies had already taken her in their lap. She was about to drift off without covering herself, with her everyday clothes, even with the shoes as big as a normal human's hand still on her feet, until the sound of the opening door ruined all the harmony.
"You little bastard! Who told you that you could idle around during school time?"
The lenses of the glasses of the man complementing his black tuxedo with a snow-white shirt were so thick that the sun making the room sparkle couldn't overcome them and reach the dull eyes. The organs enabling him to see the world were like they belonged to a dead person, but judging by the sound he made, he was very much alive.
"Sir, I have a fever. I feel very weak!"
A small smile appeared on the face of the man reminiscent of a tombstone that hadn't been tended to for years; the child, who looked barely five years old, had seen this too. He slowly sat up from where he lay; he was moving so slowly that if he shouted 'I am sick', he would only be this convincing.
When the speaking of the dark brown parquet floor, creaking with every step, ended, the little child couldn't see when the right hand of the man whose shadow fell upon him came down on his cheek. Before he could shake off his astonishment, his left cheek was also meeting the five fingers that would dye it a purplish-red color.
"What will I say when your father, the Great Architect, asks? Will I say the little gentleman doesn't feel well today, so he couldn't attend his Higher Mathematics class? If you don't want me to drag you there beating you, get up immediately and run to catch your class!"
The child, flying out of his place with a palm strike to his head, rushed out opening the large door with geometric shapes carved on it. When he started running on the stone path, which seemed like a long distance for someone whose height could barely pass a meter, the image blurred, and when it became clear again, he was standing before the man tapping his fingers on the armrest of the seat, whose backrest was twice as long as normal chairs, in the room with high ceilings.
"A complete example of failure; you are the disgrace of our family in mathematics, physics, trigonometry, energy principles, and mechanical devices. I have a son who won't be able to continue the family tradition coming from my great-great-great-grandfather, thank goodness your little brother isn't like you so the Toricelli Family will manage to continue its existence.
Effective immediately, all the paintings you hid in the basement will be burned, and the poetry books clouding your mind will accompany them. Either you come to your senses, or I will exile you to the Mercenaries' Lodge!"
The image blurred again, the flow of time was disrupted. Right after it felt sometimes very fast and sometimes like it wouldn't flow at all, that moment was reached where tears mixed with raindrops fell to the ground.
"You are no longer a member of the Toricelli Family. Find yourself a name befitting your incompetence, clumsiness, and weird temperament, and don't you ever utter the name of my family again until you die. If you can't keep your mouth shut in the hole you go to and try to embarrass us, I'll pay whatever it costs and have your closest friend slit your throat!"
The young man in his late teens didn't open his mouth. He took his wooden suitcase, unworthy of the magnificence of the mansion he turned his back on, in his hand and started walking on the stone path that seemed very long to him when he was a child. He was leaving behind an old man with furrowed brows, a woman with her face covered by a tulle, and a boy who carefully combed his blonde hair to the right but looked fifteen years old.
After his first step came the second, the third followed it, but the moment he reached halfway down the road, he suddenly stopped. Even if those behind him couldn't see, he could feel it very well; two blue lotus patterns, which he was sure weren't there before, were appearing, burning his flesh.
"I'll f..ck you too, I'll f..ck your family too, who the f..ck are you? Have you become God over us just because you are his father?"
When the suitcase, flying and hitting the garden wall thirty paces away, shattered to pieces, the hands of the youth who had hung his head just a moment ago were on the collar of the man driving him away amidst threats. The soldiers standing guard in various parts of the garden had turned that way, but it was impossible for them to intervene with the youth a breath away from his target.
"I can't give you my soul, I can't make you satisfied by doing in a dream world what you couldn't dare to do, but even if it takes some time, I can tear this guy who ruined your life to pieces in the real world!"