The soul had not gone quietly.
The light in Ophieus hand twisted, and something inside him screamed.
Then he saw images of claws tearing into flesh, and teeth crushing bone. It felt so familiar when he touched the Beast Festival on the Abomination.
But this time he could feel what it felt. All of it flashed through him as the Beast Festival's final moments passed through him. The threads inside of him began trashing, moving left and right as if they were trying to break from his body.
Ophieus didn't move, just watched it happen the way he would watch rain, with interest, without worry. The screaming got louder with more images flooding through him. The Silver Key screen began to tremble before quickly new words appeared.
[Warning!]
[Soul resisting integration. Master stability...]
"It's fine." Ophieus said quietly. "There is nothing to worry about."
The pressure doubled and screaming surged faster.
"Is that all?"
The Beast's soul roared towards him before it began thrashing against like a tidal wave. The fog around him recoiled back like it was struck but then quickly moved back. back.
Ophieus felt his bones creak under weight that wasn't even physical, his vision blurred at the edges, and the forest flickered. Quickly the area shifted and all around him were multiple Beast Festivals.
All of them growled before pouncing on him and latching onto his body.
Ophieus knees buckled and he blinked. He once again back in the forest but leaning against a tree with his hand gripping the bark.
"You're loud," Ophieus said quietly, his voice steady when it should have shaken. "And messy. And desperate."
He straightened slowly.
"Let me show you what control looks like." He then closed his eyes and entered into his mental space.
And there he saw it, the storm of crimson-light in front of him. He saw it was waiting for him as if it was expecting his next move.
Like it knew he would be fighting and resisting it.
"Ridiculous." Ophieus said as he stepped forward into the storm of memory and saw the Beast lunged from inside the dark.
A massive Beast Festival made of hunger and smoke and a thousand deaths, and it didn't think, it just attacked.
Ophieus's hand came up.
It wasn't quick or trembling.
But instead slow and smooth as if a terrifying beast wasn't lunging at him. When the Beast finally reached him, Ophieus gently grabbed it.
The storm stopped.
Not slowly but instantly, leading to the Beast freezing.
Not because it wanted to but because it couldn't move. It couldn't understand what was happening.
"Surprise? I'm sure others would have fought you. Or try to cage you. Or maybe even destroy you." Ophieus whispered, making the Beast tremble. "But why should I do that? Isn't it only right a small pup like you just quiet down and obey?"
He didn't resist because he only did that to something that was a threat to him.
The Beast trembled even more before it tried to open its mouth to growl. But then it realized it couldn't as Ophieus grip got together.
"You don't understand your position," Ophieus said even as the Beast tried thrashing and biting him. "You aren't my equal or a threat."
He squeezed.
Something cracked, not bone, not flesh, but the Beast itself broke under his hand.
"You're just a thing that will be used by me because I find it interesting." His grip got tighter and the Beast's shapeless body compressed into a small orb. "Nothing more and nothing less."
The hunger twisted but it continued to go quiet.
Ophieus's hand closed all the way and the Beast shattered.
Not into pieces but into clean crimson-blue threads.
The forest went quiet and even the fog stopped moving for a couple seconds.
Opheius hummed as he felt the threads fully fuse with him like new muscle. He felt like something new was placed inside of him and was just waiting to be called out.
And so he tested this by opening his eyes but then paused when he saw his hands shaking. Ophieus looked at it before making a fist to make the shaking stop.
"It's been a long time." It was an interesting contest.
But then his attention shifted as he saw it, a light shining in his hand.
And then pain.
It felt like his hand was on fire, making him look down to see light in his hand. It began to twist and stretched out like it was forming something. The process wasn't clean or smooth, his hand jerked as something pushed through skin that shouldn't part this way, and bone-deep cold spread up his wrist.
He watched it happen, didn't cry out, or pull away. He just watched as the light became solid, then gained edges and shifted into something new.
A blade formed in his grip, long and black, but not solid. The edge moved like smoke caught between two states while the spine pulsed with faint blue light that matched the glow still leaking from his torn palm.
[Beast Festival Ego-Weapon formed!]
[Beast Festival Weapon Affinity: 1%]
[Effect: Increased lethality vs Beast- Abomination Type]
[Beast Festival Understanding: 15% → 18%]
Ophieus raised it and the fog around him didn't just part but pulled back as if in disgust. He studied the weapon and it responded to his attention with a small shift, almost like turning toward him, almost like knowing him.
The Beast, broken into threads, reformed into a tool.
"You want a name?" He asked.
The blade pulsed once as if it was waiting.
He lowered it.
"Earn it first."
The weapon trembled and jerked itself forward.
Not enough to fall out but enough for him to feel its desire.
Ophieus's eyes lowered slightly. "…You're eager."
The weapon didn't respond but the fog pulled back even further.
Then he heard something else. It was movement through the trees like someone was running but stumbling at the same time.
Soon a figure broke through the fog line and he saw it was a woman.
She wore a green dress that had blood dripping down and creating a trail. He saw her hands shaking but noted her attention wasn't on him or the dead abomination remains around.
But the blade in his hand.
"What..." The woman softly said. "What is that?... H-How did you…"
Ophieus looked at her and the wounds on her side were deep. He saw holes in her body and claw marks, considering the amount of blood leaking, she didn't have much time. He noticed these things the way he noticed everything.
With calm, steady attention.
"You're close to dying," he said. "And my strange weapon is what you're focused on?"
She stumbled forward and he caught her shoulder before she went down, her weight wrong. Too light, like she was already partly gone.
"That power..." Her fingers grabbed at his sleeve, desperate, leaving blood marks. "You can save us, right? You seem... you seem like someone special…."
"What wants you dead?"
"I don't know. It just started appearing–"
The woman was interrupted by shades of gray appearing.
It suddenly started at her feet before spreading upward through her dress. She felt it happening and her eyes dropped to her own arms, watching the color leave, and her gasping.
"No…" The word came out small. "I thought I had more time." She looked back up at him, fast, urgent, using her last seconds of awareness. "Please be careful… Anyone who dies in this forest becomes..."
Her grip tightened weakly on his sleeve.
Not asking for salvation anymore.
Just… anchoring herself to something that wasn't disappearing yet.
The gray finally reached her throat while the fog seemed to close in on her. But she kept trying to speak even as no words came out. The gray soon reached her face before she fully became gray and turned into a statue.
She didn't look dead but not alive, it was something worse.
Ophieus looked at her for a long moment. "Becomes what?" he asked the silent figure. "You didn't finish."
There was no answer.
He reached down and held the hand that was still holding his sleeve but that was a mistake.
The fingers crumbled.
Not all at once but at the tips first, breaking apart like sand with gray dust scattering into the fog. The crumbling moved up her hand, past the wrist, continuing until the whole forearm was gray dust.
He didn't move or step back and just watched as the process continued. Her shoulder was breaking before it spread to her chest and then finally her face.
In ten seconds, she was gone completely. He looked at the dust and then at the gray staining where her blood had been on his sleeve.
Death wasn't like this in Hyzleth.
The fog thickened as if swallowing what remained of her. The word she had not finished was the missing variable which he needs to find out later.
"For now, this is what death looks like here." He said quietly before his expression slightly softens. "Still, as expected of the people of Hyzleth. Even in the face of death, we still make it a point to warn others."
A faint sound reached him then.
Something like breathing, but too slow coming from beyond the area where the woman had appeared from. It had come from beyond where she appeared. Which meant something else was present and he moved toward it.
And then a scream echoed out.
It didn't sound like a monster or abomination. But like a human screaming before it instantly cuts off.
Ophieus eyes narrowed.
"…That wasn't a death scream."
Ophieus took one step forward and then stopped.
Because the fog ahead of him split open. It wasn't slowly but like something had just been thrown through it from the other side.