“Oracle, can I ask you a question?”

“Except for queries beyond the Apocrypha level, you can ask any questions you desire, and if they can be found within my Spirit Core, the information would be available to you.”

“Good, Oracle, what is this stone material that covers the body of each of the members of the Covenant.”

“Your queries are within the bounds of the Apocrypha, that material does not cover the body of the members of the Covenant, it is an Anima, It can exclusively be sourced at the pillars of the Universe and of its many purposes it has two main functions, firstly it serves as a vessel for a Divine Class being and as a channel to Primordial Aether where Aspects are…”

The rest of the explanation was lost to him, as his Soul was dragged painfully back to his body with an audible snap.

This was the first time he was hearing of Primordial Aether or Anima, but he could infer some certain things from the few words he was able to hear.

The most important was the word channel, because after all this time he noticed something from the actions of his bloodline. The Soul Reaver bloodline was not consuming the blank face, it was using it as a channel to consume something else.

The destruction of the face was as a result of the strain of holding whatever the bloodline was consuming.

Was it Primordial Aether?

As far as he knew, Aether had no Aspects, and it could be used to power different elements, it only served as a source of power.

If he followed that line of thought, with the words from the Oracle saying Aspects could be derived from Primordial Aether, then he had a theory.

Each Anima he had seen had a given him a different sensation, from Arlushan Endirius he had felt intense heat, from Fiona Shadowsoul he had felt the coldness of the moon, and what was the sensation he had felt from the goddess whose Anima had been struck inside his head…

The sensation it had given him was of darkness and madness.

If this Anima of the goddess was a channel to Primordial Aether, and its Aspect was biased towards darkness, it stands to reason that what he was channeling into his bloodline was…

The Name of Soul Reaver finally dissipated and a new name appeared.

AVATAR OF EVE: Level 0 (0/10,000)

Ok, what the fu…..

®

Scarvros was in despair, but he finally felt a bit of relief because his target was within sight. He finally saw a relay tower on a mountain a hundred miles away.

He could call for help from that Tower, and normally a hundred miles was a few seconds’ journey to him, but at this moment it could as well be the other side of the planet.

Whatever these beasts were, they were not all that powerful, compared to him, but they all came with certain traits that caused him no small ends of grief.

The first was that they had an insane amount of durability, regardless of what he threw at them, they shrugged it off, with the minor damage he made vanishing before his eyes, leading him to think at first that it was an illusion.

He was a Guardsman of the Boreas family for more than a thousand years, and a Dominator of the Second Great Circle, he was a Spirit Territory Realm Dominator.

Being in this realm meant he had access to a power beyond whatever could be accessible to the First Great Circle—Territory.

A piece of a god’s Divine Land.

His Territory was not the best that could be afforded to the Boreas Scions, but he controlled a sizable portion of the Green Wind plain.

For six hundred years he had saved Bloodline Essence and managed his Territory to grow to a stage where in a century he might Ascend realms, finally leaving the Spirit Territory Realm to the Incandescent Realm.

Yet, all his struggles had come to naught, because of the second most frightening traits of these beasts; they could consume energy! Including those coming from his Territory. His attacks were useless unless backed by his Territory, and every power he drew from it could not be easily replenished.

For the last thirty minutes, he had been fighting a battle of diminishing returns, as he had to call on the finite resources his Territory could retain, to hold back these beasts, because their speed was equal to him going all out.

He suspected that the only reason he was still alive was because whatever these beasts were, they seemed contented to toy with their prey as long as he gave them energy.

He had been struggling to escape their entanglements, as he was pushing to get close to the Relay Tower to reach the underground city.

Checking his Territory once more, he nearly screamed in rage, for he had lost more than sixty percent of his accumulated resources. The land was dry and cracked, his vibrant green wind that covered both the land and the air were left with pitiful clumps of tornadoes.

He gazed at the three gigantic dragons, and he would have screamed at them, but he could not afford the distraction.

The sounds they made were not normal, they were growls that shook the air, making it vibrate in a weird pattern that was making him nearly hallucinate—He could swear he saw images of the world being chewed by a massive mouth with needle sharp teeth, with two golden serpentine eyes coldly assessing him.

They resembled those of Rowan Kuranes. Scarvros shook his head, any distractions could lead to his death.

As he discovered that with the reduction of his Territory, his barrier against the world was slowly dropping and after fighting these Dragons for so long, he knew their most terrifying traits was not only their power, it was this ability to corrupt the mind. How could he fight when he sank into illusions that were beginning to affect him?

It was hard to see the expression on the faces of these creatures, but he would swear from the sounds they were making that they were laughing.

He felt he was a mouse being toyed with by a trio of demented cats, they slashed at him, making him dance, so he could cough out his blood, which they gleefully slurped.

For the first time in three centuries, Scarvros was feeling true fear, his position as the Chief Administrative Officer for the Boreas family had kept him far from the battles plaguing the world, and he had been relatively free to develop in safety.

His intuition from his long years however, could not be discounted, as he knew that if he let himself be exposed to these beasts without the safety net his Territory provided, that he was going to die.

His momentary distraction nearly killed him, as a mountain sized beast moving faster than sound suddenly attacked him from the right, simultaneously he was attacked from above and below.

With the speed of their movement and their massive size, it was like he immediately fell into darkness.

“No more!” Scarvros manifested his Incarnation in front of him, and with fury in his eyes, he detonated it.

The unique properties of each personal Incarnation was their inability to hurt their owner. The storm that erupted from a destroyed Incarnation was apocalyptic. He vomited blood and his black skin appeared visibly pale.

He heard the strange roars from the Dragons as they were surrounded by a green twister that acted like a blender.

The winds could shred through metal, but to his despair, he felt it weakening, no doubt it was being consumed, but it would buy him enough to reach the Relay Tower.

Scarvros screamed as his left leg exploded, creating a screaming vortex of green wind that pushed him towards the Relay Tower.

He was just a few hundred feet away when something massive and silent went by him, and slammed into the mountain holding the Relay Tower, piercing through and thoroughly destroying it.