Angel Monarch

Sera stared straight into David's eyes. He was really curious about what she would reveal to him now. Sera on the other hand tried to figure out how much she should tell him.

This secret was bigger than the rest, but since he already knew this much, she had no reason to keep anything from him.

With a few quick moves they both turned off their watches. When that was done she looked towards the sky and sighed.

"You have asked how the machine gets its power... Well, the answer is not too simple. As you know we have been working on this for the past year, but only about half a year ago had we made significant progress with the research."

David nodded along, he already knew about most of this. What he didn't know anything about was the actual research.

"We needed a power source, which could put out enough energy that could be used without any issues. Eventually after a lot of trial and error we found three ways that could work." She took another deep breath, while examining the horizon.

They were getting closer to Tekirdag, the biggest telltale sign was the lack of monster presence. After a few seconds of silence she turned back towards David and continued.

"The most obvious answer was me... As you know I put out a gigantic amount of energy with each resurrection. This could be used as a great power source, only issue is that I need to die each time we start to run low on power..."

"The second much better option is Bran. He could take in the life force of his environment, then we could convert it to usable energy, but this one can't be used effectively until we manage to get the others here..."

David still wasn't entirely sure who the 'others' referred to, but it seemed like most of Sera's plans were related to them, so they must've been important. He also wasn't sure how Bran's power actually worked, but before he could ask anything Sera continued to the third option.

"The last one is something that only exists because of luck..." She held out her hand and suddenly something appeared in it, or at least that's what David thought.

Her hand began to shake out of nowhere, like she was holding onto a large mass or something really unstable. David had a really bad feeling about this, but he was also kind of curious.

"What are you holding? Are you even holding anything, or you just pretending?" Sera chuckled a bit, then moved the item towards him.

Gingerly he reached out and tried to touch whatever she was holding. The 'thing' was strange, it was very smooth and round, like a ball made out of glass. It was about the size of a baby's head and it felt very weird.

His hand that was holding onto the object felt really hot and really cold at the same time, also it was like the crystal ball vibrated every few moments. Sometimes it felt like something was moving inside.

"What the hell is this?!" He asked with a serious voice. Whatever this was, it felt unnatural.

Sera stared at the empty space with a small, proud smile and after a few more seconds she dismissed the item.

"It's called Nothing, mostly for stealth purposes... We had to make it like this so when Harold or anyone else went through my item list, they wouldn't find anything out of the ordinary..." She was about to say more, but David cut in with a remark.

"Wouldn't they be more curious because of its name?" His expression was grim and a bit afraid, but Sera just laughed.

"Don't worry too much, they are way too overconfident and bigoted to care about such a lowly item. Also, if they wanted to find out more about it, they had to ask questions from me, which would've made them admit their spying!"

David's eyes widened a bit in understanding, but in the next moment they turned confused. This plan was sound enough, but still he couldn't quite decide if it was actually smart or just simply really stupid.

"What does this item do?" He asked curiously, but he wasn't prepared for the answer at all.

"It's a Soul Trap!" That was all Sera said, which didn't explain much, but since she wasn't inclined to speak further, David had to ask more.

"Could you please enlighten little ol' me, what the fuck is a Soul Trap?" Sera looked at him for a moment smiling, which only further annoyed him.

"Sure! It's a device that traps souls!" Then she stayed silent again. David wanted to pull out his hair, but he didn't have any.

"What's its purpose and if you dare to say 'to trap souls' again, I swear to whatever god exists that I will make you bald too!" Sera looked aghast for a moment, then began to laugh. It seemed like her teasing wouldn't go unpunished if she continued, and since she really liked her long hair, she had to continue.

"Fine... It is made up of a very rare material. It's hundred percent invisible and it gives off no energy signature or anything detectable. The only way you can notice its existence is by touch, this is where its name originates from... Nothing!"

David looked at her for a moment in silence, then asked with a raised eyebrow, "I thought it was named that to fool people who tried to snoop!"

"Well, that too... But it just sounded too poetic to name it something else! Anyway, we are getting sidetracked... A Soul Trap is a device that traps souls and we will use the captured souls as fuel for the machines!" As she spoke David's eyes widened further.

The implications of what they were doing is unbelievable! Using souls as an energy was unheard of, but it also raised many more questions, the most important being...

"How does capturing souls actually work? Do you just throw the ball at them and their soul gets sucked in?" He said it seriously, but Sera just giggled a bit, his answer was simply too ridiculous.

"Fuck no! Do you think this is some stupid game or something... I have to kill the creature while holding onto Nothing! This way the soul doesn't leave for the Afterlife and instead gets trapped inside the orb!"

David looked a bit embarrassed by his previous question, but he also realized what happened with the darkness.

"So that corrupted of the 3rd tier didn't actually run away, you just killed it and took its soul!" Sera nodded along and when he finished she corrected him. "Yes, but it wasn't a corrupted... It was a Horror of the 1st Tier!"

This new information made him stumble and he nearly faceplanted into the grass. When he regained his balance the only word that came out of his mouth was, "WHAT?!"

Sera just continued to walk in silence for a bit longer, ignoring David's amazed stare. Eventually she had enough and further explained the situation.

"Don't look with too much awe, I can't really kill most Horrors, but this one was perfect. Since its power had to do with darkness and evil, my holy flames were the exact counter for it. After I made sure that I could kill it in one shot I summoned Nothing and threw my spear!"

This didn't in fact make the achievement less amazing. Killing a Horror in one shot as an ascended was just... impossible! At least that's what David had thought, but it seemed like life was just full of surprises!

Before he could ask another question Sera spoke again. Her eyes seemed reminiscent and hopeful.

"We haven't tried the energy convertor with a Horror's soul yet, but by our estimates and the studies conducted on corrupted souls, it will held much more power than anything we could hope for!"

There was still the problem of recharging, but that should be solved by Bran in the near future... and there was still the first option...

She also haven't explained everything there was to know about Nothing. The item was a marvel of item craftsmanship. They found the material at the site of a huge battleground. It was a place where two abominations fought, possibly to the death.

This invisible material was part of one of the creature. It was extremely strong and souls could only pass through it from one direction.

Sera didn't know the details of how they had crafted it into the shape of a ball, or how it works exactly, but until it does its job, there was no reason to question it.

The other power that it had is a very strong locator. When you capture something with it and you place the device into the machine, which extracts the soul within, you can actually tell where exactly you found said soul.

This was how they had found Harold's hidden laboratory. He didn't even notice that one of his goblins went missing!

After the conversation was over they walked on in silence. When the Sun went down they finally saw the gathering point on the horizon. It was a giant military encampment that illuminated the world.

Sera and David waited for the others, then they began walking to the closest gate excitedly. Their perilous journey was finally over and it was time to do something so much worse...

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