Primordial Villain With A Slave Harem - Chapter 1277: Inside Kaelira
Chapter 1277: Inside Kaelira
“The Soul Reaper is right. Kaelira is proud of her craft; her dream is to become the greatest smith in the world, surpassing the dwarves. You are her greatest work, proof that her dreams are not impossible to achieve. Carry that. Stand tall for Kaelira and showcase her mastery over the craft.”
Synchra’s flames rippled once.
Then again, stronger.
A thin line of red lit along the plates on his shoulder, brightening as if the words settled into place.
Quinlan continued, softer.
“You represent her every time you protect me. So do it with her pride.”
The fire across Synchra’s form rose with a steady rhythm, no longer hiding. The plates warmed against his skin. Even the lines along the armor’s elbows and collar brightened, as if she straightened in answer.
The Soul Reaper hovered close and then lifted, returning to Quinlan’s back while looking outright smug in its approval.
Ayame watched from the corner of the room. She allowed herself a small exhale through her nose, subtle enough that only Quinlan caught it.
Indeed… This was quite the ridiculous sight. An expressive blade and armor… And after Quinlan’s decision, they now even held genders, technically. Well, at least they didn’t object to the ones they were given, so Quinlan and co thought they agreed with their genders.
Quinlan’s hand slid from Kaelira’s wrist to her forehead.
Her skin felt hot, almost feverish, but the heat wasn’t from the body. It wasn’t physical at all. It was the wrong kind of warmth, the kind that came from a soul pushed far past its limit.
Quinlan had taken the same hit as Kaelira during Synchra’s creation.
The same drain.
The same pressure.
The same pull that scraped at the edges of the spirit.
The difference was simple.
He had a Soul Realm.
He had the roots of the upgraded Geim tree, Mimi. Whatever she and Rosie truly were, something akin to trees of life, Quinlan guessed, were there for him to use and recover his strength.
Kaelira had none of that.
She was a mortal elf with strong hands, a sharp mind, and a body tempered from years of forging and tanking. Her soul, however, had no such anchor.
That was why Liora couldn’t mend her: the issue wasn’t her body or her mana, but that her soul was injured, not letting her recover properly.
Quinlan exhaled and closed his eyes.
A light push of will left his palm, sliding past the surface. He had done this once already, trying after he woke up from his own coma.
But he couldn’t reach her properly then, and had to give up because his interference was straining the woman greatly.
Now that she had some rest, he tried again.
His awareness sank into her. This time, he had to be extra careful.
Truth be told, Quinlan was no healer, let alone a soul healer. He could barely mend his own soul, let alone someone else’s.
He was entirely out of his depth here, feeling around blindly in the dark. But as the world lacked a real soul healer, he had to do what he could, no matter how futile it appeared.
The process didn’t resemble magic in the conventional sense.
There was no spell cast, no ritual conducted.
It was nothing anyone had ever taught him.
He discovered it by accident.
Back when he saw Kaelira’s state the first time, he reached for her without thinking, letting instinct guide him more than technique. And something responded. Not her soul, but the edge of it. A faint ripple. A door that creaked open because she was too weak to keep it shut.
Through trial and error, he learned he could slip a thread of intent – nothing more complicated than a thought – into that opening.
Not to control. Not to heal. Just to feel around. A blind probing in a pitch-black room.
That was all this was.
A push of will.
A sense of direction built on the faintest resistance.
A search for something buried in the dark.
He didn’t guide mana through her body.
He didn’t mend spiritual pathways.
He didn’t channel healing laws.
He just sent himself.
Bare and unrefined.
And Kaelira’s weakened state made it possible.
Only someone in her condition could let him in at all.
He sank further, feeling for that presence he knew was there somewhere, the hidden piece of her that refused to surface. The inner clearing of quiet where her awareness curled tight, holding itself together.
He reached toward it with nothing but intent.
A simple thought shaped into a direction.
A probe in the dark.
He moved deeper.
The darkness inside her didn’t feel hostile; it did not try to eject the unknown invader. Instead, it just felt heavy, packed tight, compressed into stillness. The kind of stillness that came after pushing past every limit and falling straight into exhaustion.
The more he felt it, the more Quinlan realized. When they created the armor, both of them were fine. But when they named her, it must’ve been a magical ritual of sorts, because that was when the rapid and all-encompassing draining happened.
That was when Synchra went from armor to living armor. And they paid the price of giving her life.
But now was not the time to think about these things. Quinlan, with utmost care and focus, moved through the space the way a hand might trail along a wall in a dark corridor, searching for a corner, a shift in texture, anything that hinted at another presence.
Time slipped by as he sifted through the quiet inside her.
He held still beside her bed the entire time, palm resting against her forehead, breathing slowly, never once letting frustration tighten his posture.
Everyone in the room understood without being told; no one spoke, no one moved more than they had to. Liora even hid the amethyst on her staff with a towel, afraid a brighter shine might break his concentration.
Inside Kaelira’s mind, his awareness moved with the patience of someone handling brittle glass.
At times, he ran into blank space, where nothing stirred.
At times, he brushed against something firmer, a patch that pushed back in silent refusal. Whenever that happened, he pulled away at once, letting her mind settle before approaching from a different direction.
Slowly, steadily, without force.
He circled through her inner quiet, mapping it by instinct.
He learned where she recoiled.
He learned where she thinned into hollowness.
He learned the corners she curled away from.
Hours passed.
His eyes stayed shut. Sweat gathered at his brow. His injured body protested every minute he stayed kneeling, but he didn’t shift even once. Synchra warmed against him, worried, and the Soul Reaper hovered near his shoulder, its presence as alert as a watchdog.
And finally, after another long, cautious sweep, he sensed it.
Not because it called out, but because he stopped expecting anything to answer.
The moment he let his attention soften, the faintest warmth pressed back from somewhere deep within.
He focused.
There, in a pocket of quiet so small he would have brushed past it a dozen times, something pulsed. A spot barely warmer than the rest. Fragile. Curled up tight. A shard of Kaelira’s awareness holding itself together by stubborn instinct alone.
