Chapter 59 - A Soul Cannot Be Manufactured

The facility hesitated.

Etzel felt it through the pull on Soul Space.

Not fear.

Not exactly.

A calculation reaching a result it did not like.

The Witness message remained.

Etzel had not been handed a solution.

Only confirmation.

The flaw was real.

The facility could collect fragments.

Combine them.

Place them in bodies.

Stimulate wants.

Distribute an existing identity across thirty-seven vessels.

But somewhere in all that impossible machinery, one thing remained beyond it.

The first spark.

A self.

“You need a complete identity,” Etzel said.

The core pulsed.

“You can’t make one.”

“No.”

Etzel blinked.

“Did the soul factory just negotiate?”

DK raised the Greatblade.

“It is buying time.”

“Probably.”

Mireth stepped beside Etzel.

“What does it want?”

“You.”

“And the unnamed one.”

“Yes.”

Saeva made an angry sound.

Etzel glanced at her.

“Agreed.”

Lysa shouted from the corridor.

“Jonas is failing!”

The thirty-seven bodies had begun convulsing.

The facility was redistributing power.

Taking from its experiments.

Feeding the core.

Etzel understood.

“It’s using them as leverage.”

Mireth’s head turned.

“It wants us to choose.”

“Yes.”

“If we refuse, Jonas dies.”

“Maybe the fragments too.”

Mireth looked at Etzel.

“This is manipulation.”

“Congratulations. You’ve discovered civilization.”

Even DK looked at him.

“Bad timing?”

“Yes.”

“Noted.”

Etzel ran back toward Jonas.

The nearest body was bleeding from the nose.

Another had stopped breathing.

Lysa was trying to stabilize two at once.

“Can you disconnect them?”

“No.”

“Can the facility?”

“Yes.”

“Then we make it.”

“How?”

Etzel looked back at the core.

“That’s the part I’m developing.”

Witness gave him dependency.

Limited Necromancer gave him rules.

Neither gave him control of the facility.

He needed leverage.

Mireth followed.

“I can enter its network.”

Etzel turned.

“No.”

“You said it needs me.”

“That is why the answer is no.”

“It cannot take me if I do not transfer.”

“You don’t know that.”

Mireth looked toward the core.

“I know more about being taken apart than you.”

That stopped Etzel.

Mireth’s voice remained calm.

“It tried to use identities through me before I had one. I know the difference between an invitation and a seizure.”

Etzel hated that the argument made sense.

DK did too.

“You enter only the outer structure.”

Mireth looked at him.

“You command me?”

“No.”

DK’s helmet turned slightly.

“I advise you.”

Mireth considered.

“Accepted.”

Etzel stared.

“Why does he get accepted?”

Mireth walked toward the core.

“He is less annoying.”

Saeva made a sound suspiciously like laughter.

Etzel pointed at both of them.

“Later.”

Mireth touched a root.

Black filament spread.

The facility reacted instantly.

“No.”

Mireth said the word aloud.

The message broke.

Then Mireth’s body went rigid.

Etzel felt nothing through a Soul Link because there was none.

That suddenly bothered him more than it should.

“Mireth?”

No answer.

Black filament traveled through the pale root network.

The facility pulsed.

Mireth’s face changed.

Not physically.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting NovelPhoenix for this novel and more.

Expression.

Confusion.

Then horror.

It tore its hand free.

The black connection snapped.

Mireth stumbled backward.

Etzel caught it.

“What?”

Mireth looked at the pods.

“They are not eight hundred forty-six.”

Etzel’s stomach tightened.

“How many?”

“I do not know.”

“You just said—”

“Those are what remain.”

Silence.

Lysa stopped moving.

Mireth looked at the core.

“It has been doing this for years.”

Etzel understood.

Eight hundred forty-six survivors.

Not total subjects.

“What happened to the rest?”

Mireth’s voice became very quiet.

“Used.”

DK raised the blade.

“We destroy it.”

“We still kill the ones inside.”

“Then remove them first.”

Etzel looked at the pods.

Hundreds.

No bodies.

No stable identities.

Where could they go?

Soul Space was not a warehouse.

The unnamed soul could not carry them.

Etzel could not claim them.

The System had already said why.

Structure lacks completed identity.

Then the wording hit him.

Claim unavailable.

Not shelter unavailable.

He looked inward.

Limited Necromancer had protected the nascent soul before it had become stable.

Not as a summon.

As a protected soul structure.

Different rule.

“Maybe.”

DK looked at him.

“What?”

“Maybe I don’t have to claim them.”

Etzel opened the ability.

The interface struggled in the dead zone.

He pushed.

There.

One.

Not summon capacity.

Not active summon slot.

Protection.

Etzel focused on the nearest pod.

“Can I shelter another?”

The System did not answer.

He tried again.

“I know.”

Nothing.

Etzel clenched his jaw.

“I’m not asking to own it.”

The interface flickered.

Mireth watched.

“What are you doing?”

“Arguing with metaphysics.”

“Can I help?”

“Probably not.”

“I am experienced.”

Etzel looked at it.

Mireth’s almost-smile returned.

That was definitely intentional.

Etzel turned back to the System.

“I want temporary shelter. No claim. No binding. No ownership.”

The interface changed.

“Unsupported isn’t impossible.”

DK looked at him.

“You are negotiating with the System.”

“It started it.”

Etzel remembered Borrowed Tomorrow.

Unfinished Law.

The Last Answer.

Abilities did not define reality.

They interacted with it.

Rules could have edges.

And he had one ability literally called Unfinished Law somewhere in the world, proof enough that System language was not the same thing as natural law.

He looked at the unnamed light.

It had sheltered fragments for seconds before rejecting them.

Saeva had stabilized them.

Not him.

“Saeva.”

She flew closer.

“Can you do what you did before?”

She frowned.

“Hold?”

“Yes.”

“Little.”

“How little?”

Saeva held up both hands.

Etzel sighed.

“Right. Non-numeric communication. My favorite.”

She touched his chest.

Then pointed at the pods.

“Together.”

Etzel followed her gesture.

The nascent soul.

Saeva.

Him.

Not storage.

A bridge.

The idea formed.

“We don’t keep them.”

Mireth understood first.

“Move them.”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

Etzel looked at Jonas.

One identity.

Thirty-seven bodies.

A stable soul distributed artificially.

The facility had already proven that spiritual structures could be transferred.

“Out.”

Lysa stared.

“Out where?”

“Anywhere this place can’t recycle them.”

“That could destroy them.”

“Staying definitely destroys them eventually.”

Jonas spoke through several bodies.

“Do it.”

Lysa turned.

“No.”

“Lysa.”

“No.”

Thirty-seven faces looked at her.

“I am already being used to stabilize it.”

“You don’t know what happens if we break the network.”

“No.”

One Jonas smiled.

“But I know what happens if we don’t.”

Etzel hated brave people.

They made dangerous decisions sound reasonable.

“First, we release Jonas.”

Lysa stared at him.

“How?”

“We give his identity one body.”

Jonas’s nearest face went still.

The others turned.

Etzel pointed.

“Thirty-seven bodies. One identity. The facility redistributes him whenever one fails.”

“Yes.”

“So we force all of him into one.”

“That could overload the body.”

“Pick the strongest.”

Jonas’s eyes moved among himself.

A deeply strange moment.

“That one.”

A body near the center.

Older-looking.

Complete limbs.

Stable breathing.

Etzel nodded.

“DK, when I say, sever every connection except his.”

“Simultaneously?”

“As close as possible.”

DK looked at thirty-six sets of roots.

Then at his sword.

“Yes.”

Etzel did not ask how.

Some problems were better delegated.

“Mireth, can you interfere with redistribution?”

“For seconds.”

“Need more?”

“I do not know.”

“Excellent. Everyone is confident.”

Lysa moved to the chosen body.

“I’ll stabilize the physiology.”

“Saeva, with her.”

Saeva nodded.

Etzel took position beside Mireth.

“What do I do?” Jonas asked.

Etzel looked at all thirty-seven.

“Choose.”

Mireth struck the network.

The chamber screamed.

DK moved.

Etzel saw one swing.

Then many.

Hellscript lines crossed the room faster than his eyes could follow.

Roots fell from thirty-six bodies.

Jonas screamed.

Not thirty-seven voices.

One.

Every discarded body collapsed.

The chosen body arched.

Saeva’s barrier flared.

Lysa shouted something Etzel could not hear.

The facility tried to reconnect.

Mireth held it back.

“Now!”

Etzel did not know what now meant.

He acted anyway.

Limited Necromancer opened.

Not claim.

Recognition.

A complete identity was moving.

For a fraction of a second it became visible to him.

Jonas.

Not memories.

Not traits.

A whole.

Etzel reached toward it and pushed.

Not into Soul Space.

Into the chosen body.

“Yes.”

The identity entered.

The body convulsed.

Then breathed.

Once.

Again.

The other thirty-six stopped.

No redistribution.

No movement.

One Jonas opened his eyes.

Lysa was crying.

He looked at her.

“Hi.”

She hit him.

Weakly.

Then hugged him.

Etzel looked away.

“Successful medical procedure.”

DK cleaned the Greatblade.

“You did not perform medicine.”

“Successful aggressive suggestion.”

“Acceptable.”

The facility did not agree.

The core pulsed hard enough to crack the floor.

Etzel looked toward it.

“No.”

“No.”

Roots began retracting from the fragment pods.

Etzel’s expression changed.

“It’s going to consume them.”

Mireth moved.

Saeva moved with him.

Etzel ran.

“Bridge! Now!”

He opened Soul Space.

Saeva’s green light struck the first pod.

Mireth tore the organic shell open.

A pale fragment emerged.

Etzel did not pull it inside.

He touched it with the same temporary guidance he had used on Jonas.

“I know.”

He pushed outward.

Away from the facility.

Toward open spiritual space beyond the dead zone.

The fragment vanished.

Not destroyed.

Released.

Etzel felt it fade into something too large to perceive.

No XP.

Nothing.

“Again!”

They moved.

Pod after pod.

Mireth opened.

Saeva stabilized.

Etzel guided.

DK cut attacking roots.

Lysa protected Jonas.

Ten.

Twenty.

Fifty.

Etzel lost count.

His head began to pound.

Blood ran from his nose.

Saeva’s light dimmed.

Mireth’s arms shook.

The facility fought harder.

Etzel laughed breathlessly.

“Oh, now you understand consent?”

A root struck him.

DK cut it before it wrapped his throat.

“Less talking.”

“Impossible.”

They continued.

Hundreds.

Not all survived the transfer.

Etzel knew.

Some fragments dissolved the moment the pods opened.

Some were too weak.

Some tore apart when the facility pulled back.

Every loss hurt.

But most moved.

Away.

Free.

The core began shrinking.

Its power depended on them.

Dependency.

The Witness flaw.

No native identity generation.

No endless supply.

Mireth ripped open the last pod.

One tiny fragment hovered.

Weak.

Almost nothing.

Saeva caught it between both hands.

Etzel guided.

It vanished.

Silence.

The core dimmed.

DK raised the Greatblade.

Etzel looked at Lysa.

“Jonas?”

She checked him.

“Alive.”

“Mireth?”

“Here.”

“Saeva?”

“Tired.”

Etzel nodded.

“Me too.”

DK waited.

Etzel looked at the core.

No souls left.

No hostages.

No leverage.

“Now.”

The Hellscript Greatblade fell.

The Stabilization Core broke.

No explosion.

No dramatic fire.

Just a sound like a breath finally released.

The pale roots collapsed.

Metal veins cracked.

The facility began to die.

System returned fully.

Etzel waited.

More text formed.

He stared.

Then smiled.

“Oh.”

Saeva looked up.

Etzel’s interface changed.

The number settled.

Level 15.

A milestone.

And Limited Necromancer responded.

Not with a normal chest.

Something darker opened behind the System text.

Etzel stopped smiling.

Mireth looked at him.

“What?”

Three shapes began forming in the air.

Not items yet.

Choices.

And somewhere inside Soul Space, the unnamed soul woke.

One word touched Etzel’s mind.

Not you.

The question in front of them had not turned just because they had named part of it. Nobody rushed the next next move. That was new for Etzel. Months ago he would have mistaken speed for initiative and initiative for courage. Now he let the hazard show him what it expected. He watched where the walls tightened, where the air turned, where his companions unconsciously avoided looking. The result was never only in the monster. Sometimes it was in the room around the monster, and sometimes it was in the person trying hardest not to be afraid of it. If this became another lesson hidden inside 'A Soul Cannot Be Manufactured', Etzel intended to survive long enough to complain about it.

Etzel forced himself to stop treating the room like a puzzle long enough to look at the people inside it. That habit had saved him before, but it could also make him forget that the pieces breathed. He checked hands, posture, eyes, the small signs that somebody was reaching the edge before they admitted it. Orsik noticed the inspection and gave the smallest nod. No speech. No reassurance. Just confirmation that somebody else was counting the human cost while Etzel counted mechanisms. If this became another lesson hidden inside 'A Soul Cannot Be Manufactured', Etzel intended to survive long enough to complain about it.

Not rain.

A new word.

“Choose.”

Etzel stared at the three forming rewards.

The facility collapsed around them.

The System timer appeared.

Etzel sighed.

“Of course.”