Chapter 39 – The Soulless City
Lumina's steps halted at the gate of the forgotten old city of Veirel, shrouded in mist. Yet whispers of souls could be heard from behind the walls.
Ilior touched her mind. "Something flows here. Souls kept where they don't belong."
Lumina walked forward without hiding her identity. The light in her palm sliced through the fog. No townsfolk greeted her. Only children sat on wooden benches with empty eyes and forced smiles.
She approached one child.
"Who are you?" Lumina asked gently.
"He said… I'm his child," the boy replied. But the voice that came out… was old, raspy, and full of scars.
Ilior rumbled. "Their souls… implanted. This is a city of soul transference."
A door at the end of the street creaked open. A middle-aged man stood there, though his face looked young while his gaze was ancient.
"You came too soon," he said.
Lumina met his eyes. "I came when you began planting sins."
"I saved myself. Death is unfair."
"And you steal bodies for immortality. Then call it salvation?"
From behind the house, eight mages emerged in pristine robes. Spells hung in the air. Magic circles were etched into the ground.
"We cannot die," one of them said. "We are the heart of knowledge. Our souls… are a legacy."
"Legacy is not meant to consume another life," Lumina said flatly.
She raised her median, and the air cracked.
The children's bodies began to tremble and moan. But it wasn't from pain — the old souls refused to leave.
Lumina opened both palms. The median swirled like blood and light.
"I will not cast you out," she whispered. "But I will separate you."
One by one, the children collapsed to the ground. Life returned to them. Their eyes dimmed, then shone again. Their true souls were restored.
Meanwhile… the elderly mages, now stripped of their stolen bodies, floated in the air. Their astral forms torn apart.
"Do you think they deserve to live?" one shouted. "We sacrificed ourselves for this world!"
"The world doesn't need you. It needs the truth," Lumina replied.
One of them attacked. Magic roared like a spear of wind.
Lumina dodged without countering. She stepped forward, pressing her hand to the mage's chest.
Her hand slowly sank into his astral body… and pulled something out — a soul frozen, encased in its own ego.
She looked at it, then crushed it with a single pull of the median.
"Why did you kill him?" Ilior asked.
"Because he knew. And still chose."
Another mage tried to flee. But Veirel was now sealed. The sky turned black. The median wove a net above the city.
One by one, they were caught and stripped of their illusions.
They saw the bodies they had ruined. The children they had taken. The prayers of mothers they had ignored.
And one voice filled the air: "We saved."
Lumina stepped closer. "You did not save. You delayed death and called it mercy."
She killed them one by one, her median piercing slowly, until their souls vanished without a trace.
When it was over, Veirel was silent and still.
The children cried, though they did not know why.
Lumina walked among them, touching each head. Planting memories that were not falsehoods.
"They can grow," Ilior said.
"Without the heritage of hypocrisy," Lumina replied.
Night came. The city remained in darkness. And for the first time, no soul was trapped.
Lumina sat at the altar once used by the mages to summon new bodies. She looked up at the sky.
"Enver purifies," she said softly. "But I… I erase. Because some sins… cannot be redeemed."
Ilior said nothing. But the median around Lumina quivered gently — like a song no one would remember, yet one that carried a truth that would never die.