The soul writhed in pain, letting out mournful screeches in the clown's hand. But the clown only grinned behind his mask.
"Hehehe… you really thought someone with your skill could escape my eyes? How naive."
His voice was cold and chilling as he watched the soul twist and stretch in agony.
"Now, tell me how you got here," he said as he seized the soul's head and drove all five fingers of his right hand deep into it.
Screachhhhh!
A sharp screech rang out. The soul stretched and twisted, this time as if it was about to burst apart.
"Now, now… no need to scream. It'll all be over soon," he assured, though his tone was playful, like a child toying with something fragile.
The clown pushed his hand even deeper. "Let's see…" he muttered, sending a bit of his mana into the soul. The soul stretched and twisted relentlessly.
He kept pouring mana in, and the soul absorbed it with painful, piercing screeches.
"Ah…" he exclaimed when he finally felt something. Without warning, his vision shifted. No—it wasn't his sight that had changed. It was the memory he had been searching for.
In an instant, he was inside the soul's body, seeing through its eyes as if he were living its past.
The scene unfolded before him like a holographic vision, forcing him to experience the events first-hand.
And in this vision—no, this memory—the man the clown had just killed moments ago was sitting in meditation.
At first glance, it looked like he was meditating. But the clown knew better. 'A prophet?' he murmured in his mind.
Yes, the man was a prophet. Rare, though not impossibly so. Among every hundred awakeners, about ten turned out to be prophets when they awakened, gifted with the ability known as intuition.
A prophet can predict the future to a certain extent, however, they aren't omnipotent as their prediction could be wrong.
As the clown pondered these thoughts, the man's eyes slowly opened and lifted toward the sky.
The sky looked blurred, perhaps because the soul was weakening under the clown's interference, or so the clown guessed.
Yet, while the sky was hazy, the path ahead was clear. The man rose and began to walk forward.
The man kept walking for a while, and after a few more minutes, the entrance to their meeting place came into view.
He stopped in his tracks, standing still as his eyes locked on the direction of the gathering.
After a moment of silence, he made his move, suddenly ambushing a hooded figure.
With swift precision, he killed the man, careful to ensure that no one else was watching.
The clown watched it all unfold, his face unmoved, while the man changed his appearance and entered the meeting place.
The clown observed how the man acted, and even the moment of his death.
Though the memory was long, the soul had not yet collapsed. The clown decided to explore all the important memories of the man's life.
He saw many things and came to understand who the man had been and why he had been there.
Nothing surprised him—he had guessed much of it already. But now, with certainty, he knew the man had belonged to the Indrath Empire.
After experiencing all those memories, he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he found himself standing, holding the soul in his hands.
He was shocked by how strong-willed the soul was, letting out an involuntary exclamation.
"My, my…what a strong willed man you are ahh by the way your intuition is impressive, but I already have that ability. So, I don't need you," he said, and with that, he gripped the soul tightly with both hands and crushed it like a bug.
The soul couldn't even let out a scream as its existence was erased for eternity.
Yet, even though he felt nothing for having destroyed a life, he began to sob. Tears streamed down his face, flowing without reason.
"Sob… those empire bastards have caught on," he murmured between sobs. "Everyone… we'll change our location and cut off all connections to our people."
He spoke with shaking words, each sentence punctuated by a sob.
"Yes, Lord Clown," the figures replied without hesitation.
"Those fucking bastards…" His tone snapped from sorrow to pure rage. "How many years must we hide? Just wait, you motherfuckers—I will kill you all one day!"
His voice seethed with fury. His eyes turned bloodshot, and crimson tears streamed down his face.
"Damn… I'm so pissed right now," he muttered, chewing his lips until they bled.
He paused, thinking through his next move. Finally, he decided. "Tell everyone to continue what they were doing. Eliminate every potential obstacle," he declared, his voice boiling with pure rage.
All the figures bowed in unison. "Yes, my lord."