The faint flame trembled violently as Locke cupped it in his hands.
Outside, the knight commander's face registered confusion.
He couldn't understand why he felt an overwhelming terror when the man in front of him hadn't done anything at all.
It was as if the fear emanated directly from his own soul.
What he didn't know was that the sensation wasn't an illusion. His soul was literally being manipulated within Locke's hands.
A single mistake from Locke, and his soul could be destroyed in an instant.
…
"Hmph… the soul of a human doesn't seem all that different from that of a beast…"
Locke analyzed the knight commander's soul repeatedly, scanning it from every angle before arriving at this conclusion.
Before reaching the Sanctuary stage himself, Locke had spent nearly ten years studying beast souls to perfect his technique, Celestial Dance Treasure Wheel.
The greatest difference between human and beast souls lay in their essence: a beast's soul was inherently tied to its form.
The soul of a wolf resembled a wolf. That of a lion resembled a lion.
Human souls, on the other hand, were capricious; they could take on any shape.
However, their essence generally fell into a few categories:
Elements, plants, bones, weapons, scrolls…
This was the first time Locke had directly handled a human soul.
Normally, he avoided studying human souls.
Though this life had been longer than his previous one, Locke had already formed a complete worldview in his past life—and he had no desire to alter it.
But in special circumstances, his worldview could flex.
Everything this man possessed had been acquired through the sacrifice of others' souls.
Since he could wield others' souls to gain power, Locke could just as easily use his soul to empower himself.
It was a matter of fairness: what you do to others, I can do to you.
The knight commander's soul manifested as a simple elemental type.
Judging from the flickering flame, his elemental affinity was extremely poor.
If he hadn't been lucky enough to find three women with pure souls, he would have remained nothing more than a peak Sixth-Order warrior.
Locke knew that in the Coiling Dragon Universe, masters who manipulated souls could refine soul essence, forge soul pearls…
Even stronger practitioners could read memories, enslave souls…
Some could strip others of their comprehension of the rules, forcing uninitiated souls to digest it in order to understand new principles.
Although Locke had some understanding of souls himself, he could not perform any of these feats.
Effortlessly, Locke sensed the "five senses" of the knight commander's soul.
He already had a thorough understanding of these soul-based senses.
Now, he wanted to study what went beyond them: the "sixth sense," or the perception experienced by the knight when entering the Heavenly-Human Unity state.
Locke reasoned that since some could strip the soul of its understanding of law, there must be a part of the soul aligned with the principles of heaven and earth.
The knight commander of the Radiant Temple was the perfect subject.
Although his spiritual power was only at the level of a Seventh-Order mage, his soul's essence had been recognized by the laws of the world, thanks to the forced elevation by the God of Light Augusta.
Even so, a Sanctuary's soul could merge with the laws of heaven and earth, entering the Heavenly-Human Unity state.
This gave the knight's soul a resilience that ordinary Seventh-Order mages lacked.
Back in the Monster Mountains of Enzo Territory, Locke had killed thousands of beasts to refine the Celestial Dance Treasure Wheel, from deceiving their souls into thinking their senses were stolen, to actually stripping their "five senses."
Many of these beasts were Seventh-Order or higher.
Compared to them, Locke only needed to avoid inflicting too much damage at once to the knight's soul. A brief period of recovery would restore it.
Clearly, a life at the Sanctuary stage existed on a completely different level.
Infinite lifespan encompassed both body and soul.
When a being touched and comprehended the ultimate laws, and their magic or martial energy reached a threshold, their body and soul would be imprinted with these laws.
Laws are immortal; thus the Sanctuary endures.
Every analysis Locke performed on the knight commander's soul deepened his understanding of the ultimate laws.
Of course, since Locke had no fire-element affinity, and the knight wasn't a Sanctuary through water principles, Locke couldn't be certain whether the insights he gained were truly related to the fire principle.
Still, exposure to this was a major breakthrough for him.
Locke began using his insights from the knight's soul to refine the Celestial Dance Treasure Wheel further.
Additionally, he started examining the knight's memories through his own understanding of the Mist Illusion Law, researching ways to delete, seal, or alter memories within a soul.
From that day on, the Radiant Temple knight commander's life became a living torment.
Sometimes, he would inadvertently enter the Heavenly-Human Unity state, perceiving strange insights that seemed to increase his power…
Other times, he would forget or suddenly recall things…
As time passed, Locke's experiments caused the knight's memories to become jumbled.
He began mistaking Locke's actions as events he had truly experienced, while his own genuine deeds were buried beneath extra fabricated memories…
(End of Chapter)
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