With no hesitation, he shattered his soul avatar.
He expected some kind of pain.
He expected to hear a sound like shattering glass, or to immediately die.
But none of that happened. If anything, the result was much worse.
None of the above happened, but Ray would've preferred any of them over what actually did.
A creeping cold seem to engulf his entire existence as numbness began to consume his senses.
He knew instinctively that even if he made the first ring, he would not come out from the experience unscathed.
"No matter." Ray thought.
he had always known there would be a price for power, he just didn't think it would come so soon.
The strange feelings only caused him to accelerate what he was doing.
It took him less than a second to learn how to move his soul avatar around in his form.
When he had shattered the soul avatar, it turned into thousands of golden shards.
Controlling the shards felt akin to swimming, but with many extra limbs.
Quickly spreading the shards out as wide as possible without disconnecting any of them from the shard beside it.
He made what resembled a large golden sheet of glass above The massive ball of kingguy.
Focusing harder than he ever had in this life, he bent the soul shards.
Until they wrapped entirely around the ball of Kingguy, or at least he tried.
The soul shards were only numerous enough to cover 2/3 of the ball, leaving the rest of the Kingguy out in the open.
Quickly Ray began to think of how to pull the rest of the Kingguy into his grasp.
"If I was to compress, the Kingguy I have under my control now, I would only refine somewhere around 2/3 of what I could've had. but if I shatter the shards of my soul into smaller pieces, it should be possible."
if Anyone else Heard his inner monologue. They would think he was insane, and they wouldn't be wrong.
soulwounds weren't just almost impossible to heal, but even after they did heal, they left scars.
Scars on both the soul, and by proxy the body.
But Ray didn't hesitate to shatter the shards of his soul avatar for a second time.
The numbing cold became even worse, and four A few seconds he forgot where he was, what he was doing, and even for a moment , he forgot who he was.
This state of confusion only lasted a second, but Ray moved frantically.
"I have to finish making the first ring before whatever the hell this is turn my mind into a blank slate."
Ray thought as the golden shards of his soul avatar were finally numerous enough to cover all of the Kingguy.
"Finally, it's time for the last push."
Ray thought, excitement seem to radiate from the shards of his avatar.
With a force of willpower, he forced all of the soul shards to meet.
For a second, everything was calm, the 6 foot diameter ball of Kingguy place.
Was IN a golden orb, barely the size of a basketball.
Everything seemed completely tranquil, as if nothing could possibly go wrong.
"Oh shit." Raise words, that seemed almost like a whisper in the complete calm of his soulspace.Became the Harald to what came next.
His soul that had been as calm as the surface of a lake.Suddenly
erupted into noise and motion.
The golden ball, the manifestation of the shards of his soul avatar surrounding the Kingguy shook before exploding.
In its place floated the same ball of Kingguy, except for it was changed.
The once gray smoke form it had.
Became what look like liquid silver.Also instead of becoming more peaceful after being refined, the Kingguy seem to become more aggressive.
The energy undulated in the middle of Ray soul, sending out lashes of energy and random directions, as if it was fighting in invisible enemy.
On raised side of things, he was doing terrible, no terrible could be seen as an understatement.
His soul which had already been fragile after shattering Twice.
hadbecome even more so.
He was barely coherent as he could only since the ball of Kingguy in the middle of his soul.
For a while, he was confused and why he couldn't see it.
"Isn't someone able to see anywhere in their soulspace using their sole avatar? So why can't I see the Kingguy?"
Then he remembered One crucial fact.
You could see your entire soulspace with your soul avatar, only when you had said avatar.
That along with the strange Cold, dulling, his perception made him blind, even in his own soul.
It took him a while to remember just what he had been doing, but when he did, he searched towards the ball of Kingguy in his soul.
Or at least he tried.
The already small shards of his soul avatar, had become even smaller in size.
The shards that would've looked once like glass, Shards we're nearly small enough to be considered crumbs.
When Ray saw how small the shards of his soul Avatar have become, he had one question.
"Just how the fuck am I even still alive?" Ray thought.
He would have farro his browse in confusion, if he had any.
"It was already a miracle that I survived the first two shattering of my soul avatar. But this should be impossible."
After the war of the first Collapse, Ray had studied up on the fighting categories.
In the process he found there was an eighth one no one in Austria knew of.
Soul thieves the category used their soul avatar to take over someone else's soul.
Ray had invested interest in the profession for one simple reason.
He wondered if he could use this process to somehow steal the cultivation of others.
While studying upon it, he realized something the masses of his world didn't know.
The soul avatar wasn't just a manifestation of the person the soulspace belong to, it was the sold core.
Without a construct, a soul became nothing more than a vessel for cultivation.
So beyond a certain threshold, a soul avatar should never be damaged. Ray didn't know exactly what that threshold was, but he thought he had been cutting it close when he shattered his soul shards for a second time.
something he should have become after obliterating his soul to this extent. But somehow he was still alive.
Quickly changing the direction of his soul avatar's shards, he drew them all in to one point in his soul.
When the bits of his avatar were gathered in one place, his soul avatar looked like a golden version of the Kingguy, but smaller.
Looking at the result of all his work, Ray decided.
"If I survived to this point. Who can say I won't survive until the end?"
With those words as the only warning, the wave of golden pebble size fragments that had become his avatar, surged towards the Kingguy.
There was no suspense or an extended battle, in fact, there was no battle at all.
As soon as Ray and his soul avatar form came in contact with the Kingguy, he was pulled in.
in a flash, he wasn't just looking at the Kingguy and it's sporadic attacks at the air around it.
He was the Kingguy.
When his soul avatar was pulled into the Kingguys maelstrom of power, the pebbles seem to be compressed.
Then the Kingguy became more then, just energy, it became his energy.
He became able to manipulate the Kingguy, almost as if it was another limb.
Wasting no time after finding this discovery, Ray quickly bent the Kingguy to his will, creating a tube.
As soon as he made said tube, he realized the extent of his control.
The more he stretched, the Kingguy out the less control he had over it.
"Well, what did you expect, everything has limits, this is no different."
Ray thought.
He made the tube as wide as he could without losing complete control.
Also, he made the tube as long as possible without losing control.
After what felt like years of trial and error, he finally made the tube 10 feet long, and a foot and a half wide.
"Now I just have to see if I can connect these."
Ray Thought as he slowly, but surely began to bend the tube, bringing it's two ends together.
When they finally met in the air, is soul, that had stopped cracking at some point rumble.
The cracks instantly began to heal as ether flooded into his soulspace.
The ring began to spin rapidly, gathering more ether by the second.
When the ring was finally done, absorbing ether, it was already 5% full.
"What the fuck."
Ray thought to himself.
But At this point, it was hard to muster any surprise.
"You know what, at this point, I don't even care."
Ray murmured, and just as he was withdrawing his consciousness from his soulspace.
He felt a strange change.
It only lasted a moment, but just for a second he was no longer in his soulspace. He was in another, and instead of his first ring, glowing with the Crimson tinted silver of both metal and blood. Instead, it glowed with a green so dark, it was nearly black.
Also instead of being filled only 5%, the ring was filled to nearly 20% of its whole capacity.
But it wasn't any of this that made him raise his guard.
It was the fact that the walls of this soul space were void black, just like his own.
He was just about to look around more when the vision around him shattered.
Suddenly he was back in his own soulspace.
but that didn't last for long as he began to genuinely lose consciousness from all of the physical and mental strain the night I put on them.
But even so rage filled him.
Because he knew he knew who the holder of that strangely dark green Ether belong to.
He knew with a certainty that bordered on omniscient.
"The fucking thief." Ray thought right before falling into unconsciousness.
On Oleander's side of things, she was feeling a mix of emotions. She didn't know if these mortal eyes were fooling her or not, but just for a second she could have sworn she felt hurt another presence in her soul.
For a second, she even thought she saw someone, but they had disappeared before she could get any solid features.
"I wouldn't have recognized them anyway. Anyone who knew me from my rule is either dead, or a traitor."
Oleander murmured to herself, her hands curling into fist at her sides.
Her eyes going cold at what had been.
Her eyes, the same, impossibly dark green shade as her ether. Seem to darken further at the thoughts they hid behind them.
She shook her head, The movement causing the River of Long night Black hair to sway.
She didn't have time to dwell on what she had lost.
"It could have been a soul thief. But what soul thief is strong enough to enter my soul, yet not strong enough to force this world into the next realm?"
Oleander thought, her brows twitching in confusion, and a growing annoyance.
Anyone hearing her thoughts would have thought she was insane.
For many reasons, but first and foremost was the talk of realms and the worlds.
Almostas if worlds could advanced in cultivation like people.
This concept was unknown to all on Austria, even Ray didn't know of the concept.
"My soul, while weekend, is still of the fold round. So just who has the authority to enter it that isn't
me?"
Slowly, her eyes narrowed, the anger growing in them. as the soulspace shook with her rage.
because in all of her time, no matter if it was either in the void, or on her throne.
She had never been disrespected so blatantly.
No one would have dared.
The last person who had tried something so foolish, she had turned Them into a hair tie.
Bones and all compressed so thoroughly, crushed so completely that no one would ever believe it had once been the body of a human.
People that knew her as the Empress new, Even cultivation realms were irrelevant when they were her enemy.
"It seems it has truly been too long since I was sent to that wretched place."
Oleander said, a smile that would have been seen as beautiful.
If it wasn't for The monstrous light that blaze in her poison green eyes.
She let out a laugh that would have caused. Anyone same enough to know fear to run an The opposite direction.
"I will find you whoever you are, And when I do. I just hope you are able to put up a fight worth remembering."
Oleander said to herself, and excitement that she hadn't felt since reaching the eighth fold filling her.
"Little soul thief, I wonder just how you will die?"