Let Me Read Your Soul Before You Die
"Come Marcel, you know you would prefer to speak to me..."
Rachel was cut off as a wave of power began quickly ascending towards them fromm the depths of the building. All of them acted as one an a great barrier formed below them and descended down into the floor beneath them, then extended out into the walls and ceilings to aid the building's defenses.
The power hit the barrier, with a thunderous clap, in muddy, dulled rainbow waves of power, a testament to the fact that Lanncey still dominated the form, and that her power was still great.
Cramnal's jaw tightened. He wanted to scold Rachel for using their grandmother in this way, but he also wanted her to be free.
The sound receded, leaving the building trembling. Cramnal, Rebecca, and Struns all gritted their teeth, Rachel sneered and stepped forward, a dazzling rainbow formed around her and bands of color began moving about her in coordinated rings of power.
Her pace was unhurried, graceful, each footfall was measured, steady, deliberate. But her pace grew, faster and faster, until her body seemed to glide. The others matched her without a word—silent shadows beside their storm. Power ebbing and slowing around them all like a mighty tide.
Marce felt their approach before he saw them. His pulse spiked, panic flooding his veins. His hands twitched, already moving through desperate sigils, mind racing for some countermeasure, some ward, some last barrier that could hold them back.
Too slow.
Below them a hideous form rose through the emptied halls. It was huge, filles with mounds of warted, half dead flesh, dozens and dozens of heads sprouting from it at all angles. It moved steadily upwards, floods of power moving from it upwards in gigantic waves. It had no thought, it was all instinct, and sensory, and it moved to the familiar, to the clean.
It wanted, it needed, that clean, bright, pristine rainbow. It knew if it consumed that rainbow above it things would be...
He had always thought himself clever. Marce—Vice President of the Conglomerate, one of the hands of Ashan-White, overseer of mystical law and ritual enforcement. He had power. He had rank. He had protection from above. He believed he could bend fate to his will.
But as he had stood at the heart of that ritual site, watching the air thrum with unleashed malice, he realized how wrong he was.
It had all gone so wrong, so quickly. He felt the backlash before it happened, and had haphazardly defended against it before the blue flame burst forth from his ritual circle.
As he had thought it would be okay, he could retry and compensate, Anis had disappeared from his side, leaving only small wisps of rainbow magic where she had been.
His heart had seemed to crumble in his chest.
Rachel's voice sliced through the haze, cold and taunting:
"Marce. Come out. Let's talk."
The words curled in his, now empty, chest like a curse.
He thought of Ashan-White, the president who had sanctioned this ritual, and Andalin-Black, the presidenr who had agreed to lend soldiers, tools, and blood sacrifices. Both men had given him approval. He he had been so certain, certain, that the ritual would succeed.
Why wouldn't it, when it had both the major powers of Trannisa Conglomerate backing it?
And yet, failure wrapped around him like chains.
He screamed—a sound too sharp, too piercing. It wasn't entirely human. It carried something else, something twisted, like the cry of a soul being burned alive. The sound ricocheted down the corridor in an eerie, ethereal, ear-pinching shriek. For a moment even Struns winced.
Was that Marce's voice? Or something behind him?
Marce staggered. Pain clawed into his marrow. It wasn't just his body—it was his being, his essence, his soul tearing apart thread by thread. He tried to push through, forcing the last glyph into existence, a circle of black fire sparking at his fingertips.
Rachel blurred. Her foot slammed into the ground, stabilizing the shaking hall, and her fist crashed into his jaw. The glyph shattered mid-air. Marce flew backward—bones cracking, blood spraying in a violent arc of red.
Before his body could hit the wall, Rachel was already there, waiting like a predator who knew every step of her prey. Her hand came forward and slowly closed around his throat, ot all happened so quickly, so easily, as if he had not just been flying through the air. His gasp was choked back, as his windpipe was constricted, his eyes bulging, but instead of pain there was… serenity. Warmth. The sudden numb calm of healing magic, threaded cruelly through the torment.
What hell was this? Healing him so she could break him again?
Time fractured. A bubble formed around his consciousness, cutting him off from the present. His body froze, his soul wrapped in rainbow barriers that felt endless. His wounds numbed, his fear dulled, and for one fragile instant he smiled—forgetting entirely that he was dying.
Then her voice filled the void seeping into his soul well. It etched words of power on the now crumbling walls, walls that had been so strong and impenetrable a moment before. It was chorus of melodies, intents, and emotions. Some were to stabilize his soul well, some to explore it, some were for torment, all were Rachel.
Her intent slithered through him like a serpent hunting, devouring, all that was good and precious, and leaving behind the rot and worthless it's.
Her voice came to him like a cool refreshing tonic.
"Why does the Conglomerate want to change the Milana? And why choose Anis… not Trinn?"
Marce snarled inwardly, clinging to his pride. He would not speak. He would not betray his masters.
But then—his own voice answered. Ethereal. Hollow. Detached. The truth spilling freely without his permission.
His soul, naked and unwilling, answered every question she posed.
"Ashan-White commands it. He seeks the Abyss Key, but it is not enough. Anis is the vessel, the only one who can anchor it. Trinn would never survive. She was chosen… because her heart is too kind, too open. She can be broken, reshaped…"
Rachel's eyes narrowed, as she pressed deeper.
"What is he after? Power? Control?"
"No… more. They seek… to leave. They have begun using alchemy, forbidden alchemy. Not just metals or bodies—laws. They twist the laws of the realm itself, refining them as if the cosmos were raw ore. But our realm rejects them. So… they reach beyond. Beyond the known stars. Beyond Trannisa. They have found… something. Or someone. I do not know what waits there. Only that it is dangerous. They said it would teach them how to make even fate… submit."
The last word dragged out of him like a scream. His essence buckled, tearing under the strain of its own betrayal.
Every memory, every secret, laid bare.
And as she pulled, his sense of self drained away. Memory dissolved. Identity fractured. Soon he was little more than awareness without anchor—consciousness untethered from the man he once was.
He panicked. He fought. But resistance only made the leak worse, spilling him faster into oblivion.
Was this what it meant to be read by the Milana? To cease being?
Yes.
They had been fools. They thought they were ready to oppose her. They thought they could twist fate. And yet here he was, dwindling to nothing under her hand.
Rachel watched, calm, as his soul willingly bared itself to her. She listened to every confession, every truth he hadn't meant to give. Cramnal, Rebecca, and Struns stood behind her in silence. They knew.
Rachel didn't need blades or blood to win. She only needed time.
And Marce had just realized… he had none left.
And even as Rachel worked, even as she obtained what she wanted, the monstrosity, that had once been Lanncey, drew nearer and nearer. Her instinctual hunger growing more and more the closer she got to Rachel. Soon it had become an obsession.
The need blooming in putrid depths.
Rachel's next fight slowly approached and, unbeknownst to this cursed blob of instinct, Rachel knew, and Rachel was ready.