For a moment Levi froze. Not from pain, but from dread. From the crawling thought that he might never return to himself— that he might stay like this forever, a parasite, gnawing away until nothing human was left.
His gaze clung to the thing before him. His soul. Or what was left of it.
The upper half still carried his shape, faint and spectral, lavender light trembling like a candle in the wind. But below his chest… it was all wrong.
His form melted into a thick, wet coil. Translucent flesh twitched, clung to itself, and stretched downward into the obscene body of a leech. Every shiver of it seemed to pulse in hunger, as though it were waiting— longing— for blood to sink into.
The longer Levi stared, the more the thought gnawed at him.
'This..... is me?'.
The soul's quiet lavender glow became sickly, like bruised skin. He swore he could feel phantom suction cups pressing against unseen flesh, dragging him down, whispering that he was nothing more than a feeder, destined to cling, to drain, to hollow out others just to exist.
The only sound was the consistent muttering from the now possessed Lyra. And the more the whispers sinked into his ears the more his body degenerated to that of a leech.
The muttering seems to whisper to him that he was now a leech in both mind and soul.
And for a heartbeat, Levi almost believed it.
And in that window when his heart faltered, his upper body begun to distort, distorting into the silhouette of a leech. Forsaking his humanity.
But at that moment a potent rage surged from his being. It surged like fire through dried grass.
The rage came like molten lava through his spactral form.
'I refuse!'.
At the declaration the warped, soft outline of the leech's head twitched, quivered… and then began to push back. The formless silhouette shuddered, bending, tearing away from the crawling shape it had become.
With each pulse of anger, pieces of his humanity clawed their way out. Shoulders formed first, jagged and raw, then the curve of a back. The leech-flesh peeled away like rotting skin, hissing and writhing as it was burned by the fury boiling out of him.
Levi's rage wasn't clean— it was ugly, frantic, desperate. Because this soul was his. It belonged to no parasite, no whisper of a Deity could change that, no hollow hunger from the instincts of a leech could bring a change to that.
And as the upper body solidified into the image of a man's back— his back— he felt the phantom suction cups begin to loosen, slipping off as if his anger itself was poisonous to them.
His soul was still broken, still half-leech, but the top half stood tall, human. A angry human.
'You ungrateful bastard…". Levi's mental voice cracked, but the venom in it cut deeper than any blade. 'I clothed you in my flesh. I fed you with my energy. I gave you life!'.
The words tore out of him like fire, searing the parasite that clung to his soul.
'And you dare—'. His back straightened, his soul flaring bright. '—you dare defile me?'.
He wasn't lying. The leech's existence was his gift. He had bought it from the system. Nurtured it in his body. Fed it for five long years. He was its master, its maker.
Levi was practically it's benefactor and all he asked was for the leech to die for his sake.
Was it too much to ask.
Atlas despite all his rage, anger can only do as much as let him hold a sliver of his self. He had to come up with a plan, and fast.
His mind raced, desperately looking for ideas to get out of this mess. And then a technique he bought from the system came to mind.
Last Courtesy.
It was a technique that anchored the soul of the dead to any body or object at the will of the wielder.
Just as he had anchored his predecessor's soul to his body so that the soul can act as a sacrifice in his steed.
A ruthless idea came to his mind, and with no other option he followed through.
With his will he conjured the technique Last Courtesy, it appeared as a jagged black nail.
'Bigger'. With a command the nail enlarged to the extent that the tip of the nail was now bigger then his soul form.
Willing it, the jagged nail begun to press down of his soul form, precisely at the position his humanoid soul form met the leech transformed parts.
'huffff'. A muffled scream sounded out from Levi's spactral mouth as the jugged nail pressed on his soul form. Peircing through it.
The moment the jagged nail pierced him, Levi knew that he had made a mistake, because this was no ordinary pain.
It wasn't flesh tearing or bone cracking— he haven't suffered those before. But he knew that this was deeper, crueler.
The sensation struck at the core of him, where no hand should ever reach.
His soul screamed. Not his mouth, not his body— his soul. Every thread of his being lit up at once, as if each memory, each thought, each scrap of self was being torn open and ground against glass.
It was sharp, but also suffocating. Like fire crawling licking his skin, while be smothered by thick slabs of rocks where oxygen dare not venture.
Like icy needles stabbing directly into his nerves, multiplied by thousands, radiating in every direction at once.
Levi's vision flickered in and out, though he had no eyes. He could feel himself unraveling, fibers of lavender light splintering off, shaking violently around the wound. His chest twisted, convulsing with phantom spasms he couldn't control.
The pressure from the nail dug deeper, and with it came an even worse torment— memory-pain. He felt scraps of his past flare up with each pulse of agony. His mother's voice, a laugh long forgotten, the heat of a fire he once called his own— each one burned, shredded, dissolved as the jagged edge tore through him.
It wasn't just pain. It was theft. His self was being scraped away.
Levi's spectral mouth opened wide, a ragged cry tearing out— no sound, only a raw vibration of despair and defiance echoing into the void. He had no breath, but still he gasped, choked, clung to whatever scraps of self didn't crumble under the nail.
And in that torment, one thought pressed through, small but unyielding.
Why? Why had he done this? But the answer came a heartbeat later.
'This is mine! My soul! My choice!'.
Even as the jagged nail throbbed inside him, even as the pain made his mind flicker on the edge of blackness, Levi held to that one truth..
After sometime he regained his senses, but his spactral eyes were dull, he knew what was to be done, but he hesitated.
Even him, as insane as he was, hesitated. He already knew he was insane from the beginning, what ordinary human place a leech in his body and dare to mess with his own soul.
But in face of this spactral unraveling pain he hesitated.