CH785

Walking through the gate yielded a pleasant surprise, no matter how small it might have been. Ogilt, who was still standing guard, appeared to have at least looked through the bits of entertainment he’d been left with since Thera had gone to check on her newest uncle, showing that perhaps some of her talk had been good for him.

I’ll have to tell her later. He thought before going over to the spirit, giving a happy smile as he did. “Ogilt, I’ve come to check up on how things are going over here. You doing okay? Enjoy any of the stuff I left for you?”

“I’m as I always am, but I suppose it has helped me pass the time,” The spirit said. “It was… what are you doing?”

“Um, trying to chat with you?”

“No, the thing you’re doing to space, what is it?”

“What?”

<CONDEMNATION LEVEL INCREASED>

Oh.

“Ahem, I managed to get a new skill that helps me let souls pass on faster,” He explained. “I’ve been practicing it all day since I need to make souls constantly too, I guess I didn’t realize that it would be noticeable.”

The great spirit stared at him in silence for a moment, not so much as moving until he finally spoke. “It may not be my domain and I may not be able to interact with them in such a way, but I can assure you Ben, whatever you may be doing to souls is not helping them pass on.”

“...Alright, you’re the expert so I’ll trust your opinion here. The skill came with a bit of a sense for the space around me though, if I’m not helping them pass then what am I doing?”

“A second, please. Continue on as you were, I shall try to understand.”

Dropping his human form, Ogilt returned to his natural state, becoming a dense mass of mana that flew around Ben, well within the range of his skill in a way that made him notice something. As condemnation had grown throughout the day, he could now feel the souls of people within his range as well.

It was a realization that sent a small shiver down his spine but he kept using the skill on the souls he created until Ogilt seemed done. He was still sure at least that he wasn’t destroying the souls he made, but it seemed the great spirit had a different answer for him.

“You aren’t releasing whatever souls you wield, but pushing them.”

“Pushing them?”

“Specifically, down.”

He didn’t immediately know what the spirit was saying until all at once understanding hit him like a truck, with implications he wasn’t sure he knew how to respond to moving his thousands of thoughts at once. The universe he now called home was a layered reality. Some, like where the gods normally resided, existed in a higher plane, while others existed below, with one more notable than any others.

“The infinite hells,” Ben muttered as the realization dawned on him, connections made all at once. Judge was one of the jobs he’d acquired after he’d closed the gate to hell, the connection to the skill inescapable, even if some parts of his thoughts struggled to keep up with what others had already figured out, the surprise great enough to bring disconnect and disorder to his mind. “But how? A job like this, I… Ather. I pushed him into hell, no, let’s be specific, I judged him worthy of hell, it was a choice I made and I don’t regret it so I can understand why I got the job, but the skill? The ability needs to be forming in me to at least some extent for it to develop into a full-blown skill, how could I have been growing the ability to do this in my soul? My witness blessing? …Possibly involved but unlikely to be the main culprit, although I got it around the same time I got the job so there’s no guarantee the two are unrelated but if I had to guess there’s something else I did that might have helped me form the potential for this.”

Namely, he built his failsafe in the event he himself was ever condemned to hell by the gods for some reason or another. He’d thought and he’d theorized, constructing dozens of potential spells that groups to pairs to even single individuals might cast to condemn him to the depths, figuring out methods that even the gods of the world might not have suspected for how to either open a hole in reality or banish a soul, and through all of that, something had been listening.

The system was a tool but it was also so much more. Something made to grow and learn and help the people of the world increase their strength and through it all, acted as a record of all it had witnessed. The single piece of souler technology to exist, made from one of the very gods of reality itself had been a part of him since he’d first been brought to the planet but through that, it had also been present for all he’d done, fulfilling its role perfectly. Helping him grow and learn while at the same time doing the same thing itself, the only party fully privy to his theories and able to further refine them down, taking the ideas he’d had for non-affinitied spells and whatever bits of affinitied magic could be applied to his available options and shaping what spare bits of potential existed within himself, only needing the stimuli that was acquiring that job to shape it to its full potential, bringing forth a skill like no other.

All of it was only a theory, conjecture based on the information he had and the reading and study he’d done on the system itself but it fit perfectly, or at least more so than any other explanation he could come up with, ending with his new power.

Like any god of the world, Ben could now condemn a soul to hell.

Hell, when the system was helping the ability form within me, maybe it even took some inspiration from however the gods pull it off. It would be conceited to assume it managed it based solely off of my own thoughts and theories, but… This is a lot to process.

He didn’t know how to feel about having such a skill, nor using it. When hell opened up and the souls of the damned escaped, there was no avoiding just how many innocents had been sent there by their cruel and unworthy gods and now he had the same ability, one that could just as easily damn others, one-

That may have grown enough that it could be used on the living instead of just the naked souls I can create.

He needed to test it and the good news was he was in the perfect place for it, a building full of his experimental materials with more than a few of his test subjects ready to be disposed of, but he held himself back, just for a moment. He was there to look at results and carry out more tests and he would do that first, what happened after would be for them to worry about.

Still, the discovery had left him with an obvious air of impatience that couldn’t be denied as he went around the building, checking minds and souls and cards for changes and finding the results, immediately doing more tests as he went.

The ones who had their soul modified three times showed no sign of mental recovery and the pain they were under was still healing at a crawl compared to those who had only been modified once or twice, with the only estimate he could make telling him it would be months to years before they’d recovered enough to be freed from it.

Those he’d modified once and then added a new modification a second time after they’d originally healed seemed to be recovering at a slower rate too, although doing the math for it made him think it was going to be at a similar rate to those he’d originally added two modification to, with some in that group almost completely free of pain.

A result that made them excellent test subjects as he modified them once more, feeling the change within them and the torture it caused. Their minds didn’t collapse like his original group that had been modified thrice but that was likely to their detriment. The pain was unbearable for them, feeling as though their very souls were being ripped apart but not being granted the mercy of insanity that would let them escape, and given the recovery rates he’d already seen, it would be many long months until they were freed from it, same as those who had come before them.

It was an important lesson though, one that showed him what was by all accounts a fundamental limit. He may have known from seeing his god that it was possible to combine any number of souls without any major pain or detriment but he didn’t know how to facilitate that process. The method he had figured out could, based on his observations, only be used twice by the people of the world without being put into inescapable agony, therefore limiting the use of his discovery, at least to an extent.

As it was, two modifications being done a month apart would be plenty for those who made their home on the planet, a perfectly acceptable result that told him his experiment on that front was done, leaving only to dispose of the dangerous materials that had been created in the process.

A disposal and another test. Opening the door to the last he’d modified, a demon that had been trapped in an agony it couldn’t even express from the enchanted collar hanging around its neck, freezing it in its place, Ben placed a hand against its chest and welling the power he’d only just learned to use that day, condemned it.

<CONDEMNATION LEVEL INCREASED>

A cost to his mana incomparable to the meer points he’d spend doing the same thing on a naked soul, the power still worked, tearing essence from flesh and leaving nothing but an empty vessel, the same as any homunculus or clone he would work through while the implications of what he could now do hit him.

Jesus fuck.

He had spent weeks torturing the demons he held in the name of his research but somehow, doing that felt more unethical than anything else. He hadn’t just killed the demon in front of him, in fact, he hadn’t killed it at all. By all accounts, its body still lived, what he’d done was only steal away the thing that drove it with what that meant inescapable.

To condemn a soul wasn’t a power he thought the gods should have. He’d seen too much proof that it was an ability that went misused by too many in the broader universe and yet, even feeling that, he knew it was one he’d still use himself. Condemning a soul that he himself had created, a blank, empty thing that lacked any sort of experience that came from life couldn’t exactly be viewed as the same as condemning an actual living creature, but more importantly, no matter the ethics behind it, it was a skill that could easily prove itself useful in the future in any number of ways, with the higher the level only giving him more options.

And as much as anything else was a single fact. Ben could easily treat death lightly with total disregard to any creatures or people he felt nothing for, and when it came to the demons who invaded his new world it was all the easier. He’d looked into their minds and souls and found them lacking, a race that would kill and destroy until there was nothing of value left and he judged reality itself as better off. If killing them was an option then it was one he would take and if the judgment he’d give was one his homeworld would back away from in horror then it was just one among many, so feeling himself resolve the emotions that discovering the function of the skill had created he instead compartmentalized them away, only taking it as another tool to be used.

Still, I was complaining the other day about not having any new evil or destructive skills and I think this qualifies as both. Hell, a soul skill too, it’s getting the trifecta as far as my inclinations go, this thing is going to grow like a dream.

A fact the gods of the world surely would have flinched at, a mortal managing to claim another piece of their power and one of the far more distasteful ones at that but that was a separate issue. He was done testing his new power and done with his modifications, the only thing left was disposing of what was left.

With the easiest way to do that being to put the very power he’d just dwelt on to use, going from cell to cell to condemn the souls he found, leaving only harmless vessels to slowly die and rot away until he had a better idea, turning his attention back to the only one with him.

“Ogilt,” He asked, “Have you ever killed a demon?”

“How could I have? They were my captors, holding those in my charge. I knew well what the cost of rebellion would be.”

“Then would you like to?”

“...”

The question brought silence but Ben pressed further. “After all you’ve been through, I won’t make you, Ogilt. Whether you want to or not is your choice but the ones I have here are going to be disposed of, one way or another and if there’s any part of you that wants revenge, this is as good a place as any to start getting your taste for it.”

The spirit remained silent in a way Ben took as him withdrawing back into himself, right up until he went to handle the rest of them himself. As he started to turn away, Ogilt got up and spent his power in a subtle way Ben could nonetheless feel passing through the building, the halls echoed with a sudden crunch, telling him the job was done.

He didn’t say a word though, waiting for the spirit to react first with him ultimately giving a small nod.

“You’ve given me something to think about Ben, I’d like some time to myself if you don’t mind.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you,” With a gesture, the great spirit opened a hole back to the shop in Stonewall, giving a small nod. “If you have no more use for this place, I assume you won’t mind me staring here a while longer.”

“If it’s too long I’ll be telling Abrus where to find you.”

“A couple days at most, just a little more time.”

“Alright, then I expect to see you again soon when I pass through Anailia.”

“You will.”

With words exchanged and the implication of it given by the portal being opened, Ben picked up his gate there and brought it through to Anailia, giving the great spirit his time alone.