After joking about her enemies trying to help her improve, Cera directed Falron’s attention back to the food, and they finished cooking. Once they brought their food back into the living room, Cera sat down and pulled her tail into her lap before alternating between eating and talking while petting her tail.
“So let’s see… Was constantly under attack, but was generally pretty open with what I worked with at first. I started exploring the astral more, and eventually ran into an interesting situation: a fortress-city of beings made of living crystal, defending against a massive invasion, using crystal-based weaponry. I got caught up in the attacks from both sides, but I didn’t retaliate against the city and even assisted them, so eventually they quit attacking me, allowing me to interact with them peacefully,” she began between bites of food.
“I eventually learned that they were the last of their species, watched over by their gods, but generally left to their own. I was amazed at the intricate nature of the crystal they were composed of, and their mastery of making use of it for their creations. Due to that, I shifted my focus to purely using crystalline forms of energy from then on. In time, I even managed to speak with their gods, who treated me as an equal, after a bit of confusion in the beginning. Apparently, few ever treated them as equals; instead, either worshipped or opposed them, so they liked my approach of just treating them as other people,” she continued.
Falron spoke up, asking, “You seriously just treated gods like random people?”
Cera simply laughed and nodded before stating, “My goal was to become greater than them, so why should I treat them as special? In the end, I succeeded at that, by the way. But at some point, I believe they used their power and looked into the future to see how I would treat their children. This is because, at one point, they suddenly gave me an equal position over their people, and instructed them to listen to me as if I were one of their gods. Naturally, I did my best to help them improve, using the knowledge I had originally begun learning from them.”
She sighed before continuing, “I was in a rough state, though. I’d been possessed without being aware of it until shortly before then, and was in the midst of an intense battle to regain full control of myself. What they don’t tell you about possession is that it can appear to be just your own thoughts, if what is possessing you has any degree of skill. But they pushed too hard, and I noticed them. As such, I’d begun to create war constructs that burned anything I considered infected, then set them loose within my own mind. The damage was quite intense, but as you can see, I survived.”
With a shake of her head, she added, “Once I was ‘done enough’ I began to consolidate what I’d learned once again, and found I did not wish to continue living. So, in an attempt to at least better the world, I tried to create a greater being by taking a copy of the soul of someone who meant a great deal to me, but died, as well as attempting to tear my own soul out. As you can tell, I didn’t entirely succeed. But I still managed to create another new being that was not simply an artificial intelligence, but instead a living person.”
She paused a moment to close her eyes and sigh, then began again, “I named her, but true names hold power, so I will not be sharing that name. Later on, she asked to be called Celenia, and I accepted her chosen name. That was the beginning of my true calling. I continued to study what had happened, learning how to create and modify souls. I was wary, however, as I did not want any of my creations to actually die. In time, I began to send my creations to join the fortress-city of crystalline beings I’d been given control of, and later still, I learned how to modify those beings as well.”
Chuckling at her memories, Cera continued, “In time, I found how to join them into a collective, a form of telepathic connection that allowed all beings to access the publicly shared memories and skills of all other beings, while remaining unique individuals. That helped me find how to anchor souls more firmly, or tear them out effortlessly from my own creations. That, in turn, allowed me to develop a type of immortality for them; when they were killed, a massive construct of my creation would reach an instant backward in time, then rip their soul out and bring it back, before constructing a new body and inserting the soul back inside.”
With a grin, she added, “This finally allowed me to make use of them in combat situations without feeling bad about it. At that point, the crystalline beings I’d met had been heavily altered by me and had joined the collective as equals with my own creations as well. From then on, I rarely had any contact with their old gods, though they did at least approve of my actions and treatment. I think they were mostly happy that their people were now eternal and no longer at risk of extinction. In time, I built up practically endless armies of immortal beings, with constructs able to weave new souls and bodies into existence on their own.”
Pre-empting a possible question, Cera remarked, “I was always careful, however, to give each soul options. Most chose to serve me, but if they did not want to, I would provide them with a powerful body and bring them somewhere else where they could begin their life how they wanted. I didn’t want slaves, after all. But as I learned more, I could design souls such that they wanted to serve me most of the time, though I never forced it, and I always allowed a way for those serving me to leave to have their own lives with minimal connection to me. I always pushed for the soul-snatcher to remain active so they’d have a form of immortality.”
“All of this creation of hordes of warriors was to help oppose a form of corruption that I’d run across. It spread on contact, twisted beings to become rabidly hostile to anything not a part of the corruption, joined them into a localized hivemind, and massively increased their strength. From the point I encountered it onward, I was involved in nonstop combat against it, and a constant process of improving the bodies of my people, making them more resistant and better at fighting. In the end, I wound up making things reach a point where my involvement was no longer needed. And in time, I found myself tired of life,” Cera explained with a sigh.
She paused for a moment before continuing, “Most other mages called me delusional or insane if I ever spoke of what I did, without spending even a moment trying to verify anything. It became incredibly demoralizing. My physical life was even worse, unable to do anything of value to the world I lived within. My sole purpose was to protect a realm I didn’t even belong to while suffering nonstop, and I made my creations good enough to fulfil my purpose without me. In time, I sought out Inari and asked if they would approve of me taking the form of a kitsune if I ended my physical existence and moved to a purely astral life. Instead, Inari offered me a true new life, taking the body of Cera in this world.”
With a sigh, she finished, “And that basically explains me and my history. I’ve enjoyed my time in this life significantly more than my prior life, so far, and hope to have that trend continue.”
To give Falron some time to process what she’d said, Cera got up and took their dishes into the kitchen to clean and put them away.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter