Adkiel was conversing with people from other planets. They were all highborns from the same facility. She spoke to them with casual authority, her voice carrying through the Magic projection.
"To summarize, we've identified two distinct traits in this child so far. The ability to tear down spiritual boundaries, and the ability to shatter mental ones."
She had already shared plenty of data regarding the former—the power to pierce through barriers while in a soul state.
Now, she intended to explain the latter.
"When I first laid eyes on the boy, I suffered a hallucination of being bathed in blinding light. It isn't a universal experience; the phenomenon seems limited to those with acute senses like mine."
The light was actually a unique spiritual wave radiating from the boy. A select few with keen senses merely mistook that spiritual wavelength for visible light.
"How does this ability manifest?"
"The wave tears down the walls protecting a person's mind... it shatters boundaries. Those sensitive enough to see the light and those too dull to notice are affected all the same. Thanks to this, the boy is capable of being loved beyond all limits."
A man on the other side of the projection tilted his head.
"No. It isn't the power to force love, but the capacity to be loved. It's a passive manifestation of a brainwashing ability."
Adkiel decided to break it down further, pointing out a self-evident truth they all understood.
"People decide whether or not to love someone based on their accumulated experiences and knowledge, their genetic instincts, and their spiritual intuition. They are swayed by the other person's appearance, behavior, eloquence, aura, attire, and status. But this boy's ability bypasses all of those preferences, prejudices, biases, and instincts."
However, she stressed that this brainwashing was not absolute.
"These are the observation logs from his time at the facility."
Most of the highborns seemed to have read them already. Rather than acting surprised, they murmured among themselves, simply reaffirming what they already knew.
"This borders on a primitive religion."
The vast majority of the children in the facility had gone beyond merely liking the boy—they worshipped him. Their affection had elevated into something resembling a cult.
But because the mental manipulation wasn't perfect, there were exceptions.
"A small minority who experienced incidents that gave them no choice but to dislike him remained unaffected. Children who fought with him over a favorite toy, or those who had something taken by him. This proved that their free will wasn't entirely destroyed. The instructors in charge of discipline were also immune. They found him suspicious and kept their emotional distance."
This was the absolute limit of the ability's passive effects.
"Why would a brainwashing ability manifest in such a specific way?"
"I believe it stems from instinct. An unconscious defense mechanism. Whether wild beasts or civilized beings, everyone harbors an innate fear of others. We stay on guard because it's impossible to predict when or why someone might attack us. But since you can't simply erase other living beings from existence, what is the most ideal way to protect yourself? His subconscious likely concluded that earning the goodwill of others was the best method."
Adkiel added a few more words.
"If he ever comes to view himself as a transcendent being untouchable by anyone else, that defense mechanism might fade. If that happens, the light I saw would likely disappear as well. Though, the chances of that happening are incredibly slim."
Adkiel moved on to the next topic.
"So, what happens if this ability is triggered actively? We recently managed to capture exactly that."
Adkiel shared a piece of footage—a scene that had filled her with unconcealed ecstasy.
The boy had no idea, but his master had been keeping him under round-the-clock surveillance. Drones smaller than specks of dust trailed his every move, logging his daily routine, recording video feeds, and analyzing every wavelength in his vicinity. The boy didn't know that even his most private, shameful moments had been meticulously archived. Nor did he realize that this scrutiny would never end.
The highborns focused intently on the projection.
The footage showed the boy approaching a gold dragon. In his hand, he held a highly toxic amphibian. He shoved it forward, demanding the creature eat it, but the dragon resisted. As the brief struggle dragged on...
="Eat!"=
A heavy, resounding weight layered the word, entirely different from his usual voice.
What followed was a sight that left the audience utterly stunned.
"Oh!"
"Is that...?"
The instant the boy shouted with that intense burst of power, the dragon's movements grew sluggish. It stopped resisting. Its pupils dilated, completely losing focus.
The dragon took a few weak, stumbling steps forward before pressing its snout into the boy's palm.
A moment later, the highborns all let out gasps of disbelief.
"My god, I'm looking right at it and still can't believe my eyes."
"This is definitive proof. The ability to completely shatter mental boundaries!"
A beast had transcended its instinctual terror of death to obey a command. There was no stronger proof than an entity willingly taking its own life. It was absolute mental domination.
A wide smile spread across Adkiel's face as a barrage of questions poured in.
"What medium is triggering the ability? It looked like he issued a verbal command."
"This should answer that. Look at the data recorded by the micro-drones."
"Ah! Just as I thought. It's a spiritual wave as well."
"This proves that the essence of this ability is also the soul."
Adkiel called for their attention once more.
"Now, it's time we discuss what to do with this discovery."
She outlined her plan—a grand design to prepare for an era in the distant future, long after her own death.
Her audience listened intently, clicking their tongues in sheer admiration. A few even looked profoundly moved.
"We must forge a revolutionary tool using that boy's soul as the raw material. My vision is to establish a beacon that will guide humanity down the correct path, ensuring the world doesn't devolve into hell. We might not have an immediate use for it now, but we will in the far future. So, we must begin our preparations early."
Adkiel then revealed the soul samples she had harvested from the boy thus far.
The highborns were treated to a view of hundreds of glass tubes lined up within an isolated chamber. Each liquid-filled container held a brain still attached to its central nervous system.
"To ensure nothing was lost, I surgically extracted the brains of our test subjects and possessed each one with a soul fragment."
Adkiel elaborated on her struggles.
"I think I finally understand how the ancients felt when they first researched the functions of the brain. Lately, I've been identifying the specific abilities housed within each sample. It's the only way to ensure we can dissect his soul with maximum efficiency in the future."
Some fragments manifested the barrier-piercing ability so violently that they escaped and were lost. Other fragments displayed no abilities at all, leaving them dormant in their possessed state. A few more had shattered into impossibly microscopic pieces due to excessive stimulation, rendering them practically lost as well.
The ultimate goal of the experiment was to map the exact section of the boy's soul responsible for the brainwashing ability and excise over 99% of it. That excised portion would serve as the raw material for their mental manipulation tool. She would leave only the tiniest sliver behind, just in case the soul could regenerate.
One of the viewers raised a question.
"Is it truly necessary to excise and modularize the soul? Couldn't we just have the boy brainwash people directly?"
"No, for three distinct reasons."
Adkiel explained methodically.
"First, what if he dies? Advancements in technology might prevent him from dying of old age, but we can't rule out fatal accidents."
"Second, that boy is my heir. Brainwashing the entire populace of the future will require an immense amount of time. It is unreasonable to expect my successor to personally carry out such a laborious task."
"Third, the personality he has developed so far might hinder the brainwashing process. It will be far easier to control the outcome if we inject the ability into an artificial personality built from a blank slate."
Some of those reasons perfectly mirrored the logic Minjun would later use to create Asiph-1, after he managed to recover a fraction of his power.
Just as the transmission was drawing to a close, one of the highborns voiced an opinion.
"By the way, regarding his other ability. The Supernatural Ability to bypass barriers."
It had been largely ignored in their discussions, but it was undeniably one of the boy's traits. It was just that they couldn't find a practical use for it. The most they could brainstorm was intelligence gathering and surveillance—tasks already handled perfectly well by their existing technology.
"Wouldn't it be safer to excise that ability as well? In fact, instead of leaving one percent, I believe it would be best to purge it completely, without leaving a single speck behind."
As things stood, if the boy died in an unforeseen accident, there would be no way to contain his soul. He would effortlessly nullify any barrier placed in his way.
But if that ability were destroyed at its source?
"That is a valid point."
The sacrifice of the few for the happiness of the absolute majority was inevitable. That was what Adkiel firmly believed.
She spoke up.
"I think..."
*
Minjun pulled himself out of Adkiel's memories.
"..."
He stood paralyzed for a long time. The truths he had just unearthed from her memories froze him to his core.
'What did I just see?'
The simple word 'shock' couldn't even begin to describe how he felt. Minjun experienced a violent urge to lose control, warring against an intense compulsion to maintain his absolute calm. Unlike his serene exterior, a tempest of thoughts and emotions raged violently within his mind. Amidst that maddening whirlwind, he continuously mulled over the unfamiliar truth. Like a man who had learned to read overnight, he deciphered meanings he had never noticed before, entirely reinterpreting the world around him and the events that had shaped his life.
Kyaaa!
Even then, Adkiel's frenzied attacks continued. A meaningless, frantic struggle that couldn't even scratch Minjun.
A long time passed. Minjun barely managed to gather the shattered pieces of his mind. Staring out at his former master, he muttered under his breath.
"From the very beginning,"
His voice was parched and hollow.
"I knew that you chose me because of my soul."
Minjun had been selected solely to fulfill Adkiel's needs.
"But I never knew this. I never knew the root of this profound sense of loss."
The answer had been buried in his childhood all along.
"It was you."
He let silence wash over him, repeating the grim truth in his mind over and over.
It was only after Adkiel grew exhausted, her frenzy ceasing and the boiling darkness settling into an uneasy calm, that Minjun finally transmitted a mental wave.
Having waited for that exact moment, Minjun spoke. The single word slammed into Adkiel like a vicious ambush.
"Thank you."
—...?!
At that moment, Adkiel froze, utterly incapable of a response.
Minjun cast a cold gaze at her and said,
"Thank you for giving me back my ability to think."
Even before witnessing these memories, Minjun had expressed a similar joy. The twisted euphoria of her regaining her reason, of finally having companionship with someone who had become closer to a person than a mindless monster.
Even while his subjects dreamt of happiness, the king could not fall into a deep slumber. He was condemned to spend a near-eternity drowning in nightmares. Now that she had regained her sanity, she would serve as his companion in that eternal prison. Even if the brief conversations they shared whenever they awoke were saturated with madness and hatred.
But the words he offered now carried an entirely different edge. Adkiel could sense it immediately.
Minjun continued his confession.
"I always believed that everything I've suffered, and everything I will suffer, was the price for my sins. Locking you in this prison was my sin, so I gladly brought punishment upon myself. Taking on the duty to fall asleep last and wake up first among our kind... it was a sentence I imposed on myself."
He hadn't wanted to do it, but he forced himself.
Because only then would it be a true punishment.
"The most miserable form of punishment is when the victim actively cooperates in the process. Like a condemned man standing willingly before the pit that will become his grave, or a slave eagerly offering his head to the club. That was the exact mindset I carried as I bore this grueling labor."
He slowly closed his eyes, as if coming to a profound realization.
"The sins I committed against my people as their king can be redeemed by saving them. But the sins I committed against you... those I could never pay for. Because I never truly desired to pay them back, it became an unredeemable debt. That's exactly why I believed I deserved to be punished for all eternity."
Now, Minjun could finally assign an entirely different meaning to his own actions.
"But I was wrong."
The man who had once condemned himself as a sinner began to laugh.
"This prison is not my sin. It is the punishment I am dealing out for your sins. Nothing about the past or the present has physically changed, but I can finally view everything from a new perspective."
The shadow roiled in sheer despair.
"And so, I thank you, Adkiel. Thank you for giving me back the ability to think. Thank you for regaining enough of your form that I could peer into your memories, and for recovering just enough to suffer far more miserably than before. Most importantly, thank you for recovering enough cognitive function to fully comprehend the absolute restrictions I am about to place upon you."
Adkiel felt the crushing weight of terror pressing down on her, growing heavier by the second.
Minjun delivered his final sentence.
"You raised me specifically to grow into a creature utterly bound and tethered to you. The scars of what you carved out of my soul, that artificial sense of loss, only deepened the void and forced me to rely on you."
Pointing out that fact, Minjun felt a sense of amusement.
"As a result, even after your death, you have become irrevocably bound to me. Isn't that deeply satisfying?"
Minjun opened his eyes again. His voice rang out, laced with undeniable relief.
"You yearn for reincarnation, don't you? You desperately want your freedom? I'm not going to give it to you. I will keep you chained here forever. Not because I desire you, but because I desire your endless agony and pain."
He felt the invisible chains that had bound him for countless years finally shattering. In this very moment, Minjun cast off the heavy shackles of being Adkiel's disciple and the king of his race, standing purely as himself.
'What is it that I truly desire?'
The answer rose to the surface instantly.
"Thanks to you, I can now fully embrace both my imperfect self and the version of me that strives for perfection. My self-punishment ends here. In the future, someone will undoubtedly need to stand guard over my people as they fall asleep once again. But the recipient of that cruel sentence will no longer be me."
He asked himself a question. Did his thirst for revenge against another stem from self-affirmation or self-denial? He didn't know the answer yet. But he knew exactly what he craved.
"With this, I am finally free."
His ultimate objective hadn't changed. He would punish those who deserved it and save his kindred.
Revenge and salvation.
He had simply stopped viewing himself as a target of punishment, recognizing himself as someone worthy of salvation instead.
"Let me say it one last time. Thank you, Adkiel. Thank you for showing me what I never even realized I had lost. And thank you for freeing me from my crushing guilt. Eons ago, you believed it yourself—that the sacrifice of the few was an inevitable price for the happiness of the many."
Minjun delivered his final judgment upon the sinner chained before him.
"So now, in my place... it is your turn to be sacrificed."
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