My Soul card is a Reaper-Chapter 967: The Dream of the Past (Part-5)

As the octopus suddenly vanished after five hours of battle, Rael managed to break free with swift consecutive punches to the sheet of ice.

Rael crawled out of the hole he made with the punches and rested on the ice, shivering from the cold and battered from his recent encounter with the octopus. His heart pounded in his chest as he gathered his bearings, the pain from his broken body still lingering.

"Teacher… I…" Taking heavy breaths, he was about to say something, but the sight captured by his eyes turned his face paler in an instant.

Selene, arguably the second most powerful demigod in Freyles, who had been training him, was encased in a block of ice, her body frozen solid. Her once formidable aura was now gone, leaving only a cold, lifeless shell. Rael's breath caught in his throat. "She…"

He rose to his feet and dragged himself to her corpse.

Standing before the frozen figure of Selene, Rael's anger flared, but he contained it. He steadied himself and took a deep breath, knowing that it was something predestined. He couldn't help but clench his fist and look down. Had it occured two days ago, he wouldn't feel anything. But now that he acknowledged her methods, he felt guilt, rage, helplessness, and various other emotions.

A voice suddenly broke the silence. "I killed her," the figure said, his voice cold and indifferent.

Rael turned his head and found a towering figure, a being that radiated immense power and a chilling presence. The man was massive, his stature imposing. It was Ymir.

Rael's eyes narrowed as he stared at the being. "Did you kill her?" he asked, his voice steady but carrying a quiet rage.

Ymir, unfazed, nodded. "Yes, but you need not worry," he replied. "I will not harm the innocent, much less a child. You may return and pass the message to your elders what happened here."

Before Rael could respond, something unexpected happened. The air above them shifted, and a booming voice rang out from the heavens, echoing through the frozen lake. "But, you will not leave this place, Ymir."

Ymir furrowed his brows, looking around. "Who is it?" He asked aloud.

The invisible domain of his was shattered all of a sudden and the voice spoke, "Ymir, as somoene who entered the god realm, you have tampered with the affairs of the mortals. You will face consequences."

Ymir froze, his expression darkening. "Guardian," he muttered under his breath, the word laced with a mixture of respect and apprehension.

The voice spoke again, its tone full of authority. "You are a powerful being, Ymir, but that doesn't give you the right to ignore the laws that govern the realms. One who enters the god realm will cease to be a mortal. Unless you have a temple with devotees, you aren't allowed to meddle in the affairs of any mortal."

"Wha… No one told me that…" Ymir was taken aback.

He tried to make a break for it, his massive form shifting to move away, but before he could act, a figure appeared in front of him, swift and precise. The figure was dressed in flowing robes, his presence commanding the very air around him. With a single gesture, the guardian god struck out at Ymir with a giant energy sword, severing the giant's arm in a single, fluid motion.

Ymir staggered back, his eyes narrowing, yet he didn't retaliate. He bowed his head slightly, acknowledging his fate. "Thank you for your mercy," he said quietly, before turning to leave.

As Ymir vanished into the distance, the guardian god turned to face Rael. The divine being's eyes softened with curiosity. "You are far too young to understand the gravity of what has happened here," he said, his voice gentle yet filled with timeless wisdom. "But there is something about you, boy."

Rael met the guardian god's gaze, his expression calm, though his heart still carried the weight of Selene's death and the brief encounter with that ice giant. "I knew she would die," he said, his voice containing firmness. "I was cursed since birth. I can see the auras of death on people. The stronger their auras were, the nearer they came to death. I tried warning many times, but no one takes the word of a child seriously and when it happens, people around would either start avoiding me like a curse or blame me for the deaths of their loved ones." He explained, his eyes were fixed on his teacher's corpse. "So, I stopped warning. And this is the result." He murmured in the end, almost barely audible.

The guardian god studied him closely, his eyes searching Rael's soul. "Hmm, it looks like you are indeed blessed by Death," the god murmured.

Rael then raised his head to look at him with his glowing eyes and said, "However, I cannot see the aura of death on you. My father, my siblings, Elders, and Grand Elder, even that monster had a faint aura of death, but you... You don't have it. Your presence feels like fate."

The guardian god was certainly caught off guard by his statement. He couldn't help but smile, the corners of his lips curving ever so slightly. "You are a curious child," he said, amusement dancing in his gaze. "If it was fate that binds us, then we shall meet again. When we do, I will give you the chance to prove yourself. If you succeed, I will take you as my disciple."

Rael's heart raced as the god's words echoed in his mind. He doesn't know who this is, but this is someone who doesn't have the aura of death, someone who could punish that icy giant, who, by the way, killed Selene, one of the strongest in his family.

The promise of an opportunity, the chance to learn from this powerful being, was too much to ignore. He nodded resolutely. "I will prove myself."

The guardian god raised his hand, and with a simple gesture, Rael's consciousness was overwhelmed. His vision blurred, and before he knew it, he was falling into darkness, unable to hold onto the world around him.

When Rael's vision returned, he found himself lying in a bed once more. The cold that had gripped him earlier had vanished, and his body was no longer broken from his training. But as he sat up, something felt off. He tilted his head in confusion, "How come I don't remember his face?" 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Meanwhile, on the frozen lake, the severed arm of Ymir, which had been left behind when the guardian god had cut it off, started twisting, shifting, and pulsating with strange energy. It began to grow, expanding in size, and soon, it transformed into a female human teenager, although with bluish, icy skin like a Jotunn.

*

Back to reality;

"Ugh..."

Azzy woke with a harsh groan, his palm pressing against his forehead as though the dream had clawed its way out of him instead of the other way around.

He pushed himself upright, sitting cross-legged on the cold floor, letting his breathing slow until the dizziness faded. The shower still ran behind him, steam curling through the room, but Azzy barely noticed. "There's something going on with my body…" he murmured with a frown.

Everything responded normally—smooth circulation, stable soul energy, no foreign presence, no internal wounds or any spells. Even the seal on the Supreme Angel's soul is completely intact, and there is no leak either. On the surface, there was nothing wrong. Yet the unease gnawed at him, telling him something had shifted under the layers he couldn't see.

First, it was a dream, perhaps a premonition of something. But as it happened, just half an hour later, this time, it hit him when he was fully conscious… Azzy realized something was really wrong with his body.

He closed his eyes and slipped straight into his mindscape, the only thing that he hadn't checked yet.

The moment he materialized inside the mindscape, his expression tightened. Something was off. Today… something else was there. Something that didn't exist before.

Floating in the center of the mindscape was a strange black mass—irregular in shape, pulsing faintly like a heart. It wasn't just darkness, either. It felt alive… or half alive. Meanwhile, pure primordial death energy radiated from it, thick enough that even Azzy took a slow step back out of instinct.

His breath hitched when he noticed the behavior of his soul weapons, the death scythe and the hourglass of Tempus, were slowly orbiting the mass, as though drawn to it, circling like celestial bodies around a black star.

"After I absorbed the Reaper's powers, only those were there, but now, there is this strange thing. Feels very familiar, like the Reaper, and yet strange… I wonder what this is. Where did you come from…?" he muttered.

He then approached it cautiously and reached out.

The moment his finger touched the mass, this time, his consciousness went through an illusion.

Suddenly, Azzy was floating in a boundless void, drifting like a speck of dust in a universe without shape.

In the next instant, a blinding flash of light burst before him, forcing him to shield his eyes, and when the glare faded, he saw more of those irregular masses scattered in the distance, but in different colors.

Before he could approach them, before he could even fully understand what he was seeing, something yanked him backward with crushing force.

His consciousness snapped, and Azzy was violently thrown out of his mindscape.

"Haa..."

His eyes flew open as he gasped for air, his entire body drenched in sweat. His chest rose and fell in heavy, staggering breaths.

"What in the hell was that illusion?"