Regaleon: The Forgotten Knight

In the meantime, Regaleon’s body suddenly jolted. The physical vessel that had remained completely motionless for several minutes jerked forward with such violence that ripples raced across the surface of the Essence Pool around him.

It felt as though his soul had been violently yanked from a void before being hurled back into his body with tremendous force. The sensation was so abrupt that, for one fleeting moment, Regaleon could have sworn that every bone in his body had been forcibly separated from the flesh surrounding it before being slammed back into place.

His vision swam.

Brilliant specks of light exploded across his sight, countless metaphorical stars of different colours dancing erratically before his eyes. At the same time, an intense headache erupted inside his skull, the pain striking with such force that it nearly overwhelmed his consciousness.

Under normal circumstances, such a violent return should have awakened him immediately. Yet, strangely enough, Regaleon remained trapped somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness.

It was as though some invisible compulsion still held his mind in the same state of subconscious awareness he had occupied during that strange ordeal. He knew that he had returned but for several seconds, he couldn’t properly move.

Had he possessed full control over his physical body, he would have immediately raised a hand to his temples and massaged them to alleviate the splitting migraine.

Unfortunately, his limbs remained sluggish.

Eventually, through sheer force of will, Regaleon managed to gather his scattered consciousness. The dizziness gradually receded, the colourful flashes disappeared from his vision, and the oppressive weight inside his skull slowly diminished.

Finally, the silver-haired Knight snapped out of that disoriented state and examined the state of his body. After all, he wouldn’t want that strange ordeal to have an adverse impact on his cultivation.

The first oddity he noticed was the condition of his body.

Before discovering that strange heart, Regaleon had been struggling endlessly to distribute Aether throughout his Prime Organs, only to find himself repeatedly thwarted by some invisible obstruction.

Now, however, he discovered that the situation was no longer the same. Regaleon stared blankly inward, examining the situation with his consciousness.

Aether was flowing through his Primary Aether Veins with remarkable smoothness before branching into his Secondary Veins and spreading toward his Prime Organs.

This time, there was no resistance nor obstruction preventing the flow of energy. It was almost as though that bizarre ordeal had somehow resolved the very problem that had been preventing his cultivation from progressing.

Yet even that wasn’t what truly shocked him.

While he had been inside that strange space, Regaleon had assumed that his physical body would become nothing more than an empty vessel. After all, his consciousness—his soul—had literally been ripped from it.

He had expected his cultivation to stop the moment he disappeared. However, it had continued.

This discovery left him both astonished and deeply unsettled.

Anyone in particular would be horrified to discover that their body could continue functioning normally despite the absence of the consciousness that supposedly controlled it.

But there was more.

Had the situation merely remained stable, Regaleon might have eventually been able to accept it. Unfortunately, reality had apparently decided to become even stranger.

His body wasn’t simply maintaining its previous state; it was cultivating on its own.

Regaleon could literally feel Aether continuously being drawn from the Essence Pool, entering his body and circulating through his Primary and Secondary Veins without any conscious effort from him.

It was as though some form of autonomous mechanism had taken over the function of cultivation, silently regulating the flow of Aether throughout his body.

There was no conscious command from him nor deliberate manipulation. And yet, the process continued with flawless efficiency.

Regaleon should have been ecstatic upon discovering such a phenomenon, after all, such situation would be treated by a heaven-sent gift by any other ordinary practitioner.

However, he simply felt a growing sense of unease. There was no real-life example for this; a precedent whereby a cultivator’s body continues to cultivate independently despite the absence of his consciousness.

And this realization left Regaleon with a strange mixture of bewilderment, apprehension, and suspicion.

He tried to interfere the next instant. The moment he attempted to consciously redirect the Aether, however, he felt as though his will had collided with an invisible wall.

He tried again but even after several attempts, there was still nothing.

It was almost as though his consciousness had been temporarily locked out of the cultivation process.

After several unsuccessful attempts to regain control, Regaleon finally stopped because there was little point in continuing.

Some sort of invisible will was clearly operating within his body besides his primary will and consciousness.

The moment that thought occurred to him, Regaleon frowned internally. An invisible will?

The phrase immediately brought his thoughts back to the strange ”Heart”. Since he didn’t have to worry about controlling his cultivation for the moment, then perhaps this was the perfect opportunity to examine what had happened to him.

Until today, he hadn’t even known that such a thing existed within his body.

In fact, Regaleon had never encountered anything resembling it in the history of House Valehart. As far as he knew, there had never been a recorded case of a person possessing a second, metaphysical heart hidden within their physical one.

At first, when he had entered that strange space, Regaleon had considered connecting the phenomenon to a cultivation occurrence known as the Ancestral Dream.

But he had immediately dismissed the possibility because whatever he had experienced was far beyond the scope of an ordinary phenomenon like the Ancestral Dream.

For one thing, an Ancestral Dream generally involved experiencing fragments of another person’s memories or witnessing events through the perspective of one’s ancestors.

That hadn’t happened to him as he hadn’t been observing someone else’s memories. Instead, he had been there. Even if his presence had been forced upon him, his participation had been undeniably conscious.

Moreover, Ancestral Dreams were generally regarded as expressions of one’s heritage. Yet Regaleon couldn’t connect anything he had witnessed to House Valehart.

If anything, Regaleon could only conclude that what he had experienced was something completely unprecedented. And the more he thought about it, the more questions began piling up.

The strange ”Heart” was only the beginning; there where were also the orbs, his Soul Essences and that vast inner space.

Regaleon’s thoughts became increasingly complicated as he attempted to arrange everything he had witnessed into something resembling a coherent explanation.

The first question he wanted answered was the connection between the metaphysical heart and his Soul Essences.

For centuries, scholars had attempted to determine the exact nature and origin of Soul Essences. After countless studies and investigations, the prevailing conclusion was that Soul Essences were supernatural manifestations intrinsically linked to the soul itself.

Everyone knew that they weren’t physical weapons, but it was later that they discovered Soul Essences exist exclusively within the spiritual domain of an individual. In other words, they were literally and intrinsically connected to the soul.

Yet Regaleon had now seen his own soul. But he had also seen something else, his Soul Essences.

Within that strange space, he had witnessed the manifestations of his Armour and Halberd, along with the two mysterious silhouettes whose identities remained unknown to him.

That revelation forced Regaleon to reconsider everything he thought he knew about his Soul Essences.

Perhaps they weren’t actually connected to his spiritual form in the way he had always assumed. Or perhaps his Soul Essences had never been summoned from his physical body at all.

Or perhaps, they had simply been residing within that strange space from the very beginning.

This thought in particular made Regaleon pause. If that was true, then another question immediately followed.

Why had he never known about the space?

He had summoned his Soul Essences countless times since his awakening. Surely something that existed within him should have left some sort of trace; some kind of indication or sensation that could have alerted him to its existence.

Yet there had been nothing; not even the slightest hint. It was almost as though that space had existed within him without truly existing at the same time.

The more Regaleon thought about it, the more he felt as though he were missing a crucial piece of the puzzle; something that might connect everything together.

But what?

His thoughts returned to the strange ”Heart” and questions began piling up.

Just what was it?

Why did it exist inside his physical heart?

Why had it suddenly activated?

And why had activating it transported his consciousness into that strange inner space?

Then there were the Soul Essences.

Just what exactly were they?

How were they connected to that space?

And if they truly resided there, how had he been able to summon them all these years without ever knowing of its existence?

Then there were the glowing orbs.

What were they also?

Were they memories, records or something else entirely?

And those mysterious silhouettes... What exactly were they?

Regaleon remained silent as the questions continued to accumulate.

For the first time since awakening his Soul Essences, the silver-haired Knight felt as though he had stumbled upon something far greater than his own cultivation.

Something ancient, something deeply buried within him, and something that had apparently been waiting for the right moment to reveal itself.

The realization sent an inexplicable chill through his consciousness.

Just what was this strange ”Heart”?

What were his Soul Essences?

What were those glowing orbs?

What was that mysterious space?

And, above all... Just how did any of this relate to him?