The Villain's Story

Chapter 930: Demon Queen(4).

At what point can a biological mutation affect the spirit? The soul of a human being? If one asks that question, is it not normal to first question what a soul truly is?

According to Elven Scholars:

The soul is the irreducible truth of a living thing, the part that cannot be weighed, measured, or replicated. It is not the mind, though it speaks through it. It is not the heart, though it is felt there. It is the answer to the question, ‘Who are you when everything that can be taken has been taken?’ The last thing that remains is when the body has nothing left to offer.

It is the authorship of a life.

The Body, The Mind, and The Soul are the three core principles of life; even the Elven Scholars believe that, although there is a relation between the three and they cannot exist without one another, it is fundamentally impossible to alter one through forced manipulation of the other.

Could altering the physical body ever change the soul? Could the forced mutation of a physical being trigger anything in the inner soul? How exactly would it go? And to what extent? While Morgana was well educated in the intricacies of the soul due to the nature of her life, she wasn’t so fixated on the teachings of Elven Scholars about its peculiarities.

She had a much simpler question, one she decided to get an answer to.

Where does the soul reside? Deep within the body, in the deepest corner of the mind? Or does it envelop the body, like a protective barrier? Where exactly does the soul reside?

Morgana asked that question in her younger years, pondering over the collapse of a human body subjected to Biokinesis over a long period of time. Biokinesis, unfortunately, had a limit, or rather, the body of a human being, or any living being, had a limit.

She could not cause an endless mutation that defied the laws of the world and keep it stable. She had once tried to determine how ‘big’ she could make a human; the result varied depending on the person. Similarly, she once tried to determine how small she could make a human being…

That was the same for everyone, surprisingly. She could only make an entire human the size of a cricket ball, a mass of disgusting flesh desperately begging for death, until it could not support its existence anymore… and collapsed.

The Soul would collapse. There was a minimum limit on every specific human being; the limit of the soul of their species could be compressed. But there wasn’t any particular limit on how big you could make them; it all depended on the person. The biggest one was present as a Brood hive the size of a small hill in Terra Damnum, giving birth to countless abominations in preparations for the upcoming siege. He was a former S-rank human being who had a lot of talent.

Biokinesis was an incredible skill, but even it had its limits. Although Morgana was glad that these limits depended on the subject being experimented upon.

The Body, The Mind, and The Soul, although entirely different from one another, dealing with separate domains, could not survive without each other. Similarly, due to this dependency, it was possible to exert influence on the others by manipulating one.

Morgana was hopelessly inadequate in the domain of the Mind, but in the domain of the Body? Hah… she was the greatest to exist in the entire universe. Quite literally, Biokinesis made it possible for her to sit on such a throne. Mutating the body could affect the mind and the soul.

For her current experiment, she focused much more on the soul, to add new additions to the Boneclaw. Previously, she had experimented a lot to determine where the ‘line’ was, the ‘line’ where the soul would begin to disappear, unable to handle any change, before she experimented on her precious daughter.

She created new organs, new additions, entire systems to support them, and at a certain point in her experimentation, she also lit her daughter’s blood aflame and smiled at the result.

Slowly, but surely, she was changing the Boneclaw; she was changing the very spirit itself, introducing elements of fire, lava, and light. She was changing a Spirit of Death into something much, much worse, even if it had the opposite attributes.

The Boneclaw screamed in pain, but not even its master heard it, for she too was crying. Her soul wept as well, as the Body grew and grew, not specifically in mass, but in intricacy. Her body experienced an endless amount of evolution… simply to combat one person.

Alan Peccator, every mutation was focused on countering him. Every mutation in both her and her precious spirit was influenced by the information the Obelisk, by what Morgana had about him. Everything, every single change was to combat him better.

Morgana was convinced that this would be her magnum opus, even better than the other things she had created… For this one… was designed to create a dragon.

“Haha…”

As she continued to stab her daughter’s brain with her fingers, she remembered a book she had read, one that came from the Dwarves of the Alliance, a legend about their First King.

Vulcan, the very first king of the Dwarves, wasn’t like the the first kings of the Elven and Orc races. Unlike them, he had been unable to reach the rank of Supremacy, or even hope to attain it. Vulcan, the Dwarf that had united the warring tribes under his hammer… had long reached his limit. He could only look at the Supreme Throne from afar.

But Vulcan, like all dwarves, was stubborn and refused to believe it. He longed to leave behind a legacy, much like the King of the Elves and the Lord of the Orcs. But how could he? What must he do to achieve a throne equal to the King of the Elves and the Lord of the Orcs? What must he do?

In the end, he was a dwarf… and so he swung his hammer. Legends say Vulcan swung his hammer until the very end of his life. Thousands of nights, without rest. Vulcan swung and swung his hammer, and left behind two legacies. His final creations, his masterpieces, his magnum opus!

One of them, widely considered to be his greatest creation, was a dragon. Vulcan had admired the gods of the sky, and longed to create one like them, and so, he did. Vulcan’s greatest masterpiece was a creation that stood at the Supreme Level since birth, an Artificial Dragon.

A Dragon of Gears and Circuits, a Dragon of Steel and Machinery. It is widely considered to be his greatest masterpiece… So what did he feel when creating such a being?

What did he feel when creating his masterpiece? Morgana thought to herself, unable to come to a conclusion. Was it the thrill she felt? Was it the same exhilaration? Was it the same sense of fulfillment?

What did Creator’s even feel when they felt as if they were creating their masterpiece? What drove them? What fulfilled them? What did it mean to them?

Was Vulcan driven by the desperate need to leave behind a legacy for his people? One they could count on in their darkest moments? Morgana was unsure. Her motivation behind her masterpiece could be desperation… for she wished to avoid her fate, and if it could help… it would be great.

But in the end, Vulcan had wished to replicate the grand majesty and perfection of a dragon with his creation. Her masterpiece would be the opposite. Morgana’s creation would be to defile it. It would be modified again and again until it could combat one specific dragon… It would be to ruin the perfection worshipped by many in the Universe.

To combat it’s ice, it would be given fire and lava. To combat his strength and endurance, it will be given the same. To combat his speed, it would be given speed as well… Everything will be accounted for, and even additions will be made, just to perfect it further.

A muffled cry rang out from her unconscious daughter, as her body turned into… a gelatinous liquid, slowly merging with her spirit. The pained cry of the Boneclaw rang out, as it’s body was lit aflame, and it’s body collapsed, merging with Lilith as well. It was an unholy fusion of blood and flame, lava and flesh, soul and soul.

And as the process continued, slowly but surely, the smile on Morgana’s face widened as her strength waned. She pulled in mana from her various batteries, but it was lacking. Nevertheless, it would soon be complete…

A spirit she molded, a spirit she redesigned, mutated, evolved! Every decision led by her, possible by Biokinesis. Morgana had been so absorbed in her experiment, she had forgotten about time. She had spent an entire week and a half engrossed in her experiment, she forgot what awaited Terra Damnum.