If put in simple terms the Soul Pact – no, Soul Pacts – affecting the Elemental Empress were a big mess.
According to the Elemental Empress, she was under the influence of a dozen Soul Pacts. One for each year she spent in the Origin Expanse – in the small black room, pinned to the wall.
She didn’t recall the exact content of the first Soul Pact. It was completed even before her Soul had fully formed. She was? under the Kitsun Lord’s influence the moment she was born.
All the Elemental Empress could tell was that every new Soul Pact changed something inside her, and that she wasn’t allowed to move without being ordered by the Kitsun Lord.
All in all, Michael figured out quite a bit about the Kitsun Lord’s personality and attitude. He was cunning and merciless. A sly bastard to put it simple.
The first Soul Pact couldn’t be anything special. It was formed even before the Elemental Empress’ soul had been completed. As it was not fully formed yet moments after her birth, not even the soul of an Elemental Empress would be able to survive a tight-locked Soul Pact. In fact, Michael was already surprised that the Elemental Empress survived so far despite being bound by the Soul Pact. It was close to a miracle, even if it was more like a nightmare for the Elemental Empress.
‘Even if the first Soul Pact didn’t do much, multiple Soul Pacts means I have no idea which clauses are still valid, which clauses have been removed entirely due to the effect of the newer pacts, and which clauses fused forming more restrictive clauses for the Empress…what a mess.’
Michael was starting to feel irritated at the sight of the Elemental Empress. He wanted to help her but couldn’t do anything without potentially killing her.
Multiple Soul Pacts meant that each new Soul Pact was less binding than the former. That was common knowledge – for someone with the knowledge of a whole library that had been constructed centuries before the Second Epoch began.? But Michael couldn’t say with confidence that he knew to what extent were the new Soul Pacts less binding and predatory, how the new Soul Pacts affected the older Soul Pacts, and whatnot.
There were too many ifs and buts for Michael’s liking.
The Elemental Empress was also not that helpful. The more she spoke the more questions flashed through Michael’s mind. It truly made his head spin.
The only good thing was that Michael found out more about the Kitsun Lord. He was more of a merchant and a tyrant than a fighter. He expanded his territories through trickery and deceit rather than head-on fights.
Michael was aware of that but he didn’t know that the Kitsun Lord was also a madman, a man willing to sacrifice his people without batting an eyelid. He was also extremely possessive. Nobody was allowed to see the Empress except for him, and it took him years before he allowed the Awakened working for him to come in contact with his elemental crystals and his elemental spirit seeds.
Everything in his territory belonged to him, whether it was animals, plants, or the Awakened. They ought to sacrifice themselves the moment he desired their death or deemed them useless.
The new intel was crucial for Michael in his war against the Kitsun Lord. Unfortunately, it didn’t really help in the rescue mission.
‘How about I use Extraction on her? But will I be able to extract her Soul Pacts, in the first place?’ Michael wondered, frowning deeply.
Extraction was not omnipotent. It was a 6-Star Soultrait and using 10 layers of Enhancement on Extraction allowed him to strengthen Extraction to make it strong enough to increase its potency and efficiency to the next level. However, at the end of the day, Enhancement merely enhanced the existing power of the enhanced object, Soultrait or being. It was merely a catalyst, a pseudo star increase.
“I can sense something,” The Elemental Empress said all of a sudden, breaking Michael’s train of thoughts.
Michael didn’t quite understand her.
“Sense what?”
“I can sense something about you,” She said.
“About me?”
“It feels animalistic. A scent…no, a presence…it’s attached to you, a part of you in a way. Yet, it’s different from you. It’s you but not…”
Michael’s frown deepened upon hearing her. He stared at the Elemental Empress but was unsure what to say. He wasn’t even certain he understood her properly. The Elemental Empress could speak in the Origin language, but she might be malfunctioning after being confined for a dozen years. Her words felt like gibberish to him at first.
But before he could say something he realized what the Elemental Empress had been talking about.
Sun Demos.
The Blood Oath Demon Monkey King, Sun Demos. The monster he tamed a few months back.
“Taming,” He mumbled, tilting his head as numerous thoughts flashed through his mind.
Taming. True Link of Loyalty. The truest bond.
Even Sun Demos Soul had now become a part of Michael, to a certain extent. The bond of a tamed beast was something that couldn’t be broken by any means but death. Being a 5-Star Soultrait, Taming’s bond would be even stronger than the norm. It provided a supernatural connection.
“Use it on me,” The Elemental Empress said in a tone that commanded attention and submission.
She didn’t sound fragile and weak like she was on the verge of death at this moment. On the contrary, her entire being seemed to change.
‘Taming?’ Michael wondered with furrowed brows, only for the Elemental Empress to answer his thought. ｂ𝚍𝚘𝚟ｌ.ｎｔ
“Tame me,” She repeated herself, staring intently at Michael while still pinned to the wall.
“Are you craz–…” Michael began to curse her out when he stopped abruptly as he realized something.
He considered the possibility of taming the Elemental Empress. It sounded crazy, yet oddly plausible. The sheer amount of Soul Pacts made by the Elemental Empress weakened the pacts and put them in disarray. After all, a portion of the Soul was getting occupied by a Soul Pact’s binding force. This was a measurement to ensure that the Soul Pact could punish the party that violated the pact by inflicting injuries through the occupied part of the Soul. The injury would be forward, thus harming the entire Soul and being of the party.
The only downside with Soul Pacts that occupied a portion of the Soul was that the 2nd Soul Pact – and those following – would have a smaller portion to occupy. A Soul Pact would always occupy between 5% to 10% of a soul. Therefore, the 2nd Soul Pact would only be able to occupy 10% of a Soul that had only 90% space left to occupy. Following that, the 3rd Soul Pact could only occupy 10% out of 81% of a Soul’s space.
But that was not all. A Soul would grow more resilient to new Soul Pacts as the unoccupied space decreases.
Therefore, the latter Soul Pacts should be a lot weaker than the True Link of Loyalty, even though they affected the first Soul Pacts’ clauses.
The bond of taming would alter the Elemental Empress’ soul, which should – no, could –, turn the Soul Pacts invalid. After all, all Soul Contracts and Soul Pacts were signed with the Soul. If the Soul changed their signature would change as well.
‘Should I tame her and order her to discard the Soul Pacts if they’re still valid after the taming process? Will Taming overwrite her Soul Pacts? Or will the pacts kill her if she is tamed and her Soul is being altered?’
Since the Kitsun Lord was said to be a cunning person, Michael didn’t doubt that some clauses in one of the dozen Soul Pacts would mention the possibility of the Elemental Empress’ soul changing. A mutation in the Soul ‘could’ happen at any time even if it was highly unlikely to happen in a lifetime.
Michael seriously doubted that the Kitsun Lord would have mentioned specific cases, such as a Soultrait like Taming being used to tame the Elemental Empress. He was close to 100% certain that the Kitsun Lord would never imagine someone with a Taming Soultrait to appear in front of the Elemental Empress, let alone that a prideful Empress would be willing to get tamed – to become someone else’s pawn.
“Taming you won’t give you the freedom you desire,” Michael stated as a matter of fact.
Taming her wouldn’t give her the freedom she desired. It would just shift her prison and change her master from the Kitsun Lord to Michael. The taming bond couldn’t be easily severed without consequences either. It would most likely scar their souls forever even if he used Extraction to remove the True Link of Loyalty that would be created between them. Even if he was not certain about that, Michael didn’t want to risk injuring his soul by taming the Elemental Empress for a short period just to remove the bond by force again. It was not worth it.
“Anything is better than this…” The Elemental Empress said, a trace of desperation in her earlier commanding voice that sounded weak and fragile once again.
Michael wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. Her argument was valid. Anything was probably better than being imprisoned in this dark place. Maybe even death.
“Are you sure that you want this?” Michael asked carefully, “It might not work and you may even die. I cannot promise you anything. I’ve never studied Soul Contract, let alone Soul Pacts. All I know is some commonly known facts.”
“I am sure. Please do it,” The Elemental Empress insisted, her voice growing weaker by the second.
If Michael didn’t know better, he would guess that the Elemental Empress was on the verge of death. However, she couldn’t die just like that. The Soul Pacts were at fault for her condition. They burdened her soul and weighed her down. That was also why she was still a Tierless existence even though she had been exposed to ambient origin energy for the last 12 years.
Michael did not immediately reply but looked at the Elemental Empress for a while. He thought about all known variables and calculated the probability of success.
The chance was low. It was extremely low, to be precise. The known factors were already enough to determine that the Elemental Empress was likely to die. Her survival rate wasn’t even close to 1% in Michael’s opinion.
Nonetheless, he wanted to give it a try.
Michael didn’t like the Kitsun Lord after everything he had gotten to know about him. He pitied the Elemental Empress as well. However, he also wanted to tame the Elemental Empress because of the benefits he could obtain.
Even if Michael wanted to deny his ulterior intention, he couldn’t. He wanted to obtain the Elemental Empress to make use of her powers and the fact that she could create more Elementals in the future. He could expand his army using the Elementals, and he could give them more than enough living space to create elemental crystals and elemental spirit seeds as well.
The only difference between Michael and the Kitsun Lord was that Michael wouldn’t force the Elemental Empress to do anything she didn’t want to. He would treat her well, and make sure that she could enjoy her life for the first time since she was born.
He hoped to see her smile, to rescue this innocent little soul.
“Alright, I will do it.”