Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 225: Missing Soul

For someone like Jamie, his level of Spatial Mastery wasn’t something he could get without at least a ’Monarch’ Rank Time Authority.

Not like Jamie needed to comprehend laws anymore. He’d gone past the comprehension stage and the assimilation stage right after it.

From the Sub-Cosmic Realms (After Surpassing the Peak of the Universe), one needed to Assimilate the laws they comprehended, then coined an Aspect out of it which would be their ’Main’ Damage Source.

They’d need to scale through the Firmaments, reforging their Souls with Cosmic Energy, then fuse their Origin Cores to create Dictums, increase the ranks of those Dictums, Integrate them into their existence, then it was compulsory to become Higher Dimensional and then all that’s left is to accumulate raw energy.

"I make it sound easy but that’s actually a lot of work. Even after a billion years, I’d only just passed the compulsory higher dimensional stage..."

"Compulsory Higher Dimensional what?"

Lapis couldn’t help but question the absurd thing she just heard from Jamie’s lips as she got closer but the man only waved her off before turning his gaze to the ASB’s corpse.

"Lapis. Run a full scan on that thing after you’re done killing the beasts on Gnocyl. This entire attack... even with the Beast Lord involved, feels like an elaborate diversion."

"?!"

The woman’s eyes widened and all thoughts of Higher Dimensionality left her head instantly. She turned her gaze to her Vampire King subordinates but she didn’t even need to speak for them to begin moving.

Jamie’s words were not to be taken lightly.

They couldn’t let anyone have designs on the ASB’s corpse.

While Lapis’ subordinates rushed to carry out her orders, Jamie called out in his True Voice.

| Caera. |

"Yes, Lord Jamie."

"?!"

Lapis received her second shock of the day as a woman materialized beside her, as though summoned from thin air.

The woman was dressed simply, with a casual hoodie draped over her lean frame, paired with jeans and well-worn sneakers. Her hair, a deep shade of auburn, was pulled back in a loose ponytail, and her amber eyes gleamed slightly.

Lapis recognised this woman. She was one of Jamie’s students just like her, and she was an Archdevil.

Ceara was one of the three that Miranda had called over 12,000 years ago when they had the issue with Demon Sword Slaifdein and needed to protect the Calesius Galaxy from being destroyed by Jamie and Slaifdein’s fight.

As for why she was here in Pinecone...

"Mira stuck you on watch duty, right?"

"Quoting Lady Miranda: I was told to ’Watch him closely so he doesn’t go doing anything shady with any witches again’."

"Pfft..."

Jamie burst out laughing when he heard Caera’s words, and the Archdevil woman only smiled wryly. She too was surprised when Jamie had suddenly gone off the grid 12,000 years ago, and from Miranda, she heard that he had dealings with a certain witch that led to him abruptly going into slumber.

As such, she could kind of understand Miranda’s orders for her to keep Jamie under close watch.

Well, Miranda also put her there so she could handle anything Jamie couldn’t deal with as he was currently weakened, but even she didn’t know that.

"Lapis, I’d return when it’s time for the Amphitheatre to open. Prepare those VIP seats."

After saying that, Jamie turned his gaze to Caera and spoke.

"Let’s make a quick trip to the Underworld, I want to use your Soul-Searching Ability to check out a particular soul."

Caera nodded and activated her authority, causing the space around her to shimmer. The interplay of the laws of life, death and reincarnation pulled at the fabric of space forming a portal in front of her.

It was a swirling vortex of deep violet and grey. A breeze whipped out of the portal as it grew, revealing a glimpse into the Gnocyl Prime sub-sector of the Pinecone Galactic Sector of the Underworld Dimension—where souls of the recently deceased from Gnocyl Prime and its surroundings would be taken.

The portal stabilized and immediately Jamie and Caera flew into it, with Lapis staying back in Pinecone. She had to handle the aftermath of this Space Beast attack, after all.

Jamie and Caera’s feet landed on the ground of the Underworld, a vast expanse of ethereal landscapes and flickering lights, each representing a soul awaiting its fate.

As wandering souls silently drifted toward the Reincarnation Path, Jamie informed Caera about the Soul he was after, giving her a sample of the Existence’s metadata that he had taken from them before they died.

Caera took it and activated her soul search, extending her senses and combing through the multitude of souls, seeking the one they came for—the soul of the Space Beast Lord Jamie had just slain.

Moments passed. Her brow furrowed.

"Nothing. It’s not here."

She muttered under her breath before turning to Jamie whose eyes flickered with a cold understanding, his suspicion confirmed.

The soul of the Space Beast Lord, which should have been drawn here moments after death, was missing.

The process was supposed to be automatic—the law of death claims the soul, and it is sent to the Underworld before any processing or reincarnation could occur.

But now, the soul was simply gone.

"I doubt it even arrived here."

Jamie spoke and Caera raised a brow in light surprise.

"You mean someone intercepted it before the Law of Death could even take full hold? But I didn’t notice anything after you killed it..."

In other words, whoever had taken the soul had done so subtly enough that both Jamie, Caera, and Lapis didn’t notice something wrong.

Even Jamie had only gotten the idea of searching the soul when he glanced at the ASB’s corpse and noticed some strange spatial fluctuations.

"Whoever sent that Beast Lord didn’t want anyone to find the soul or extract any information from it."

He paused for a moment, contemplating the implications.

"They probably acted right after I killed the Beast Lord."—when everyone’s attention was on the light that had covered Jamie when he regained his Cosmic Superiority.

But Jamie wasn’t overly concerned. He had already suspected something was off, and Lapis was not incompetent—she would leave no stone unturned in her investigation.

He would find out the results when he returned for the opening of the Amphitheatre of Eternity next year. This particular piece of the puzzle could wait.

"Let’s go to Vela."

Caera nodded in response to Jamie’s words. If he didn’t see the need to worry about this situation, then she wasn’t going to stress herself about it.

She used her Life, Death and Reincarnation law Interplay to create a conduit within the Underworld, linking the Pinecone Galactic Sector of the Underworld to the Vela Galactic Sector.

The energy rippled outward, the colours of death and space merging seamlessly as a new vortex opened.

They stepped into the spatial tunnel, the swirling energies of space and time coalescing around them. As they moved through the tunnel, Jamie’s mind drifted to other matters.

"How many of the Vampire Rulers have arrived?"

"Most should be there by now. It’s been ten months since you summoned them for the meeting, after all."

Hearing her reply, Jamie rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"Ten months, huh? For some of them, that’s a short time considering the distance they had to travel.

Still, we’ll proceed. The ones who aren’t there in time can be briefed later."

The man glanced out into the endless tunnel, the streaks of light rushing by as they traversed dimensions.

"I’ll stop by Cassarean first, check on things there before dealing with the Vampires."

"What about your siblings?"

Caera asked when she heard Jamie mention his hometown of Cassarean but the man’s reaction was far from what she expected.

"Kaiser and Laura? They’d be fine. It’s not like we haven’t not seen ourselves for longer times."

He didn’t seem particularly eager to meet his younger siblings even after not seeing them for 12,000 years.

Like before, Caera didn’t bother stressing herself on the topic since Jamie wasn’t bothered about it. They reached the end of the tunnel in silence and a new Vortex opened, revealing the vast expanse of the Vela Galactic Sector in the Underworld Dimension.

Now, one would ask why Caera didn’t head straight to Estea’s Sub-Sector, and the answer was rather obvious.

She couldn’t.

Apex World Estea was on a different level from a Prime World like Gnocyl, and the consciousness of the planet was capable of preventing any teleportations from unauthorized existences into ’her’ Underworld Sub-Sector.

If you succeeded in forcing yourself into it, then congratulations, you’d just become enemies with a team of Race Kings and Queens who were ridiculously proficient in the Laws of Life and Death and had a penchant for using the technique called Ashes to Ashes and Dust to Dust.

The effects of the technique were rather self-explanatory.

Caera was powerful enough to force her way through, but that was a waste of energy so she simply created a portal from the Underworld back to the Universe’s Main Dimensional Plane where the Vela Galaxy was.

From there, it was a straight trip to Estea, and in such a manner, Jamie returned home.