My Shard Bearer System - Elias's Legacy-Chapter 207: Searching Thoughts

"You mentioned this planet had gems as a power source," he said. "But the alien race came and took them. Now you’re saying there are more hidden—under the capital? Or... castles?"

The ache of Kikaru’s absence still clung to him, the sight of Dot’s still form pressing deeper into the back of his mind.

"How do you know that? And how does any of this help him... or help you?"

The godless crucifix tilted his head slightly. His silver eyes narrowed, the faint smile at the corners of his mouth tightening, not fading. He studied Elias’s soul for a moment—silently—then exhaled once through his nose, low and even.

"You see, most planets naturally have soul energy flowing through them, as I mentioned before," he said, his voice humming through the Expanse. The mist at his feet coiled tighter, and the spires behind him gave off a low, shifting vibration, as if reacting to the memory being spoken aloud.

"When a world has that energy, it becomes a foundation. A source. But the fourth-dimensional lens doesn’t just see sources. It sees frameworks. Lattices. Circuits. Shapes that haven’t been made yet."

He stepped lightly to the side, the obsidian tiles beneath him aligning.

"When he ascended—when Alec first crossed over—he looked back at this place from that higher view. And what he saw was potential. So he acted. He crafted a power source from raw soul energy and embedded it deep into the soil of that world. Not a generator. Not a weapon. A seed."

The crucifix paused, his gaze sharpening. The red veins across his hands lit brighter than before, branching upward toward his neck.

"The planet’s crust became the incubator. Over time, that core gem—the master node—reproduced itself. A network of lesser gems started growing upward from beneath the ground. Small fractures turned to crystal. Crystal became fuel. Fuel became conflict."

He looked back down toward Elias.

"What the aliens stole... was a surface shard. A carbon copy. Not the original. Not the root."

Elias pulsed again. Slower this time.

"...Then why haven’t you just gone and grabbed it," he asked. His voice didn’t shake, though his form flickered around the edges. "If your friend needs to be saved so badly, and that world has what you need—why send someone like me?"

His tone held steady, but the question didn’t come from arrogance. It came from exhaustion.

From wanting to understand why it had to be him.

The crucifix’s smile didn’t change.

But his eyes did.

The godless crucifix stepped closer, the crimson mist curling around his boots. The spires trembled in response, their whispers growing louder, voices layering over one another—a pressure of things unseen, not begging, just waiting.

"Like I said," he began, his tone flat but not cold, "it would have put me at risk of recapture. And if that happened, the long-term efforts we’ve kept in motion... would’ve been lost. Every thread, every bypass, every world monitored from the outside—gone."

The veins beneath his skin glowed brighter as he spoke, rising faintly along the sides of his throat.

Elias’s glow pulsed again. Not as weak as before.

"Okay," he said. "When you say ’us,’ are you talking about you and him? Or is there more than that?"

He paused, but didn’t give the silence too long to settle.

"Just how many people have made it to this... fourth spot?"

The crucifix didn’t answer right away. He turned, stepping back into the mist, the obsidian tiles adjusting beneath him. The spires flared faint blue at their cores—soullight shifting with the movement.

"There can only ever be twelve," he said. "At any given time."

His voice didn’t rise or slow. He spoke the number like it was fixed in stone, not a guess or a legend, but something coded into the design of the universe.

"We believe it’s mathematically bound to the construct of this layer. No fluctuation. No loopholes."

He looked down at his hands, turning them slowly, the glow of the orbs still steady between his fingers.

"No matter what we’ve tried, no matter what methods were used to ascend, the result is always the same. When someone new arrives... the one who’s remained the longest disappears."

His claws tapped once against Dot’s orb, not harsh, just present.

"There are always twelve."

Then he looked back at Elias.

"But four of us are sealed. Imprisoned. Removed from access to the field."

A faint pause.

"If you count me as I am now, that makes five."

The spires let out a slow, low exhale of sound—like stone sighing underwater. The Expanse listened, but didn’t speak back.

Elias’s glow pulsed, his voice trembling with curiosity.

"And being in this fourth state... it lets you peer into my soul? And others?" he asked.

The ache of Kikaru’s absence still pressed into him. So did the silence from Dot’s orb, her light steady but unreachable.

The godless crucifix tilted his head, silver eyes narrowing slightly. His expression didn’t shift much, but the air around him grew heavier, as if the Expanse responded in kind.

"In a way, yes," he said.

Each word pushed outward like a slow current, carried through the crimson mist coiling at his feet. The spires trembled softly behind him, their inner soullight flickering faintly.

"But if the soul is still anchored to a carbon-based body, it’s not easy," he continued.

"It takes strain. Energy. And usually, we can only see it fully after death—when the link breaks clean."

Elias’s pulse dimmed for a moment, then surged.

"You’ve searched my memories," he said. His tone didn’t accuse, but it didn’t retreat either. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

"Do you know anything about my father?"

The crucifix stepped closer, boots silent on the floating tile. The mist curled around him as he moved. The spires shifted again, their whispers returning—low, quiet, pressing at the edges of the Expanse like fog behind glass.

"I did search them," he said.

His voice remained steady, unyielding. The red veins under his skin glowed brighter, tracing down the sides of his face in soft, pulsing light.

"But anything about your father... seemed unimportant."

Foll𝑜w current novℯls on fre𝒆web(n)ovel.co(m)