"What—" Theo wanted to struggle, but the woman suddenly appeared in front of him in a flash. He couldn't say anything before her two hands arrived next to his head.
The hands were excluding black-colored energy. Once they seeped into his body through his ears, nose, and mouth, Theo suddenly screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Aaaaahhhhhh!" A sharp pain started entering his body. It felt like he was being stabbed by numerous needles from the inside.
Once the energy reached his brain, the sharp pain turned into a hot, burning pain as if he was being incinerated. Theo kept shouting.
He wanted to pass out at this moment, but no matter how painful it was, his consciousness remained awake.
Tears flowed out of the corner of his eyes and his eyes gradually turned blank.
Theo couldn't even think of anything at this point. It felt like his entire existence was being erased one by one. The memory of his parents, his reason for becoming stronger… More and more memories started to disappear from his head.
And the pain he endured was beyond what anyone could imagine. It felt like he was being ripped apart continuously.
The process took more than a week. As expected, removing sixteen years of memories manually was a hard task.
Not only for the woman, but also for Theo. The pain continued and Theo gradually lost his reason due to the pain.
He just wanted to die under his pain, but he couldn't.
He started begging the woman just to kill him to stop this pain. But he couldn't let out his voice due to the unimaginable pain.
In the end, the entire week passed with Theo being tortured alive. It was a long process and once it finished, Theo was left with an empty gaze.
He looked like a broken toy, not able to reason anymore. He only wanted to die and end all this pain.
Yet, the moment the torture ended, blue particles started to surround him as a new memory began to flood.
This was the memory that the clone Theo experienced during the torture.
Obviously, the snake and the woman witnessed the anomaly.
"This is…" The woman looked shaken while the snake frowned, asking, "What is happening? Shouldn't he have been released from memory? He has undergone such pain. All I want to do is end everything for him so he can reincarnate…"
The woman shook her head. "I'm not sure right now. This anomaly doesn't seem to be that simple. There is an influx of memory coming into him along with some Magic Power. It feels like he is getting stronger as time goes… But I don't think that's all there is to it…"
"What?" The snake frowned. On the one hand, he couldn't believe what she said, considering it was too absurd. On the other hand, he knew that Theo was an anomaly that they had never encountered before.
They had found a few souls with their memory and personality from time to time. But once they erased them, the soul could easily go into the cycle of reincarnation.
But this was the first time they found a soul that received new memory and even Magic Power after the cleansing process. It was as if Theo was supposed to die but couldn't.
If this continued, Theo would just keep getting a new memory. Even if the woman kept erasing it, they couldn't send him to the cycle of reincarnation due to the influx of memory.
"Can you block the flow?" The snake asked.
"No. It's impossible." The woman shook her head. She also wanted to end Theo's pain. Even though this was her job, she could still sympathize with Theo. But this was something beyond her control.
The woman thought for a moment. "If he keeps getting the memory, it's impossible to erase them continuously. It will be the same as having endless torture… But at the same time, we can't allow him to roam with the memory intact since it will cause chaos in Helheim.
"As for his condition, after working with his memory, it seems that he has received a weird skill called 'Clone.' This skill seems to be able to copy everything from body to soul.
"To put it simply, the one who is controlling his body seems to be his own clone. And it seems that his body has started decaying, but because the clone's body is still alive, it can't perish."
The snake seemed to be pitying Theo as he said, "Are you telling me that he can't die yet? What happens if his clone dies?"
"That's…" The woman thought for a moment, trying to find the solution with her ability. "If the clone dies, then the clone's soul will enter this place as well. But with all the memory intact as well due to this anomaly.
"When that happens, we only have three possibilities. The first possibility is that the clone is absorbing the real soul. This is the safest route… which is basically waiting for the clone soul to die and merge with the real soul.
"But because I have erased the real soul's memory, there will be a gap that will cause friction when they merge. Hence, the solution is to erase his memory once again. With the real soul becoming a blank slate, the clone soul should be able to absorb the real soul.
"With the soul becoming complete, we can finally cleanse him once more and send him to the cycle of reincarnation."
"…" The snake frowned. Just hearing the explanation allowed him to imagine the pain both of them would endure. The real soul seemed to be the winner in this case, considering the pain that the real soul would have to endure was gradual while the clone soul would endure the cleansing process for a longer time.
But it seemed that Theo didn't have the same opinion as the snake.
When he heard his clone would devour him in the blank state, he couldn't help but mutter inwardly, 'My own clone will devour me? Devour? Me?'
