"Heuk!"
My body throbbed, and I couldn't speak until I was done absorbing the shock that seemed to tear me apart from the inside out.
I could hear panicky voices around me, and their surprised faces came into my blurred view.
"Do something, Neron." Serah's voice rang out.
"I can't. It's affecting his Soul... there's nothing I can do about that."
That's right. I understood that much, which was why I knew I just had to wait out the storm.
'But, it hurts! This backlash is too much! Arhhhh!!!'
My eyes were tightly shut and I gritted my teeth as my Soul suffered continuous shock. Making sure my breathing was steady, and my internal flow was unhinged, I endured the pain.
'H-how... how could this happen...?!'
******************
"Haaa... haa... I think I'm all better now." I smiled weakly, looking at the crowd that had formed around me.
Some people looked more worried than others—even Ana, with all her initial pouting, looked very devastated.
In contrast, Ciara merely stared at me coldly—almost as though I was a spectacle, or maybe an interesting lump of meat.
I already knew she didn't really care about me, but still...
"What just happened, Jared?" Serah was the first to speak, as the others were still recoiling from surprise.
I was plunged into sudden pain, and this would probably be the first time any of them had seen me struggle so much.
I sighed, rising to my feet.
The pain had vanished, now replaced by a vast emptiness that would take time for me to adjust to.
"It was a Soul Shock, right? Something happened to your inner self... but how? We're you resonating with something? No, it shouldn't have been that severe, unless..."
As expected of Neron, he deciphered what was going on with me in an instant.
'Just how good are his sensory abilities?' I looked at his stoic face.
"Well, something a bit more severe than that..." I murmured.
I was currently downcast, overwhelmed by a multitude of emotions. However, for me to fully make sense of what had occurred, and also for everyone to understand, it was better for me to go somewhere first.
"Let's put a hold on this meeting, for now. There's something I need to see."
"We're coming with you!" Maria's voice almost overlapped with mine as she stared with resolve.
"Hey, speak for yourself." Of course, Ciara just had to speak up.
Her objection was met with a light jab from Jerry, causing her to yelp.
"H-hey!"
Seeing them interact like this made me feel better—if only a little. However, the heaviness in my heart couldn't be alleviated by something so simple.
"You guys should all come with me. I'm sure you'll find what you're about to see... quite disturbing."
With that, I brought out a Spell Card and activated the Teleportation Magic stored within.
'It's best I don't use much Magic for a while... just to stabilize my condition.'
There were probably not going to be any problems, but I didn't want to leave anything to chance.
Not anymore.
>VWUUUUSSSHHH<
We vanished, and in a spark of blue, appeared in a completely different location.
It was... at the center of a crater.
"W-what is this place?" Someone behind me murmured, but I ignored their question.
Bending down, I felt the heat of the ground with my hand.
'It's still warm... this just happened...'
The scene looked like a meteor fell from the sky, and the crater was as large as a massive city—bigger than even the capital.
"This landscape... those mountains... isn't this place—?!" Serah spoke, her voice climbing as she looked around her.
"So, you recognize this place." I smiled sadly.
The mountains around were already broken down, and the lush vegetation that once added life to the area was now gone.
It was just an empty, vast wasteland.
"What happened here? Isn't this the Beast Kingdom?"
My sadness grew deeper.
"What do you think?" A dark glint glowed in my eyes.
Maria and the others who followed me here during the last expedition all had heavy expressions on their faces.
"T-this place...?"
"H-how?!"
"No way..."
No one would believe it at first glance too, but I was certain.
"What exactly happened Jared? Is this what caused your Soul Shock?"
I nodded, answering Neron's question.
"I made a contract with the Beastfolk, as you know. When they died, the Soul Brand I placed on all of them was forcefully severed."
The problem was that it happened all at once, causing the 'Shock' to be too great to handle.
"Ah, I see... so their Souls were destroyed at once."
When Neron put it that way, it suddenly made me realize just how terrible such a thing was.
"Souls dissipate after death, but... there are certain attacks that are directed at the Souls. That seems to be what happened here." He stepped forward, analyzing the situation.
"Yeah, you're right. But, who could have done something like this? Could it be the work of an Arcana?" I asked, still conflicted.
The population of the Beastfolk was not small. They were in the thousands, and they had numerous species under one banner.
It was difficult for me to imagine a person doing something like that without an Arcana.
"It doesn't necessarily have to be an Arcana. I can probably achieve something of this scale, but in a different way..."
Usually, Neron's Magic only affected physical matter, and the Soul was incorporeal. His Time Magic had no effect.
That was why, even though he reversed the state of a person's body, their memories didn't revert.
It was the same way he could place himself in a Time Loop, yet, he wasn't experiencing everything in that same vein.
"If I reverse a person to a point of non-existence, it would probably have the same effect as killing a soul," Neron murmured.
"How much Mana would that take?" I looked at him.
"For one person? It depends on how long they've lived. Beastfolk have an approximate age of thirty-forty years, right? It should take a few hundred Cores for one..."
For a population like this, though... just how much power would Neron have to expend?
