'That's good.'
Eren said to Alephee and pondered for a bit. He looked at the Sage archer before deciding to extract more value out of her.
'Just wait. Let me see if I can get something more out of this bitch.'
Eren said to Alephee. In the next moment, he felt that the atmosphere around him had suddenly gotten tense and suffocating. He looked at Nira Nightshade to see that she was looking at him angrily.
"Did you… did you just call me a bitch in your head?"
Eren gulped empty air and raised both his hands in a defensive position before speaking up in a careful tone.
"Wait… what? There must have been some misunderstanding. I was thinking... the whole situation seems like a bitch to me. I mean for half-bloods like me.
We are not accepted by the kingdom of Edinburgh even though it was demonic rankers like you who established it in the first place. We are targeted by the Blood Punisher Force. The isolation array prevents us from leaving this world easily.
It's like we are forced to take a beating. If we cry about it or make our presence known, we get beaten up some more.
And all of this when we are the reason this world is experiencing a time of peace. It was our lives that were sacrificed for this world to get here.
Ain't that a bitch?"
***
The butcher hated the fact that Sages could read people like an open book with their soul sense. It looked like their souls would pass through some form of cleansing along with their bodies at the time of breaking into the Sage rank. Their souls would be strengthened and their soul sense would be more potent.
This amplification of soul sense at the time of breakthrough into the Sage rank was dependent upon how early it had gotten awakened in a ranker's journey. The earlier the soul sense got awakened, the more profound its impact would be at the time of the Sage breakthrough.
As a result, Alephee found it tremendously significant for Eren to awaken his soul so early on in his ranking journey. As a result, he had more time to refine his soul sense before it would undergo a metamorphosis at the time of the Sage rank breakthrough.
Eren didn't want to remain helpless against a Sage ranker's soul sense use.
He felt naked in front of Eliza when she deciphered almost all his thoughts as if reading a written note. He felt like he would not be able to do anything against her if things didn't change.
Eliza's soul sense was overwhelming, just as her other qualities were. Eren didn't want to get too stunned to act in front of the mummy again. So he had started taking steps to train his soul sense as well. And that training had paid him off when it came to having a conversation with Nira Nightshade.
Only rankers with soul sense can hope to shield their thoughts from those with soul sense. They needed fine control over their soul sense to do that.
Nira thought that she was reading Eren's mind with her soul sense. However, Eren let her read only what he wanted her to read. He could partition his thoughts into multiple segments to keep surface-level thoughts separate from his deep thoughts.
Even normal rankers could keep their surface-level thoughts separate from their deep emotions and mechanization if they really tried or made conscious efforts. However, a Sage like Nira would be able to gauge the true emotions of such rankers under normal circumstances.
That's where rankers with soul sense would have an edge over those who don't. Soul sense awakening was not about sensing the world around oneself on a deeper level. It was also about becoming more aware of it.
Elites would be separated from normal rankers with their soul sense as it gave them the ability to layer their thoughts on multiple levels depending upon their proficiency. The soul sense also enhanced the intellectual acuity of rankers, allowing them to keep up with their multi-layered thought process.
The added effects of the soul sense weren't technically a profound boost to a ranker's powers.
Soul sense, however, can be used to cast dual, triple, and quadruple casting spells and beyond with increased precision. The profound awareness that soul sense brought to rankers could be utilized to bolster their offense and defense at the same time if it was used right.
Eren had been training his soul sense by making use of these added effects over and over again. He could fight an entire group of opponents with enhanced efficiency than before. And he sustained relatively less damage while doing it.
Of course, he would be mentally exhausted while using his soul sense like this. But he felt his efforts would be worth it if they could give him the ability to stand against Eliza in the future. At the very least, he didn't want to be too stunned to act the way he once did.
Eren had been using his soul sense in a subtle way against Nira Nightshade. The efforts he had put in to train his soul sense were one reason behind his success with Nira so far. The other was the fact that it was only a vestige of soul left by the archer elf on the land of Anfang.
Eren had come a long way from the first time he had awakened his soul sense. However, he had rare slip-of-thought moments as well. Thankfully, he could always rely on his art of bullshittery when in pinch.
***
Nira Nightshade looked at Eren suspiciously for a few moments before retracting her soul sense. She eased her expression before nodding at him.
The butcher didn't feel any shame in playing the victim card of a generational trauma he hadn't felt this entire time. Thankfully, whatever he was trying to sell was bought by the Sage simply because she didn't think that he was capable of swindling her.
