CH:14 Leaving the Cube

A forest of hairs flashed no wider than the eye of a needle, spreading far and wide, stretched to my absolute limit while maintaining my human form. Waves of pressure spread from them as they tore through in all directions, expanding like they had in the battle against Horus Zeus. That weapon from my tool kit was worthless against foes with pressure of their own unless I gave them some help. Trees were uprooted and blown apart, and thousands of hungry ghosts vanished as my hair ripped through them.

Despite the dissolution of my hair and the overwhelming wall that I couldn’t overcome with my current soul density, I refused to succumb. I fell to my knees, but it was only a temporary setback. I would rise again, stronger and more determined than ever.

Slowly, I regained myself, stood up, and stared at the destruction I had caused with a single attack. I was a bomb that obliterated a mile in every direction. 150,000 hairs was all it took, combined with all the pressure fragments with most of my chi invested.

Chi was the fuel that fragments relied on to alter reality. Everything I did relied on chi, even if I was a soul being and could only generate and store it in my soul space. I had limited, and the more I pushed myself, the easier they were to find.

Holding together, my pressure body took around 70% of my capacity. If I had a natural body, I could use 100% of my power. Or, if I left myself completely vulnerable, I could use all my energy.

Neither was viable where I was, so I instead focused on using my fragment to turn my detection tactic into something that would give me breathing room. As it turned out, I could only use so much chi before I exhausted the soul will that manipulated pressure.

Even while using my fragment, my hair won’t tear through a famine royal's natural pressure defense. What they lacked in pressure flexibility was that they made up for it in direct power. I punched, covering half a football field with a single black spear.

The pressure dissipated, revealing my hand in its standard shape. I held up a hand, and a wall of black pressure appeared. Having killing moves and battlefield control would be helpful.

I felt my head throb, but it was worth it. With some effort, I could make a wall of black bricks.

Manifesting pressure constructs made my soul throb from the effort, but with practice, it got easier. All I needed was to lose my body to truly delve into the power of my soul.

My flight technique took me high in the air. It couldn’t make my pressure body stronger like a mortal one, but it helped me control myself. I could fly using my pressure fragment, a dream come true.

I felt my spirit condense further as I poured pressure into myself. I felt another fragment like a star shining through after a great storm. Through the screaming wind and rising dust storm, I felt like I had a hint of something.

Vast amounts of spiritual energy energized my soul from the destruction of so many compressed down.

I felt my skin and how fake it was. My body was layered under pressure, breaking the rules and bending others to form the illusion of a spiritual body. My soul was beneath my skin, where muscles moved, and bones stood firm. A small sphere no larger than a pearl grew slowly but surely. Spiritual energy flowed in and rushed down, compressed by the force of my compression. It clicked then, and I felt like I picked a fragment out of nowhere.

Laughter alerted me to the presence of Li Mei.

She arrived not long after I gained insight into myself. My compression formed and appeared in my soul space, quickly lapping up the chi within. I instinctively moved it next to my pressure fragment, and the two began to slowly rotate around each other.  

I groaned as the density increased, making my soul shrink until it was barely larger than a pea.

“What have you learned from this little training trip?” Li Mei asked.

I swiped my hand, and a pressure blade swept across the landscape for an entire football field of range. My hand raised, and a black war hammer manifested and compressed, becoming formidable. I swiped with it, and the hammer vanished before I lashed out with a spear and raised a wall behind me.

More spirit energy pulled into me as I naturally attracted it due to the density of my soul. A thought hit me, and then soul gravity exited, and that could be the last ingredient of my spirit art.

No fragment appeared. It seemed that although I figured it out, gaining another fragment so soon was beyond me. That was fine. I felt like I was learning and advancing at breakneck speeds. Compression needed time to settle and grow within my soul space.

“Do powerful souls attract others?” I asked.

“Powerful souls repel. They don’t attract. Large collectives push others away. That’s why we need to devour each other to take the souls stored within each other’s spiritual bodies.”  Li Mei said.

I nodded slowly.

If I had a more significant soul with more mass, I could use more soul constructs. My soul was strange. It had colors mixed in it that I didn’t like. They felt wrong like they didn’t belong to me.

“How do you get rid of souls that you don’t like?” I asked.

“You are talking about those hundred girls wrapped around your soul.” Li Mei said.

“How did you know?”

“I didn’t at first, but after we spent time together, I started getting the feeling they were there. If you don’t want them, break them off your soul and give them to me. I know of something fun we can do with them.”

…

Ripping souls out was difficult. Li Mei played with her boobs to get Atom’s attention while he worked out hundred of the most desperate, shy, obedient, and virgin souls she had ever felt. They were like tiny, compressed little things attached to the small black mass that was Atom’s massive throbbing soul. It wasn’t big, but it felt big, and that’s what mattered.

The man himself, more a shadow given three dimensions than any of the hungry ghosts, slowly pulled them away from his soul. Atom’s soul was, to put it bluntly, a terrifying black hole that drank in the shattered remnants of the hungry ghosts he slew. It absorbed something from them and cast the rest out into the plane around them. Soon enough, they would reform weak and unappetizing, more fit to be furniture than food.

She expected the souls attached to him to be similar, but that wasn’t the case. His soul didn’t naturally attract and filter spiritual energy; instead, he learned how to do it.

Atom wasn’t unique because nothing was truly unique, but it made him into something different than herself and the rest. He was like the other side of the coin, and it was hard to tell which rules carried over and which ones did not.

Souls traveled away from his soul, losing their protection, and floated out of his body like algae on the bottom of a pond. Li Mei bent down as bubbling pink grains of souls piled like so much dust on Atom’s hand, waiting for her enjoyment. They would fit perfectly in her collective. She removed a piece of hide from her bag and rolled it into a straw.

Li Mei shoved one end of the straw up her nose and snorted, taking in the powdery goodness of so many souls straight up her nose. They burned a little as her collective assimilated them faster than she thought possible. They fit like a glove, obsessive nature and all. Of course, she banished their crush on some weirdo named Elder Yu and directed it at a real specimen of admiration.

Atom was at a nice big dick and was free to distribute the goods after all. She hacked and spat as she ripped away the souls that didn’t mesh well with her collective. They barely gave any power, so she stripped them away from her body, and the cat ears slowly vanished. She was a royal, meaning she was at the top of the hierarchy in the cube. That wasn’t the end of things. Some were stronger than others, determined by their number of souls and unity.

That was her hypothesis. The gains might only be due to some quirk of her soul, but she would like to think she cracked the code. Atom had a single powerful soul, blacker than night and hungrier than even hungry ghosts like herself.

She liked to think they got along well, like a house on fire. Li Mei enjoyed the feeling of reaching 80% alignment even as Atom seemed to grow before her eyes. Something had changed in him after the souls were removed; he seemed to harden.

“I think it's time to leave. Wait here. I’ll leave and then crush the cube.”

…

A soul more akin to a drop of ink than a hungry ghost tore through the numbers. Lances of black bit through royal flesh and ripped souls apart. Whenever one of the experienced fighters flanked him, a wall appeared to block attacks, and those with precognitive abilities scattered before a blade of darkness cleaved through them.

Many hungry lords watched in awe as a single royal obliterated the others as it moved toward an opening door. What was once a battle without bloodshed became a grave for the royals fighting over doors outside.

…

Freedom tasted so sweet, better than the sweetest of drinks. My pressure flowed to my command, almost obeying before my thoughts arrived at decisions. What once tired me out was nothing to me. Constructs appeared at my command as I cleared through the numbers before me and filtered their vast stores of spirit energy. Once I left this place, there would be no more chances to gain as I would here.

I felt the vestiges of the pill vanish, and the painful throbbing in my soul settled. Tears ran down my cheeks at the pure feeling of freedom. I didn’t love Lui Fang. There was no want to protect her anymore; only a need for revenge remained. It was pure and sweet. I didn’t want Li Mei to take her body, either.

Once all the noise from the pill vanished, all I wanted was to put an end to it and move on to my next adventure. I needed a body, and Li Mei did too. I accepted that and planned to get each of us together. It shouldn’t be hard if you put in enough effort.

De Zimo rose from the ground, roaring. His body morphed into the grand shape of an ancient dragon.

“Traitor,” The dragon shouted.

I laughed. “Compression is fantastic. Do you know fragments with a theme can be used as false spirit art? I formed a ring of pressure in the air, then made a formation and compressed it into the ring. The spirit energy gathered in the ring, creating a little ball of spirit energy in the center as the ring expanded.

“What is that abomination?”

“I’m a landscaper,” I said.

He lashed out with claws and teeth. I dodged around his massive falling claws and formed a wall in his mouth before he could bite down. Formations appeared around the wall before the dragon could crush it between its powerful jaws, and I connected the ring to it.

De Zimo rolled as the wall became a square pyramid with a tip that extended two football fields in the blink of an eye.

“What does that mean?” De Zimo screamed.

I waved my hand, and the pyramid turned, tearing up any royal in its way. It slammed down, and De Zimo curled around it before constricting the pyramid. The formation scripts blazed to life before exploding just before De Zimo shattered the pressure pyramid. I smirked as something I hadn’t tried before worked like a charm.

Three more rings appeared with the same formations, quickly gathering spirit energy.

“I shape the land to my advantage or others' advantage if they pay me enough,” I said.

Li Mei flew up and kicked De Zimo in the head, knocking the dragon flying. The big-boobed girl glared at me, flashing her cat-like eyes. Her red and purple hair flared up before she appeared in my guard and landed a blow on my forearm. An explosion of force ripped through my body and three dust clouds to the four winds.

“Stop fighting, both of you.” Li Mei said, flew down to one of the struggling royals.

Li Mei ripped off the royal’s arm before biting into it. “What are you doing? He’s one of us.” De Zimo said.

“No, he was in the way of us getting out of here. All of those guys were. Let's eat up and get as strong as possible because we’re about to be on the outside,” Li Mei said.

I sighed and dissipated my rings. “I planned to blast him with enough soul arrows to blot out the sky. That was going to be a sight. Imagine thousands of arrows sticking out of a corpse-littered ground. De Zimo’s arrow-ridden dragon body rotting, pelted with arrows, slowly becoming a part of the landscape.” De Zimo glared at me. “Come on, it would have looked great. I’m sure you would have admired the view if it wasn’t for your body,” I said.

“You’re different.” Li Mei said.

“I think getting rid of those extra souls has positively affected me. Revenge was something I thought about before but never really felt into. Before, it felt like something I was obligated to do. After I get rid of that baggage, it feels like something I will enjoy doing. I feel the most like the pill furnace didn’t happen. The pain from the betrayal is there, and I will skin the flesh off that bitch, rub salt in her wounds, and crucify her. I’ll watch as the crows peck out her eyes and eat her living flesh for weeks before her cultivator body gives out.” I smiled at that image. “Elder Yu will need something creative.”

“What did they do to you?” De Zimo asked.

I explained it, and the dragon nodded his head. “Your anger is justified. I will assist you if I can once we’re out of this place.” A door appeared, and I stepped into the real world.

The cube lay on the ground, and I smashed it without a second thought. Space ripped, and Li Mei tumbled out and looked around.

We were outside the vault near a base camp with wolves covered in ice and snowbirds on banners. A mighty presence took my breath away as a being clad in thick animal furs with a severing realm aura flew down from a pagoda. It seems we were out of the frying pan and into the fire.