72. Chapter 72 – Origin of the Shapeshifter

Chapter 72 – The Origin of the Shapeshifter
The scene in front of him was exactly the same as what Heine had seen in the “fish pond” in the underground chamber of the lord’s mansion.

Those silver-colored rays of light were helping Sa to recover his spirit.

But Barry obviously can not see this.

Meanwhile in Heine’s mind, the two were desperately calling out.

Yet Sa General was as unresponsive as if he were asleep.

Barry walked over to Chief Sa’s soul fire and stared at the unadulterated silver flame, his eyebrows furrowed.

“No …… it’s still soul mass, no soul access, could it be that the reaction just now was all done under manipulation?
“No, no, no, this is obviously impossible, excluding the possibility of the Essence Soul and the Ying Soul, there is only one result left ……

“The consciousness that controls the soul is hidden within the soul mass? Could it be that the spirit figurine itself possesses a consciousness? But how is this possible ……”

Soul Plasm.

The last time I heard this word was after filling Naga with Soul Loss Water.

He was accompanied by a flurry of murderous meta-spirits drilling into the body of that faunus, and his soul materialized into soul mass to be expelled from his body.

And in the process, the situation on Naga’s body was exactly the same as those dying metamorphs outside.

All of his body was strewn with silver-colored broken light, but it had yet to coalesce into silver spots.

“What exactly are you working on?” Heine couldn’t help but ask.

Barry was still immersed in his world of shattered light, as if he hadn’t heard Heine at all.

He was backtracking, refining, and dismantling the problem one step at a time.

And so the self-talk gradually returned from terms that Heine couldn’t understand to the most essential, basic elements.

Barry lived up to his reputation as a master; he made these things as simple as teaching someone how to eat with a spoon.

It was as if he were telling it all over again, or rechecking the process, to his other self, who knew nothing.

Now Heine could understand it all.

The essence of the summoning of the dead was to “rent” a wandering spirit from the underworld and attach it to the body of the deceased.

The figurines were, as he thought, carriers of souls.

Barry’s research is about how to transfer the souls of the living to “figurines”.

This is the most crucial step in breaking the cycle of life and death.

The reason why the souls of the living cannot exist on their own is because the suction force of the underworld and the shadow realm is omnipresent.

This is the rule.

But wandering souls from the Underworld can ignore the Shadow Realm.

That’s why the Underworld King is called a False God by the people of the Shadow Sanctuary.

He was a trespasser.

Thanatos shunted the dead souls of the dead that should have belonged to the Lady Whisperer of the Dead.

Then he rented them out at a very low price.

But the greedy necromancer wanted more.

They didn’t even want to pay the rent, so there were two ways to go.

Becoming a witch demon was one of them.

What Barry came up with was the second.

He weeded out the faint consciousness attached to these dead souls as well, keeping only the remaining soul mass.

This gave him a spirit figurine.

The living could then parasitize their consciousness on the spirit figurine and exist in this world in soul form.

One has not given up the physical body, but the soul has ascended.

The biggest difference between him and a witch-demon is that he has gained eternal life without becoming “dead”.

And he can keep changing carriers.

This is undoubtedly the necromancer’s version of “taking over”.

Of course, there are many problems with practicing such a great idea.

One of the biggest problems was the limited precision of Barry’s deconstruction spells.

It was true that the spell formation did not just separate the body from the soul, but also split the soul into consciousness and soul mass.

Unfortunately, it was currently limited to the undead souls of beasts.

Since beasts followed instincts entirely, the consciousness attached to the dead soul was even weaker and hardly needed to be removed much.

So Barry could only make beast spirit figurines.

And when a living person’s consciousness was attached to a beast spirit figurine, it could dominate two bodies at the same time.

That’s where those shapeshifters in the hall came from ……

So the shapeshifting school was actually first necromancy!

As for how their bodies were “compressed”, Barry didn’t say.

Now, the problem in front of Barry is:

When he separated the soul from the body, the soul took on the form of a pure soul mass.

In other words, Sa General s soul could not be split in the next step ……

It is already a spirit figurine.

Pure and flawless.

A spirit figurine without a trace of self-consciousness.

Cleaner than an animal.

Is that possible?

It’s not possible!

As a veteran necromancer, Barry knew the significance of that battle just now better than anyone else.

The three skeletons’ handling of the battle details could not have come from a necromancer’s control.

No one’s “micro-manipulation” could be that fine.

The skeleton in front of us must have self-awareness, or at least combat awareness.

But such a complex consciousness at the moment has been eliminated cleanly ……

If he can do this, he can “take over” everyone!

This is simply a miracle!
Furthermore, with this feather and the fact that they were able to enter this place, he guessed that the other party had something to do with Saberia.

Could it be that Saberia had realized the research that she couldn’t even do herself?
To this question, Heine was able to answer ……

It was because Sa General’s consciousness was asleep.

He didn’t know where the consciousness went when they slept and dreamed, not in the soul fire anyway.

In a way, Barry was now infinitely close to the correct answer.

This deconstructed spell of his even had some of the characteristics of a meta-spiritual spell ……

If meta-spiritual spell formations were extras, then he was already on the road to simulating extras.

This was undoubtedly an incredible achievement.

It’s just that he couldn’t have guessed that there was such a thing as a traveler no matter how much he thought about it ……

Seeing that Barry might be about to crack up if he thought about it any longer, Heine hurriedly spoke out:
“Is it possible that the consciousness is asleep? So it can’t be detected?”

In front of her, this is a “human old man” who can say the Grand Duke of McCalla. Combined with the fact that the other party was suspected to be “imprisoned” here.

He has reason to believe that the other party is a potential ally.

Maybe he was imprisoned here by the Night Elves to manufacture shapeshifters in bulk.

“Consciousness slumber?”

Barry suddenly froze, then his eyes dawned:
“It makes sense …… It makes sense, a genius design.

“Even consciousness needs to rest, and the soul mass is undoubtedly the finest cradle ……

“Meta-spirit, yes, yes, the meta-spirit can compensate for friction damage caused during the soul’s active period so that it doesn’t even have to replace the spirit figurine as often.

“So he’s slowly recovering now? Damn it, my meta-spirit affinity is so poor that I can’t even see it ……”

“I can feel it.” Heine spoke, “The Yuan Spirit is sinking into his soul mass and is making up for his deficit, you guessed right.”

Barry was stunned, “You really can?”

Heine nodded, “I’m the one who summoned them, I’m the one who is strengthening them, I’m the one who is communicating with them.

“What you can think of, what you can’t do I did, let go of me first, let’s talk slowly.”

Barry carried a strong skepticism, “Can you feel the emotions of the metahumans involved in deconstructing the spell?”

Heine brought her senses closer to the base portion of the spell, but was stopped by a wall.

It was a familiar sensation that he had also felt on the control module of the floating city.

It should be some kind of encryption measure.

“Your phalanx is locked.”

Snap.

Barry slapped his head.

“I’ll undo it.”

He revoked the barrier separating his senses, and Heine retried.

It did have the feel of a meta-spiritual spell.

But if a meta-spirit spell was a large piece of boiled beef, then the spell in front of him was beef broth that contained no meat.

The flavor was indeed there, the meat was truly absent.

But Heine could still hear sparse sounds.

“Exhausted~~~exhausted~~~”

“The genin is tired.” He replied.

“So that’s how it is ……”

Barry rubbed his chin in a thoughtful manner.

“No wonder the spells have been getting slower and slower to activate and respond lately, and replacing so many parts hasn’t helped ……”

He suddenly gave a start, “Then what about the metahumans on those-those shapeshifters out there?”

Heine didn’t answer, signaling that it was time for him to do something.

Barry released the grip of the Mage Hand.

“Can you sense it?”

Heine nodded, “They’re in pain, begging for help. So what the hell are those people ……”

“Surely something is wrong here ……”

Barry gave a somewhat nervous smile.

But it flickered and quickly became calm.

“Fusion. Their bodies are fusing.

“The genjutsu is the all-powerful particle that can fulfill the purpose of all spells, and any spell is initially based on the imitation of the genjutsu’s behavior.

“Sebitiga did the same.

“After I stuffed the human souls into the beast spirit figurines, the souls began to ‘fuse’ as a blueprint, and the physical body would follow along.

“But the process was far more complicated than I had imagined, and I had pinned my hopes on the genin to grant me my wish and allow me to observe the true method …… research really has no shortcuts to take.”

Ba Ri finished all of this expressionlessly.

There was no guilt, no pity, no chagrin.

Nothing.

Heine: “Is this your wish or a goal imposed on you by others?”

Barry shakes his head.

“None of that matters anymore, too many memories will just make me old. I only remember what I want to do.”

He suddenly tapped Heine on the shoulder.

“You’re good, honest, forthright, and as good a boy as my youngest.”

Heine was speechless for a moment.

But it didn’t seem unacceptable when he thought about how many times his own generation was higher than Dylan’s.

Barry returned to his stone chair, his eyes sweeping over the other two skeletons.

Especially the Guardian Iris.

“Annihilation …… obsidian flavor, you come into contact with those Yankees?”

“Not just contacted.”

Heine was going to mention Meno Gitil, but then he thought that the two were centuries apart and couldn’t possibly know each other.

But he went all in anyway.

“…… That’s why I’m here, this crypt where Sabelia used to be.”

After a pause, he asked, “So what is your relationship with Jungle Winds?”

“Relationship?”

Barry rubbed his head in thought.

“At first it was probably enemies, a kidnapper and hostage relationship, then employer and researcher, then missing person and legacy …… As for now, I don’t know, I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

That’s more than a long time …… Nearly a thousand years.

“Can you tell us about it?” Heine asked.

Barry shook his head.

“Those things had to do with hate, anger, and I stripped away all those strong negative emotions, and things were forgotten along with them.

“I don’t actively reach out to those, that would cause me to fall back into the underworld faster and become a witch demon before the research is realized.

“But I wrote something before I made that decision, and you can find it on the bookshelf over there.

“Now I’m going to do my research, no interruptions.”

He waved his hand and Chief Sa’s soul returned to his body.

“Yes.”

Heine walked over to the bookshelf and rummaged around.

(End of chapter)