The tribulation lightning was made to unmake a thing at its root, and even a body jumper like Orath still had a soul, and it would seem like this golden lightning was the bane of souls.
This detail did not surprise me because my tribulation had been able to easily track my ascension from Acolyte to Adept, which was one of the first great transformations of the soul.
I held my hands close to Orath’s face, and his eyebrows curled, and his skin reddened, and the golden light from my palms painted his terror in sharp relief. There was no pleasure in his suffering, because I understood that the body he was wearing may not belong to the real Orath, and it was someone else inside of him.
"I really want to see you escape from me," I whispered to the panicking man, whose mouth worked, but no sound came out. The thunder overhead rumbled, low and hungry, and the golden lightning that crawled down my arms began to move closer to his face.
"I know you’re not really here," I sneered. "Your real body is somewhere else, or do you even have any body left?"
Orath’s eyes flickered toward the pyramid, and I saw the last of his calm and arrogance vanish, "Shut up." Orath’s voice was a rasp. "You know nothing."
I smiled, but there was no mirth in my eyes. "I know that you’re afraid, and that is enough for me. So run, Orath. Jump. Find another body. Show me how it works." I paused. "I’ll wait."
I raised my other hand, the golden light brightened, causing the heat to intensify, and if Orath was not an Adept, he would have begun to burn, but it was not far from happening.
The Adepts behind me were silent, and I could feel their eyes on my back, they were not attacking me because I believed they thought I was an Arcanist, but the fact that they were not running even at this moment, made me appreciate their bravery, or was it stupidity... eh, I don’t think I was the right person to judge on stupid actions, I had taken a lot of those stupid actions.
Orath’s jaw tightened, his eyes darting side to side as they grew redder under the heat from my closing hands, "That power is not for mortals."
He saw no change in my movements, and Orath began to beg, "Please," he whispered. "Please, I’ll tell you everything. The seals’ locations. The bloodline anchors. Just..."
"Tell that to the lightning." I closed my hands around his head, and Orath understood what was happening to him a half-second before I did it.
Lightning Tribunal could burn the flesh to ash, but before it did that, its first target was the soul. The lightning infused him. The tribulation’s echo poured into Orath’s borrowed body, filling every channel, every nerve, every fragment of the soul that was trapped inside, and he arched backward.
I felt him try to fight the lightning as it reached for his soul, and his soul was indeed more powerful than anyone that I had ever sensed, but that strength was nothing before this lightning that seemed to be the natural enemy of souls.
Then he screamed, and it was not a pretty sound. All fear and desperation, like a child, and I frowned, I should have stopped expecting dignity from the people who trampled on the innocent for the barest fragments of power.
∞
I want to tell you I felt nothing looking at him, because that is the version of me I would prefer you to meet. It would not be true. I hated the cries of pain, even when it came from those that I hate, but I could not let myself be distracted.
Orath was my experimental mule, and I was going to use him to understand my spells and enhance my power as a mage, especially in a vast field like the soul.
I cut out the sound of his screaming, and as the golden lightning filled his body, I pushed my threads into his body also, while simultaneously activating Soul Forge.
It was difficult holding together all these abilities, but having so many channels meant that I could do this far more easily than I had expected.
As the golden lightning tore his soul apart, I fished the pieces with my threads and poured them into the flames of the Soul Forge, and although I knew I was losing a lot of him, I was able to grab parts of him, and I began to slowly read it.
I discovered that there was an overarching technique woven into his soul, like a structure folded into the base of his soul, and I thought I might have just seen the structure of the unique spell that allowed Orath to jump from one body to another
I could feel a path with my threads running out through the crown of Orath’s head, but my golden lightning had burned this path shut, and I understood why Orath could not flee the moment I revealed my golden lightning.
If his soul had emerged from his body, then it would be like pushing out a lightning rod into the cloud during a storm, and even without commanding it, my lightning would have attacked the soul.
More of his soul began to shatter, and I did my best to trace the shape of his soul, especially this spell. Even if I could not recognize the body, I should be able to recognize this spell.
This was valuable knowledge, and in time, I would be learning more, since there was almost no soul left inside the body.
His screams faded to nothing, and he went still. I stepped back, and the body slumped to the ground, smoking. A second later, it came alight from the residual lightning left inside.
I frowned as I considered everything I had learnt from Orath’s soul. I had not gotten everything, but in the next loop, I would keep harvesting until I knew Orath better than he knew himself.
∞
Someone swallowed behind me, and I turned to see the Adepts looking at me like I had grown ten heads.
"You’re still here." I smiled, "I am impressed."