Dimensional Keeper: All My Skills Are at Level 100 Chapter 1481 Soul Fragments

Joe shifted his focus from the hovering displays briefly and glanced at the seven family heads positioned close by, ensuring he captured their focus before proceeding. "Everyone is aware that from the initial floor up to the twenty-ninth, any cultivator scaling the combat tower encounters only shadowy silhouettes," he declared, his voice adopting the gravity of someone relying on profound, deliberate insight into the tower's design.

"These entities are precisely as they seem—summoned shades lacking true essence, crafted to challenge a climber's reactions and the direct use of their power, yet devoid of any profound background or comprehension. A potent enough method can overpower them easily since nothing supports them beyond the cultivation stage the tower imposes."

He halted, allowing that difference to sink in before advancing. "However, starting from the thirtieth floor, everything alters completely. Beyond the thirtieth floor, climbers no longer confront mere shadows. Instead, they meet soul remnants from actual people, cultivators who themselves climbed this tower in their past lives and, at a certain juncture, chose intentionally to deposit a portion of their soul within its structure, to remain safeguarded and deployed as a combatant for all subsequent ascenders. These were genuine individuals. They possessed authentic fighting expertise, authentic methods, authentic reflexes honed through extended periods of cultivation and conflict, and those attributes persist even if only a fragment of their soul endures now rather than the whole."

His gaze swept over the assembled family heads with a look implying that what followed was the heart of the matter. "This very reason made it hard for me to accept that Max could defeat these soul remnants," he stated.

He crossed his arms and directed his eyes back to the screens, where Max positioned himself solitary at the edge of the thirtieth floor, the transformed atmosphere of the room bearing down on him from every side.

"Let's observe," Joe murmured softly, displaying the serene poise of one who had anticipated this exact instant long before the climb commenced, "if that blade and this young man suffice against an adversary capable of countering with thought."

The seven family heads observed the screens with a focus that varied sharply from the casual manner they had viewed the prior levels. Their faith in Max remained unshaken in the slightest, yet faith and intrigue differed, and the thirtieth floor marked a boundary that none could regard without some investment.

They had witnessed Max shatter shadowy forms using a skill that weaponized the earth beneath, and they had savored the thrill as each prediction Joe voiced about the lower floors turned out overly cautious.

Yet the soul remnants formed an entirely distinct class of foe, and even the family heads, who had unanimously concluded that Max eluded standard evaluation, now found themselves drawn closer to the feed with a vigilance the first twenty-nine floors had never required.

They yearned to witness his approach to an entity that had once lived, one bearing the echoes of true encounters and true struggles waged by a true cultivator who had traversed that tower solely on the power of their own cultivation and determination. No matter Max's subsequent actions, they planned to scrutinize every aspect.

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Max positioned himself at the heart of the thirtieth floor, remaining vigilant, his breaths even and his hold on the sword relaxed to permit swift action in any course.

Then his adversary appeared, and Max froze.

It wasn't a shadow. It wasn't a dark assembly pieced from appropriated power and molded into a basic shape for utility. What confronted him on this floor mirrored a person with a fullness and precision the lower shadows had never matched, a form boasting clear traits and a noticeable physique, clad in the tattered remains of what had evidently been a cultivator's attire, its borders frayed and its patterns dulled by the temporal gulf dividing this remnant from its original owner.

The form adopted a stance befitting one habituated to perilous spots without retreat, its balance allocated with the instinctive accuracy of extended practice, and the emanation surrounding it held a trait distinctly apart from the crude, straightforward force emitted by the tower's creations.

"So, no longer those shadowy silhouettes," Max whispered, his gaze scanning his foe with the meticulous, inventorying scrutiny he reserved for novel encounters.

"Correct," his foe responded. "No more of those pointless entities."

The reply emerged in a measured, articulate tone, bearing the resonance and substance of a voice once issued from a vital larynx, and Max stiffened completely, unrelated to battle preparation but tied to his brain just assimilating an unforeseen and unanticipated element.

He fixed his stare on the figure ahead for an instant that lingered beyond his plan.

"You're able to speak?" he inquired, the query brimming with sincere wonder, devoid of his usual calculated calm, revealing the raw inquisitiveness of one facing an impossibility.

"Naturally I can speak," the foe answered, with the straightforward directness of addressing an almost redundant inquiry.

"How is that feasible?" Max pressed, his eyes tightening as he sought to integrate the sight into an existing mental model.

The shadows from below had stayed mute, driven like instruments in their intent, limited to fulfilling their programmed role. They hadn't assessed him, hadn't reacted to him, hadn't acknowledged him beyond a mark for removal.

The presence now before him executed something utterly otherwise. It interacted with him, heeded his statements, and formulated a reply tailored to their essence, and that gap between his thirtieth-floor anticipation and reality demanded a brief adjustment from Max.

His foe grinned. "I am a soul fragment," it explained. "What appears before you isn't a fabrication. It isn't formed from this tower's power or molded from the surrounding spiritual essence in the room. I am a leftover from a true person, a segment of a soul intentionally abandoned within these confines by the individual I formerly formed part of, maintained here to act as a fighter for each climber arriving at this level."

It stopped, and resuming, its tone held the serene, factual demeanor of one narrating a past they had fully accepted. "My name is Darian Voksh. I am a real living being. Even though this is just my soul fragment here, the fact that I am here and talking to you means my body is out there somewhere in the vast Divine Realm."

Max absorbed the words and then grew intrigued by a single aspect. "You willingly contributed a portion of your soul to this tower—why?"