Reborn as an Extra Chapter 597: Soul Merge. Part-3.

Shrieks of agony echoed from the beast as its soul splintered apart, its form crumpling to the earth in an instant!

Even with the creature slain, the assailant pressed on; thrusting his blade into the remains of its soul and body, he drew in a huge portion of the shattered soul bits straight into his weapon.

Next, he leaped a great distance, fleeing the scene like a thief in the night.

The beast's corpse erupted in a blast, sending foul miasma radiating outward while chunks of debris scattered in every direction!

Yet the assailant was already well clear; the blast left him untouched.

Once he put enough space between himself and the blast zone, the assailant halted and gazed at his sword, now thick with sword intent, his face blank and his eyes devoid of any spark.

"This quantity ought to suffice, I believe..."

With the soul shards breaking down into refined soul power, Rio's typically flat voice held a touch of assurance right then.

"Phew~ This ranks as the most exhausting quest I've tackled in my entire life..."

Almost three months had passed since his clash with Raika, and half a year since Rio first stepped into the spirit realm.

This particular quest had stretched on for about six months!

Though the pursuit of the fugitive lasted just 3-4 months, the operation to save Liam stood as the longest endeavor Rio had undertaken so far!

’It’s been roughly 10 months since I last laid eyes on Lia... sigh... I’m really grappling with a bad case of ’Lipium’ shortage right now...’

With a shake of his head, Rio spotted a nearby rock and settled down to catch his breath.

Ever since claiming Elisia’s fractured soul, Rio had been hurrying back to the spot where he initially accessed the spirit realm.

He soared on his sword at breakneck speed, cutting straight through the air to arrive there swiftly.

Sure, beasts and formidable wicked spirits blocked his path, compelling him to veer off course and circle around, yet he still got there ahead of schedule.

However, Rio was unable to depart immediately.

During his journey, Rio kept testing theories nonstop, turning every beast that crossed his path into an experimental guinea pig, and when trials went awry, he pulled out their soul pieces to gather soul power.

That soul power went toward repairing the harm inflicted on Liam and Ellie’s souls.

Liam’s soul had lingered outside his body for over a year, and normally, such a soul would fade away or proceed to the next reincarnation cycle.

Every moment it spent in the physical plane drained its soul power, growing feebler day by day.

As a top-tier A-rank powerhouse with a legendary ability, Liam had held on; without that, his soul would have vanished ages ago.

On top of that, Ellie had housed his soul in that special soul lamp designed to hold onto soul power for extended periods; that kept him going, though significant erosion and injury had occurred.

Rio applied the gathered pure soul power to mend those injuries and restore the souls of both Liam and Ellie’s fragments.

Furthermore, those crude holders he fashioned were aiding in anchoring the souls and stopping any further soul power from seeping away.

Even so, the clock was ticking.

Despite devoting nearly three months to trials and soul fusion work, Rio achieved success only twice, and those were merely incomplete victories.

’Far trickier than I’d imagined...’

After honing his soul control skills over so much time, Rio determined that true soul fusion demanded certain prerequisites be met, and the tiniest mismatch could doom the whole effort!

The initial requirement was straightforward: for fusion to work, the souls or shards being joined had to share high compatibility.

This sounded easy on the surface, but delving deeper revealed its intricacies.

At first, Rio figured that matching soul vibes would make them compatible enough, sparing him much concern over this aspect.

Reality proved otherwise entirely.

’Compatibility for merging goes beyond just soul vibes... It involves the sea of consciousness, the souls’ recollections, and exact alignments...’

Beyond similar soul vibes, their seas of consciousness needed substantial overlap.

Each individual’s sea of consciousness remains utterly distinct; discovering one nearly identical to your own in another soul borders on impossible.

It’s akin to hunting for someone walking the identical ’Path’ as you, grasping it at your exact depth, with that ’Path’ imprinting the same marks on both souls.

Events like that scarcely ever occur.

Only upon uncovering these factors did Rio grasp the oddity of his own being.

’No wonder miasma has failed to crack this after millennia...’

’Since it can’t assess seas of consciousness for matches without tainting and ruining them along the way...’

It struck him as uncanny how seamlessly Rio aligned with the original Rio.

Neither grasped their ’Paths’ at the merge, both started frail, and both cherished ambitions of a serene, joyful existence.

Their seas of consciousness mirrored each other closely prior to that.

Only later, as Rio’s emotions rapidly faded, did his sea of consciousness turn shadowy and desolate, but before then, the resemblance held strong.

Rio and the original Rio matched so flawlessly that they might as well have been siblings from parallel worlds.

’To imagine that amid everyone in this realm, my soul bonded with someone so akin to me... This can’t be mere chance...’

’Some force is orchestrating this for sure... and I suspect it ties to whatever’s stripping away my emotions and my link to humanity...’

Rio couldn’t pinpoint his ’Hidden Power,’ yet he knew it dwelled within him, influencing his soul at profound depths.

’Luckily, for Ellie, this primary condition poses little issue...’

Ellie’s soul had splintered into numerous bits, yet those bits all stemmed from one soul; hence, their compatibility was off the charts.

Their seas of consciousness aligned, as did their ’Paths’.

Rio simply had to position those fragments so their embedded memories overlapped correctly.

Every fragment held a vital segment of Ellie’s sea of consciousness, and Rio aimed to assemble them without scrambling the memories and awareness they contained.

It resembled piecing together a vast image puzzle with scores of parts; the catch was Rio’s lack of skill in puzzles.

Though puzzles weren’t his strength, Rio could peruse soul memories and probe seas of consciousness.

Leveraging his soul memory reading ability, Rio scanned the memories in those fragments and sorted them accurately.

Peering into a companion’s full life story uninvited felt invasive, but Rio saw no alternative.

He strived to skip any intimate recollections, focusing solely on key memory spots for the soul merge.

’Forgive me Lia... I’m no creep; I swear nothing shady happened...’

As he ordered Ellie’s memories properly, Rio mentally sought Lia’s pardon more than once.

And given Ellie’s bond with Liam as his beloved, it seemed like breaching a sacred trust.

Following days of intense labor, Rio at last aligned the soul fragments correctly and shaped them into a complete, rounded soul.

Even then, various minor and moderate chunks were absent due to the severe trauma from Ellie’s soul breakage.

With no better option, Rio drew in vast quantities of soul power and molded tiny, detailed soul pieces from it to slot neatly into Ellie’s soul gaps.

Rio wasn’t truly forging a soul by hand; in that instant, he felt like he was playing the role of a ’God’.

"Even though the chore was tough... I at least gained something valuable from it..."

"Now, I’m able to fashion a ’prototype’ sea of consciousness using soul power and soul control..."

By employing soul control and soul power, Rio formed a vacant sea of consciousness within the fragments he made to bridge the voids in Ellie’s damaged sea of consciousness.

’Yet this ability feels downright sinister...’