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

Piercing cries of agony from a beast echoed across the region while its essence splintered apart, causing its form to crumple lifelessly onto the earth in a flash!

Even with the beast slain, the assailant showed no signs of halting; he thrust his blade into the remains and spirit of the creature, drawing in a huge chunk of the fragmented essence right into his weapon.

Afterward, he leaped a great distance away, fleeing the scene like a culprit after a forbidden act.

The beast's corpse erupted in a violent blast, sending foul corruption billowing outward in every direction amid scattering chunks of debris!

However, the assailant was already well clear of the danger, so the outburst left him unscathed.

Once he had put enough space between himself and the blast zone, the assailant came to a halt and gazed at his blade, now thick with sharp sword intent, his features blank and his eyes devoid of any spark.

"This amount should be enough, I think..."

As the essence shards dissolved into refined spiritual power, Rio’s typical flat tone held a touch of assurance just then.

"Phew~ This is the most tiring mission I have ever done in my life..."

It had been almost three months since his clash with Raika and half a year since Rio first stepped into the spirit domain.

The operation had stretched on for about six months already!

Though the pursuit of the outlaw lasted just 3-4 months, the effort to save Liam marked the longest undertaking Rio had tackled up to now!

’It’s been around 10 months since I last saw Lia... sigh... I am suffering from severe ’Lipium’ deficiency at the moment...’

With a shake of his head, Rio picked a nearby rock to settle on and catch his breath for a while.

Following the seizure of Elisia’s fractured essence, Rio had pressed on nonstop toward the spot where he initially accessed the spirit domain.

Rio soared via his blade at breakneck pace, cutting straight through to arrive there swiftly.

Monstrous foes and formidable wicked apparitions blocked his path at times, compelling detours around them, yet he still got there ahead of schedule.

Yet Rio was unable to depart immediately.

During his journey, Rio kept testing theories and treated every emerging beast as an experimental guinea pig; when trials went awry, he pulled out their essence shards to gather spiritual power.

He employed that spiritual power to repair the harm inflicted on Liam and Ellie’s essences.

Liam’s essence had lingered outside his form for over a year, and typically, such a spirit would fade away or proceed to the next reincarnation cycle.

Every moment, the essence expends spiritual power to cling to the physical plane, growing frailer day by day.

As a mighty peak A-ranker with a fabled ability, Liam endured where others would have vanished entirely long before.

Furthermore, Ellie had housed his essence in that essence lantern, designed to safeguard spiritual power over extended periods; it allowed survival, though significant erosion and injury occurred.

Rio channeled the refined spiritual power he amassed to mend those wounds and restore both Liam and Ellie’s essence shards.

In addition, the crude vessels he fashioned helped anchor the essences, stanching any seepage of their spiritual power.

Even so, the clock was ticking relentlessly.

Despite dedicating nearly three months to trials in essence fusion, Rio achieved only two successes, and those were merely partial triumphs.

’It’s more complicated than I expected it to be...’

Having honed his essence control over such an extended period, Rio determined that essence fusion demands specific prerequisites, where even minor mismatches can doom the whole process!

The initial requirement is straightforward: for essence fusion to work, the essences or shards in question must exhibit strong harmony.

This seemed basic at first glance, yet delving deeper revealed its intricate nature.

At the outset, Rio believed that essences sharing comparable spiritual rhythms would suffice for compatibility, sparing him much concern over this aspect.

But the truth proved far removed from that assumption.

’Merging compatibility does not just mean soul fluctuations... It is also about the sea of consciousness, memories of the souls and precise overlap...’

Essences require not only akin spiritual rhythms but also overlapping realms of awareness to a great degree.

The realm of awareness remains utterly distinct for each individual; no two people possess identical inner landscapes, making it nearly impossible to discover one closely mirroring your own in another’s essence.

This challenge rivals the odds of encountering someone traversing the identical ’Path’ as yours in existence, with matching depth of insight into that ’Path’ and identical impacts on both essences.

Such alignments border on the unattainable.

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

’I guess this is the reason why miasma hasn’t been able to succeed as of yet, even after thousands of years...’

’After all, it can’t compare people’s sea of consciousness and compare it to find a similar one without corrupting them both and destroying them in the process...’

It struck him as odd how seamlessly he aligned with the initial Rio.

Neither grasped their ’Paths’ at the moment of union, both entered weak, and both cherished the dream of a serene, joyful existence.

Their realms of awareness had mirrored each other closely prior to that.

Only later did the realms darken and desolate after Rio’s emotions began draining at an alarming speed, but before then, they aligned well.

Rio and the primal Rio matched so flawlessly that they appeared as twins across alternate worlds.

’And to think that out of all people in this world my soul merged with the exact person who was similar to me... I don’t think this is a coincidence...’

’Something is definitely controlling all this... and I have a hunch that it’s the same power that is making me lose my emotions and my connection with my humanity...’

Rio remained uncertain about that ’Hidden Power’ within him, yet he knew beyond doubt it dwelled there, influencing his essence at profound depths.

’Thankfully, in Ellie’s case, this first condition is not that big of a problem...’

Ellie’s essence had splintered into numerous shards, but those shards still originated from one essence, ensuring their profound compatibility.

Their realms of awareness harmonized, and even their ’Paths’ aligned.

All Rio had to accomplish was positioning those shards so the embedded memories overlapped correctly.

Every shard held a vital segment of Ellie’s realm of awareness, and Rio needed to align them to avoid any tangle in the memories and awareness they contained.

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

Though puzzles eluded his talents, Rio could delve into essence memories and probe realms of awareness.

Leveraging his essence memory reading ability, Rio scanned the recollections in those shards and sequenced them appropriately.

Peering into a companion’s full life story uninvited felt intrusive, but circumstances left Rio no alternative.

He strove to avoid personal recollections, focusing solely on memory aspects essential for her essence fusion.

’Forgive me Lia... I am not a pervert; I promise I did not do anything suspicious at all...’

As he ordered Ellie’s recollections properly, Rio mentally sought Lia’s pardon multiple times.

And given Ellie’s bond with Liam, it seemed like breaching the code of brotherhood with such actions.

After days of grueling labor, Rio at last aligned the essence shards and formed a cohesive, rounded essence from them.

Nevertheless, various minor and moderate sections remained absent due to the severe trauma from Ellie’s essence rupture.

With no better option, Rio drew forth vast quantities of spiritual power and shaped delicate essence shards from it to slot seamlessly into Ellie’s fractured essence voids.

Rio wasn’t truly forging a soul by hand; in that instant, he sensed he embodied a ’God’s’ role.

"Although it was a difficult task... I managed to get something out of it at the very least..."

"Now I can actually create ’prototype’ sea of consciousness by using soul energy and soul manipulation..."

Through essence control and spiritual power, Rio forged a vacant realm of awareness within the shards he made to bridge the breach in Ellie’s damaged inner landscape.

’But this power is straight up evil...’