Elric swiftly went through the memories of the wisp"s soul. Flashes of blurry scenes continued to play before his very eyes, a facade of countless years of experience flowing like an upstream river."As usual huh..." Elric thought as they did not start immersing himself in the view.
Elric knew better now how not to get fooled again.
The scenes before him are nothing but a filtered memory, or more accurately a modified memory. There are more sensitive events that are being covered by a mysterious spiritual energy lingering inside the wisp"s soul. As if there is an even bigger secret widely sleeping behind the waterfall of memories.
Though Elric had a clue with regards to who the spiritual modification comes from.
"If I have to reveal the hidden pieces of memory, I have no choice but to go even deeper... Though, I would have to risk myself losing more senses from the outside world." Elric had some fears with full memory diving.
It is simply another opportunity for his enemies to attack him since his body would be at the most vulnerable state with his soul"s consciousness detached.
"I guess I have to do this. After all, I got Dash"s protection anyway." He thought to himself as he finally made up his mind.
By completely detaching his soul away from his body, Elric went to a full soul dive despite the risk of dropping his physical body"s guard.
He trusts his friend and he will never be at rest until he finds the truth.
"First, I need to get rid of these fake scenes..."
Elric"s soul is currently standing before walls of flas.h.i.+ng memories.
Then suddenly, he channeled his soul"s energy out as a burning stick pulled out of a campfire.
"SHATTER!"
The flame-like soul energy in his body swiftly expanded outwards, pus.h.i.+ng away the flowing memories surrounding him and eventually shattering them like a bottle cracking from inside.
"SHATTER!"
WOOOOOM!~CRAAAs.h.!.+
And just like that, Elric managed to wipe out the traces of the mysterious foreign spiritual energy lying discreetly inside the wisp"s soul.
And now, with the modifying spiritual energy gone, Elric has now complete unfiltered access of all the wisp"s memory.
Unlike before, the flow of memories are nothing compared for the previous scene. Instead of flowing waterfall, what Elric could see now is an open ocean of thousand-years old memory of the wisp.
All it takes is for Elric is to immerse himself in this ocean of memories and all that he is looking for will be answered.
"I need to be careful though..." Elric remembered from the World Knowledge one of the most dangerous side effects of the Soul Memory scan, is the high chance of losing yourself in the middle of it.
One must now that the more he indulges in the memories of a different being, the more those scenes would reflect him to the point that one could confuse which memory was his.
The deeper one goes to the Soul Memory Scan, the higher the chances of one forgetting himself and might even take the personality of the one who owned the original memories.
For this reason, a lot of spiritualist does not dare openly use this power. Unless one has an overwhelmingly powerful soul, doing this sort of soul spell is a good recipe for self-destruction.
But the more that Elric ventured into the real memories of the wisp, the more determined he is to uncover more. Especially when he saw things that are extremely familiar to him.
Without wasting any more time, his soul immersed itself into the deeper ocean of memories and like a flooding river to his head, all kinds of information started to rampage in his mind.
Elric made sure to take note of everything until one particular moment caught his eyes. A scene that would forever change his life, a memory that explains all the coverups so far.
***
The wisp is floating in front of a familiar figure. Elric identified it as the Great Seer Mhata.
Behind her are few more silhouettes of mysterious figures.
They were in the middle of a dark room completely void of any details. It was just complete darkness where one could only see the various forms of the mysterious figures but not their real faces. Some are tall, some are small, but one thing in common with them is the surge of dark energy flowing in their midst.
"All the preparations are complete. The stars are in place and the time is ripe. I will live the rest to you Lord of the Lightning realm."
The Great Seer Mhata, in her Phoenix form, gave very detailed instruction to the-wisp. It was so detailed that Elric could not help but gasp in shock and realization.
Moments later, the meeting has been adjourned and the wisp is now back to the lightning elemental realm. For quite some time, it immersed itself in strengthening itself by devouring more lightning energy as if preparing for away.
Years pa.s.sed and the wisp finally made its move on a certain day. It cracked open a dimensional portal to the human realm and without hesitation, dived in.
For fear against the hidden spirituals who happen to be the weakness of wisps like him, lightning elemental from the Lightning elemental realm does not dare to come to the human realm that bravely.
But for the sake of its mission, the bluish wisp unhesitantly moved in between two worlds and appeared in the human world in the middle of the night.
Its figure was kept hidden in the middle of the blackened skies. It"s aura minimized while stealthily sucking the energy in the atmosphere and charging itself. It is preparing for an attack.
BZZT~BZZZT~
Minutes later, a wounded Eastern Dragon suddenly pa.s.sed by under a thick black cloud in the middle of the night.
It was Lesse who was undergoing an Elder Dragon"s tribulation of Light during that time.
"Huh, huh...One more strike, huh, I should be able to finish this." Lesse, in her wounded but elegant Eastern Dragon form mumbled to herself. She had the old cold and condescending gaze that was overflowing with pride.
As a princess of the Eastern Dragon region and hailed as the most talented Dragon in their race, she could not help but bravely take on the tribulation to reach the higher realm of Dragon"s evolution.
It has been roughly eleven hours ever since she started taking on the Tribulation of Light that usually lasts for twelve hours.
Every fifteen minutes, a couple of lightning will a.s.sault her to test the fort.i.tude of her body, soul and determination in order to earn the final push to the Elder Dragon stage. Each lightning is far stronger from the last one.
And now that she is on the last hour, Lesse"s eyes were glowing in burning determination, ready to meet the final strike of the tribulation and pa.s.s it with full confidence. Right now, all she need is a little more time to heal her countless injuries from the last strikes.
"I can do these. I prepared too long for this day. I cannot fail and disappoint my father. I am a princess of the Eastern Dragon race, I must uphold our pride and pa.s.s these tests without a hitch!"
Lesse cheered herself as she slowly came closer to extremely thick and dark clouds.
"It is really coming, Elder Dragon stage, you are mine!" Lesse could feel powerful lightning energy growing from the middle of a dark cloud. The powerful pulsating aura of divine Tribulation of light.
"five minutes.. Based on my calculations, the growing lightning energy around should reach a peak charge in less than five minutes. Until then, my body should be able to recover enough to endure the next at-"
KRUGHGGHGUUG!!~
A rumbling sound of thunder caught Lesse off guard and she could not help but suddenly stop in the middle of her flight.
"Wait, did I calculated wrong? Why is it starting to-"
KRAAAKAAABOOOOOOOM!~
And just like that, Lesse"s half recovered body was suddenly a.s.saulted by a bolt of extremely strong lightning that was simply out of her expectation.
Little did she knew that it came from the Lord of the Lightning Elemental realm. And unlike the divine lightning of Tribulation of light, this one holds a killing intent of an elemental!
"N-no! I-I can"t lose now- I c"
It was so strong that the lightning energy continued to linger on Lesse"s body, causing it to heat up and glow brightly in the middle of the night -revealing her long Dragon body to the human eyes below.
Then Elric saw it.
He saw himself, ten years ago, how he runs excitedly out of their small nipa house in the middle of the night.
Elric could hear the sound of his grandma calling him to go back to bed.
But he was too stubborn. Immature, naive, and a complete simpleton running after his fantasy.
It was starting to rain and the wind blows coldly, the thick dark clouds completely blocked the s.h.i.+ning stars above.
From the perspective of the wisp that was hiding from the thick black clouds, Elric witnessed how that night came to be.
He saw the Mananggal flapping its wing"s through the forest, the Kapre revealing itself from its hiding place. And the fate that was unfolding before the running boy in the middle of a stormy night.
All it takes is a perfectly timed lightning bolt to change the course of history.
All it takes is one command from the Great Seer Mhata.
It was a night to be remembered indeed.