The Stonehearted Knight-Chapter 444: Ready to Transform

The Dragon Bear Soul lay in his inner space, near the monolith. Its snores sent tremors through the ground.

Hex chuckled.

"Growl."

The Frost Dragon stood beside him and reacted to his comment. She was an intelligent girl. A shame he couldn’t claim her as his own.

"Easy lassy. I’m not blaming him for what happened." And he truly didn’t.

The white rabbit explained it to him while he had been recovering from the fatigue.

Each Soul with even the tiniest remnant sentience desired freedom. The stronger the Soul became, the stronger such a desire burnt.

In Hex’s case, his partner as a Druid was a Soul type of a beast. It was extremely rare.

Hex remembered the curious gaze he received from the rabbit when they discussed it. Hex had acted as if he bonded with such a pet by chance.

Anyway, the rabbit said that the bond had been strong and the Soul’s trust in him remained strong. It hadn’t revolted. The excess energy made it lose control over its desires.

There were ways to control it. But Hex hadn’t consulted first and had consumed two soul-related items in a short span of time.

An overload of energy created the instability in the bond between them and a berserk-like reaction from his Dragon Bear Soul.

The rabbit stressed how important it was to be careful with the Soul. The dim light of regret that flickered inside his eyes for a brief moment suggested he had suffered. Hex believed the rabbit had been a human who lost his control and ended up as a white rabbit.

"Don’t worry about him. He needs to hibernate for a while. Once he awakens he will be back to normal," Hex said to the Frost Dragon. After a brief silence, she snorted and landed on the monolith. With a last glance at the Dragon Bear Soul, she tucked in her wings and went to sleep too.

’Why do I feel like a parent with two stubborn children?’ Hex mused and exited the inner space.

He anticipated a huge improvement when the Dragon Bear Soul rose from his slumber. ’I think I might step into the next stage when that happens.’

...

Sven sat on the floor, joined by three of his wives. They formed a four-point circle, surrounding a mud pit in their mansion.

The mansion hung from the main branch. He felt the gentle sway of his building but it didn’t pull his attention.

He waited. They waited too.

Splash.

The faint sound of mud displacing put them all on their feet. The mud was special. It appeared to be molten gold and was mined from a volcano that had been artificially closed for a thousand years.

The mud flowed. And then swirled. First it moved slowly. But soon it picked up speed.

Woosh.

A sinkhole appeared, devouring the mud. Seeing this Sven was on high alert. A simple mistake was all it would take to destroy this progress. His investments would go down the drain, so to speak.

"Be ready. Pull her out as soon as you see her arms."

His wives knew this. Yet, he reminded them. It was too important. Regret wouldn’t help him if something happened to her.

The golden color had paled. Now the pit appeared more muddy than magical.

"There!" Svetlana exclaimed. She dropped flat on the floor, and lowered her upper body into the sink.

Sven was but a second later than her. He jumped beside her and followed her arm. They didn’t see a thing in the darkness but he trusted Svetlana. He trusted her the most actually.

She was wiser and more loyal toward him than anyone else. They had shared everything since childhood. Their toys, their food, their blood...

She had lived with them ever since her mother, Sven’s aunt, had died. And they had married when she helped him kill all his brothers, sisters...her brother and father...and all other blood who could lay a claim on the throne.

"Got her."

Sven felt the touch of his fourth wife. Without a slightest of hesitation he grabbed her arm and pulled. Svetlana held onto the other one.

His other two wives held onto him and Svetlana. With groans and gasps, they managed to pull his fourth wife out.

"You did it."

He said to his newly-ascended wife, once they stood beside the pit. She was still naked with some mud smeared on her body. She looked ravishing. And mesmerizing. Her Transformation was completed.

...

Althea sat in her room, surrounded by everyone the High Temple assigned on this mission.

They did stand far from her, though. She understood their trepidation. Thousands upon thousands strings weaved around her, filling everyone that laid eyes on these golden lines with awe and fear.

She sensed through the strings the way everyone wished to live while constricted by the boundaries to which these strings allowed people to move.

To ascend, she had to Transform. To Transform, she needed to change as many threads she could.

It was up to her to decide in what way those changes would come. She could improve someone’s fate. And she could destroy other’s fate.

She had the power to do both. With one little constraint. Whatever she did, she couldn’t allow the fate of the world in its whole to destabilize.

Her fingers blurred as she went through the thousands of strings, determining the effect of each on every other string near her. Each change affected every other string.

What did that imply? She had to observe each of them with every change she made. Her mental and physical state were pushed to their limits. She sensed fatigue building up. But she couldn’t just give up.

It would enter her mind, though. Even if she had decided to see things to the end, the idea of quitting never seemed to quit.

It was worse when a certain person’s face appeared before her. She persisted. The voices of thousands of people cheering and praying to her, continued to buzz in her ears. Always.

Golden sparks flew as her speed increased. Some strings shone brighter. Some turned dimmer. But she continued. She knew what each change did. She knew how many would smile. How many would cry. How many wouldn’t exist soon...

But she continued.

She heard gasps. She didn’t look. It was apparent why they reacted like this. She was changing. Her Transformation had begun.