Issa

As the pinnacle existence on Blackrose's bloody battelfield, a sort of disillusionment occured in Richard's mind. Represented by tetrahedrons that manifested the faces of its inhabitants on the surface.

In Richard’s vision, the souls of the dead were like spots of starlight floating aimlessly in the sky. He suddenly formed a tetrahedron around himself on a whim, and these souls that were about to disintegrate suddenly sped up and started spiralling towards him. Human faces started being formed on the surfaces of the tetrahedron, and he felt a strange energy integrating into his existence with every soul that flew over. His own soul was strengthened over time, but every bit of power he absorbed also left him feeling a vast burden on his shoulders. The deceased still had their memories, emotions, and desires; although he wasn’t assailed by all of their dreams at once, it was like having a library full of tragedies in his mind.

The faces on the tetrahedron were a manifestation of the remnant conscients of the captured souls. As he browsed through their memories and emotions, he was flooded with the stories of people who would miss them, those that they could not bear to be parted from.

There was a famous quote by Emperor Charles who had accomplished many military feats and was greatly respected by the lords of Norland: “When we step on the earth of a foreign plane, we do not see lives, only numbers and resources.”

Charles was a prime example of Norland’s tendency to view other planes as resource banks and nothing else. He had gathered millions of warriors and rushed into the abyss, fighting the demons with a numerical advantage for the first time in human history. Most of those warriors were from secondary planes, and their lives had been used to pave the path to Daramore’s Castle. By the time he accomplished the greatest feat of Norland’s history and cut down the abyssal dragon’s head, the casualties were immeasurable.

Richard had always been the same, but he suddenly found himself thinking differently. He had already vaguely felt the thoughts of the dead while fighting the reapers in Faelor, but now he was thrust onto another path. This tetrahedron was a reflection of his soul; the faces appearing on its surface were other beings that now weighed on his mind. There was no clearer way to understand that one’s decision affected millions.

He looked around and didn’t know just what to feel, his body suddenly shaking as his elven truename completely shattered under the soul force pouring into him. Turning into tiny symbols that started spinning around his soul, it absorbed the incoming souls greedily. The spots of light from all over the battlefield were drawn in faster and faster, their minuscule individual power stacking up quickly and strengthening the symbols into bigger, more complicated words before those were simplified once more.

His new truename finally appeared, one made only of two syllables that represented the purest form of order. He knew instinctively that this name was also a path; if he walked to its end, he would become a master of order itself.

The new name was Issa, which meant redemption.

## True Soul Hunter

This manifestation of his truename had given him the ability to pull in the souls of those who died. Every use of Issa added greatly to the weight of Richard’s soul.

Apeiron wouldn’t agree with Richard’s reasoning, but he smiled and shook his head, “Alright, think of it this way. I’ve walked through tens of thousands of lives in the past few days, and every time my perspective changes ever so slightly. In a way, I gain a deeper understanding of the laws of the world.”

“You can understand laws this way?” Julian asked with disbelief.

“Mm. Only a little at a time, but it adds up quickly. But the real value isn’t in that; I believe it’s the strengthened will.”

more of his time was given to looking through the lives of those he had absorbed, giving him a much deeper insight into both humanity and the workings of the world. He didn’t know just how the change to his mindset would help him, or if it would at all, but the more he saw, the more he felt like these ordinary lives had a unique charm to them. Most of these commoners led rather bland lives, but the millions upon millions of them left him in a dazed epiphany.

## Souls

Within Richard Archeron's truename are millions to billions of souls that he gained throughout his journey:

* Faelor's millions
* Lithgalen's high elves
* Abyss demons
* Arbidis devil lords

### **Darkness**

“Maybe I could help them,” Richard said as he put a hand over the timeflames, “In my name, I grant you Redemption.”

A soft, milky light shone on the timeflames, the fire suddenly bursting into his hand. Motes of light flew out like fireflies from within, merging into the white light and converging into his soul. This brought an end to the suffering of those who were being burnt by the flames.

However, the appearance of Richard’s power didn’t end there. The other souls wandering in the room suddenly lit up, rushing towards their redemption like moths, New faces started appearing on the three tetrahedrons within Richard’s soul, some even close to the top near the devil lords he had killed. Hundreds of powerful wills suddenly rammed into him, leaving him pale as he almost crumpled to the floor.

### **Power**

He silently activated the power of Issa, a faint tetrahedron floating up and drawing out the souls from the corpses nearby. The earth suddenly shook as a multitude of souls shot out from the butcher corpses as well, seeming to be all the beings of order that the creature had eaten in all these years. More than a hundred souls flew out from each of the half-dozen butchers, making for nearly a thousand of mostly-legendary beings. The motes of light converged into a current that surged into his body, the virtual impact causing the earth to crack as his legs sank in from a loss of control.

The rate at which Richard absorbed these souls was limited, but large numbers of them fluttered around him in circles, refusing to leave. It eventually took seven days to redeem them all, integrating them into his own power before allowing the tetrahedron that was now much more solid to fade away. When he finally opened his eyes, a ripple of energy engulfed everything in a hundred metres and turned it to ash.

Someone familiar with Richard would be able to tell that he’d changed, but they wouldn’t be able to pinpoint just what this change was.

He had over a thousand legendary beings within him after going through the two timefires in Suman’s city, and with that assistance his analysis had been boosted greatly. Law after law was unravelled, boosting his power massively by the time he crossed over a veil of formless energy to arrive at the Land of Dawn.

## References

1. ↑ Book 9, Chapter 75
2. ↑ Book 9, Chapter 86
3. ↑ Book 9, Chapter 117
4. ↑ Book 9, Chapter 122
5. ↑ Book 9, Chapter 123