"She’s a proper leader, huh? As far as I’ve seen, she’s not only incredibly kind and sincere, but strong-willed, smart... and strong," Marble thought while walking away, her steps steady but her mind restless. "What a dangerous woman... and she’s already gotten my stupid little nephew under her control. Even if she herself doesn’t really wish for that, he’s fallen completely head over heels for her. He even pointed his weapon at me because I was being rude..." She rolled her eyes at the memory. "Blank, you’re too stupid, aren’t you? Can’t you realize she’s using you? I’ll make sure to show her the cruelty of this world so she drops her stupid wishes of grandeur. She’s going to bring everyone to their deaths like that. It’s better if we remain hidden, not that we stir more trouble!"
As Marble walked away with these thoughts firmly in her mind, strengthening her own resolve to stop Elayne no matter what, Elayne and her group followed her toward the place she said Spectria was located.
The Undead and the few White Ghosts in the refugee camp looked at them in silence. Many took unconscious steps back as they felt Elayne’s presence and that of her Sporeborn. These were terrifying Undead they had never seen before — neither fully familiar nor completely foreign, yet carrying an overwhelming pressure that made their instincts scream caution.
Elayne herself had an incredibly bizarre presence. She was a zombie, but also a plant, and a mushroom, and somehow... she even felt a little like a White Ghost. All of it was mixed with other energies they could not fully comprehend. Layers of life and death, growth and decay, light and shadow coiled around her in a way that defied normal understanding.
She was the most bizarre anomaly they had ever seen. And within her there was even the bright light of the sun that shone in the World of the Living — something the Netherworld was eternally devoid of. That alone made many of the watching Undead lower their gazes in quiet unease.
This was the most unsettling thing about her... if it were not for something else. Something that only Marble, with her Unique Eyes, could see.
Her White Soul Eyes were capable of seeing a soul and the depths within it. These same eyes had once allowed her to perceive the endless malice, darkness, and sins of Jester, giving her just enough time to escape with as many survivors as she could grab before he unleashed chaos upon the city.
Now those eyes revealed what existed within Elayne’s very existence — within her soul and within her heart. What Marble saw was a massive soul, one so vast it was nearly incomprehensible in size.
"W-What is this woman...?" she thought, her steps faltering for half a second. "On the surface she seems unassuming, but beyond everything else I’ve already detected about her... that soul... why is it so big? The only ones with souls of that scale should be... gods. Queen Spectria... no. Even her soul isn’t this large. But it is the closest comparison I have..."
Souls were accumulations of memories, existence, and soul energy. They were ethereal and incorporeal masses that formed the roots of the "self" within a person. Like the body, a soul could decay under certain conditions. Exposure to Nether — an element highly volatile against spiritual energies — could turn a soul into a ghostly phantom and slowly cause it to fade away.
But this was different.
Elayne’s soul embraced the Nether yet somehow remained pure. Deep within it, Marble could glimpse for a moment an endless sea of gold, vast and radiant, stretching farther than her eyes could follow.
And deeper still into that sea of gold... something — someone — was there.
She tried to see more. She pushed her vision further, attempting to inspect the true nature of this woman.
Then the one inside the soul looked back.
Enormous eyes, bigger than mountains and shining like emerald stars, pierced straight into Marble’s own soul for a single moment. The contact was sharp and overwhelming.
"Nnggh?!" she groaned in pain out of nowhere as she experienced the feeling of being "watched" by these gigantic, kind, yet powerful eyes beyond Elayne’s soul itself. she felt such a sharp pain in her soul that she had to pull back and close her eyes, looking around, gasping for air, and feeling her entire body becoming even paler than White Ghosts were (which were already very pale since birth).
"Ugh...! Cough...! Cough!" She suddenly coughed out of nowhere, the sound echoing through the cavern and leaving the rest of the group speechless as they followed her toward the gate leading underground.
"Aunt?" Blank asked, concern clear in his voice. "What’s wrong?"
"N-Nothing," she shook her head quickly, forcing her breathing to steady. "There’s... nothing. Let’s move."
She recomposed herself and continued walking. The silence of the cavern was broken only by the quiet sound of their footsteps and the constant, restless train of her thoughts.
"What was that...? That massive being... a giant? A giantess? Who is that? It felt like... a spiritual being. A soul? A divine soul... no, a divine spiritual soul? I cannot even fathom how that little woman can hold such a thing inside her!" she thought, her heart still racing. "Was it a God’s Vestige? A Divinity that has been fragmented and decayed into some kind of... Memory? It’s confusing. Not even I have delved this deeply into the study of souls through the creation of my experiments..."
She sighed quietly, trying to force herself to let go of the spiraling thoughts before they consumed her focus entirely.
"I still cannot really trust her. Could she be another Death Apostle? No... she cannot be. She is the complete opposite of the Demon King of Death. She feels like an Avatar of Life... of Nature itself."
Even as she reached that conclusion, unease continued to linger in her chest. Whatever Elayne truly was, she was far more dangerous — and far more mysterious — than Marble had first believed.
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