Chapter 351

Melvis was now saying something ridiculous about ‘taking a purified soul.’
Nothing was too troublesome for him if it would take him to the Human World where Yamato was. He had a one-track mind.

That being said, he was currently a soul.
As I wondered what he was going to do about it, I noticed something.

(Is that the chain that was coming out of Melvis’s chest?)

When I squinted my eyes, I saw something like a thin thread coming out of Melvis.

Right now, both Melvis and I were in the same state as the other souls.
We were pale spheres. Like a round will-o’-the-wisps.

And there was a single thread coming out.
I saw it coming out of Melvis, and was immediately reminded of that ‘chain.’

(It’s coming out of his soul. Just like the red thread of fate.)

That being said, this one wasn’t red. It was a dim fluorescent color.
Had it been a red color, I would have noticed it immediately.

And when I followed the thread… It was connected to me!?
Did it mean that Melvis and I were fated…

(No, that’s not it. The thread was going past me.)

What a relief. For a second I thought we were tied together by that thread.
I would not have liked that.

The thread continued on through the Under World sea.
“Um, do you know what this string is?”

I just decided to ask him.
None of the souls I had seen up until now had anything like that.

Melvis was the only one.
“String? …Hmm. I hadn’t even noticed.”

It was so thin that you had to really squint in order to see it.
So it was hardly a surprise that he hadn’t known.

“Could it be the chain that was coming out of your chest?”
I had tried to pull that chain, but it would not budge.

The only thing that I knew is that it was apparently coming out of the Orb of Control.
The Orb of Control… In other words, the soul vessel.

Perhaps the chain was coming from the orb, which of course, meant the soul.
If that was the case, it would not be strange for the string to be coming out, now that he was just a soul.

“The chain… I see. That makes me wonder what is on the other end.”
Melvis had the kind of personality where he had to satisfy his curiosity.

And so he quickly dove deeper into the Under World sea.
Obviously, I had to follow him.

He acted as soon as he became curious. He was so impatient.

And so we moved in a straight line in the water.
It was all I could do to keep up with him.

We dove deeper and deeper towards the bottom of the sea.
As for what was on the other end, even I really wanted to know.

After some time, he slowed down.
As I wondered what had happened, Melvis stopped in front of a certain soul.

The thread that extended from Melvis was connected to this soul.
(Is this his destined partner?)

Was Melvis going to find love?

As I thought about such things…

“This is Hera’s soul.”
“What!?”

The soul. It was familiar to Melvis.
Apparently, if you knew the person in life, you would recognize them even in soul form.

It was why I could recognize Melvis’s soul, even though we were surrounded by countless other ones.
In life, we not only sensed each other’s faces and physical features, but also our souls.

If that was the case, then it would not be strange for Melvis to recognize Hera, who he had fought against.
After all, Hera had been the one who cursed Melvis with the chains.

They had limited Melvis’s abilities, and caused his title on the Tablet of Control to be rewritten. Great Demon King to Lesser Demon King.

“She is mostly purified.”
“…Indeed.”

Hera’s soul was beautiful.
Most of the souls that drifted in the water looked murky… I wasn’t sure how to describe it, but there were colors and patterns on them.

As Melvis and I were still connected to our bodies, we had color as well.
But no patterns.

My guess was that with those souls, the parts without color were where they had been purified.
The souls that were clear and practically colorless were shining, unlike the others.

Those were the ones that seemed to have finished being purified.
So you could say that this soul that Melvis claimed to be Hera, was mostly purified.

“But, why?”
Hera was a resident of the Celestial World. So why had she bound herself to Melvis?

At the time, Melvis had been a Great Demon King of the Demon World.

“From way back then, Hera’s purpose had only ever been about going to the Human World. There could be no other reason for her going. In that case…”

Just as my soul had been fused with the other me, Hera might have been thinking about doing something similar in the past.

And so just like us, Hera might have needed someone of ‘equal ability’ to connect her soul to.

Someone equal to the leader of the Enra Institution…such a person would be rare, even in the Celestial World.
Not only that, but depending on what she would use the soul for, the person was not likely to give their permission.

As for someone in the Demon World with equal strength… I suppose Melvis would have been the perfect candidate.

This led to some other theories.
The research was still at the experiment phase. So what would happen if it failed?

What we knew now, was that you could go through the Under World and to the Human World if it was with a purified soul.

So, which was more difficult, connecting to a soul, or finding a soul that was equal to your own?

Ultimately, Hera had succeeded in connecting her soul to Melvis, but then she disappeared with Yamato.

In the Celestial World, it wasn’t known if Hera’s research at the time had succeeded.
And so perhaps it was rejected as something that was unlikely to be realized?

After all, their later experiments involving the fusing of two souls in a Personification vessel had resulted in numerous deaths.

I doubted there were any celestials who wanted to conduct such dangerous experiments on their own body.

And so even though Hera had succeeded, these experiments of connecting to the soul of someone with equal power were abandoned.

“I might be able to use this soul.”

While I was deep in thought, Melvis was thinking about something completely different.
He was going to use Hera’s purified soul in order to go to the Human World where Yamato lived.

Next Chapter

Makai Hongi