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A tingle passed through Ziva Lune's spine that nearly caused him to loosen his grasp on the tongs he was using to pry open the chest cavity of the alive but brain-dead man before him. The man used to be a moderately renowned mercenary in the Core Condensation realm but now, he was just another specimen to be dissected, explored and then discarded. Ziva was trying to understand subtler ways in which diseases could be sneaked past the inhumanly observant senses of mages in higher realms. After facing constant setbacks, he figured that it would be better to graduate from experimenting on useless mortals and actually understanding the internal workings of immortals.

Problem. Every immortal was different. Their body worked differently - each and every single one of them. A minor deviation in understanding the insights tethered to a cultivation method could lead to a completely different physiology such that dissecting a mage above the Core Formation realm was like opening a surprise gift! An apt simile as Ziva was joyous to learn new things about the body as it did wonders to push his plateauing cultivation forward. On that note, his efforts in spiritual cultivation were bearing fruits. Yet a breakthrough into Tesseract Transformation didn't seem visible just yet.

But- "This... feeling..." It was coming from within. He wouldn't have been able to notice this sensation if hadn't cultivated his spirituality to a moderate enough level. "It is coming from my soul?"

Ziva placed his tools carefully on the metal tray to his side and cleansed his hands of blood and gore with a simple |Incinerate|. He walked towards the sole window providing light filtered through murky layers of rainclouds and looked out into the dreary horizon. He closed his eyes and tested his skills in spirituality to evaluate the feeling that went just as faintly and quickly as it came. His rudimentary skill in inspecting his soul showed a part of it struggling and withering.

"A part of my soul has been rended," he concluded. But the intriguing thing was that this part of his soul was not inside his body. After years of research and experimentation, Ziva learned that spirituality was in another dimension of its own. Distance as a metric in the physical sense wasn't a concept that mattered with spirituality. You could split your soul, have one part be in a different plane altogether, and still have complete control of it from your physical location. Spirituality wasn't bound by physical laws, it was bound by realms more emotional - metaphysical - in nature. Things that were far beyond the measly understanding of sentient beings. Maybe if Ziva had been born a different creature - one that lacked all forms of senses that tethered someone to mortality - he could understand spirituality like a fish understood the sea. But alas, he was just a lonely sailor, just like every other mage seeking to achieve immortality, wandering in the endless sea while following and interpreting faint signs flashing past the vast and nebulous sky.

"How, though? I don't have any-" And it was then that a memory shot to the foreground of his rapidly cycling thoughts. A decision he made on a whim sometime back to test out a technique he'd picked up from a tome written in the Common Tongue but from a time before the Age of Isolation. As it was known, the Elves of the Fae Realm were the de-facto authorities on anything related to the soul and spirituality. The tome contained information written by a mage who had interrogated a number of Elves and extracted information from them regarding their techniques on Beast Taming. The information was all over the place and rife with conflicting information, deciphering which took years of his time and still he had barely made any progress. He only used it to understand the most basic of concepts so that he could bolster the existing knowledge recorded by Human Beast Tamers in hopes of furthering his ability to spread his plagues more efficiently.

To apply his knowledge, Ziva had created a rat that held a summarised sliver of his cultivation with a small fingernail-sized segment of his soul. It was a contracted beast - though he wasn't prepared to name it such since he would become the subject of scorn and mockery if the world learned that the dreaded Plague Emperor tamed a Rat of all things!

The soul segment carried the instincts the creature would be driven by - it's programming. He held little hope for its success and created it on a passing whim. Ziva was certain that it wouldn't amount to much, it was only a rat. He had completely forgotten about it too!

The segment of his soul residing in that rat was struggling. It was being sliced through and dissected - ironic. The process was incredibly efficient and implied that it was the handiwork of a true master - someone nearing ascension or possibly beyond with impeccable understanding and control of spirituality.

A tinge of fear overtook him at that startling conclusion. Ziva could not keep track of what changes that segment of his soul not physically near him was going through. He didn't have the skills to do so nor did he have the confidence or courage to tamper with the process lest he attracts the expert's ire. That soul segment was as good as lost. It irked him to arrive at that conclusion given how every waking moment of his life was spent trying to live with the unbearable hatred he held for all magekind.

"In due time..." He muttered to calm himself. His plan was in motion and would reach fruition soon. Even this mage, whoever he was, would succumb. Not even the high-reaching walls of Tesseract Transformation would contain Ziva's success.

"In due time..."

____

"It's this," Guy's right half spoke - the Other Guy - while grasping the squirming wisp of black smoke trying to escape and return to digging deeper into and contaminating Jean's soul. "It's a strong and purposeful one. A soul with overarching programming that is absolute and inviolable. Similar to have those Beast Tamers do it."

"What is it doing here?" The left half asked.

"My best guess is that it is trying to do what it did to those before it. Overpower and force them to follow its purpose: Assimilate, Grow, Propagate," the right half answered.

"What are you waiting for, then? Let's destroy it!"

"Hmm," the right half ignored the suggestion and hummed in contemplation.

"Stop it!"

"What are you on about?"

"We share the same body. I know that expression. You are thinking up something mischievous, no doubt dangerous to boot!" The left half chastised. "Drop it-"

"It is for the betterment of our kids," the right half interjected. "There is potential yet in this fragment that one of ours can use. By pure happenstance, she happens to be here. One could call it fate?"

"Call it whatever you want. But stop it this instance!" The left half argued back. "Whatever you're trying to do can't possibly be safe. You will be endangering their lives. It is the soul you are tampering with."

"Relax! Who knows souls better than a soul itself? Besides, I won't be doing anything horrible like implanting a parasite into their- Why am I even justifying myself for you?"

At that instant, without any explanation, the Other Guy took over control and started to work through the struggling strand of darkness in his hand with expert movements. Fingers reached in and extracted minor wisps and worked them like common strings. Slowly, the soul fragment started to turn grey until eventually, it was completely luminous white.

"There!" He exclaimed. "Now-"

The scenery changed, and Guy returned to his Church of the True World. Here, he proceeded to concentrate the luminous white wisp until it turned murkier and completely opaque.

"This should be enough," he declared. His eyes scanned around the room, grazing past every ethereal form seated on the benches in a pious praying posture until they hit a single person. The person happened to be in the front rows too. Guy beelined towards the person with resolute steps. His hand with the ball of light swung backwards, over his head and proceeded to descend towards the abdomen of the person before him. Just as it was about to make contact, the hand jittered to a stop.

"NO!" Guy's left half warped and wore a concerned and angry expression. It then started to bleed over to the right as he fought for control over the right half. "I won't let you!"

"Do... you not... understand?!" The right half argued back with equal vigour while fighting for control. "I am doing this FOR her!"

"How can you be so sure?"

The right half gritted his teeth and said, "You will just have to trust me!"

And with those final words, the right won over once again, and the halted hand resumed its motion, plunging the ball of light deep into the abdomen of Dora's ethereal form. The girl's figure gained some luminescence and lasted for a few seconds before it returned to its old self.

"W-What have you done?" The left half returned and exclaimed with a shocked gasp.

"I gave her a gift," the right half responded. "Seeing as she loves reading those dull picture books about monsters changing forms, she will adapt to these new powers swimmingly."

The right half then retreated, having exhausted all of his spiritual energy, leaving Guy by himself, once again, helpless. "What have I done?"

His planned negotiation was flushed unceremoniously. Did he regret it? Not really. Was he assured of his decision? Well now... that was debatable.

"What have I unleashed into this world...?"

This was a question Guy found himself contemplating a lot in the recent year. An answer to which only time could tell.