"Arakai?"
The name felt out of place, but it stuck with me. I couldn't help admiring the way it sounded.
Arakai.
I turned it over in my mind a few more times, letting the syllables settle. There was a weight to it, something sharp at the edges, something I couldn't quite decipher yet.
For a moment, I forgot the pain in my ribs and just let the word echo quietly in my head.
"What's the meaning behind it?" I asked, leaning toward her without even realizing it.
Seraphina's expression stayed guarded, but the corner of her mouth twitched. Not quite a smile—more like she found my persistence annoying but tolerable.
"Nobody knows the full meaning. Only him," she said, flicking her gaze toward Elijah.
She watched him a second too long as he arranged the woods. Her face was unreadable, some strange mix of respect and pure devotion, before she snapped her attention back to me.
"We aren't popular, no. But we have managed to stir up a significant amount of fear in the Emperor's inner circle, which is all that matters."
"We?" I asked, glancing between her, the crest, and Elijah. "I'm guessing you mean more than just you and him?"
"We're not as small as we look," she said. "Enough to matter, and enough to make the Emperor lose sleep. That's all you need to know." She emphasized, gesturing with a tilt of her chin toward Elijah. "We follow him. He may seem lazy, unattached, and frankly, like he couldn't care less if the world burned or not, but everything he does, yields results for the most part."
"So what's the end goal?" I asked, looking out at the dark forest beyond the firelight. "If you're fighting the Valorians… what's the plan? What are you trying to achieve in the end? Your ultimate goal?"
For the first time, Seraphina's composure cracked.
Barely.
But it cracked.
She didn't answer right away, not that I expected a rebel group to spill their motives, but I still figured it was worth a shot.
Then, her eyes dropped to the knot in the wire, fingers tightening around it.
"I… don't know," she said quietly.
The stutter was small, but it was real.
A ripple in her perfect warrior discipline.
She cleared her throat and straightened, her expression snapping back into place.
"That's something Lijah keeps close," she added. "We follow his orders because they work. Beyond that? No one asks."
No one asks?
Pathetic, if I'm being honest.
I couldn't picture myself following someone's orders without knowing where it all leads. These people must trust him more than they trust their own instincts.
She then gave the wire a final, harsh tug, securing the tripline.
"Now stop asking useless questions," she said, confidence fully restored. "Your curiosity won't heal you. Get inside the cave and have your rest."
.
.
....
I woke up to the chill of the night pressing against my skin. My eyes drifted upward before my thoughts could fully catch up. The sky was wide open above the cave mouth, a canvas of quiet stars scattered across the dark. They looked sharper than anything I remembered, as if the world had been scrubbed clean while I slept.
Funny how people forget things like this. You go your whole life assuming the stars will always be there, then you lose them once—just once—and suddenly you realize how fragile every simple thing really is. A night sky. A quiet breath. A body that moves when you tell it to.
I sank deeper into the blanket Elijah had tossed over me and exhaled slowly. My body got better, as the throbbing reduced, but my mind kept drifting back to something else entirely.
The system.
It existed, but if it was truly tied to me, I needed to understand how to reach it. No point walking around with some mysterious power like an idiot who never checks the manual.
But then again, that heart resonance thing… it mentioned something about activating it when I find love. I still don't know what any of that means, but I'm going to figure it out sooner or later.
So I stared up at the stars and tried the obvious routes.
System.
Nothing. Not even a flicker in my head.
Fine. Status.
Still nothing. Just silence, and the soft rasp of wind outside the cave.
I sat up a little, annoyed at myself for expecting easy answers. Maybe I needed a gesture. Maybe intent mattered. Maybe I was overthinking everything after being bodiless for so long.
I raised my arm and gave it a quick flick, as if that small, deliberate motion might trigger something—anything.
And the moment I did, the air around me shifted.
Then, a blue screen hovered in front of me, it text clear and readable.
[Heart Resonance Protocol]
────────────
Name: Leonhardt Haldrin (Tri-Soul)
Age: 15
Status: Single
Soul Core: 3
Soul Weapon: ???
Domain: Gravity(B)
Learned Arts: None
Innate Abilities: Inertial Precept
────────────
Name: Leonhardt Haldrin (Tri-Soul)
Leonhardt Haldrin?
So that's the name of this body?
Looks like it.
There were question marks there before, but now it seems I finally have something solid to call this identity.
And three souls in one body? Mine, this body, and Arthur's.
It doesn't feel like three worlds crammed together, more like one blended whole. I can still sense the differences though, and the strangest part is how… right it feels. Unique, confusing, and somehow satisfying all at once.
Age: 15
Status: Single
That second line almost made me laugh. Out of everything here, the system cared to note I wasn't romantically involved. Great. Good to know the universe was keeping track of my dating life.
Soul Core: 3
Three cores clearly made sense with the three souls, but I had no clue what that meant in practice. Power? Instability? Potential? All of the above?
Soul Weapon: ???
Either it didn't exist yet, or I hadn't unlocked it. The empty question marks didn't help my nerves either.
Domain: Gravity (B)
Gravity. A B-rank domain sounded useful, but I didn't know the scale. If B was middle-tier, fine. If B was near the top, even better. I'd have to test it before drawing conclusions.
Learned Arts: None
Fair. I barely had a body again. Not exactly in shape to start hurling magical arts.
Innate Abilities: Inertial Precept
'Isaac Newton's full package,' I smirked.
I let out a slow breath and leaned back on my hands. The night sky framed the edges of the screen, and the stars felt closer, brighter.
Three souls. A domain tied to gravity. An ability tied to inertia.
Everything just felt surreal.
And the most intriguing part?
The soul weapons.
I stared at the line for a while, letting the possibilities run wild. Soul weapons in various stories were always a big deal, they were supposed to reflect who you were at your core.
And as I thought it over, another screen appeared, almost like it was responding to my curiosity about soul weapons.
Soul Weapons
────────────
These are weapons a person can awaken after a successful Soul Awakening. A Soul Weapon reflects the quality of one's soul essence, which allows for a smoother, stronger interaction with mana. A single Soul Weapon is tied to a Soul core.
────────────
.... Interesting
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[A/N:] Hey everyone, me again, your favourite author.
As you can see, the name he will bear is Leonhardt Haldrin, which can be shorten to Leon. So you can now tell why I kept using Leon in the synopsis to describe him.
Thanks for reading