Autophagy

"You remember the soul storage you made back in the dream space?" Song Lei asked. Seeing Aston nod, he continued by saying, "When I dived into my soul, I saw it floating in the air. I thought that I could bring out the tools from the dream space if I tried to but when I did, my soul got suddenly hurt..."

"Hmm..." Aston thought for a second. "I might have an idea why that happened..."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Aston said. He held Song Lei's arm and looked at it to see if there were any visible wounds on it. "You remember how it isn't possible to detach items from your soul without hurting yourself, right?" He asked. Without waiting for an answer, he continued by saying, "That taser was conceptually tied to your soul, however, it didn't actually exist. After all, it was produced inside the dream space without any substance to it."

"It probably existed in a state where it was pseudo-real. However, you trying to pull it out caused it to stop conceptually existing. This, in turn, caused you to hurt your soul," Aston said as he sighed.

"Oh, I see," Song Lei said. "Then shouldn't I pull out the remaining things to empty it now?" Song Lei asked. "My soul will eventually heal, right?"

"Yeah, that's the case. Still, there isn't much need to do so. After all, with the size of your soul, you probably won't be needing that little amount of storage space."

"Then I'll just let it be for now," Song Lei said in answer. He then stood up and looked straight at Aston. "I have established a faction."

"Umm..." Aston didn't know what to say.

"Will you guys join me?" Song Lei decided to be blunt. They were already alleged to him, however, they needed to officially confirm that they wanted to be a part of his faction.

"Hah," Aston chuckled. "Of course, we will. I was just surprised. I didn't think that you were the type to do such things. But now that I think of it, you can be quite the leader when you're needed."

Song Lei scratched the back of his head with an embarrassed smile on his face. He then turned his head towards Isabel. Compared to Aston she seemed to be more indecisive.

"I won't be forcing you if you don't want to," Song Lei said.

"No, it's not that," Isabel said. She seemingly steeled her resolve and looked at Song Lei directly in the eyes. "Can you promise me that you'll never order me to do things that'll put Mia in a dangerous situation?"

"I swear upon my honor and my title as the leader of The Limbo that I'll never do such a thing," Song Lei said as he put his hand on his chest.

"Such oaths are more binding than you probably think," Isabel said. She sighed deeply before saying, "I accept."

"I welcome you to The Limbo," Song Lei said with a wide smile plastered onto his face.

[Spirit Guardian Aston has joined your alliance!]

[Spirit Guardians Isabel and Mia have joined your alliance!]

[You have to get two more members for your Alliance to rank up.]

[Current alliance rank: 0]

Song Lei read through the notifications calmly. Just as he was about to close them, another notification popped up.

'What is... Oh!' Song Lei shouted inwardly with excitement. 'This is a map!'

Just like he thought, in front of him was a 3D map of the places he had visited up until now.

'Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a tracking function for now...'

Unlike a normal minimap, his minimap was completely devoid of any other functions. It was just a 3D model of the parts of the apartment he had visited before, drawn with a blue grid.

'Oh? What is this?' Song Lei thought. He realized that floor 7 had a yellow tinge to it. Not knowing what to do, he brought up his finger and pressed it on the floor's wall.

[Heaven Alliance's territory.]

"Hey? Are you okay?" Isabel asked. "You suddenly spaced out."

"Yeah, you have been tapping the air for some reason..." Aston muttered. "Is it something related to your ability?"

"Yeah..." Song Lei muttered. "It now has a map function."

"What? Do you explore new usages of your ability every day like this?" Aston asked in a slightly annoyed manner.

"Not really... It has become like this for the last few days," Song Lei denied. "Normally, it was much calmer and simplistic."

"Ugh... Anyways, what is the problem then?"

"For some reason, the 7th floor is marked in yellow," Song Lei said. "It says that it is the territory of the Heaven Alliance."

"Those guys you hang out with?" Isabel asked. "I assume that foreigner boy from that day is also from that faction."

"Are you talking about Damien?" Song Lei said. Realizing that Isabel probably didn't have a way of knowing. Song Lei didn't ask further. "Yeah, that's the faction that is the owner of this apartment," Song Lei said. "I mean, the previous owners..."

"What happened?" Aston asked confusedly.

"Some people attacked the apartment a few days ago," Isabel said. "They tried to take over, I guess," She explained while looking at Song Lei for confirmation.

"That's right," Song Lei said as he nodded. "They killed more than half of the members. Some were also kidnapped by an unknown force. I still don't know who did it."

"I assume that the ones who kidnapped the members and those that attacked the apartment are different groups?" Aston asked.

"Probably. I'm not sure though," Song Lei said.

"Who were the ones that attacked the apartment then?" Aston asked. Hearing the question, a drop of sweat rolled off his forehead. He averted his eyes and looked at the ground for a second.

"It was the Secret Blood Order."

"WHAT?!" Aston shouted as he got up from his sitting position. "How can that happen!? Did they find a way to travel between the New World and Old World?!"

"Calm down!" Isabel said as she slapped Aston's head. Aston sighed deeply and collapsed on the chair.

"I don't think they have figured out such a thing," Song Lei said.

"How do you know that?" Aston asked. He was clearly under stress.

"It's about my ability's shop," Song Lei said. "Assuming that we can trust my ability, it says that it has a way of taking me back to the New World."

"And that means..?"

"This way costs an unimaginable amount of blood beads," Song Lei said. "My ability's shop usually does things in their most efficient ways. Assuming that that's the case with this one, it's impossible that Secret Blood Order has found a way of sending people back and forth."

"Hmm..." Aston went into deep thought. "Then that leaves two possibilities: One is that they have found a way of communicating back and forth between the two dimensions..."

"Or they somehow found my research and figured out the way to send people here," Aston said. "Fortunately, if that's the case, they only have a one-way ticket to here."

"But wouldn't that turn them into ghosts?" Song Lei asked. "The ones I fought were lost ones, just like me."

"We don't know that, I only had one successful experiment and I did that to myself. It may as well have been totally random."

"So what? They sent people here in batches to form a new faction?" Song Lei asked.

"That's entirely possible. Considering the ways of the Secret Blood Order, they can do everything to achieve their goals."

"These guys are like a demonic sect..." Song Lei muttered as he scratched the back of his head.

"Not exactly. They don't do bad things just because they want to, they always have a reason," Aston explained. "And that reason usually isn't something trivial."

"Isn't all that knowledge a bit outdated?" Song Lei asked. "What if they changed over the course of a century you were here?"

"That's possible, however, the higher-ups of the Order are nearly immortal with lifespans lasting up to four hundred years. The last head was a hundred years old when I died. By that logic, he is still pretty young at the moment."

"The Secret Blood Order is heavily reliant on its leader and most of its ordeals are decided directly by him. This lowers the chances of them changing their ways and becoming a pure evil faction."

"Now that you mention it, I think they had a reason for attacking this apartment," Song Lei said. He then proceeded to tell Aston about the things that transpired in the remnant world.

"Toda Anzai, huh..." Aston muttered as he held his chin. "So they were trying to nurture a monster here."

"Then something caused them to move," Song Lei said.

"Do you have any idea what that might be?" Aston asked.

"Maybe the monster was nearly ready to hatch?" Song Lei said, unsure of his words. "I don't think that's the case though. Toda Anzai was relatively sane when I met him."

"Then there must be something more behind this...."