Magical Soul Parade

"W—Where are we going Finn?!" Althea finally yelled after they had run for a few minutes.

"You're finally back huh?!" Finn called over the wind as they ran. "Where the hell was your mind at?!"

"It was that figure! H—He doesn't make sense! I have never seen nor heard of any magic like what he displayed!"

"Well, no shit! It was space magic! The guy is probably the reason why this world is coming apart, and is with it!" Finn gritted his teeth as he ran.

"Finn. There is no such thing as space magic!" Althea yelled, trying to drive her point home. She wanted Finn to understand why what he suggested was crazy. It seemed that she had also come to the same conclusion, but refused to believe it unlike Finn who already had.

Finn kept his gaze forward, but mulled over Althea's words as he led their charge to the anomaly. From his memory, he also knew there was no such thing as space magic in their world. Elemental Arcanists were only that — Elementals. But the fact that he'd seen a lot of space magic in various TV shows and other forms of media in his alternate life on earth made him fill the gap immediately.

He had no trouble classifying what the figure displayed as space magic simply because it felt natural and logical to him, even though there was no such thing as space magic in this world.

But seeing it now, he could understand why Althea had basically blanked out and short-circuited for a while trying to reconcile what she was seeing with the solidified worldview already had. For her who had never even heard of the concept, it must truly be very jarring and incomprehensible to see someone that looked like them, acted like them — who was basically a human, but didn't adhere to the same world logic she knew was true.

Finn shook his head and put the thoughts aside for the meantime. "That doesn't matter right now! We can figure out all of that later! We just need to survive this first!"

Althea nodded. But then the question of where they were headed rose up again. To her it must've looked like Finn just picked a random direction and started running. And here she was also following. "Where are we going, Finn?! Do you have a way out?!"

"...Yeah!" He called out, unwilling to reveal he was hinging their survival on a hunch. He definitely felt it was more than just a hunch, but he hadn't the time, nor the words to explain why he thought he was correct.

So immediately he answered her, he quickly followed with a question of his own. "What about the others?! Where are they?!"

"I don't know! One second I was doing everything just to stay alive from the attack of two of the cloaked Arcanists, and the next, I was suddenly in this weird world!" Althea explained.

"Huh? So we don't know whether the others are even alive?!" Finn's head whipped back towards Althea, who bit her lips and shook her head firmly. She looked distraught, especially because she was the one tasked with supervising them. At the end of the day, they were her juniors and all of this had happened on her watch.

Finn clenched his jaws and focused on wading through the unravelling space towards the anomaly he had felt. He could only hope some stroke of luck had helped them survive and they were somehow okay.

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After running for a while, both Finn and Althea became tired — or in particular, Althea became tired first. The body enhancers' soul mass she embodied was nowhere as enduring as Finn's was, so they had to stop for a while, allowing Althea to switch to her Giant Owl.

It could effectively carry only one person. Any more and its speed would be so slow, it was better to just run with a body enhancers' soul mass. It was why she hadn't summoned it the whole time they ran. Finn was the one who knew where they were headed, and apparently, how to leave this place, so she couldn't charge ahead of him.

But after she summoned her Giant Owl and was deliberating how to proceed effectively, an unreadable look crossed Finn's eyes, then he let out a soft sigh of resignation and called out: "Come out, Syf."

And for the first time since he had embedded the aspect of loyalty and obedience onto his Storm Prowler, Syf was revealed before someone other than him. She morphed out of his shadow in all her glory, rising to her towering height behind him.

Immediately, Althea's Giant Owl took a step back and let out a low, uneasy hoot, cowering slightly behind Althea as she quickly raised a hand to rub its shadowy feathers to calm its tension.

By the time Syf's full figure finally came into view, even Althea frowned tensely. She glanced at Finn with a guarded look in her eyes.

Finn stared right back at her too, watching her reaction carefully as she took in Syf's figure. Without a word, he hefted himself onto Syf's back after she lowered herself for him to climb. And with a nod, beckoned Althea, "Let's move. We have no time."

Immediately, Syf let out a howl and turned majestically, before launching forward with terrifyingly quick strides, eating ground like it was nothing.

Before Althea knew it, Finn's figure had rapidly gotten small in the distance. "So that's how he made it to Woodhaven so quickly…" she muttered under her breath, before slowly pacifying her Great Owl with soothing words to calm it down, after which she took to the skies, following after Finn with a new understanding of his strength.

For his wolf soul mass to cause so much distress to her Great Owl just by manifesting, it was clear that it was extremely powerful.

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Within a few minutes, they very quickly reached the spot Finn's intuition had guided him to. Finn jumped down from Syf's back and glanced up at the sky where Althea was also descending, just a step behind him.

He took the opportunity to gaze further up in the sky, where the white-haired boy-like figure floated. At the height he floated, he simply looked like a black dot, and Finn couldn't make out anything he was doing at all besides the fact that now, it was visibly evident he was the source of the unravelling space around them.

Black cracks spread and distorted in the sky, originating from the figure himself.

Finn quickly turned his attention back to the urgent matter at hand after seeing that. He had finally gotten here. Now, what was the next move? If his intuition was wrong, then they were very well screwed and doomed to die. But he hid unease that thought brought him expertly.

"This is the place?" Althea asked immediately as she descended.

Finn nodded, staring at what lay before them. They were close to the fringe edges of the world, very close to where physical laws had already unraveled. Not far from them, earth and debris floated in the air, defying gravity, and spatial cracks opened and closed, devouring everything that got close.

Finn narrowed his eyes and pointed at a particular spot within all the chaos. "There. That's our way out," he said with feigned certainty.

Althea frowned immediately, observing the surroundings with a more experienced eye. She didn't ask how Finn knew for certain that was their way out, instead she focused on the means to get there, "Well, I don't think you have a way to traverse this chaos, do you?" she asked, trying not to sound too pessimistic, but the reality of things was not looking good at all.

Finn bit his lips and closed his eyes. Come on now, we're here. What is it about this place that called out to me…? He stilled his breath and calmed his mind, trying to latch onto the same intuition that guided him here, when all of a sudden, Althea gasped.

"Finn, look!"