Nico clutched his forehead in agony and felt ejected himself from the depths of the locket.
The anger bubbling within him had almost exploded after watching the mirror version of himself say that accursed name, but that was not why he had left.
Truth was, he simply couldn't endure the mental strain of using the locket for that long. Though time moved differently, speeding up so fast that only a couple minutes seemed to have passed since the beginning, over an hour had been spent in his mind's eyes, and that much time within an illusion with plentiful emotions had thrown him into a world of pain.
'It wasn't over…'
He sighed and dismissed the locket, ordering his petulant Devil to replace its hex.
Indifference washed him clean.
He figured he knew where the rest of that vision was going anyway, and he couldn't care for it.
***
The next three months came and went by like a feverish dream, totaling eight since he had left the Bright Castle.
Nico was sitting at a campfire in early morning — one of the hundreds he had sat at in the last year. His face was sunken and cold despite its warmth. A small pot was held over the fire, the snow inside melting as he stared into the flame's depths. Crimson flashed in his azure eyes.
Once it fully liquified he set the pot to cool and pulled something else out from his rucksack.
A soul shard.
Bright, blue, and belying the existence of a single Awakened fragment.
The last one before his evolution.
In truth, it had come far slower than he wished. Between learning a new style to better acclimate to his glaive, spending the first five months attempting to locate his spirit, and having to sleep to keep himself functional, hunting hadn't gone as fast as possible.
He also had to avoid rogue storms and hordes, and learn the habits and abilities of random Nightmare Creatures. Each task detracted time from his goal.
On average he accumulated about five or six fragments a day, but really, some days he didn't hunt at all, and others he would harvest twenty. Of course, he had picked up the pace by the latter three months, and thanks to that, had achieved his goal a month before the deadline.
Now, he was preparing himself. Forming a second core had filled him with such unbearable pain that it was almost a miracle he had survived, but the third? Completed with his strained spirit?
It would be unimaginable.
He sighed, tensing his entire body in preparation.
'No more stalling.'
The Awakened shard cracked under his clenched fist. Wisps of energy entered his two flooded Soul Cores.
There was a pleasant coolness plus the usual strain, and for a moment, nothing happened.
Then, the Spell's soothing voice:
[Your soul is overflowing with power.]
[Your soul is taking shape.]
A match lit in Nico's chest, its flame meek, irritating, and doused in oil.
'Deep breath.'
[Your soul is complete…]
The world roared.
Pain — terrible pain: not physical, but of the soul, and for that reason unbearable — exploded in his chest. All motor control was lost as he collapsed. His other senses dissipated into the background. Everything was a blurry splotch of black and white spots.
Still, he gritted his teeth and endured, having dealt with this much before. After undergoing the torturous effects of his Innate Ability and dealing with every wound he took inflicting minor soul damage, this wouldn't make him buckle.
Only, another agony soon followed, this one enough to fray his mind at the edges.
This time, away from all civilization, he allowed a blood-curdling scream to pass his lips — one of several to come.
***
An eternity passed before he could control himself again.
By the time Nico's third core had finished, he immediately passed out, too taxed to continue thought. And when he awoke... he had a pounding headache, the sun almost set under the horizon.
Rising with a heavy groan, the world spun, reminding him that motion was off-limits for the time. Nails dug beneath his eyes. Hammers pounded against his forehead.
'Shit…'
He peered into his Soul Sea on instinct, confirming he had three cores.
They appeared as mere blobs of blurry light.
'That's… good.'
Everything was coming into perspective slowly. Scattered memories were assembling back together under his effort.
Cold sweat ran down his nape and back. He felt around his body to make sure he was wholly uninjured by the process.
Then, something wet licked at his legs.
Upon looking down, he realized it was water. The ocean within his Soul Sea was somehow rising and crashing in a waning crescendo. The light of dawn sparkled on its deep, dark blue surface. Fog was scattered in the air. Due to the exhaustion, Nico stared at the surrounding for a while, stumped, then came to the correct conclusion.
'Ah, it's because my spirit is taxed.'
In fact, it must be on the verge of what it could handle.
If so...
He turned to his Soul Tree. Its branches were patchy, a couple snapped .Thousands of snow-white leaves floated at the sea's surface below its shade, leaving the giant structure strangely bare. The toots beneath the water glowed brighter than ever, though, and so did the three floating cores that hovered above.
Nico took a slow, wary step forward. A dull pain assaulted him. The waves around him continued to lapse in rage, but he continued anyway, standing on where its level surface would've been.
Memories of how he had retreated here after being unable to bear the Sleepers of the outer settlement's pain reappeared in his mind, and as he neared the trunk of the giant tree, two crimson flames appeared in the dispersed fog around the base's roots. A human-like figure assembled around its light.
Shaman stared at him for a moment, and he did as well.
The Devil sat cross-legged at the base.
Nico thought about ordering it to return to the material world for a moment. Only, there was no point. Its home was his soul, and like when humans entered their Soul Sea and split their consciousness, it did the same. If Shaman couldn't handle both it wouldn't have appeared at all.
He wouldn't interrupt whatever it wished to do.
Reaching the roots, Nico sat a respectable distance away and let his head fall against the trunk. Without a need for order, Shaman's hex suppressed the senses of anything outside.
Now... he just wanted to rest.
Before he could really relax, though, something fluid brushed against his shoulder, and he looked to the side, seeing that his Specter had subtly floated closer to him, making it so that they were brushing next to each other.
Was it trying to comfort him?
If it was, it must've realized it looked strange considering it was incorporeal, and its shoulder merely phased through Nico's body.
Before he could question it, a pleasant voice spoke in his head:
[Transform Specter into a Spirit?]
For a moment, he froze, then steadily said:
"No."
Nothing else sounded after that, but Nico was unnaturally still. What would've happened if he had accidently said yes? Would he have thrown himself into another world of pain?
Another question that he had asked himself long ago also appeared.
'What is the difference between a Specter and a Spirit?'
Still, that wasn't clear. Chances were, honestly, that he would have to fulfill some requirement the Spell deemed he needed, but even on the off chance that wasn't the case, he definitely didn't want to be the one to find out.
Yet, somehow, he knew that eventually he would have to say those dreadful words.
Perhaps after his spirit mended.