"I thought practical knowledge was different from theoretical," Zack said, gasping. "But so is simulated knowledge. I ran so many simulations inside my soul, yet couldn't enter your veil."
"Missed the big hole entrance over there," Pinky pointed.
Zack altered his vision to spot the various energy fields in the area, yet couldn't spot any discrepancies.
"Fifth layer," Lux hinted.
"Oh!" Zack mentally slapped himself, dragging his entire existence two layers below the observable reality. "Got it. Got it..." he cheered.
"He hasn't," said Psycho, clicking his tongue dismissively.
"We all know, yo!" DJ said, turning an invisible disc.
Zack floated in a void filled with various energy fields only visible to the empowered eyes. He could somehow sense the multiple energies present, yet couldn't navigate or distinguish them from one another.
A massive vintage CD formed beneath Zack's feet—where physical constructs were subbosed to be a myth—with Zack at its center. DJ Rizz spun the disc to adjust the tune, and as the CD caught the frequency of a specific energy, an ethereal thread would spin into existence, covering space within the void with its presence.
"Separate the layers and assign each layer a unique color code," DJ instructed. "This technique eases the access and quickens the process."
"—No rap?" Zack thought, yet his words echoed through this dimension, interrupting DJ and disrupting the energies within.
In every other layer of reality, the entire team had DJ Rizz pinned down, preventing him from rapping and complicating the explanation. At the same time, Psycho shifted his vocals to mimic Rizz's voice.
"You're not worthy of my rap," Psycho said in DJ's voice and got promptly knocked out by Lux.
"Seems unnecessarily harsh," Zack complained.
"Focus on the task at hand, kid," Lux said in DJ's voice.
"Wait until I master being in all layers at once," Zack warned. "All of you will regre—"
Barbie's weapon slammed into Zack, pinning him to the ground and stopping him from completing that sentence, while simultaneously appearing beside Zack—in the fifth layer of reality—her hand wrapped around the trigger. "You know how they say we have to think before we talk in the real world." Energy gathered inside the weapon as steam gushed out of Barbie's mouth. "In this state, you shouldn't even think." She blasted the thought of revenge out of Zack.
A vicious grey liquid gushed out of Zack's body, vanishing within the myriad energy stream. His condensed soul forming the revenge plot, the new reality, his wish, now gone—erased from his memory and the truth he perceived as accurate.
Zack woke up to a missing torso, yet he gasped, turning around with tears filling his eyes. "I'm..."
Bazuka kicked Zack's body away in disgust, mangling it even more. "Be a man," she said with a frown. "By which I mean have faster access to your emotions within your soul core."
"Oh!" Zack realized, pulling out a lump of clay from within his Soul Core. "Body isn't required," he told himself while making a copy of his physical body and placing it inside the 'soul shield artifact' his mother made.
Zack made a chair, and made his shell—his physical body—sit close to the desk. With another thought, he made a keyboard that allowed him to control his emotions, clicking them on and off with a mere thought.
"Auto!" Everyone said in unison.
"Privacy!" Zack yelled back, secretly thanking them for reminding him.
Zack placed a huge red button at the center of his 'Emotion Keyboard,' labeling it 'Auto,' while recalling knowledge from one of the journals on the bookshelf.
Emotions had power, quite a unique power from the rest, and a 'Broken Soul' could instantly become ten times stronger by tapping into this concept of power. Not Sani strong, but you wouldn't want to touch a mortal with even a sliver of Sani—they would explode and paint the streets red—so increasing your physical strength helped tank those pesky bombs and irritating bullets.
'Reforming one's body in front of a mortal will scar them for life.' Zack chuckled, imagining a fight between a Sani user and the rest.
Baker C, a brilliant physiologist turned Broken Soul, frowned upon the so-called memories of a Broken Soul. Before him, every soul stored their memories by a process he called 'utterly dumb.' They chose which memory to store, which emotion to add, and excluded the ones they didn't like, essentially altering every memory to their liking. This ridiculous process didn't just stunt their mental growth; it drove them closer to the true source.
The miracle of birth is a miracle for several reasons, Baker C reminded all his patients—about every Broken Soul ever—that anger is power, envy is the path to realization, kindness is the way to become one with all, and happiness is about letting go and being free. Each emotion has its unique pull. Unique energy. And during birth, through a weaving process beyond divine, which can only be classified as a miracle—even for a Broken Soul—these unique energies are introduced into mortals.
Baker C dwelled deeper into these energies and made several discoveries, but Zack focused on their implications on Sani, with one strong influencing factor being Solgrave's notes.
"Sani trumps all, so focus on using this to delay becoming one with the source." Solgrave scribbled in Baker's journal.
Zack agreed with Solgrave's assessment. When you had the power to will your thoughts into reality, making it the new norm, the rest seemed like pointless endeavors. Sure, there might be other power systems that might give a Broken Soul using Sani some competition, but what can beat immortality? What can defeat overwhelming power?
This 'Auto' button helped Zack switch back to his default setting, to when he was still a mortal. In a sense, with this active, he should be trying to understand his emotions—like the God of Gods who had made him—and not control or manipulate them.
"Won't I lose control during a fight?" Zack asked. "Oh, wait! This is also how I can make another Broken Soul lose control."
"Situations," Bazuka shrugged—explaining everything in a single gesture.
Zack rebuilt his body based on the copy in his soul's core, which inclined more towards his birth parents, the Meyers, than the Templetons. Catching Bazuka raising her eyebrows, Zack monologued about both their roles in his life and how he was the best of both worlds.
"Don't care." Bazuka cut him off—literally. "Hurry up."
Zack pulled his lower half back into place, attaching it as if he were wearing pants. "Rude!" He stuck his tongue out, vanishing before Bazuka reacted.
Bazuka could move faster than Zack—appearing in the real world before Zack could—yet Zack's growth and ability to adapt had stunned her for a second, which in a soul fight meant certain death.
"Quick learner indeed," Bazuka smirked to herself, looking at the tapestry of colors Zack had woven to separate the myriad energy fields present.
The next step was to follow or order the energy signatures to separate, leading Zack straight to the rupture.
"Not bad indeed." She smirked, joining the others on the seventh plane.
Bazuka found Zack in place of Psycho, being pinned down in every layer of reality at once—which in Zack's case was just two!
"How could you not know, kid!" Lux induced the atmosphere around Zack with anger, forcing everyone in the vicinity to display hostility towards Zack.
"Because he's a little bitc—" Bazuka caught herself, switching off her anger and enforcing envy into the room. 'Can't blame the kid,' she reminded herself. 'When entities older than time tend to suck!' She pulled Solgrave off Zack's leg, while Solgrave left his teeth behind, commanding them to chew Zack's leg off. "Soul artifacts are tricky," she reminded everyone. "Not to mention they're made by a broken soul, in this instance, probably more broken than anyone in this joint."
"Joint!?—" Zack got a boot to his face before he could laugh at Bazuka.
"He should at least know the bare minimum," Psycho growled, turning into a wolf and biting Zack on his bum. "Spit it out, kid." He mumbled with a mouthful.
And as requested, Zack farted, stinking up the place and forcing everyone to retreat. Except for Psycho, who was at ground zero and now unconscious, the rest gagged for a whole minute; The usual technique of switching off their senses, unresponsive, as the smell, or rather, the concept behind the fart, had invaded their soul space, quite literally stinking up the place and clouding their judgment.
"Please tell me you didn't make that into a slot," Solgrave said between breaths.
"No!" Zack said, disgusted and disappointed. "I had an upset stomach during my isolation, and that memory is somehow the only memory from that time period, so it kinda stuck." He shudders, recalling the event as if it were happening to him that very moment. "To be honest, I didn't know I could still fart."
"Neither did we," said Virith.
"Seems like even the worst of the worst broken souls have higher values than you," said Azrith. "I say that as a compliment, of course."
While Zack felt disgusted, he also knew this kind of technique—unpredictable, unstoppable, distracting, and access-gaining—is required to win in an immortal fight.
Tales of grandeur should have been written of Zack, having disarmed the three strongest Soul Snatchers for a whole minute. Alas, this moment was lost to history, for neither he nor anyone would ever speak of it.
———<>||<>——— End of Chapter Sixteen. ———<>||<>———