Chapter 25: Special Containment Cell?

And ’Unspeakable’ too? So I’m not meant to speak this title…? At least that part seemed straightforward. He could glean the meaning as naturally as he could the other information that was displayed.

Mythology Aspects were simply the particular concepts he had embodied from a mythological figure — The part of their identity that his soul had embodied.

The other main term — Adaptation, was simply the act of this embodiment itself. And from the looks of it, it wasn’t without cost.

Three out of four adaptations of loyalty and obedience left till Soul Drift occurs… Finn thought. Not like he planned on doing this again anytime soon. Just one adaptation and he’d already come so close to losing his identity.

All these were easily understandable. All except for that title: The Errant Heretic.

It remained ambiguous, offering no single meaning no matter how Finn probed.

He stopped after a few tries, putting it aside for the moment. He already had a few ideas running in his mind as to what it might mean based off all that had just happened, but for meantime, he chose to stop. Besides the fact that he still wanted to check on the wolf, his mind and soul were severely fatigued from the adaptation he’d just made.

He mentally willed the window to close, like it was a natural, instinctive thing he’d done a thousand times, before moving his focus to the shadow wolf’s presence… or rather, the Storm Prowler’s presence. He’d gotten so used to calling it Shadow Wolf, that its actual species name felt weird.

As his mind moved to the Storm Prowler’s presence, Finn immediately felt the difference. It was no longer shrouded or hidden, instead it was fully open. He could feel a willing eagerness emanate from its presence towards him.

The violent and wild nature it had as a chaotic soul mass was still very much there in its entirety. That had not changed at all. The only difference now was that the chaos bent to his order.

Heh… I actually succeeded… Finn felt a different kind of relief — the kind that came only from ’seeing’ his hard efforts succeed — flood through him. And immediately, like a person whose body was coming down from an adrenaline surge, all the weariness in his mind crashed down at once, plunging him into a deep, blank slumber.

.

.

.

The next time Finn opened his eyes, it was to the sound of the worst singing he’d ever heard in his life. The voice croaked even worse than a frog’s, jarring him awake with a noise so fundamentally wrong, it felt like torture.

His eyes, still sensitive to the light, cracked open in search of the culprit despite the fact that all he could make out was a blurry mess.

Thankfully, though, he was granted reprieve. Immediately the person noticed his movement, they stopped.

Finn’s shoulders sagged, and he finally relaxed, slumping back into the bed and carefully squinting his eyes as they cleared up to take in the surroundings in more detail.

I’m inside a room — another room? He noticed immediately, frowning. In truth, this new place couldn’t even be called a room. The metal bars with weird inscriptions that took up a whole side of where a front wall was meant to be made him very sure this was a cell and not a room.

It was plain and bare, save for the bed he laid on, and a chair at the opposite wall, where a man with green hair and deep black eyes, sat tautly, as though he’d paused an action mid-way.

Finn stared at the man, who watched him intently as though he were a zoo animal.

“H—Hey.” Finn croaked out through vocal chords that felt like they hadn’t worked for days.

His greeting was met with no response, save for a slight twitch of the green-haired man’s eye as he stared.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” The man held up two fingers abruptly.

Immediately he spoke, his voice triggered a correlation that Finn suddenly recognized. Micah…? Finn reassessed the man’s appearance. The lazy way he sat, talked, and even dressed, as though he had no care in the world fit the descriptions Finn had overheard from Isis’ incessant cursings way too perfectly. Coupled with his striking green hair…

Yeah, this is definitely Micah. Now I can see why Isis calls him weird. Finn sighed softly, and humored the man by responding, stating the number of fingers he held up correctly.

“Ooohh. So you can really see again. Fascinating,” he chuckled, before holding up three fingers, while sporadically moving his fourth up and down, back and forth, hiding it behind the others for a second, before bringing it out again playfully. “How many fingers am I holding up now?”

Finn rolled his eyes, mentally sighing at the man’s overexuberant display. Was this what he was meant to be doing now? Finn had just woken up from a near-full corrosion state and this man was already playing.

“Well, you’re holding up three for the most part when you’re not doing… whatever that is with your pinky finger.”

“Ooohh! So you’re thinking straight,” Micah tapped his head, “you’re even sassy with your words too.”

“Sassy? That’s not sass, you’re the one who was doing weird things with your—” Finn’s words were cut off as he reared back in shock after Micah appeared right up in his face like a phantom.

What the fuck?! How did he get so close?!

“Surprisingly, you’re actually alright… No mania. No bloodlust. You can smell just fine too, right? If you can, then your taste must also—” Micah rambled on but stopped mid-sentence, frowning. His expression shifted rapidly between confusion, surprise, confusion again, realization, acceptance, before finally settling on intrigue.

“I see. You’ve created your Soul Register, right?” He straightened up with a smile and walked to the cell bars.

How did he know?! Finn tried not to let his expression betray his surprise.

“It’s useless. Don’t try to deny it. I can no longer feel the rest of your soul masses except for two. And that is a perk that comes only from binding a Soul Register.” He reached the cell bars, then slammed his hand on the metal repeatedly, causing a clang to echo down the corridor. “Heeyyy!! Jailer mannn!! Come open the damn doors!!” He yelled, drawling out each word.

Finn paused after Micah’s earlier statement. So, that was a perk of a Soul Register? He thought. Isis had spoken briefly about him not having access to some benefits just because he had no Soul Register at the time. Turns out this was one of them?

The sound of heavy metal screeching against the hard-stone floor pierced the air sharply from down the corridor as the main door was opened.

“Micah Fugger,” a deep baritone voice called, advancing with heavy, but measured steps. “This is the fifth summon you have issued without due cause. And this will be the fifth time I will inform you—”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m only meant to call you in when there’s a development. Yada yada.”

“You know this, and yet you keep floundering the laid down rules.”

“Yeah, well, this time I’m not messing with you… The boy… He’s awake.”

The man’s nearing steps paused, and he observed Micah with more scrutiny.

“Geez. You think I’ll mess around with something like this?”

“You already have. Four times.”

“Those don’t count.” Micah huffed, before waving his hand exasperatedly. “Just walk the last few steps and look for yourself man. Damn!So prim and proper…”

The man wordlessly walked the last few steps before coming up to the cell bars, and into Finn’s view.

“H—Hey…?” Finn cracked a nervous smile and waved in greeting, unsure what he was meant to do when, for the second time today, a grown man stared at him intently like he was some sort of zoo animal.

At least Micah had been smooth and measured with his. This man on the other hand… his eyes were stretched wide open like saucers.

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