Spirit Soul

Luckily, Beatrice's weight didn't squash his already injured body, and Kyle was finally able to breathe once again.

After their rather graceless fall, he continued to lie on the thick tree branch.

Simultaneously, he used his Nurture ability on himself the moment a tiny fraction of soul force was replenished.

Because of that, he could feel the pain slowly ebb.

However, it would take a while until he would be fully healed.

There was only one problem- some of the tiny branches were still sticking into his back, digging into the outer layer of his skin.

This made his already sliced-off back hurt even more and taking them out was difficult because he couldn't reach all of them.

As such, healing himself would make everything worse as the branches had to be taken out first.

Thus, he merely invigorated himself until he felt strong enough to lift his upper body.

After this, he focussed on healing the rest of his body too.

But, it would take eons to fully heal with the energy he had used up to empower the Nurture ability.

With that in mind, he tried to carefully pluck out the thorny branches out of his back.

It was extremely difficult as his body didn't want to move as he wanted it to.

Sensing his difficulties, Arashi began to help, only for Beatrice to realize what was going on.

Seeing that Arashi was accidentally worsening the injuries, instead of helping him, Beatrice got to work.

Nearing him, she started taking the branches out of Kyle's back.

Some of them had pierced his skin through, and even a few droplets of blood trickled down.

Oddly enough, she didn't feel like drinking his blood despite the sight.

Only exhaustion spread through her entire body, making her want to sleep. B

But instead of collapsing on the ground to enter a deep slumber after everything that happened during the last few hours, Beatrice still finished removing the tree branches, of which some stuck deep in Kyle's flesh.

This caused some blood to splatter on her face, yet, even then her desire for more blood didn't overwhelm her.

Kyle also noticed this because he had expected Beatrice to be unable to control her wild instincts.

Thankfully, when she was done, she simply laid down next to him, allowing Kyle to see a droplet of blood on her fair face.

It was confusing, and he was curious to know why she was not interested in his blood despite still being hungry.

After thinking about it for a while, Kyle assumed that it may have to do with their current condition.

They were both exhausted and he was in pain, which made Kyle believe that their blood pact could have intervened.

However, that was not something he could be sure of.

As such, overwhelmed by exhaustion, Kyle closed his eyes, while Beatrice did the same.

She was drained of all energy and overwhelmed by the recent events.

Everything was new to her, and she felt as if she had entered an entirely new world that allowed her to be free of the shackles that had chained her down since birth.

Through this, it was almost as if she had been reborn. Everything about her, except the knowledge she had acquired beforehand, had been reset after all!

With that in mind, she felt that her situation was similar to Kyle's.

The youngest reincarnation of the Old Universe had been confined to a place for eons.

That prevented him from reincarnating during the same time as the others.

At least that was what Nitran had once told him about Karnias' reincarnation that had also been much later than that of most Old Souls!

Because of that, Beatrice felt that both of them were suitable to each other.

They were both old, yet still young in a world the two of them were supposed to journey through, together!

As such, he believed that they were perfect companions.

This thought was the last one she had in mind before she fell into a deep slumber.

It made her smile as she began to dream about many things she had long since forgotten about; the days before she had been bound to the Undead Heart!

Meanwhile, Kyle fell into a dreamless sleep, with a blank mind.

For once, his mind was carefully blank and not even a single thought was wasted on thinking about the dangers of the surroundings, or why only a few beasts dared to be close to the ginormous tree they were resting on.

Only Arashi was left awake as he emerged from Kyle's body.

His beady eyes took a look at the surroundings before he yelped out in joy, glad about returning to nature.

The last few months had been an absolute nightmare to the Horned Tempest fox.

It was only obvious owing to the Death aura that had permeated the area around the Razkadan Castle.

As such, Arashi was overjoyed, and Kyle felt the same as he could sleep carefree and without any worry for the first time in a very long period.

Yet, for Beatrice, the lack of the Death aura was something entirely new.

In its absence, her dreams became more vivid, mostly showing her things about the first few weeks of her life.

All the memories seemed to bombard her mind, making her toss and turn in her sleep quite a lot.

And, when Arashi saw this, he had to overcome his own tiredness that was only a fraction when compared to how Beatrice and Kyle were feeling as he pushed her closer to the center of the thick tree branch.

She had been wriggling so much that she was nearing the edge of the tree branch, which was definitely not where she ought to be.

Thus, Arashi kept observing Beatrice, preventing her from doing something stupid in her dream.

However, the moment he pushed her towards the center of the tree, and closer to Kyle, she calmed down, and she even stopped moving at one point.

Upon seeing how both Beatrice and Kyle were sleeping peacefully, he decided to merge with Kyle's body once again.

This left the two snoring lightly in the center of the tree branch.

Beatrice's breathing was calm and she didn't move a single inch away from the center of the branch.

Instead, she felt Kyle's warmth near her which caused her to snuggle closer to him.

Meanwhile, Kyle had only sensed that Arashi was leaving and entering his body multiple times before he felt a bunch of hair in his face.

Thus, he instinctively believed that it was his Spirit Soul that wanted to sleep right next to him.

Sleep overwhelmed him to such an extent that he did not even notice that it might be Beatrice and not Arashi. As such, he hugged her, before he stopped moving, sleeping soundly.

Almost two days passed in which both Kyle and Beatrice continued to sleep, and replenish their energy.

It helped them recuperate from both physical and mental injuries before they finally woke up.

Beatrice was the first to awake because she smelled Kyle's warm blood that was only a few centimeters away from her.

Now that she had fully rested, she felt the desire to drink some of it arising from the depths of her conscience.

But before she would act on it, Beatrice recalled that she had just drunk some of his blood a few days ago.

Shaking her head to dispel her desires, she only now noticed the position in which they were lying.

Enveloped in his gentle embrace, Beatrice felt warm and comfortable, as if nothing bad could happen to her as long as they were to stay like this.

Because of that, she felt incapable of moving, as her entire body wanted to savor this feeling which she felt for the first time in her life.

Before meeting him, everything had been cold and distant. Even though she knew that the Undeads were kind to her, loving her like a family member, they were, in fact, dead.

As such, instead of pushing Kyle away, she hugged him tightly, suppressing her desire to drink his blood and pounce at him.

What Beatrice hadn't noticed before was the fact that her entire body became overly sensitive to Kyle's touch.

Only now did she clearly realize that her earlier desire to claim Kyle for herself was not just her ego and forced personality.

Rather, it was as if her entire body was screaming to become Kyle's.

Meanwhile, her mind told her to also drink his blood, and to calm down.

It was urging her to think about it rationally, and infer that everything was just caused by the blood pact.

It was almost like her body and mind were completely contradictory, but even if everything was because of the blood pact, Beatrice didn't feel bad.

On the contrary, she didn't recall a single day in her long life that had made her feel as happy, reassured, calm, and comfortable with everything around her as today.

Thus, time passed slowly as she continued to hug Kyle.

Had she not been full of energy she would have gone to sleep once again.

Yet, the moment she felt like that, Kyle stirred, waking up from his slumber.

Moving a little, he felt a weight being lifted from him as a familiar scent permeated the air.

Only a moment later, the silky hair that had been caressing his chin was also removed and upon opening his eyes, he saw Beatrice in front of him.

Smiling lightly, he rubbed his drowsy eyes and mumbled.

"Are you hungry? You can take a little bite."

Pushing himself into a nearly sitting position, he pulled aside his shirt to reveal his neck, before he yawned.

It was much more difficult for him to get rid of the sleep that was dragging him down to lie on the branch again.

Having completed the trial successfully, his brain and body had finally felt the need to rest so it was getting difficult for him to keep his eyes open.

As such, he took a while to realize that Beatrice didn't come closer to drink some of his blood even after hearing him.

Instead, she was even retreating a bit, while staring at him in doubt, confused about herself and what she had been doing just now.

Seeing that Beatrice didn't want to drink his blood, Kyle shrugged his shoulders, before he got up from the branch, oblivious to what had happened before.

Thus, he approached the edge of the branch before empowering his Nurture ability with some of his soul force.

Through this, he was able to see more hues than before because they were much closer to the ground than before.

Nevertheless, the distance to the ground was still several hundred meters, or even more. But even that was not enough to help him make sense of what he was seeing.

'Why are there so few beasts around the tree?'

However, just before he would turn around to Beatrice in order to discuss the next few steps on their journey towards the Lahin kingdom, and how to get there, the leaves around him began to rustle while the branches began to move.

Just a moment later, a spooky voice resounded through Kyle's mind., causing the entire vigor he had just accumulated by sleeping for two days straight to be wiped off.

[I…sense the presence of the purest life…Soooull of the Old Universe…what are you hiding?]

Upon hearing the voice, his legs gave in and Kyle's face turned ashen pale.

And, when Beatrice saw this, her eyes widened as she rushed towards him, instantly grabbing his shoulders to prevent him from falling down the tree.

Yet, it was only a moment later that dozens of branches shot out of the thicket of leaves, tightly enveloping them. They began to absorb their energy, leaving them with only the nutrition they required to stay alive.

A second later, they were pulled somewhere, and Kyle could only curse out.

'Can I not have even a moment of peace ?! Why always me??'

However, despite his complaints, they were pulled towards the insides of the ginormous tree, only to be forced to face something Kyle didn't expect- a tiny seed in the center of the ginormous tree!"