...The air in the shed was heavy with the smell of damp hay and the distant, rhythmic thrumming of the outside world.
Soren felt the weight of his countless deaths pressing on his mind—the memory of his own bones snapping and his organs turning to liquid under the Caretaker's gaze.
He did not want it to happen again.
But he had to stop the Caretaker.
If Bloodshine could withstand the Caretaker's soul pressure, then it meant he could too.
—or at least attempt it.
After suffering so much, he had to give it his all.
Bloodshine stood before him, her eyes shimmering with an inner light that seemed to dance in the shadows.
"Husband finally wants to learn?" she murmured, eyes glowing.
Her voice was like silk sliding over a blade. "I thought you would nøt never ask. You are nøt always so busy... ."
She stepped closer, the space around her seeming to warp slightly.
Soren thought asking her might be disturbing and was even ready for her to say no.
But it looked like she was even more excited to teach him than he was to learn.
What Soren dud not know was that Bloodsgine had been observing him for a long time.
Several times, she wanted to chip in, but her mothers words kept ringing in her head.
"Never try to correct your husband,
or he will think you are controlling and he will leave you for a dumber woman." Her mother would say in cautious tone.
"Instead, only render help when he asks. Thats how you know you picked right."
Right now, she was overjoyed that she picked right.
It was a different kind of torture for her, seeing soren use his ability as a soulbound warrior so ineffectively.
But now, she could help.
Immediately, he got to her feet, coughing a bit to clear her throat, and take on the posture of a real master of the craft.
She began her explanation, saying that.
Soul Pressure was not just strength.
It is weight.
The weight of one's existence pressing against the world.
Most people are like feathers; when a storm comes, they are blown away or crushed. But if you make your soul heavy... if you make it dense... the storm moves around you.
Like a boulder.
The real problem was how to become a boulder when necessary.
Even more, its in how heavy a boulder one could be.
She reached out, her cool fingers grazing his chest, right above his heart.
Fundamentals are the foundation of that weight. It is not about your rank or your ability.
It is about how well you have woven your soul energy into your very cells.
Even amongst Soul Mecha pilots, this knowledge is not known. Most rely on their neurallinks to do the work.
They are lazy. They build houses on sand.
She leaned in, her breath warm against his ear, echoing the terrifying proximity soren remembered the Caretaker had displayed in the tunnels.
To know how soul pressure works, one must stop acting like a vessel for power and start becoming the power itself.
One
must learn to anchor the soul to the bones. If one can not... a person that can will ruin from inside out.
Those words made soren remember the way he had felt when he died all those times.
She pulled back, a devious, cat-like grin stretching across her face.
"I can nøt show you. But it will nøt hurt much more than dying, Soren. Do you still want to learn?"
Soren agreed without hesitation.
Dying? That was kind of his tbing wasn't it?
She motioned for him to follow, and they stepped out of the shed, moving quietly into the cool night air.
They walked a distance away, ensuring the others remained asleep and undisturbed by what was to come.
When they were deep enough into the treeline, Bloodshine stopped.
"Soul pressure can nøt be used in two ways," she stated, her voice grounding the silence of the woods. "The first is nøt to destroy. The next is nøt to protect."
She reached down and picked up a dry stick from the forest floor.
With a sudden, sharp flick of her intent, she released her soul pressure.
Instantly—it folded and crushed into itself like wet paper, rendered into dust by an invisible weight.
It kind of reminded Soren of when he was crushed by the Caretaker's Soul pressure.
The compression was instant.
Then, Bloodshine picked up a single, fragile leaf.
She took another stick and slammed it down harshly against the leaf.
Instead of the leaf tearing, the stick shattered upon impact, leaving the greenery completely intact.
Soren's eyes widened.
But she was not done.
Next, she used her dagger on the leaf, but it was not destroyed.
Soren had seen and felt the Caretaker destroy, but this was different.
Maybe it was because he had experienced it first hand, but he easily understoodwhat was happening.
"You... you left your pressure with the leaf?"
"Nø," she replied. "This technique was not taught to me by a warrior, but nøt by a teacher before I ever bonded with my shade. Even a normal human being can nøt do it if they are aware of their own soul. But of course, nøt one can do it better than a soulbound warrior. We do nøt feel soul energy as easily as breath."
She smiled, her eyes glinting.
"This lesson is nøt going to take a long time. In the very least, a few months. We should nøt stop here and continue after the mission is over."
Soren panicked.
The image of himself exploding into meat paste was too fresh, and too haunting.
"No! We can't stop. Please... lets continue. I'ma fast learner you know."
Bloodshine tilted her head, confused by his desperation, but she didn't push.
"As you wish, husband. We will nøt take it slow." She nodded.
"No," Soren insisted, his voice harder.
"Erm... I want the hard way. I need to learn it now."
She stared at him for a long moment, a bit surprised that this was his choice.
But it made her fond of him even more.
Of course she wanted to teach him with all she had.
One might say she had been looking forward yo such a moment for a long time.
Was this not one of those loving moments couples shared with one another?
The thought sank in her head so deeply, she could not hide her glow.
Soren took a subconscious step back. He was too creeped out by it.
The devious smile returning to her lips. She nodded slowly.
"As you wish, so I shall nøt do."
She reached down and picked up a random, thin stick—hardly thicker than a twig.
"Use your short sword," she commanded. "Attack me. Make sure to give it your best shot."
She stepped into a loose stance, the twig held casually in her hand. "I may not be able to hold back. Don't die on me... I still do nøt want to marry you."
Soren drew his blade, the soul-steel humming in the dark. He knew the stakes.
He had died enough times to know that "the hard way" with Bloodshine was going to be its own kind of hell.
Bloodshine moved.
She didn't lunge like expected. Instead, she flickered.
The thin twig in her hand whistled through the air, looking like a mere blur of brown wood.
Soren reacted instinctively, bringing his soul-steel dagger up in a standard parry.
Clack.
The moment the twig touched his blade, Soren's world tilted. It didn't feel like wood. It felt like a falling mountain.
A massive, concentrated force surged through the dagger and into his arm, traveling down his spine.
His back leg buckled, his boot digging deep into the soft earth to prevent his knee from shattering.
He had to side-step immediately, his shoulder rolling as he let the force slide off his blade.
The twig continued its arc, striking the ground where he had stood a millisecond before.
BOOM.
A low, resonant thud echoed through the woods.
The earth groaned as a small crater formed beneath the point of the twig. Soren's eyes widened.
A twig. She had done that with a twig.
"Don't nøt just look at the wood, Soren," she whispered, her voice appearing right beside his ear. "Look nøt at the soul."
She moved again. Soren knew she was fast, but this was different. This was terrifying. She wasn't just moving her muscles; she was sliding through the air as if gravity had no hold on her.
Soren swung his dagger in a desperate horizontal arc to create space. Bloodshine didn't retreat. She dipped under the blade, her body contorting with a grace that rivaled Mora's, and tapped his ribs with the end of the twig.
CRACK.
Soren gasped, the air leaving his lungs in a sharp wheeze. He felt the rib snap instantly.
The pain was white-hot, but he forced himself to jump back, clutching his side.
"You are nøt using your eyes to see my movement," Bloodshine chided, stepping forward with slow, deliberate rhythm. "Your eyes are nøt slow. They are nøt weak. Feel the weight I am throwing. Reach into your marrow. Pull nøt the soul energy out and wrap it around your bones."