Ash froze.
The casual cruelty of Rynne’s words wasn’t what struck him. It was the profound, unsettling implication beneath them. Her insult toward Earung had revealed something far more significant than she could have known.
Ash had assumed Earung was simply part of a stunted species that lived alongside mankind. But no. Rynne had said it explicitly: human.
Earung was a real human. The only human in the squad.
Which meant the others... were Titans. Including the boy whose body Ash was currently trapped in.
Earung scowled, tossing a strip of sinew into the brush.
"What’s the point of dragging this massive carcass if the best part is already smashed?"
Altent tossed a final bundle of blankets near the crackling fire, the heavy bundle landing with a muffled thump.
"You agreed to the hunt. Do your job. Extract the hearts and stop whining."
Earung grimaced, carving through the beast with practiced precision. His hands moved with expert efficiency, though every cut carried a hint of regret. Nearby, Altent stacked the bedding with the quiet, orderly focus of a career soldier fortifying a camp. Rynne tended the fire, laying thick strips of raw game across hot stones where they began to sizzle and spit fat. Soon, the crisp night air filled with the rich aroma of roasting meat.
As the camp came together around him, Ash’s gaze remained glued to the dancing flames. His mind churned behind a carefully constructed mask of indifference.
’So... Titans, huh.’
The ancient priest back in the buried temple had been a Titan. If this body, this impossible situation, wasn’t directly connected to that encounter, Ash didn’t know what was. The sheer absurdity of it made his head ache. It was almost like all this was some feverish dream.
’Wait. A dream...’
Ash turned his head sharply, taking in the clearing, the warriors, the strange flora, the twin-colored sky.
Altent glanced over from the bedding.
"Young lord, is everything alright?"
Ash stared at him for a moment before giving a small nod. Reassured, Altent smiled warmly, returning to his work.
Ash continued to scan the shadows at the edge of the firelight. Whenever reality became this absurd, she would appear. The woman in red. He didn’t know when she would show up, but he prayed it would be soon.
The recent chain of events had pushed him far beyond his usual limit for insanity. How or why had his brothers infiltrated Apex in the first place? What was that Titan priest doing in the forgotten ruins? And how had he ended up trapped inside a Titan boy’s body? That void where he had drifted naked with that glowing stranger.
None of it felt real.
A quiet, breathless laugh escaped Ash’s lips.
’Yeah. This is definitely a dream... She’s going to pop out of the treeline any second now.’
He waited, watching the flames lick the dark logs. A faint, tentative smile spread across his face. If this was all just a fever dream, then his brothers were still alive back in the real world. Safe, unbroken, and living peaceful lives. That single thought washed over him like a wave of pure relief.
He waited. Seconds ticked by. Then minutes.
But nothing moved in the dark. The crimson dress never materialized, and that familiar voice never shattered the illusion.
’Strange...’
Yet, as he waited, Ash couldn’t stop picking at the logic. He had dreamed before. Ever since awakening his soul space, his dreams were often so vivid that they blurred the line between illusion and reality. But something about this experience felt fundamentally different. It was lucid, yes, but it was far longer and more cohesive than anything he had ever endured. Usually, his dreams were brief, violently interrupted by the woman in red before he could even rest properly.
Why was this happening now? Had his body finally collapsed from exhaustion, leaving his mind trapped in an endless dream?
’Yeah... that has to be it.’
Still, he couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he had fallen asleep. Was it right after the last nightmare? Was he experiencing a dream within a dream?
Ash shook his head, brushing the thought away. It sounded absurd. A dream within a dream. He clearly remembered snapping awake in a cold sweat back on the ruined planet. That was how his nightmares always ended. Yet he had no recollection of drifting off afterward.
Unless... the meeting inside his soul space. Things had spiraled out of control right around then.
The smile returned to his lips, broader this time.
’It all makes sense now. I thought fate was coming to ruin me again, but it’s just my own subconscious projecting my worst fears.’
Yet a stubborn thread of doubt pulled at his chest. If this was a dream, shouldn’t his brothers be standing right beside him? And if terror was enough to wake him up, shouldn’t he have snapped back to reality the moment the dreadnought charged its orbital cannons? He had watched his brother bleed out. He had watched the sky turn into a wall of incinerating light. The woman in red hadn’t come to break the fall.
And he was still here.
The smile slowly withered from his face.
’...Dreams don’t last this long.’
Ash’s brow furrowed tightly. He wasn’t dreaming. This wasn’t an illusion.
Glancing around the clearing, he saw that the others were still occupied with their tasks. He needed answers. If he was truly alive, and if this body was real, he needed to test the one thing that had haunted him his entire life.
The Roots. His curses. Did those vile, parasitic cores still cling to his soul even in this alien vessel? Could a Titan even possess a soul space like his own?
There was only one way to find out.
Ash closed his eyes, pulling his awareness inward and plunging into the depths of his consciousness.
When his mind settled, he found himself standing in an unfamiliar place.
It was supposed to be a soul space, yet it shared no resemblance to his own. There was no endless, pitch-black ocean. Even the three annoying cores were gone. Instead, a desolate, cracked wasteland of pale clay stretched out toward a stagnant, grey horizon. Small, black puddles dotted the barren ground.
Above him, in a sky of suffocating darkness, a single core hung in isolation. It pulsed with a dull, sickly crimson, its light weak and erratic.
Ash squinted up at the failing sphere.
’Huh. That’s it?’
As if responding to his thought, the core flickered, and an unfamiliar, resonant voice echoed through the vast expanse:
[The Divine Core does not recognize your presence.]
Ash frowned, stepping forward.
"Hey... I—"
He cut himself off, startled by the sound of his own voice. It wasn’t the tone of the Titan boy. It was his true voice. Looking down, he saw that his hands, limbs, and frame had reverted to those of his original body.
’I see. My mind body remains unchanged.’
A body needed a mind to direct its actions and give them purpose. Without a mind, a person was nothing more than a thinkingless husk. Without a soul, they could still think and act, but they would be empty of genuine feeling. Though the results were different, both were ultimately incomplete vessels.
That was why Ash was stunned to find his mind body standing inside the soul space of this foreign vessel. His original body was gone... destroyed in orbital fire. Yet his consciousness had somehow taken root here, occupying another soul’s space.
The warm voice of the soul space resonated once more:
[The Divine Core demands your identity.]
Ash looked up at the flickering red sphere and spoke quietly.
"Hi... My name is Ashley."
Silence hung over the desolate wasteland. The core pulsed once, unimpressed.
Ash rubbed the back of his neck.
’Right. You want everything...’
He cleared his throat.
"My name is Ashley Burns. I am... well, I was a human from the planet Varagos. My favorite activity is sleeping. My favorite food is—"
[The Divine Core does not record triviality.]
[The Divine Core demands to know how an uninvited consciousness breached this vessel.]
Ash shrugged helplessly.
"I don’t know either. I died, the sky went white, and then I woke up in this kid’s body."
[The Divine Core regards you with absolute suspicion...]
[The Divine Core is sealing your inherited ability.]
Ash narrowed his eyes.
’Wait... cores can just do that?’
[The Divine Core dictates that only the true bearer may wield its abilities. An intruder is unfit to claim the power of the origin.]
Ash scowled, looking away from the sky.
"Yeah... great. Of course."
He glanced down at the cracked ground beneath his boots. Without a reflective surface to reveal his soul body, he had no way of evaluating the full status of this body’s previous owner.
"Argh... come on."
Ash muttered under his breath.
"Just how weak was this kid before I took over?"
As if granting his bitter request, the voice chimed one final time, echoing over the desolate plain:
[Soul Record...]
Name: Tachyros
Realm: Core
Vessel: Hybrid
Vessel Tier: 0
Mind Level: 4
Soul Stage: 0
Soul Pool: 590 / 600
Soul Energy: 100%
Soul Core: [Divine]
Core Root: [Ghost of All Realms]
Soulroot: [Doom of the Divine Path], [Marked by the Trial].
Soul Ability: [sealed]