Epic of Caterpillar

333 The Regrets of the Dead

In that place, she glanced at their inhabitants, who were countless of souls without any purpose, most of the beings she had eaten their souls were here.

Kireina had thought that eaten souls would disappear and just become Soul Energy for her soul, but that isn\'t the case.

Even if eaten, assimilated or destroyed, much like matter, souls cannot be destroyed, they will only change their compositions. And thanks to Kireina\'s high Soul Ranking, Soul Stats, her unique and strange Soul Mutation, Titles and Skills, a void, a strange space had appeared inside of her own Soul, were the souls that she had eaten were stored…

Most of their Energy was already assimilated by her soul, so these drifting souls were more like part of her soul and were concentrated in this place as their minds haven\'t dissipated and absorbed by the hive mind of her Soul.

As she glanced at this space, she discovered that some small, weakening souls that were barely existing suddenly dissipated into small particles, being assimilated by the main soul.

However, Human, Demi-Human, or very strong monster\'s souls would usually remain for very long times.

At this very moment, Kireina was watching over a particular group of souls, a Trio of Vampires, Joliette, Castien, and Frank, who were conversion with someone who seemed to be Ymir\'s and his sibling\'s souls.

Ymir was the soul that shined the brightest, his soul didn\'t resemble a pale yellow ghost, but a blazing body of flames, his features were well distinctive enough.

Against Kireina\'s expectations, Ymir wasn\'t angry, neither annoyed because he was eaten, he seemed rather… sad.

"Sigh… This place is depressing… And each time I take a glance at my siblings, I feel terrible… Is this what it called repentance? It\'s as if all the bad things I\'ve done in my life are constantly tormenting me, and because my soul is way stronger than my siblings, my mind hasn\'t faded away like others, making the torment even greater…" He said, while looking at the tired soul of Joliette, she was already bored of this narcissistic guy constantly talking about how sad he was.

"Then why don\'t you say that you\'re sorry?" asked Castien\'s soul, who was beside him, patting Ymir\'s large shoulders.

"Can\'t you let us alone already?" said Joliette, she didn\'t care about Ymir\'s torments.

"Guoon…"

"W-Well, I\'ve tried to say that I was sorry, but they wouldn\'t accept my apologies… They are very angry with me, some of my weaker siblings had already faded away… I don\'t want them to hate me for eternity when they go away from here…"

Castien\'s soul floated around while thinking, putting his hands below his ethereal chin.

"Hmm… well, how about I help you out? It\'s not like I can do anything else, and I\'m bored"

"W-Will you really help me out?! T-Thanks, Vampire san!"

Ymir suddenly used his blazing body to hug Castien, even though Fire is the natural enemy of Vampires, souls didn\'t work with such weaknesses, and Ymir\'s fire-appearance is no more than a representation of his vigorous soul.

"Very well then, Frank-kun, come with us"

"Guoon…"

Frank floated towards Ymir and Castien, leaving Joliette alone.

"H-Hey! Frank, wait a minute! You belong to ME! W-Where are you going…? Hey… don\'t leave me alone with these weird souls…"

Joliette seemed afraid of being left alone in such an eerie and depressive place, so she ended up following the group.

Kireina saw these scenes unfold with eyes wide open… but her eyes were closed as she was sleeping, so ethereal eyes wide open.

"Just why is this even happening? Why are these souls here? Is there any purpose in having them here?"

And just as Kireina thought about why things were as they were, a small dark sphere appeared, inside of it, there was a beating fleshy heart… it released an intoxicating atmosphere and a sweet aroma.

"H-Huh?"

Kireina immediately knew what was this sphere… She had seen it multiple times in her dreams, while fighting, while using her skills and even while having intercourse… This was the representation of her Sin bestowed to her by the System, the Sin of Lust.

She had never imagined that it would show up as an ethereal being, which seemed to answer her commands, like a servant. It moved around her Realm as she wanted, it could even extend its body and form limbs to grab things.

Kireina tried to grab two monster souls and then they were forcefully assimilated and disappeared. However, when she did this, nothing changed, she had just speeded their process of "soul digestion" as she called it. However, the "nutrients" were already obtained, so this process did not have much meaning aside from cleaning the place faster.

Kireina thought about other things to do with these souls… Could she reincarnate them? The moment she came out with this thought, she began to look for the former Athetosean Champions, Heroes and Knights which souls she had eaten, but they were nowhere to be seen.

She was sure to have seen them yesterday, but they were now gone. Why was that?

Did they reincarnate already? And how did that even happen?

Kireina tried to ask the Sin of Lust itself, but the dark sphere only remained in a place, motionless. The surrounding Souls felt naturally attracted to it, except very strong souls, like the ones of Vampires, Ymir and its Siblings, and others.

Kireina tried to look for Caspian Soul, but it was also nowhere to be seen, neither the Souls of the Monster Emperors that she fought in her first days in the Grand Forest, but she remembered that in those times, she couldn\'t eat souls, so it was reasonable.

Caspian had been most likely digested already, unable to reincarnate… However, the Merfolk Old Ancestor was still here. His entire soul seemed to be made entirely of water, flowing water…

However, its ethereal body was already very weakened, on the verge of collapsing, as she inspected it, it seemed to still have some of its memories and part of its original power… If she were to somehow transfer this soul to an unborn baby, she could reincarnate him. That baby would be born with its talents and powers…

But Kireina didn\'t want that, she didn\'t saw him as someone deserving of being given a second chance, after what he did to Belle, Kireina clearly hated this man.

However, that his power could be useful couldn\'t be denied, for that purpose, she wished for its soul to possess an item, a pendant or a weapon, which could draw its original power while being able to grant its magic knowledge to others, she wanted it as a present for Aarae.

And just as she wished for it, the sphere, who was the Sin of Lust, grabbed in the Soul of the Merfolk Old Ancestor and disappeared… Kireina was ten left frozen in time.

"Just how did that happen?! Where is my Sin of Lust?!" She thought…

Meanwhile, the Sin of Lust grabbed the Merfolk Old Ancestor Soul and went where Aarae, Kireina\'s child, was sleeping. Seeking a good item to be possessed, the Sin of Lust choose a small sapphire-colored ring in Aarae\'s left hand, the soul quickly seeped inside of the ring and remained inert.

While Kireina desperately looked for her Sin, it suddenly appeared again, surprising her.

"Phew… It\'s back… But just what did you do?!"

"…"

A Sin was merely something similar to an AI, without proper development, it couldn\'t think on its own, and it only obeyed orders.

Kireina wished for the Soul of the Merfolk Old Ancestor to become an accessory to help on Aarae\'s development, and because this was within its ability, the Sin did it without doubting. Although the process itself consumed a high quantity of Soul Energy, so Kireina will have to eat more souls to replenish herself later on.

And then Kireina thought about Ymir and its siblings, who were only killed for her to grow stronger, she didn\'t hold any grudges against them, and they seemed to have completely forgotten about their deaths.

She noticed that even the prideful and narcissistic Ymir was repenting for his errors, constantly asking its siblings to forgive him. Although they didn\'t even remember Kireina, they remembered Ymir, who had tormented them for years, and they held strong grudges against him.

Kireina wondered if she could reincarnate them, so new soldiers could be born with their talents and innate skills, for a moment, she wondered if they could be reincarnated as her children in the future…

And just as she thought about it, the Sin of Lust happily did its best to please its owner.

"Please, forgive me…! I beg of you…! I\'ve repented… I\'ve done horrible things… So please, please!" begged Ymir large and blazing soul, far larger than his siblings, kneeling in the deep black floor.

One of Ymir siblings who seemed to be a little girl with long nails glanced at him with hate.

"No, I will never forgive you, never!"

Another of his siblings, a tall and intelligent-looking Ashura said scornful words as well.

"I would never forgive you, no matter how repented you are! No matter how hard you try to change…! The things you\'ve done are already done! You don\'t deserve peace; you deserve to be tormented for eternity! That is what you deserve, YMIR!"

The other siblings remained silent but glanced at Ymir with hate. It seems that Castien\'s and Frank\'s efforts to make them understand failed.

Ymir was breaking down, crying. He grabbed his ethereal head with his semi-transparent four arms, he was tormented… the horrible things he did… couldn\'t be undone.

"Please…! Please forgive me…! Please… I\'m so sorry, I\'m so sorry…! Mother…!"

Ymir\'s mother was also in here, and even his mother, couldn\'t forgive her son.

"Ymir… I will never forgive you… You\'re not my son, you\'re a monster! A horrible monster! I can\'t believe I gave birth to you! The horrible things you did to the innocent! I never raised you to be such a manic!"

"Aaaah- H-Huh…?"

As Ymir was about to shout in suffering, a dark sphere appeared in the middle of this familiar drama… It had a beating fleshy heart inside, and its presence was both eerie and intoxicating.

"It\'s here again…! Run, Frank, Joliette…!" shouted Castien, as he grabbed his two Vampire companions and flew away.

However, Ymir and his family weren\'t as quick and were absorbed by the sphere, and then, the dark spherical being disappeared.

Kireina felt as she lost a big chunk of her Soul Energy once again.

"W-Wait, you\'re really reincarnating them…!?"

Ymir, his siblings, and his mother were transferred to the Dark Moon Empire Castle, where Kireina\'s wives rested…

The Sin of Lust, swiftly moved around, undetected. And then found some nice vessels for the souls… Still growing infants who lacked a soul, and would form a natural one if there wasn\'t any to fill in the void.

Several souls flew to three eggs that were underwater, being taken care of by Mady, who was peacefully sleeping in her secret room in the pool specifically made for her by Kireina.

The other half of the souls drifted towards Kaguya and Nanako…

The interesting thing about how the Sin of Lust inserted souls into infant bodies is that there wasn\'t just one soul per body… several souls entered one single body at the same time, instantly merging and forming complex personalities that combined the ones the beings that made them had, alongside their talents and innate skills.

The same had happened with Nephiana\'s seven eggs, there were seven eggs, but over ten souls were the ones from Athetosean Knights, Heroes, and Champions.

Indeed, the Sin of Lust wasn\'t that good at reincarnating people and often ended up giving more souls to a body than it should be… creating unique results.

Of course, Kireina didn\'t know how they reincarnated if they were reincarnated as her children or as other citizens of her Empire. She was clueless and hoped for the later.

However, no matter who had reincarnated as her children, Kireina would love and raise them no matter what. Those were her last thoughts, before falling asleep completely.

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