Chapter 248: Soul Harnesser "Soul Subjugation!" The words left Finn’s mouth with a finality that resonated through the chamber. The green flame suspended in the air shuddered, twisted, and then collapsed into itself before rushing towards him rapidly, straight towards the very depths of his soul. He braced himself for the familiar sensation of soul debt. The violent negotiation and struggle that always came when an Ossuarist assimilated a soul mass, when the soul tried to assert its will... But it never came. Instead, there was silence. The Crimson Tyrant’s soul mass simply settled into his soul quietly, devoid of any chaotic will whatsoever. Finn felt it anchor and integrate seamlessly with his own consciousness. And as it did, something changed. He felt heavier. Not physically — his body weighed the same. But his presence felt denser. Like the space he occupied had become more concentrated, more real than the space around him. As if reality itself had to work harder to contain him now. Behind him, Althea let out a shaky exhale. The connection they’d shared had severed completely now, leaving her feeling hollow and isolated by comparison. She slumped against the chamber wall, looking at her hands like they belonged to someone else. Ailin’s expression had shifted from excitement to something closer to reverence. She was watching Finn like she was witnessing something that would echo throughout history. Finn turned his attention inward, probing his soul carefully. Doubtfully still searching for the soul debt he knew should be there. The Tyrant’s rage. Its defiance. Its primal fury and base nature demanding acknowledgment and threatening to corrupt him if he didn’t maintain constant vigilance. Yet there was still nothing. The Crimson Fist Tyrant’s soul mass sat perfectly integrated within his own as if it had instinctively recognized itself as a subordinate. As a lesser. As naturally positioned beneath him in some hierarchy his expanded consciousness had imposed without him even realizing it. He’d out-authorized it. That was the only way to describe what had happened. By connecting to Althea, to Ailin, to the stone and air and distant presences beyond the chamber, he hadn’t just accumulated strength. He’d become something the Tyrant’s soul recognized as Natural Order. A soul of many. What have I become...? The thought hit him like cold water as his mind went back to what exactly had happened to make this work. To the many souls he’d somehow borrowed strength from... It defied every logic he knew. Individual souls were discrete. Separate. That was the foundation of how consciousness worked. But he’d proven that was a lie. Or at least, he’d found the crack in that truth wide enough to slip through. And the Tyrant’s soul, confronted with what appeared to be a collective consciousness rather than an individual one, had simply folded without resistance. It had no way to assert dominance over something that operated on principles it didn’t recognize. And that was why no soul debt, no negotiation, and no struggle at all, had followed its assimilation. Finn frowned slightly as he came down from the high of that "expanded consciousness" state. He looked at the stone floor beneath his feet. At the walls. At the statue that now stood dark and empty. And a thought crystallized in his mind in that moment. Everything is... conscious... Everything has a soul... The idea should have been absurd. There were living things and then there were non-living things. That was fact. That was truth. But yet, he’d somehow drawn strength from the stone beneath his feet. From the air. From things that by every definition should have had no consciousness to borrow strength from. Which meant everything had awareness. Not a human awareness, and not an animal consciousness either. But some fundamental flicker of existence. Some base-level participation in reality that counted as consciousness despite the fact it bore no resemblance to consciousness as he understood it. His Error had always shown him flaws in reality. Glitches. Structural weaknesses. Places where the rules didn’t quite hold. But what if that wasn’t all it was? What if his Error also allowed him the ability to perceive the static underneath everything? To break the veil and tap into the background hum of universal consciousness that human senses were never meant to detect? What if consciousness — the thing otherwise known as the soul, the same thing that was the backbone of every form of supernatural power Finn had come in contact with — existed all around him? A spectrum in which human consciousness was just one of many frequencies? No more special than any other except in its complexity? The possibilities that thought opened to him were mind boggling. Just how much power would be at his disposal? Could he wield it wantonly? What were his limits? Did he still need to even bother gaining divine power when he had potentially found out a loop hole into an essentially bottomless well of soul power? Afterall, the soul was also a basis for divine power... Finn swallowed visibly. Perhaps he was going too far with his thoughts now. Already, he could feel a huge weariness in his soul. A heavy strain from "expanded state" he’d just been immersed in. So he knew he wasn’t repeating it anytime soon. But at least, he had achieved the goal of this trial. He had claimed the inheritance. The soul mass of the Crimson Fist Tyrant. Now all that was left was to test it... He clenched his fist experimentally, channeling power through his body the way he would have activated the Crimson Fist Baboon’s abilities in his future timeline. The response was immediate. Strength flowed into his arms rapidly. But unlike when he’d embody the Crimson Fist Baboon as an Ossuarist, this was entirely different. Instead of the messy explosion of force he’d expected, the air around his fist distorted. His hand became briefly more real than the space it occupied, and reality bent around it like fabric pulled tight. He struck forward, not at anything in particular, just testing the motion. And instantly, the air fractured. A visible crack appeared in the space before him, a hairline split in the air that spread outward for a meter before slowly knitting itself back together. It took several seconds for the fracture to fully heal, leaving no trace it had ever existed. Finn stared at his fist. That wasn’t normal. That wasn’t Transcendent power or Ossuarist technique or even divine essence. That was some weird blend of his Error magic and the Tyrant’s technique. His attack had been fundamentally incompatible with the environment, as if the simple punch created contradictions reality had to constantly work to resolve. ...This was an extremely fortuitous encounter. I’m practically a walking violation right now. The edges of Finn’s lips pulled upward in a small smile before he turned and spoke to Althea and Ailin behind him: 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮 "We should leave." Althea pushed herself off the wall, still looking shaken. "What did you do...? Back then when we were connected—" "Later," Finn cut her off. He himself didn’t fully understand it well enough to explain, so he didn’t bother with the question. They moved toward the exit, passing the empty statue one final time. Finn glanced back at it. The Tyrant stood frozen in its eternal snarl, but the chest was hollow now. Dark. The soul that had defined it for millenniums was gone. It lived in him now. They stepped through the veil at the door of the chamber, walked the entire length of the corridor in silence, then finally, stepped back into the central hall.