CH578

“Oof, that was a weird one,” Ben said with a shiver after reading another ghost’s memories.

“Why, what was it this time?”

“Some star species, only instead of being like any of the others I peeked into, I think its original species wasn’t made of matter or mana but instead energy. It was really weird to try and process. Also another notch I’m using to confirm that the majority of gods are assholes.”

With not much else he could do on their journey out, Ben had taken to exploring the minds of every ghost he could right until they entrapped them, finding both something he’d been too busy to notice on the first few, their unique status, same as he’d expect of any living individual on the world, but also where they’d each come from, namely a variety of species across the universe and all walks of life.

He was seeing plenty that had evolved on planets, the same as the majority of life he was aware of, but he was also encountering those that had been born to other environments in equal measures too. Gas giants, the void, the stars, with each environment having its own unique set of circumstances for the people in the memories he was seeing, and just as much as anything else, helped confirm a suspicion of Ben’s.

While he was seeing his share of terrors and tyrants, he was also seeing plenty of minds that he would happily call innocent of the sort of wrongdoing that would demand damnation, instead fitting more snugly to his earlier assumption.

Many were the victims or enemies of evil gods who had fought against them a bit too heavily, but more than a few were sent there by their own gods for largely superficial reasons or due to being eyesores, not the sort of heinous crimes that would demand that type of punishment.

Each time he found one undeserving of their sentence, he gave them a small prayer, even as he condemned them to a different imprisonment. They may have been innocent, but they were being controlled. He couldn’t let them be used to cause chaos and destruction and death across the world.

Which means if I survive I’ll have to figure out what to do with the soul crystal later. Maybe I can get Lux to help?

It was a future problem at least, one he didn’t need to worry too deeply on in the moment as they made their way to bash into the next ghost in their view, with their number only growing greater the closer they got to the center of it all and smashed through it, only for the limits of the soul crystal to catch up. Without a burst of light to greet them, that told them it hadn’t been sealed away, only passed through to cause whatever harm it could.

Hmm, not good. No matter how fast Thera regenerates her mana, she’s burning a lot to get us there as fast as she can and I already stole so much from her to materialize the crystal in the first place, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to steal more but that means we’re doing nothing about all of the ghosts. Maybe they shouldn’t be a priority but then they’ll be able to harass us while we deal with the outsider. Hmm, not really liking my options.

Saving mana for later versus dealing with the problem now, he could feel flaws in both choices and his various thoughts bumbled around for any alternative while Thera kept on, taking evasive maneuvers around the ghosts instead of ramming them like before and hoping that they wouldn’t follow or attack from behind, but it was looking to his girlfriend that gave him any hope for a solution as he went through his library of knowledge and put together a spell.

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With the idea firmly in place, he ramped his thoughts to their maximum speed before connecting with her and bringing her into his mind to convey it.