The Mech Touch

When Veronica and Helena decided to create their first demon through artificial means, they first needed to acquire a soul.

This was not as simple as it sounded.

"I do not have the habit of storing souls." The gray-coated Helcat spoke to the other cat. "I mean, why would I? My responsibility as the Daughter of Death is to ensure those who believe in me will get taken care of after their demise. This entails many duties such as making sure that souls do not get mixed up and that other predators do not take them away for their own nefarious purposes."

"Does that include me?" Veronica plainly asked.

The Helcat folded her paws in front of her feline chest. "Even you, little sister. This is one area that I cannot afford to compromise on. I am a death goddess of the Hex Federation, the Oblivion Empire and any other humans who worship the Superior Mother or myself. Its citizens worship me for the most part, which means that I have the duty to be attentive to their prayers and safeguard their souls, mostly against the threats that they cannot defend themselves against. When they die, I have a duty to ensure they pass on as they are meant to. A goddess that does not even bother to fulfill her basic duties to her worshipers is a parasite that has more in common with demons. I refuse to degenerate to that level."

In other words, a god was just another form of service provider, just a really fancy and sacred one.

Veronica understood the importance of responsibility, duty and reciprocity, so she did not press her demand any further. Doing so would touch upon Helena's principles and lead to a deterioration in their relationship.

"It's okay, Helena. Forget what I just asked. Your worshipers account for a very insignificant proportion of the human population in the Red Ocean and the Milky Way anyway. There are way more humans and aliens out there that you do not have an obligation to protect. Anyway, let's get back to business. Since you don't have any souls in storage, can you harvest one at this time?"

"That is easy enough. Plenty of my worshipers are involved in battles and scuffles in both galaxies. It is much easier to harvest a large amount of souls in the Red Ocean at the moment due to the ongoing Red Tide Offensive, but it is not that simple to transfer a soul from one galaxy to another. Even if I am able to maintain a presence in both, I cannot completely disregard the enormous distance between the Red Ocean and the Milky Way"

The cute Helcat nodded. "I can do it for anything immaterial, but don't expect me to do the same for material objects. Even our mother has to make use of the Oblivion Gates to transfer goods across intergalactic distances. For a typical soul, I can only transfer it from the Red Ocean to the Milky Way if I invest a large amount of qi to cross the enormous divide and keep it protected against the dangers of the void. It is highly cost-ineffective to do this for a single soul that isn't valuable, so it is better if I save it up for an insubstantial good of actual value such as a demon."

"I see. That is good to know."

In short, Helena did not want to bother carting around a large amount of low-value souls through the intergalactic void.

Veronica should only tap her eldest sister's transportation capabilities when she had prepared a batch of finished trade goods.

"Can you pluck a soul in and around the Oblivion Empire, then?"

"I can." Helena's mechanical cat avatar started to grin. "In fact, the circumstances of the Nyxian Gap are actually a lot more special than you think. This entire anomalous space has actually been converted into a mysterious prison of sorts by an ancient True God of sorts. There are many souls floating around that have been chained for more years than you can imagine. This prison has not only captured a huge amount of souls from alien beings who have died ages ago, but also captures the souls of humans who have died much more recently in or around the anomalous space."

That was right! How could Veronica forget about that! The Nyxian Gap was one of the few places where the boundary between the material realm and the imaginary realm had weakened, thereby allowing cultivators to channel their power more easily.

Also, the strange soul prison also seemed to have been created for the purpose of forming 'spiritual energy generators!

Since the heavens of the Milky Way Galaxy had collapsed, many ancient and powerful cultivators had lost access to the power of heaven, causing them to weaken and even starve to death as they were unable to sustain their energy hungry existences.

A lot of powerful True Gods apparently resorted to extreme and desperate solutions to survive the new age of deprivation and ruination.

Whoever created the Nyxian Gap had come up with a genius idea. One of the known sources of spiritual energy was the spiritualities of sentient beings.

If that was the case, why not rip the souls of as many of these beings as possible, put. them in a form of permanent captivity, and squeeze them at regular intervals to produce spiritual energy?

Although it sounded incredibly crazy, it actually worked!

If Veronica concentrated her spiritual senses just enough, she could vaguely perceive a giant intangible vortex of shackled souls that encompassed the entirety of the

Nyxian Gap,

These imprisoned antition had haan imprisoned for on long that the lost much of

Their identity and distinctive traits. Even so, they had not completely degenerated into demons, nor received strong enough blows to shatter apart.

The mysterious prison was not that merciful to these unfortunate captives. Their only job was to produce spiritual energy through stimulating their mental activity, and it was best if they lasted as long as possible!

Sure, the efficiency was awfully low, and it took a lot of energy just to keep all of the 'inmates' under control and alive over the long term, but the mysterious prison turned the Nyxian Gap into one of the few pockets of space where spiritual energy became available.

Unfortunately, much of the spiritual energy came in the form of negative attributes. This not only warped the fabric of space inside the anomalous region, but also had to undergo a process of filtering and conversion in order to make the resulting energy safe to use by general cultivators.

That was why the abnormal energy environment Nyxian Gap was ultimately inferior to the medium-energy environment of the Red Ocean.

"Do you have control over the trapped souls of this mysterious prison?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. Our mother successfully took over the Nyxian Gap, which means she holds the highest authority as its latest warden. That is the source of her current title. Why else do you think she is called the Oblivion Empire? In any case, she appointed me as the vice warden. This gives me broad authority over the prison. I am mostly responsible for managing the day-to-day affairs. This can entail pruning the souls that have been repeatedly exhausted to the point their upkeep is higher than their revenue. I am also expected to keep out any souls that count among our subjects or worshipers. One day, I will inherit the Nyxian Gap entirely"

Veronica looked impressed. Controlling the Nyxian Gap turned out to be a huge deal. "Earlier, you told me that you don't store any souls. Now I find out that you are already running a gigantic soul prison."

"None of it is mine." Helena retorted. "It all belongs to our mother. She is the only god who can decide the fate of these souls. Recently, she sacrificed a large proportion of them in order to fuel the initial activation of the Black Oblivion Gate. She has been working on upgrading the gate with the imported hyper materials so that it will only require a fraction of the previous amount of qi to activate it again. However, we have actually fallen to our weakest point in years. Our mysterious prison is much emptier than before. This not only means we have less souls to sacrifice to generate an immediate burst of qi, but our 'periodic income' has also dropped to a massive extent."

Veronica suddenly started to connect a few dots!

It was no wonder why the Oblivion Empress insisted that Veronica rush the Rule Breaker Project to completion!

Her mother imposed a tight deadline for a good reason!

The goal was to generate as much conflict as possible in the short term, thereby

Causing a lot of people in the star sectors surrounding the Nyxian Gap to die!

Once they perished, the mysterious prison would catch their souls and reel them in, thereby replacing the spent captives that previously ensured the prosperity of the anomalous region!

The Oblivion Empress even planned to expand the Nyxian Gap during the upcoming

Period of turmoil.

The larger and more populated the mysterious prison, the larger the energy reserves

At Cynthia's disposal!

Right now was a bad time for Helena to embezzle a soul here and there. The Nyxian Gap had reached a depleted state, so the Oblivion Empress was especially sensitive to any theft or breakout attempts.

Fortunately, Cynthia did not care too much about the souls of deceased humans that have yet to enter the mysterious prison.

It was easy enough for Helena to pay attention to the routine skirmishes that look

Place in the Komodo Star Sector, the Majestic Teal Star Sector and especially the Vicious Mountain Star Sector.

Human infighting remained as strong as ever in a galaxy that was still stuck in the Age

Of Mechs.

Plenty of outfits fought against each other in order to topple their competitors, steal

The foundation of their rivals, take revenge for grievances made in the past or simply engage in a little opportunistic piracy and rob a nearby shipment of goods.

It all made Veronica feel nostalgic about the past. Red humanity had long moved past these petty and largely pointless conflicts.

Even if no big wars were taking place at the moment, the minor scuffles alone were enough for Helena to pluck a good amount of souls at any time.

She just had to be observant and pick up the right ones.

"Here." The Helcat eventually said as she manifested the soul of a mech designer who

Had died just a few minutes earlier. "Since you demanded a soul for the purpose of transforming into a demon, I made sure to select one that deserves this treatment." Veronica grew disappointed when she saw that the soul belonged to a Journeyman Mech Designer. That was a cultivator who barely entered the first major cultivation

Rank.

She would have preferred to obtain a strong and aggressive soul such as an expert pilot, but they died at much lower rates, especially during times of relative peace and stability.

"What did he do for you to think he deserves what is coming for him?" The Cyborg Cat

Asked.

"In order to become the top-scoring student in his class when he attended a mech

Design university, he used the power of his family to assassinate one classmate and ruin the reputation of another. His plots succeeded. With the honor of becoming the top ranking student, he received much better employment offers than he should have earned. He subsequently thrived and made fast progress, earning the appreciation of his superiors in the process. If not for the fact that his misdeeds ultimately came back at him by falling for an ambush prepared by the relatives of his defeated rivals, he wouldn't have died so soon. He grew too careless and never expected mercenaries to attack his passenger vessel when he was transiting to another star system." What a dirty deed. Mech designers possessed a meek image, but they could be just as ruthless as anyone if they had enough ambition and the willingness to resort to

Unsavory measures. "This soul will do, then."

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