Chapter 211 A New Meaning
"Where do we need to go now…?" Lee Seng asked, propped up against Keng as he looked around. The cloudscape stretched as the two suns continued to blaze overhead. Lee Seng found himself staring at the suns. "Isn't it almost night? Why're the suns still blazing overhead?"
"The plane stays a couple of hours behind the actual Realm." Lord B'haru answered. He turned his attention to the sky, watching the blues slowly turn to the colors of sunset.
"What should we do, then?" Keng asked Lee Seng.
'Twin souls… What does that mean?' Lee Seng pondered. Everything around him began to flicker.
"What's happening to them?" Lady Freya's distorted voice asked.
"They're continuing on." Tyrus answered. "We'll be watching you, twin foxlings. Just know, we're close." Lee Seng gave a nod before they pulled away from the cloudscape. The three lords disappeared from their view and the shimmering of their soul orb pulsed brightly in front of them.
"We're back at the Sanctuary?" Keng looked around. The room still looked the same. The altar sat in front of them and their soul orb pulsed brightly. Keng's eyes moved to the sigil below them and noticed the sigil was slightly different.
"More colors?" Lee Seng asked. Lee Seng noticed the many colors of the Life Realm's sky was now embedded in the Saviors' crest. Instead of three suns sitting in the middle of the crest, two suns took their place. "The crest changed."
Their soul orb pulsed and the room shimmered in gold and silver. Lee Seng and Keng focused their attention back to it as it continued to pulse, again. Lee Seng stood up and slowly moved over to the soul orb. He took a look at the orb and noticed the orb designs had changed.
"The suns are on the orb now." Lee Seng whispered. He pulled the floating orb off of the altar and into his hand. He moved it to his chest and felt the burning feeling envelope him. His eyes flickered and glowed a slight orange before returning to their natural red and blue colors.
"What now?" Keng asked, standing up. He clutched at his right pec. "Did we really get all of our answers?"
"What's a twin soul?" Lee Seng turned around to face Keng. He wiped the sweat off of his forehead and continued to ignore the burning sensation on his left pec.
"I dunno." Keng shrugged.
"They have to have a book that explains it, right?" Lee Seng started over to the door. He opened it and stopped.
"What?" Keng took a peek from behind Lee Seng. The hallway was different now. Large chunks of cobblestone replaced the orange hall. Gold laced itself between the cracks.
"We got the blessing from the God King, right?" Lee Seng asked.
"Mmm. Why?" Keng looked at Lee Seng.
"Well… We did. He literally grabbed the two suns and stuffed it into us. Even the original leaders recognized his lingering presence."
"A new generation of Saviors have appeared before me." God King Dathro's voice echoed in his head. Lee Seng nodded and moved out of the Sanctuary room.
"Where we going?" Keng asked, shutting the door behind him.
"We need information on what a twin soul is. I've heard of twin flames before, but not twin souls." Lee Seng told Keng. They turned left and noticed the secret wall had disappeared.
"Foxlings…!" Nabi's distant voice shouted.
"Foxlings…!" Zixin's distant voice shouted.
"Nabi? Zixin?" Lee Seng turned to look at Keng. The two began to run through the halls.
"Foxlings!" Lady Vix'i's voice shouted. Lee Seng followed Lady Vix'i's voice and found her at a four-way intersection. "Foxlings, what did you do?"
"Lady Vix'i? What're you doing here?" Lee Seng asked.
"The Tomb completely changed before our eyes. Whatever was preventing us from going further suddenly disappeared, so we came to check on you two. Where did you go?"
Lee Seng looked at the cobblestone and noticed gold was now laced within these walls.
"Everything is different." Lee Seng mumbled.
"What's different?" Lady Vix'i asked
"Lady Vix'i, do you know what twin souls are?"
"Twin souls? Why do you need to know about that?"
"Well, it's a long story."
"Let's meet back with Zixin and Nabi. You can fill us in and I'll try my best to help you."
Lee Seng and Keng followed Lady Vix'i back. They reached the entrance and noticed it had grown bigger. They entered the room and Nabi and Zixin were already waiting.
"Lady Vix'i, you found them!" Nabi stood up.
"What happened anyways? Why did the Tomb suddenly shift and change?" Zixin asked.
"One thing at a time." Lady Vix'i raised her hand. "Let's all sit and let the foxlings explain what happened." The group sat and Lee Seng began to explain what just happened. He mentioned the ethereal fox that turned out to be Krystofer, one of the last Saviors. He explained how they were led to Sanctuary and given a brief history of the sect and their leaders.
Krystofer was called to go rejoin the rest of the Saviors and the two started the ritual. The roots of Sanctuary led them to a cloudscape plane and they met the three lords. They heard Krystofer had appeared on the cloud plane. Lee Seng explained the meeting with God King Dathro and the burning sensation of the two suns burning into them.
"And that's about all that happened." Lee Seng told them.
"Lord Tyrus warned Lee Seng to return to his physical body. He kept getting flashes of pain from his physical body in the Human Realm." Keng added.
"That's not good." Nabi shook her head. "You should really go back. The longer your Spiritual body stays away from your body, you'll feel more tired because of it. You sustained damage from attaining the blessing, but who knows what pain your actual body is in."
"I thought Sanctuary would want to take us somewhere else for more information, but it just left me with a lot of questions." Lee Seng told them. "Like what exactly is twin souls? And what does the God King mean by 'new generation'?" The older Foxes stayed silent for a while before Lady Vix'i spoke.
"Twin souls fluctuate in rarity depending on the different races. Amongst the Fox Spirits, it's normal. Two souls merging into one. That's the purpose of the Fox Spirit, but you two are the first of our kind to coexist within a single soul. I've studied twin souls in the different Realms and have noticed they are similar souls that have decided to take on a single form. In your case, you have the freedom to split yourselves. Twin souls bear a stronger soul and oftentimes in battle, have higher battle ceilings in comparison to a normal soul.
"The twin souls are stronger, overall, but suffer from taking more time to strengthen themselves. If a normal soul has fluctuations that go up and down, a twin soul will fluctuate harder. They'll rise higher than the normal soul but they'll fall harder than the normal soul as well. I've studied Twin souls for a long time but you two are the first of your kind to exist. A Fox Spirit usually merges with their vessel. Their souls merge and a blend of both of them together, physically and spiritually.
" With your case, your souls merged and I assume, for a while, Keng couldn't physically appear like that. With your ability to shapeshift, it has given Keng a physical form. Your physical forms differ from each other, slightly, but you still are connected by the same soul, the same spiritual power that binds you two from the beginning." Lady Vix'i explained.
"Physically we can be apart, but spiritually we're always connected?" Keng summarized. Lady Vix'i nodded.
"Which brings up many additional questions I have. Can you two physically be apart but spiritually be connected by your soul? What happens if Keng's physical body is destroyed? Would he return to the vessel and recuperate? Would Lee Seng suffer from that damage? There are loads of questions I have, but when the God King mentions you two and twin souls, it brings a new meaning."
"So basically we're a variant of twin souls that hasn't appeared in all of your studies?" Lee Seng scratched his chin. Lady Vix'i nodded. "Then I guess that means we'll have to answer some of these questions at some point…"
"You want to really figure that out now?" Keng turned.
"I mean we can get one over with. If you and I can coexist and inhabit the same space… Can we exist on different Realms?"
"Lee, why would you want to figure that out? Isn't it safer if we're both together? That just brings up the question of 'If you can I can do that, how would soul gathering work?'"
"I mean, technically…" Nabi pointed at Lee Seng. "He's spiritually here with you. Keng's here physically and Lee Seng is on the Human Realm, right?"
"Oh yeah, huh." Lee Seng nodded. "We are physically apart."
"But you're here with me!" Keng's voice raised. "Are you really okay with us being apart both physically and spiritually? What if something happens to you or to me? We can't protect each other like we have! I don't want anything to happen to you."
"Keng…" Lee Seng turned. "There will be a time where we will have to be apart, but we're always connected. You will always have a place next to me. It's just… What if something happens to me and I'm… sick and got into a coma? What would happen to you?"
"I…" Keng trailed off. Lee Seng smiled and patted Keng's hand.
"You don't need to worry. We'll be together, always. I just need to know if physically and spiritually, we can be Realms away from each other or not." Keng lowered his head, sniffling.
'We spent your entire existence together. I can see why that would make you scared. Honestly, it makes me scared to know that the one person who believes in me will be far away… But it doesn't mean we have to separate now.' Lee Seng lifted Keng's head and smiled. Keng slowly nodded.
"We don't have to split now, but there are things we can learn from the Family that we can't learn in my Realm. I'm running on time, so we can both decide whether or not we learn together or you learn for the both of us." Lee Seng smiled and Keng pulled away to wipe his tears.
"We don't have to learn separately now…?" Keng's voice trembled. Lee Seng nodded.
"We don't have to learn separately now. We can always come back."