On the Saint continent, today was considered to be the day of Rapture. A day that happened on the 7th day of the 7th month at the 7th hour every year.

It was the day when the youngsters would participate in a ceremony organized by the Church of Light, to awaken their destined Companion Souls.

No one knew where the companion souls came from, but the church of light brazenly circulated the Idea that the companion souls were a gift of the God of Light.

The companion souls came in different shapes. Some were weapons and armor, some were everyday objects, some were humanoids and some were beasts.

Their purpose was to strengthen the wielder in different ways depending on the ability provided by the companion souls.

Rare were those who could awaken more than one companion soul. If there were, they were heavily sponsored by the Church of Light who would do anything to recruit them. Of course the prerequisite was that the companion souls awakened were powerful.

Damian was among the other youngsters, his eyes closed and nervous.

To be able to participate in the Rapture, you had to have 16 years of age. It was the age when your soul had sufficiently grown to allow the integration of a Companion Soul.

The rare few who couldn’t awaken their companion souls could only blame their bad luck.

Damian didn’t want to be one of those ‘trash’, who weren’t destined to be Soul Warriors. His future had to be a grand one.

His mother hadn’t been able to awaken a companion soul when she was young. He was afraid that it would rub off on him. Of course, he couldn’t call his mother trash, he loved her too much for that and knew the ridicule she had endured because she didn’t have a companion soul. He just didn’t want to go through the same thing.

“If only this curse ended with me.” Damian said. Ever since he was little he had been bullied non-stop by his neighbors who were kids bigger and older than him. He never had a playmate and always stayed inside where he could be safe.

In a world where everyone could live for 300 years and effortlessly fly in the skies like birds, also have great strength and a body resilient enough to live in harsh conditions, you had to be a real pacifist to accept bullying when you had the strength to fight back.

With the regeneration of the wounds going as far as regrowing limbs if you lost any, you could imagine how the ‘God’ who created this world loved his creation.

Of course the inhabitants of the Divine Light Planet took everything for granted. It was normal to have such bodies for them. They called themselves Mortals and those who could live forever Saints.

Saints needed to comprehend some kind of Law that could imbue their bodies with immortality as well as give them powers.

The rumored ‘Law’ was the highest level of your Companion Soul could reach.

The number of existing saints could probably be counted on one hand. There were too few, which showed how difficult it was to reach the Saint realm.

“Everybody stand in line and wait your turn.” One of the Emissaries standing not far from the altar said.

It had already been almost an hour since the sun had risen and the teenagers were still trying hard to shake off their drowsiness. In such a small town, of course they’d sleep in until the very last moment since it was no long journey to the town square.

Damian was too nervous to feel anything else. As he looked at the youths in front of him, he remarked that he was seventh in line.

“Just great! Such a lucky number will bring me misfortune instead.” he angrily thought.

The first teenager approached the altar and then the seven emissaries started chanting the same words :

“O God of Light, shine your holy light on this young son of yours.

May he bathe in your glory and live forever and ever.”

The altar that looked like two giant hands holding a transparent disc started shaking. The disc was facing the young man and then sent a ray of a white holy light in his chest.

The entire process lasted for at least ten seconds and then the altar returned to its motionless state

The young man revealed a radiant smile as he waved his hand and an illusory cape. As he put it on, he became invisible.

Martin, an emissary, then looked at the area where the youth was still standing as he felt him being there, he took a pebble and then threw it at the youth. The pebble passed through the youth as if he wasn’t there.

Martin then said, “Impressive. I wasn’t sure before, but now I am. It’s not just invisibility, it’s more like you’ve been erased from this world.”

John, another emissary said, “This town sure is promising. He’s the first one and his ability is already outstanding. If he enters the Holy Crusaders order, he will be well treated. They are in need of good spies.”

The most senior emissary, Marley, approached the young man and then asked, “What’s your name?”

The young man was nervous and then said, “Rayson Gate, sir.”

“Well , Rayson. Would you like to join the Order of the Holy Crusaders of the Church of Light? You won’t be treated badly, I swear on my name.” Marley asked with the most radiant smile ever.

“Yes, I would be honored, sir.” Rayson said without thinking. In fact, there was no need for him to think. It would change his entire life if he entered the Order of Holy Crusaders. The benefits were too many to count. His family will finally stop being poor and live lavish lives.

Damian who was looking at everything felt an inexplicable anger. How dare the leader of his bullies have it good? Was the God Of Light forsaking me, after I prayed night after night for my suffering to end?

He was prone to anger, but for some reason, he never fought back, no matter what was done to him. He knew that not doing a thing would make his bullies continue to bully him more often, but he never seemed to do anything to remedy his situation. Inwardly, he had already accepted that life was like that for a kid of a non-soul warrior like his mother. If only his father came back from whatever hole he had buried himself in.

His face had changed color due to anger. He found himself before the altar as everyone looked at him wondering why he was so impatient to cut the line.

The emissaries who disliked the breaking of rules all frowned.

“I don’t have all day. Activate the altar for me.”As if he was an angry god who had descended to the mortal realm, Damian commanded.

Rayson laughed out loud, “Even your mother didn’t awaken her companion soul, you’ve come to make a fool out of yourself.”

The emissaries then looked sympathetically at Damian after hearing the news. It was a well known fact that the curse could cross generations.

Marley looked at the emissaries and they all nodded.

Better to send this poor youth back home to lick his wounds sooner than later.

The same chant was heard again.

A light escaped the disc and entered Damian’s chest.

Everything was happening normally, but something unexpected happened.

The little stream of holy light tripled in size and even after thirty seconds, it was still pouring holy light into Damian.

The emissaries looked on with smiles, they were all thinking, “How could trash attract so much holy light? He’ll at least have a second companion soul and they will both be extremely powerful.”

The emissaries were even more impatient than Damian himself to know what companion souls were about to come out of his soul.

After what seemed like an endless minute, everything calmed down.

Damian still had his eyes closed.

“What’s happening? Why don’t I feel anything? Could it be that I failed after all this?” Damian thought. He then heard exclamations all around him.

He slowly opened his eyes and a blinding golden light almost blinded him, but he felt that it was kind of familiar.

He saw what could be called a Golden Angel with illusory golden wings.

...the angel had the same face as...Damian.

He saw that the angel held a Golden sword and next to the angel was a white lion that was looking around curiously.

The white lion seemed to be completely alive as opposed to the Angel who seemed to be inanimate.

A plain white book with a black tombstone drawing on the cover, arrived in front of him as if beckoning him to touch it.

As he held the white book in his hand, he found that it was weightless.

[Binding complete.]

Damian saw the book open to a random page and saw those words.

New words appeared,

[Rank 2 Requiem System initializing...]

[Seven Requiem Souls found...]

[Requiem Souls sealed until conditions to unlock met...]

He then saw that the first seven pages of the book had turned black.

[Unlocking Requiem Servant slots...]

[x3 slots unlocked. More slots will be unlocked as you level up.]

Damian kept reading, but he couldn’t understand most of the technical terms.

‘What does Requiem Soul and Requiem Servant mean?’

He stopped reading those annoying prompts and then looked at the book more closely.

On the last page, he found something.

It was written in big characters and took half the page :

‘Pay Respect To The Dead And You Shall Both Find Salvation.’

Damian then cursed, “What a load of bull**it! This thing is useless.”