Van didn’t know how to take what he just saw before him. He didn’t know what to ask first. First of all, Ren it turned out was a girl, more importantly a Lyn from another universe. Second, the soul realm above them was completely fake. Third, his true soul seemed to be a freaking black hole. And fourth the world he grew up in was an illusion. All he could do was just stand there with his mouth hanging open trying to comprehend everything that just happened and failing miserably.

“Mmyeah~” Lynaria stretched her body. “You have no idea how good it feels to be back in my true form.” Then seeing his confusion explained a little further. “Though I say I’m a Lyn from another past life of yours, it would be more accurate to say that I'm a fraction of a copy of another Lyn from another universe. The real me is still alive and well in her original world, and probably doesn’t realize I exist. My existence here was an accident. But I tried my best to make it work.”

Van raised a hand still processing. “Hold on a minute I’m still trying to figure things out.” He asked.

Lynaria waited patiently.

After a few moments Van finally seemed to gather his thoughts, asking one the first questions that popped into his mind. “So if this world is an illusion… And it could become anything the goddess wanted to be… Why are there so many women?”

Lynaria chuckled. “Because if she created a world where there are more males than females that would be its own can of worms. Not to mention she wanted your soul, or aspects of your soul, it's like creating a sift. Only souls closest to your signature are allowed through, it was a method to help ensure that other aspects of your soul meet and absorb each other. As for why there are so many females, even in several of your past lives you had a lot of wives, concubines and lovers… Everyone else are just extra’s to help fill out the world.”

“Then why Karmila? Why rapists and murderers and people like that?” Van asked. “Doesn’t she have full control of the world, why would she allow people like that through?”

“So you can defeat them of course?” Lynaria said with a tilt of her head like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Like I said, this world is a crucible, it’s designed to force your soul through hardship to grow stronger and merge together. If a particularly weak aspect of Van’s true soul exists, even if they aren't as strong, they could still live for centuries or millennia due to circumstance. People like Karmila help kill those people and then there is a higher chance that aspect will merge with nearby stronger versions. If not that then when they are reborn in this world, the sieve will help merge several other versions together into a new body. That’s how you were born… It is also the fact that she doesn’t control every little thing in this world, otherwise she would have dealt with me a long time ago.”

This is why you have such a huge harem and why you practically grow it by the day. You are drawing the girls from your past lives to you and binding them to you. That is your purpose, to bring their souls together…”

Van was silent for a long time, trying to once more process all of this and organize his thoughts. “So you are saying… The reason why I have such a large harem is because they are people I married or had relations with in my past lives, right?”

“Exactly so.” Lynaria replied.

“And these souls are also aspects of… Another soul? Another true soul?” Van asked.

“Yes.” Lynaria nodded.

Van thought about that for a moment. “So… What happens when they fuse together?” He asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Lynaria smiled. “I was hoping you would ask.” She brought out a blue screen. “It was one of the ways I was going to tell you about that could help save our skins. BTW, Karmine and Karmila are having a death battle right now, so we should probably hurry this up.”

Van blinked, having completely forgotten that his body was still lying unconscious out in the real world.

“For this experiment we are going to need Luna and Agnès.” Lynaria said, creating a picture of the two girls.

“How are we going to do that?” Van asked. “Luna must be hundreds of miles away.”

Lynaria smiled. “It’s simple… You are going to summon her. She is your soul bonded after all. It should be possible once I create the magic circle necessary. Should only take a few minutes…” Now tapping like crazy on her blue screen as a giant magic formula began to slowly appear above their heads. “Also got to call Agnès, she’s important for what happens next.”

“What are you going to do to Agnès?” Van asked worriedly.

“You’ll see~” Lynaria said. After a few minutes of tapping she was done and pressed a final button which created a drain within Van’s soul realm where energy began to flow towards the magic circle. Not long after Luna appeared within its center.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” She yelled, freaking out.

Van’s jaw dropped once more at seeing his beloved wife appear right in front of him.

“And now-” Lynaria pressed another button and Agnès was teleported in from where she was in her soul realm.

“Huh!?” Agnès exclaimed, wondering how she appeared here. When Van was summoning his troops from the soul realm she had been on the other side helping stabilize the portal. She had been patiently waiting for it to reopen when she suddenly found herself next to Luna in an area of Van’s soul realm she had never been to.

“And now it's fusion time!” Lynaria exclaimed.

“What!? Wait!” Van yelled at her to stop.

Lynaria gave a pout, her finger a mere inch away from the button. “Why?”

“At least explain to them what's happening!”

She sighed. “Oh, alright…” She gently brought them down with her magic.

“Van!? Wha-!?” Luna couldn’t get her words out, so confused and relieved she was to see her beloved husband right in front of her.

“Luna, it’s me, as you can see I'm alright, for now…” Van said, happy to see her but also aware they had to hurry up. He turned to Lynaria. “Lyn, please explain everything to them. And to me as well when you yelled fusion time…” Giving her a cross look.

Lynaria sighed and began to explain everything up to the point of the fusion. “Finally, the whole fusion thing, yeah… You see, the truth is, you and Agnès are actually two aspects of the same true soul. So if we fuse you two together, your powers will multiply by leaps and bounds!”

Luna and Agnès were left stunned and speechless.

“This… This is too hard for me to handle…” Luna said finally after a while. “But… All I know is that my beloved is okay, but in danger… So I'll do anything to help him.” Giving a determined look and surprised one by Agnès.

Lynaria smiled. “Good, you seemed to have changed for the better. That will make this easier.” She turned to Agnès. “And you? Are you willing to give up everything to join with Luna?”

“I…” Agnès looked completely lost. “Will I die?” She asked with some fear and confusion.

Lynaria shook her head. “Not at all, you’ll just become something… More… All your memories will stay the same. Though your personality and power might vary widely.”

Agnès seemed to withdraw into herself. Never before in her life did she expect something like this. If she had to be honest she was content to just wait it out in Van’s soul realm as the days passed by, enjoying life as it came. But now she was going to give up her body and identity? That was scary… But on the other hand, if they didn’t do this they might all die… which was worse? Chancing true death? Or combining with Luna and living on as something, someone… Else?”

She took a deep breath and let it out, realizing she really only had one choice. “Alright… Let’s do this…”

Lynaria gave an approving smile. “I knew you would do the right thing.” Then motioned with her head. “Alright you do, get back up there, I'll begin the procedure soon.”

The two girls didn’t seem happy by Lynaria’s choice of words but did as bidded.

Van drew up next to Lynaria, a few questions still on his mind. “So you are a Lyn from another universe… But…” He looked her up and down. “What exactly are you?”

“I’m an artificial soul, using a fleck of your true soul and pure spiritual energy as a base and molded and grown until I self actualized.” Lynaria explained. “I was a lover of your other self and my entire purpose is to help regulate your true soul and soulscape. Let's just say… Your other self had a few… Complications that required my existence…”

“Wait… You were my lover but also a fleck of my soul? Doesn't that mean…” He began to pale.

Lynaria laughed. “NO! Not at all! I’m nothing like your death knight double!” Her laughter slowly ebbing. “While it is true a small portion of you is what created me. It is more accurate to say you used a small portion of your soul to shape a mass of spiritual energy into an artificial soul and then used it as a lynchpin to keep me together until I self developed and absorbed it fully into my being. After a while, what little of your soul I had in me flowed back to you over the years until my soul could stand on its own.” she paused. “Let's just say it's complicated. I was an Ai program with super computer smarts, I already had my own personality and everything, your other self just helped me gain… Just let me become something a little more…”

Her expression softened as memories passed through her head.

“I see…” Van said, though in truth he wasn’t completely sure he understood.

Lynaria smirked as if knowing full well Van’s confusion. She then raised a finger up high and yelled. “FUSION-HA!” And pressed a button on the blue screen.

Van felt like he had been punched in the gut, like something was sucking up all the energy within his soul realm at a massive pace. His headache came back and his vision went blurry. The place where Luna and Agnès were standing began to brighten and change. Soon they were both enveloped by two balls of light and forcibly brought together. While he couldn’t hear it, he felt their screams as it seemed like their very being was torn down and rebuilt from scratch. Like an evolution or rank up gone completely wrong… It didn’t help that Lynaria was laughing up a storm as if this was the greatest show she had ever seen.

The suction and drain was so severe that some of Van’s island began to fall off and break apart towards the blinding white ball that previously made up his wife and Agnès. Agnès’s own island seemed to shift and change, then suddenly smash through Van’s own, demolishing everything in the way until Luna’s tree and Agnès’s mountain slowly became one. The tree grew by several hundred feet, its bark becoming stronger and sturdier as well as wider. Its leaves became a bluish red, with some a silver blue, and others a silver black.

Mass panic ensued within Van’s soul realm as the inhabitants fled and dashed all over the place, trying to flee from the sudden burst of roots that smashed through walls and settled in homes.

Van turned to Lynaria wide eyed, mouth open in horror at what he saw, and an accusatory look in his eyes.

Lynaria tried to shrug it off but still looked very guilty. “Sorry, I gave a warning to evacuate before but I guess it still wasn’t enough. If we had the time I would have taken this slower but considering you might die I had to rush it…”

Van closed his mouth and turned back to the pulsating white orb that now acted more like a cocoon of pure energy. It slowly broke apart to reveal Luna… Or… Someone who looked like her…

Luna was a whole six inches taller. Her body had become curvier, her breasts a tad bigger but much more firm as well as her ass. She had white beautiful horns that rose up from her head, a mix of demonic and draconic. She had the same for her wings, a beautiful feathery white, but with scaled features. Her succubus tail was still largely the same, but the same color as her horns and perhaps a bit sharper.

Her long silver hair gained a new sheen to itself. Her pupils became permanent slits like a dragon’s. She had retractable claws on her hands and feet, and small shimmering white scales covering her body periodically. She lifted her head up and gave an earth shattering roar that shook the entire soul realm to its core.

“L-Luna? Is that you?”

Luna??? Turned to him, and in almost a blink of an eye appeared before him with a casual flap of her wings.

Van felt like he was letting his mouth hand open a little too often lately. She was just so beautiful… And her form reminded him of the time Lune had been so pissed she took on a shadowy form back when they were being attacked by those troglodytes. But now she was somehow even more amazing…

All of a sudden she kissed him, and for some strange reason Van felt like fire was beginning to burn in his veins, but in a good way. Like he was finally waking up. He felt the seal on the back of his neck loosen and then completely disappear. When it did so she stopped their steamy kiss session.

“Wonderful! Simply Wonderful!” Lynaria clapped. “But now we have to move on to phase two…” Her eyes took on a dangerous gleam. “Killing Karmila…”