Souls

Description
Souls are the living embodiment of what surround as, they measure our; strength, life-force, skill and our possible potential as beings, as a Player you normally start of with 8. These souls can be lost/perished by another persons soul through and un-linking and absorption process. Due to one soul absorbing another that singular soul often grows stronger and can stand against others as they strength, skill, life-force and most notably their potential grow as living things.

However, those whom have power that then prey on the weak often gain little to no soul power as they often need to face someone stronger/of the same power level to gain some form of significant power. It is not seen as murder but simply the general order and law of the land in this medieval feudal Japan the game is set within.

As you can probably imagine, there are those who can have little to no amount of souls left, thus forth meaning they are no longer apart of the world that binds as and thus cease to exist, wiping. Due to the difference in other peoples soul levels absorbing others, you could be left with for example 8 souls down to 7.4 souls and the same happening if you were on the gaining end from 8 souls to 8.6 if the power level is different enough.

How to Obtain
As mentioned before you can gain souls from other Players within the game, however it can also be gained through soul essence. Due to the fact every living thing has some fragment of a soul, you can gain them from either consuming special items or most notably, killing NPC's such as Deer and Bandits enough time. Although most of the time it is considered better to simply farm off of the various Players within the game as it can take time to gain soul essence since you often need to kill 20-35 NPC's to just gain 1 soul essence. They can also be gained through eating fruits and controlling a shard conquest point for an extended amount of time.

Uses
Souls are used to progress within the game, as well as the fact that upon gaining a soul you not only gain 'Potential' based around how many souls you have but also gain SP or Skill Point which is also used for progression. So souls are basically the biggest source of Player progression within the game and most likely always will be, (aside from Yen of course).