Chapter 9 – Middle Aged Man Talks About Eating Human Babies
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Deep into the evening, Seni paced around the room nervously. He chewed on his fingernails, sucked on his teeth, and tapped his feet while Min sat on the bed in silence.

“...That’s it, we’re fucked,” Min declared with full confidence. “He’s going to reveal all of our secrets to the syndicate, and next thing you know, we’ve 'committed suicide' after being stabbed through the heart.”

Seni began to walk back and forth even faster. “Shut up, shut up. I’m trying to weigh our options here. Plus, we don’t know for sure that he was captured.”

“Huh? You’re telling me that multiple eyewitness accounts mean nothing? We have no idea where he’s being held, we’ll probably get assassinated the second we step out of the city by someone affiliated with the phoenix guy, we have next to nothing on the Syndicate, and worst of all, you’re the only one who can fight. I can’t do jack shit.”

“Maybe if I got possessed right now, I could figure something out, but I just can’t get this dumb power to work!” Seni shouted in frustration. He wound up his fist to punch the wall but held himself back for fear of destroying the entire inn.

“Do you know any magic? Couldn’t you cast some kind of clairvoyance spell or something?”

Seni snapped his fingers and conjured up a pathetic flame floating in the palm of his hand. “Min, this is one of the most advanced spells I can cast. I use it to light the stove. I don’t know hoot about magic. Whatever I learned about magic when I was young, I probably forgot already by this point.”

Min buried his head in his hands. “If you have the capability to cast magic, why wouldn't you - ugh! Fuck…I think we really are-”

Just as he was turning around to begin pacing again, Seni paused and noticed that Min had been suddenly cut off.

He whipped his head back, and for some bizarre reason, Min looked as if he was completely frozen in time, with his mouth half-open, but no sign of breath nor heartbeat.

Seni waved a hand in front of his friend's blank stare. “Min? Min! Hello?”

Nothing but eerie silence replied to his words.

Curiously, Seni picked up a book on his bedside table and released it. When he withdrew his hand, the book didn’t fall to the ground but instead stayed in its midair position, suspended in animation.

“What the…” he muttered, getting up closer to Min to check if he was hallucinating or not.

He threw open the window to catch a view of the streets, where every single person stood stock still as if they were statues. Some of them were in the middle of laughing or talking and had a ridiculous expression on their face. 

A tap on his shoulder sent him flying into a panic, and he spun around, ready to fight.

“Oh,” he sighed, lowering his body. “It’s you again.”

Warrior Seni had an annoyingly smug smirk on his face. “Couldn’t you figure out it was me by my familiar scent?”

Seni wrinkled his nose. “You smell like fire and brimstone. What do you want? Couldn’t you figure out I was kinda busy here?”

“I thought you’d appreciate this. Give you a little bit of time to think, yeah?”

“Alright, this type of shit’s happened far too many times. Get to the point.”

His clone began to pace around the room similarly to how Seni had done, but instead, he had his head held high and placed his finger on his cheek in an effort to look cute. 

“There is one way out,” Warrior Seni stated, still squishing his cheek with his finger.

“Do you think I haven’t considered it? Plus, I’m not even a hundred years old yet. For all I know, they could be waiting to ambush us the moment we go to rescue Ainsworth, and I just get demolished by a thousand-year-old crime lord.”

“Why would a thousand-year-old immortal be a crime lord in one of the worst cities in the Empire, out of all things?”

Seni opened his mouth to clap back with a scathing reply, then closed it and thought about Warrior Seni’s words for a couple of seconds. “Okay, good point. Still, even if I did, then there’s still a very good chance I get my ass kicked by someone twice, maybe five times my age.”

Fashionable Seni stepped out from Warrior Seni’s shadow. He jumped and grabbed the book that was floating in midair. When it made its way into his hands, it grew to twice its size and the cover became much more worn, as if it were an ancient tome that had been read by many.

“Uh, um...I have an idea,” he said nervously, looking at Regular Seni and Warrior Seni as he waited for a response from either one of them.

“What is it? I’ll take anything,” said Seni.

Fashionable Seni began to flip through the pages of his book. “W-well, uh, the rate of mutation our cells can go through in our true form is, by all means, an anomaly that would be considered superhuman even by immortal standards. So, if you could possibly go through a metamorphosis, or ‘molting’ period after absorbing a large amount of magical energy, you can potentially increase your strength up to three hundred percent by layering more muscle cells, then condensing your body to an extreme degree. The abnormally high density of our muscle mass would, theoretically, mean our muscles could obtain a level of hardness that surpasses adamantite, and toughness that is double that of mithril coil while still retaining basic agility at the cost of flexibility, but at the same time multiplying our top speed by three times its original value-”

Both of the other Senis began to shout over one another.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” said Warrior Seni. “What are you on about?”

“Eep! I’m sorry!” Fashionable Seni squeaked. “I learned this in my education!”

“Since when did I learn this?” Seni asked, visibly confused. 

His fashionable counterpart looked as if he had shrunk down to half his size, and was deliberately avoiding eye contact with the other two. 

Was I this bad back then? I don’t remember it being like this. 

Seni looked on in concern at the youngest version of himself, who was constantly shifting uncomfortably as the silence in the room persisted.

“No, wait...this is physics and shit,” Warrior Seni realized. “Holy shit - Fashionable Seni, you’re a fucking genius!”

“I have no idea what is going on.”

Warrior Seni was jumping up and down in excitement while hugging Fashionable Seni. “You don’t need to understand! Just know, we might actually get out of this alive. Damn, our youngest Seni really is a prodigy! Why can't you be more like him?”

Seni plopped himself down on his bed. “Well, I’m all ears.”

Fashionable Seni set his book down on the bedside table (which returned to its original form when it left his hands) and leaned in to explain the intricacies of his plan.

 

With that, Seni blinked and found himself back in front of Min, who had finished talking and was looking at Seni expectantly. However, he couldn’t recall a single thing that Min had said and awkwardly stared at him.

Rather than wait for Min to repeat, Seni decided to take the initiative. After all, time was of the essence.

“Min, would you kill someone to save your life?” he asked. “Someone innocent, who has nothing to do with you? Someone who has caused you no harm, and might even be a good person? Someone who could even be a child?”

“...Why are you asking me this?”

“Tell me, Min.”

Min gulped nervously. He could tell by the tone of Seni’s voice that it was serious.

“I would,” he answered, staring straight into Seni's eyes. “If you told me killing a baby would stop me from dying, I would hurl that infant into the sun.”

“Would you kill an innocent person to save someone else? Someone you know?”

Min nodded confidently, and already had his answer decided. “Yes. I’d eat that baby in front of its entire family if it meant saving my friend’s life.”

Seni stretched out his hand. “Good. Because tonight, samurai, we’ve got a city to burn.”

Min looked at Seni’s outstretched fingers and began to notice something incredibly odd. 

For whatever reason, Seni’s fingertips were beginning to turn white, as if he was being drained of color.

 

Rouyi’s fluffy ears twitched at the sound of a pair of feet running up behind him. They belonged to an individual panting and gasping as if they had sprinted for ten kilometers without rest.

His tail flicked in annoyance.

Just my luck. I was about to clock out.

One of the sailors who managed his shipping business seemed to have something to say.

“What is it?” Rouyi asked, with his tail swishing back and forth.

“Th-the river! It’s, it’s dried up! The water’s gone!” the sailor stammered.

Rouyi pinched the bridge of his nose. “...I knew I should’ve confiscated your booze.”

“I’m serious, sir! Really! Just go look at the river!”

For a moment, Rouyi felt tempted to slash the sailor into tiny cubes with his claws. However, he wasn’t that stupid and suppressed his fury.

“Fine, fine. Let me see,” he grumbled.

As he was approaching the river, he immediately sensed that something was off. Large crowds of people had begun to gather at the harbor, and even more of them had left their homes to check out the commotion.

“You can’t be serious,” he muttered under his breath.

Pushing his way through the horde of onlookers, he was met with a sight that he never expected to see in his life.

All that was left of the enormous body of water was wet mud at the bottom. More fish than he could count was flopping around, and the boats that had still been in the harbor had been stranded on the riverbed. 

What was even more intriguing was that water was still flowing into the city. However, the moment the water touched the mud, it immediately seeped in, as if it was being absorbed by the earth itself

Although, an even more concerning predicament was that he didn’t know how long this effect would last. If it ended…

Wouldn’t all of that water hit us like a tsunami?

His first suspicion was an enemy attack from another country, or perhaps even from a rival of the Duke. 

First, a faint gasp was heard, almost entirely blocked out by the musings and panic of the quickly growing crowd of onlookers. Then, screams and shouting began to overtake most of the chatter.

Although the sun had already set, Rouyi could spot something massive rising above the buildings. From his position, he judged that it was close to where the central marketplace was. A massive bulbous form rose above the rooftops, and he half-expected it to stop there. He could hear rumbling in the distance, and soon, multiple buildings came crashing down.

It began to climb higher into the sky, supported by a thick stalk underneath it. 

...A snake? Is it a monster? That looks like a head, but something’s off about it. Don’t tell me-

After rising high enough to peek above the city walls, it came to a sudden stop. 

Gradually, it began to unfurl itself, expanding outwards for what seemed like dozens of meters. Under the full gaze of moonlight, it was brilliantly white, like fresh snow glimmering in the sun. 

-a flower?

The petals felt big enough to blot out the sun and stars, and its stalk felt more like an enormous tree trunk than the stem of a flower. 

From the base of the flower, several ghostly white vines the size of logs shot out like spiderwebs, stabbing themselves into the infrastructure of the city. One of them landed dangerously close to Rouyi, impaling the floor with such force that the cobblestones flew out of the ground. 

The street trembled, then the ground began to crack under his very feet. 

 

Ainsworth’s heart rate began to steadily climb ever since the tremors began to intensify. He had the sinking feeling in his gut that he would be left to die if the room caved in on itself.

Currently, his hands were bound behind a chair, and he had been getting his teeth knocked in for the past couple of hours by people in the same armor as those who had abducted him earlier.

“Y’know, I think there’s an earthquake going on,” he pointed out wearily.

His torturers ignored him. 

“Are you sure they’re supposed to come and rescue him? We’ve waited for hours now.” said one of them.

An unknown voice from who Ainsworth assumed to be the boss simply replied, “Patience. He's revealed all that he could.”

It was true. After going through a session of torture, which was completely uncalled for, Ainsworth willingly gave up everything he knew about Seni and Min, which wasn’t all that much. Then, they proceeded to torture him even more under the assumption that he wasn’t telling the whole truth.

Still, he knew better than to run his mouth even more and promptly decided to keep his bleeding mouth shut after the torturer glared at him after a couple of minutes of silence.

After the man turned around once more, Ainsworth inwardly sighed and accepted his inevitable demise. 

That was until he felt a tap on his shoulder.

“You look like shit.”

Ah. That voice.

Such a cliche line. So typical, average, mediocre, he could already tell who it was.

“I never should have doubted the plot armor! What's up, Min?”

Something light and soft gently grazed his hand, and he turned to look. A single flower petal had landed on the back of his hand. It was so radiantly white that he had to blink his eyes after staring at it.

“Hey!” his torturer yelled. “How did you get in? Who are you - oh. Hey boss, they’re here.”

“You left the back door unlocked, you know,” said Min.

The rope that bound Ainsworth's hands together was quickly severed, and he rubbed his raw wrists. 

Instinctively, he raised his hands to feel the bruises around his face. However, he found no blemishes on his skin at all. He ran a finger through his mouth and found all of his teeth miraculously in the right place.

Before he could raise any questions, a mysterious man he had never seen before was standing before them, as if he had just materialized out of thin air.

He had a silver fur coat hung around his shoulders, and countless pieces of jewelry donned his neck and fingers. Although his face was young, the aura that he carried with every step was enough to cause goosebumps to erupt on Ainsworth’s skin.

Min wrapped his arm around Ainsworth’s shoulders and helped him back up. The first thing he noticed when Seni stepped in front of them to confront the boss was a brilliant white glow that immediately took the attention of everyone in the room.

It was what he could only assume to be Seni’s true form. There was not a speck of color on his white body. His skin looked glossy and petals extended from his hips, which formed a skirt that reached his knees. Going further down, Ainsworth realized that Seni’s feet were gone. The only thing at the end of his legs were sharp stubs that he somehow maintained a perfect balance on.

“...Who sent you?” the boss began. “Is it the Duke? The Emperor’s goons? The Seraphs?”

Seni shook his head. “The name’s Seni, although you probably know that already. I’m just a guy trying to get some peace.”

The boss raised an eyebrow and frowned. “Likewise, I suppose. Call me Gong. Gong Weishan. I think I might understand your situation. Well, no, in fact. I don’t see precisely what this has to do with me - or us, respectively.”

“Well, when an organization kidnaps your associate and tortures them for information, it’s quite the same as outright declaring war, isn’t it?”

“Be glad we went easy on him. At least you came to us. Now it’ll be a lot easier to get the information straight from the source. Who are you hosting, the Strategist? The Martial Prince? Don’t tell me - the Craven?”

Seni tilted his head in confusion. “Huh? Those titles...the same guys in the poems?”

Weishan knitted his eyebrows together. “Wait, are you seriously just some guy who got wrapped up in all of this? Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

“I’m lost.”

“Hmph. Well, bad luck for you, it seems. I’ll have to forcefully extract your divine organ.”

The provocation immediately caused Seni to tense up and grip his sword hilt tighter. “Min, what the hell are you doing!? Run!”

“You must take me for a fool.”

Weishan raised his foot and stomped the ground.

To Ainsworth, it felt like an explosion had just gone off. His ears rang, and the rubble that had flown up all over the room made it near impossible to see. The ground shook and began to collapse under their feet. 

The floor crumbled away to reveal a second room beneath them. Unable to keep their balance, Min and Ainsworth stumbled into the opening.

 

Seni wished he was fast enough to dive after the two. Oh, how he wished it were so. But he stood stock still, keeping his eyes on Weishan while the building was beginning to collapse all around them, anticipating the next move.

He heard the sound of two people landing on the ground with a thud and the painful scream that followed after. Still, he kept his eyes wide open and focused.

Weishan picked up his torturers and tossed them out through the front door. “You’re a lot smarter than I thought. Why don’t we take this outside?”

“Enough talking. Scrap!”

Nobody, not even Seni himself, expected him to make the first move. Almost on instinct, he leaped at Weishan and tackled the crime lord through the wall and out into the streets of the East District. 

It didn’t take long for Weishan to slip out of the grapple and retaliate in his own right. 

A simple right hook, without any real flourish or windup, sent Seni barreling in the opposite direction. 

White flower petals exploded everywhere out of his body upon impact, and he could hardly see straight after dragging his body back up from the ground.

Oh. Oh no. How old is this guy? I couldn’t even see him hit me. 

“I’m disappointed, to be honest. I thought you’d perform much better after all of that buildup,” Weishan mocked as he approached. “Still, I must admit that you have an interesting body. There’s certainly immortals who are half beast, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen one that’s half-plant.”

Seni shook his head and blinked to fix his spinning vision. His head was beginning to throb painfully, but he managed to make out something amongst all of the petals and dust in the air.

Weishan’s right arm was covered in some kind of black armor. The fingers of his gauntlet ended in sharp claws that looked much deadlier than Rouyi’s. 

Frankly, it was out of place. Irregular patterns had been etched all over it, and spines were sticking out of it in seemingly random order. Although it gleamed in the moonlight, its texture resembled stone much more than metal.

He waved his bulky arm around. “Ah, this. You must be surprised. It’s my personal divine organ.”

“Divine organ?” Seni grunted through the pain. “Looks like you’ve just been masturbating too much.”

“Although I’ve only known you for a couple of minutes, your ignorance is almost unheard of in this country. If you give up, I’ll try to make it as painless as possible.”

“That’s a cliche-ass line. Besides, haven’t you forgotten? I’ve got my own...what’d you call it? A divine organ?”

While he was still talking, Seni lunged across the street at Weishan. Although he certainly felt hopeless against his opponent, he was more or less hoping that his possession ability would activate. Still, nevertheless, he was going to put every ounce of his power into a single punch -

- and found himself back to where he was standing.

“Wait, what the - ack!”

Another strike launched him through a building, which caused yet another blast of white petals to fly everywhere. But by this point, he had gotten used to the nearly unbearable pain and managed to slam the sharp stumps on the ends of his legs into the ground. 

He skidded for a while before he came to a complete stop, then launched himself off of a wall at Weishan, who had just walked through the crumbling building.

Just like before, he was standing in the middle of the street again, as if he had never launched his attack in the first place.

“No, wait,” he said. “Could this be...requiem?”

“Well, most people don’t even notice when I do this. Although, I suppose this is the first time I’m facing another man wielding a divine organ. I call this Asura’s Arm, although it belongs to the Outcast.”

Seni rubbed his throbbing shoulders. “Should’ve called it Redditor’s Arm.”

Weishan was approaching again. This time, Seni began to slowly back away. 

Although he was the one who struck first, he highly doubted that he did any sort of significant damage. Furthermore, every single attack from Weishan was hitting harder than anything he had ever felt in his entire life, and he was more or less certain that his opponent wasn’t taking the fight seriously at all.

Plus, it’s like he can just negate whatever actions I take! What kind of broken power is that!? And why isn’t my divine organ that good!?

For the first time in a while, he felt a chill run down his spine as he realized the gravity of his situation. 

Fighting the phoenix man or Rouyi was nothing compared to this. If Seni was a mountain, then Weishan was like an entire mountain range. What he needed the most right now was strength. Or, more accurately, raw power. And becoming possessed by some ancient spirit wasn’t going to help much in that regard.

 

“I regret everything,” Ainsworth groaned in pain. 

He was possibly in the worst shape he had ever been in for his entire life. His legs were most certainly broken, and his left arm was bent at a completely wrong angle. The sight was harrowing, and he found it amazing that he hadn’t fainted immediately upon witnessing the state of his body.

“...Just so you know, once the shock wears off, you’ll be in absolute agony,” Min croaked.

Min was somehow alive. He was laying on the cold stone floor on his back and hadn’t even moved a finger. Although it was hard to see in the darkness, Ainsworth could make out his still outline.

“Well, I’m pretty sure we’re going to die anyway,” Min sighed. “So, Ainsworth. Where are you from? How’d you get all the way over here, up in the north?”

“Funny, Seni asked me the same thing once. You know, I used to be a merchant. Sold weapons. Then, it was all over once the famine hit. It’s just how it is, right? Famines hit all the time.”

“Simple as that?”

“Simple as that.”

Min coughed, then cleared his throat. “Well, that’s kinda funny for me, too. I used to be a mercenary, see. One time, I ended up fighting a war in the south after my company got hired. You people are pretty nice. I learned quite a lot about southern culture and all that.”

“Really? That’s pretty interesting.”

“Mm-hmm. See, now, one thing’s got me wondering.”

“Yeah?”

“Precisely how did your weapons business collapse from a famine?”

Ainsworth froze. “...What?”

Min kept talking as if it were still a casual conversation. “Interesting, ain’t it? You know, I talked to plenty of southern soldiers, and I learned that the last famine that happened on that continent was two hundred years ago.”

“Precisely what are you implying, Min?”

“You know what I’m bloody implying. Maybe Seni fell for your story, but I’m not half so stupid as he is. You should’ve thought about your cover-up some more. But that’s not important right now. What is important is that we need to survive this.”

“Are you crazy? No matter how you look at this, we’re clearly dead.”

“Have you looked around you?”

The room was dark due to a lack of light, and it was impossible to see anything. 

“I can’t see shit,” said Ainsworth.

“Look closer. The moonlight’s streaming in from the broken floor above us. That’s enough light for us to adjust to the darkness.”

Ainsworth squinted his eyes and noticed some outlines around the room. “Looks like squares or something...no, wait. Crates?”

Min promptly stood up. “Correct.”

“Hold on, you could stand the whole time!?”

“I did a roll when I landed, Ainsworth. I was just laying down because I had to pop back my dislocated shoulder after, and in case you didn’t know, having a dislocated shoulder is incredibly painful. Plus, pretending I was dying gave me some blackmail material to use on you.”

“So you’re telling me that you get off with a dislocated-I-forgot-what-you-said, and I break three of my limbs? And I’m pretty sure that I’m half your age!”

Min turned away and began to open one of the crates. “These might have something useful inside. We could find a healing pill or something to help you out.”

“Don’t just ignore me.”

“Hold on, hold on. Shut up for a second.”

Ainsworth immediately clammed up, while Min froze in place and cupped a hand over his ear. 

It was unclear as to precisely what he had heard, but it caused him to jump into action. He reached into a crate and pulled something out, then ripped the lid off of a couple more crates and threw a bottle across the room at Ainsworth.

The glass smashed on the floor, and a couple of pills rolled out of it.

“Eat one, they’re fast-acting healing pills, if I read it correctly. We’ve got company,” said Min.

Just as Ainsworth popped one of them into his mouth with his last unbroken limb, a door on the right side of the room opened up. Lamplight streamed into the room, and he could spot several humanoid shadows moving in.

Although he couldn’t identify them, he could certainly hear them. And it was the familiar sound of armor clanking with each step.

"Actually, on second thought, you probably shouldn't have eaten them. It's hard for my old eyes to see in this darkness, and you might have just eaten a cyanide pill or something."

 

Edit: Author's note, I'm probably going to need to hire an editor or a proofreader or something when I write my sci-fi novel.

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