After rolling his shoulders and swinging his hips a couple of times, Ainsworth stretched his body while Min was stacking the crates against the side of the wall. Scanning his surroundings, he scrambled over to one of the dead bodies laying on the floor and began to search through the pockets. He turned up with a vial of some sort of pill and held it up to the faint torchlight in the room to see it clearer.

“Hey, I found a pill on one of them,” Ainsworth told Min.

“Don’t eat it. You don’t know what it is.”

“Do you think I’m stupid? What are you doing, anyway? Shouldn’t we focus on getting out of here?”

Min stacked another crate onto the growing pile. “I am. I’m trying to make a staircase with these crates so we can leave through the broken roof, and I don’t have much time before the demon dust wears off.”

“Shall I snort a line and help you?”

“This is why I don’t like young people. You gotta explain everything to ‘em. How do I put this...fuck no. If your body can’t handle exposure to magical energy, you’re dead.”

Ainsworth pocketed the vial with the mysterious pill. “Okay. Alright, I get it.”

He began to rummage through the shattered crates and picked up a couple of intact healing pills. Just as he lifted a piece of rubble, he noticed something glimmering under the pieces of stone.

“Oh, please be a priceless jewel,” he muttered, reaching for the object. His hand closed around a cool, metallic object that was small enough for him to wrap his fingers around. 

Out came a sword hilt, decorated with ornate metalwork and even a mysterious jewel of some sort. However, it lacked a blade. His mind immediately jumped to an extendable magic blade set into the hilt, like a magical sword in a story, and closely inspected the hilt for some sort of button or switch.

“I’m done,” Min declared, stacking up the final crate. “Hey, what’d you find?”

Ainsworth held it up. “Some kind of sword hilt. I think it’ll be pretty expensive. We can sell it once we become functioning members of society again. If we can become functioning members of society again.”

Min immediately rushed down and snatched the hilt out of his hands. “Shit! We’ve got to get to Seni.”

“Oi! What was that? I found it!”

“What are you gonna do, fight me over this? I’ll have you know I’m still on demon dust. You can go wherever you want after, but I’m taking this hilt with me.”

“You’re telling me that I can cut off my connection with you crazy bastards? As long as I let you keep the hilt?”

“...Sure.”

Before Ainsworth could ask any more about the sword hilt, Min had scaled up the set of stairs and ran off in the direction of a rumbling noise that sounded like numerous explosions were being set off at once.

Ainsworth sighed, dusting off his clothes and beginning to climb up the crates. 

Just then, the door was kicked down by another Syndicate goon. Countless footsteps in clanking armor approached from the other side of the door. A small army’s worth of them began to stream into the room. 

He turned his head and met their gazes.

No words needed to be exchanged. He scrambled up the stairs, and the goons followed. The moment he reached the top, he pushed a couple of the crates down. They tumbled into the guards that were chasing after him, and he quickly disappeared into the darkness.

 

There was no other way to put it. Although Weishan’s skill with martial arts was probably on the same level as Seni’s awful improvised pub boxing, it was clear that he was trained as an archer.

Although Seni was hiding out in an empty abandoned building, Weishan’s high-powered arrows were capable of punching through multiple walls. He was always incredibly accurate with his shots, somehow managing to strike somewhere close to Seni’s position despite having no line of sight.

He rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding another potshot. Three arrows blindly shot at him in rapid succession through the holes punched in the walls, and one of them managed to graze his shoulder.

“Shit!” he hissed, clutching at the wound. It wasn’t deep enough to cause bleeding, but it was painful enough to keep him distracted.

Realizing his mistake too late, he quickly turned his attention back to the suppressing fire that periodically rained on him. His reaction was too slow.

An arrow pierced through the roof, on a direct path towards Seni’s head.

He was paralyzed. His heart was pounding in his ears like a war drum, and he couldn’t force his body to move no matter how much he screamed in his mind. 

That seemed to be the only thing in his thoughts. Nothing but screams, consisting of all different voices - from childish to mature, high-pitched to deep, rough to smooth. Screaming in chaotic unison like a choir of the damned.

Although he normally couldn’t spot the arrows in flight, this one moved especially slow. His body was sluggish as time was slowing down before his eyes. It approached as if it were savoring the moment, anticipating the moment it would pierce straight through his head. 

And came to a complete halt.

His body frozen in time, along with the world around him. 

Light footsteps rang out from behind.

“I must say, you’ve fucked up big time now,” said Warrior Seni, stepping into view from the edge of his vision. “You’re soft. Weak. Inexperienced. With a foolish dependency on an inanimate object.”

Seni tried to open his mouth to retort but found that even his eyes and lips were frozen.

“And worst of all, you’re an idiot. I don’t mean an idiot socially, like Fashionable Seni, but in a genuine, intellectual kind of way. You have experience with the sword, but you don’t use it. Do you think the world works like that? You think you’re going to be fine without a weapon, and instead do this crappy martial artist thing?”

Warrior Seni unsheathed the sword strapped to his side. The blade was covered in nicks and scratches, but the hilt was always polished, always in pristine condition. He pointed the weapon at Seni.

“So what if you’re not talented at the sword? From what I see, you’re not talented at fighting in the first place. Just work harder. Practice. You’re an immortal, aren’t you? You have all the time in the world to improve. Although, that probably isn’t the first thing on your mind right now. 

“You’re probably wondering how to stop that arrow from knocking a sizable hole through your brains. This is what happens when all bets are off and both people are trying their damned hardest to kill each other. And I think you know the answer to your predicament. After all, you can’t win without sacrificing some things, right?”

It was true. Seni already knew what he could do to prevent his untimely demise. 

He began to strain against the mysterious force that held his body back and slowly lifted his left arm. Just as he began to move, the world resumed, and the arrow drew closer. He sucked in a quick breath as its razor-sharp arrowhead rapidly approached.

There was no room for hesitation. He shoved his arm out, meeting the arrowhead with his palm. 

The tip dug into his wrist and pierced straight through. It sliced through the tough fibers that made up his body, splitting his arm in half from his hand down to his elbow. Thick, golden sap dripped from his mutilated limb, and the two halves of his forearm hung loosely at his side.

It was so grotesque and shocking that he could only feel a dull throbbing in his left arm. Clutching the metal shaft of the arrow, he ripped it out of his elbow joint. A fresh spray of thick sap splattered onto the floor.

He held up the arrow to his eyes and flicked some of the sap off of it, wielding it in his right hand.

“This will do,” he told himself. 

Dripping all over the floor, he gripped the arrow as if he were holding a sword, closed his eyes, and posed like a fencer.

A couple of white flower petals drifted off of his body. Thin vines snaked out from the floorboards underneath him, stabbing into his legs. They snaked up his thighs, around his waist, and to the arrow that he was holding in his hand.

The small vines wrapped around the shaft, mimicking the grip of a sword he was all too familiar with.

Straining his ears, he slowed his breathing and listened.

The twang of a bowstring.

He flicked his hand holding the arrow, sweeping it in a slight arc in front of him. An arrow piercing the roof found its way into the one he was holding, glancing off and being deflected to the side.

“Now,” he muttered. “How does he know where I am?”

Another shot was fired.

Successfully deflected.

He snapped his eyes open.

It was exactly like how Seni could tell when Weishan was shooting.

 

Gulping nervously, Weishan pulled back the bowstring after noticing that his previous two shots had been blocked. He squinted his eyes, trying to peek through the holes he had shot into the building. 

It had been easy enough to figure out the location of his opponent by listening closely to their heavy, ragged breathing and constant stumbling, but now the only thing he could hear was a periodic dripping noise. The noise of the impact was far too heavy to be water or blood. From what he could tell, it was as if a jar of honey was slowly being emptied drop-by-drop.

A distraction.

A drop of sweat slowly rolled down the side of his head as he considered if his technique had been revealed. 

He shook his head. There was no need to worry; he would shoot fast enough once he managed to figure out his enemy’s location. Still, he had another idea.

Raising his enormous wings to his head, he cupped them over his ears. It looked as if he had an elephant’s ears. 

In the deep of night, one of the most agile hunters was the bat. Their dark coloring made them hard to see without light, and they somehow managed to snatch insects with pinpoint precision. The secret to it all was their ability to use echolocation to determine the precise location of their prey. By sending out a sonic wave that bounced off of their surroundings, they’d get enough feedback to determine their next move. It was like having eyes, but being able to notice every detail in a three-hundred and sixty-degree radius - possibly even through walls.

Weishan lacked the most optimal way of sending out sonic waves, as he was only half-bat. He had a considerably more noticeable sonic wave that he could send out that worked just as good as the real thing, but it would, without a doubt, compromise his position.

Still, at the thought of his enemy somehow evading his line of sight and flanking him while he was staring through the holes in the building, he decided to do so anyway.

Relaxing his bowstring, he sucked in a breath and filled his lungs with air.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGHHHHHH!!!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

The feedback was near-instant.

As it turned out, his opponent was simply standing very still, and for some reason, holding an arrow in his hand like a sword. Weishan tightened his grip and drew back the bowstring once more.

Just before he could snap off an accurate shot, the building he was standing on suddenly trembled, causing him to awkwardly shift his feet. He readjusted his body and carefully aimed, then let loose an arrow that flew - and struck a ghostly vine thicker than a tree trunk that came bursting out of the ground.

It wound itself back and lashed out at him like a whip. He rolled to the side, but the building began to collapse when it struck the roof.

The vine wasn’t fazed in the slightest. Coiling around the crumbling building, it thrashed and constricted around the walls. He fell through the roof as the entire building collapsed, but managed to land neatly as his feet touched the ground.

Dust clouded up his vision, and the only noise he could hear was the loud rumbling of demolition.

He’s trying to block out my senses.

A sensible strategy, and one that he could admire. Although, it wasn’t as if he had thought of this being used against him. His sense of hearing was honed to the point of being able to isolate noise.

Footsteps were approaching. Rapidly. 

He closed his eyes, ignoring the destruction around him, and snapped off an arrow.

 

Contrary to how Seni would have expected, he had indeed actually been struck with an arrow. He did not turn out to be behind Weishan the whole time, or underneath, or above. 

He felt his body jerk to the side. Initially, there was nothing but a numb impact that slammed into his shoulder, but the moment he felt something wet trickle down his leg, he knew something was wrong.

Turning his head, he raised his left arm. Well, what was left of it; the only part that remained was a severed stump that was oozing out sap.

Weishan walked out of the cloud of dust. “It was a good idea, I’ll give you that.”

“Buddy,” said Seni, tightening his grip on the arrow that he still had in his remaining hand. “You shouldn’t hesitate to finish the job, or else-”

The vine that was still extending from the ground reared back, then came snapping forward and smashed its entire weight against Weishan. He grunted and pushed back at the force, but Seni closed the distance and thrust the arrow forward.

It sunk into flesh, sliding between ribs and impaling straight through the back.

“-that might happen,” Seni hissed in his ear.

Weishan nodded his head while gritting his teeth. A thin trail of blood leaked out from between his lips. “Yeah, that smarts.”

He grabbed Seni’s entire head with his armored hand and raised him, then slammed him into the ground.

His entire body folded as the road caved in under the force. It left him breathless and his vision spinning, making it impossible to focus on anything in his field of view.

“Hesitation is a luxury that the powerful can afford when dealing with weaklings such as yourself,” Weishan stated. “Any last words?”

Seni gasped for air and found himself in a complete state of exhaustion. It was either that or he had lost far too much blood - or sap - and the consequences were catching up to him. At some point, the sticky-sweet sap had welled up in his throat. He could hardly even cough it out.

Sighing, Weishan shook his head with a sorrowful expression and began to pull back the bowstring. Then, he whipped his head to the side and pointed his bow in that direction.

“Actually, I’d like to say something.”

Weishan narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?”

“Not an opponent that you can fight and win against, that’s for sure - is what I’d like to say, but in truth, I’m just a human. A lowly mortal.”

Casually, as if he didn’t care about the immortal with a massive longbow at all, Min walked into view.

“So, you see this one-armed idiot here that you probably just body slammed into the ground? He’s my friend, and I would like to negotiate terms for his release,” Min stated.

“Or I could just send you and your friend to the afterlife right now,” Weishan replied.

“I wouldn’t exactly mind, as long as we’re going to the same afterlife. It’d be pretty bad if I was sent to some kind of eternal damnation, and he was sent to eternal paradise. Or the other way around.”

“...Why didn’t you run away?”

Min blinked. “Huh?”

“You see me here about to kill your friend. Why aren’t you running in the opposite direction?”

“Either I’m incredibly courageous, or I’m incredibly stupid...sorry, that was a cliched line. It just doesn’t sit right with me to let my friend die and do nothing about it. And besides, as much as I hate to admit it, I can’t imagine life without this dumbass by my side.”

Wait. Right now, this is my chance to recover!

A small root extended from the cracks in the ground and sank into Seni’s back. 

“You know he’s an immortal, right?” said Weishan. “How much do you think you humans are worth to us? When you’re gone, he’s going to forget about you, if he hasn’t already betrayed you for power or money.”

“Isn’t that a generalization?” Min argued. “I mean, it’s obvious that some immortals are like that, but there are kind and understanding ones as well. Your life experiences dictate what type of person you are, not if you’re born as an immortal or human. Who says humans aren’t capable of betrayal or becoming hungry for power?”

New energy flowed through the thin root, slowly revitalizing Seni. His dripping stump of an arm began to slow its blood loss as fibers formed over it.

“And how do you know that this one isn’t going to betray you one day?” Weishan asked. “Do you know his history? Do you know what he’s done?”

Min clicked his tongue. “In all the twenty years I’ve known him, he’s never been the person to do that. And I’ll have you know he’s only eighty-five years old.”

“That doesn’t exactly answer my question.”

“You’re right. I guess I just have faith. He’s a good friend, and that’s enough to make me want to stick up for his ass. If he ends up betraying me, then so be it. I’ve taken demon dust multiple times already, so how much has my lifespan been reduced? Twenty years? Maybe thirty?”

Seni could feel the power rising in his chest and through his body again. He itched to hop back up and thoroughly throttle Weishan but kept himself still and waited for the right moment to strike.

“So you’re telling me you wouldn’t mind if your closest friend stabs you in the back for personal gain?” said Weishan.

“Frankly, no. I deserve it at this point, and I’m surprised he hasn’t done it already. He’s saved my life way too much already. Now, I wouldn’t exactly say that I swing that way, but if I could ever marry someone, it’d be this guy right here.”

“Marriage between an immortal and a human may be more difficult than you may think. Besides, men preferring other men isn’t exactly something that people praise.”

Min crossed his arms. “I’m not into guys, pal. I’m just into Seni. Why should I have to care about what gender the person I love is, as long as I genuinely love them?”

It seemed to strike a chord in Weishan. He lowered his bow and sighed, then looked at Seni splayed out on the ground. Rapidly, Weishan opened and closed his mouth, as if he had something to say but found it impossible to express himself. He clammed up with a sorrowful expression.

Weishan rapidly blinked his eyes and sniffled. “...Have you two kissed yet?”

It was so absurd, so out-of-nowhere that both Seni and Min blurted out in sync, “What the fuck is that question?”

Tears streaked down Weishan’s face. “Why...why must everyone else lead lives of romance? Of love, of friendship, of fulfillment, and the warmth of a lover’s touch?”

Min and Seni were so taken aback that they were rendered speechless.

The tears that were dripping from Weishan’s eyes turned pitch black, like tar, leaving dark stains on his cheeks. 

From his right arm, the black material was beginning to crawl over to the rest of his body. The material began to cover his chest and neck. It grew unnaturally, extending from his arm to cover his body, and started to cover his face like a helmet.

“Why is everything so unfair?”

His mouth had been covered, and when he opened it to speak, there was nothing but a deep void in the place where there should have been teeth and a tongue. His voice was otherworldly, trembling and echoing throughout the night, as if the sound had been warped by space and time. 

Seni hopped back up, scrambling away as if Weishan was about to attack. However, he didn’t even react to Seni’s sudden revival.

Weishan spread his arms out wide as the material fully encased his left arm. “This world is imperfect. Why is it that when we work hard, we are not rewarded? Why is it that some people are born ugly, while some are born beautiful? Why is it that some can achieve love, while others are rejected at every turn?”

By this point, his entire body was encased in the dark armor. No gaps were left on his head, and it seemed as if even his eyes were covered up.

“People like you...disgust me. Achieving friendship and happiness with so little effort that it’s sickening. Do you have any idea how long someone would search to have a relationship like you two, only to turn up empty-handed?”

“Just wondering, is this still Weishan we’re talking to, or has he been possessed, too?” Min whispered.

“And look at you. Whispering to each other, without a care in the world.”

“L-look, man. Sometimes, people are just lucky. Life isn’t fair, you know? Someone’s always going to be better at you at something, or they’ll be born into better circumstances,” replied Min.

Weishan clutched at his pitch-black helmet. “Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up! I’m tired of hearing that! Pretentious. Privileged. Condescending. Arrogant. You don’t know what true suffering is like. A deep, dark pit that you can’t crawl out of no matter how hard you try. People always tell you that the road to success is paved with failure and to keep trying - well, it’s easier said than done when you’re not the one who’s been struggling for millennia!”

He took a heavy step forward.

Seni immediately felt his body tense up. It was a purely instinctual reaction to what could only be described as an absolute powerhouse. He wasn’t sure how he knew that Weishan had suddenly become far more dangerous than before, but the weight in the air told him all he needed to know.

Weishan took another step forward. “I should have just killed everyone from the start.”

“Hold, hold on!” Seni shouted. “Why us?”

“Just finishing what my host started.”

A scraping noise shredded Seni’s eardrums, and he flinched as if had just taken a physical blow. Whatever entity had taken over Weishan lunged forward, swinging his arms like claws. Although, the attack never landed.

His right arm had been severed from his body. The black material that covered his body began to fall apart like a shell revealing what was inside. The pieces fell and shattered on the ground like ceramic, and Weishan skidded face-first on the ground for an impressively long distance before coming to a stop.

“In case if you’re wondering, I don’t know what happened either,” Seni told Min, who had turned his head to look at Seni as if he were expecting an explanation.

A woman with dark hair and loose robes was standing in front of them. She looked as if she were slightly out of breath as she dusted off her clothes. It may have been the enormous buster sword that was resting on her shoulder, but something told Seni that she was the one who had come to their aid.

“You can relax now,” she said. “Zhou Seni.”

Seni stared blankly. “Am I supposed to know you?”

“Yes. It’s me, Zhou Liuan!”

He rubbed his chin. “Hmm...nope, I’m getting nothing.”

She sighed. “My cup size is G.”

“Oh, yeah! Third wife, domestic affairs! I haven’t seen you for a while. How’d you end up here?”

“Let’s just say that I was interested in what all this fuss about ‘divine organs’ was about.”

“Alright, seriously. What in the world is a divine organ? I need an actual explanation here. We need some actual lore development after, what, ten chapters of vague shit? We still haven’t had a single cultivation scene yet!”

Min walked over and held up Seni’s lost sword hilt. “I...forgot to give you this.”

Seni graciously welcomed the return of his heirloom, clutching it close to his chest. “I can’t believe I lost it.”

Liuan wrapped her arms around Seni and picked him up like a child. “Honestly, I have to admit that I missed you after all this time. You were so shy the last time I saw you! Look how much you’ve grown. I’ll explain what divine organs are all about after this, because it’s a complex story.”

She put him down just as Weishan began to stir. Everyone tensed up in preparation for another violent struggle. His finger twitched, then he gasped and snapped back into consciousness.

He groaned, peeling himself off of the ground with his remaining arm. “What the fuck just happened?”

“Mate, this is going to be hard to believe, but a black shell just took over your entire body, and then you tried to kill us, but then this lady cut off your arm,” Min replied.

Weishan’s eyes were downcast. “Oh. That means I was rejected by the Outcast’s arm.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Weishan pointed at his severed limb, which had also returned to normal without any black material covering it. A skeletal arm that was bound together by black stringy tendons and rotting flesh was splayed out beside it. 

Aside from its disgusting appearance, it radiated otherworldly energy that caused Seni to feel a painful throbbing in the back of his head the more he tried to stare at it. 

“No, wait. Hold on, so, we’re done here, right? No more violence for now?” said Seni, shaking his head to get the image of the divine organ out of his mind.

“Now is the time for de-escalation,” Liuan answered. “I’m the one with all my body parts intact and a giant sword. Let’s get everyone patched up before we talk everything out.”

“R-right.”

An entirely new arm of fiber sprouted from Seni’s severed stump, and he quickly reverted to his human form in a flash of white petals. Weishan had been trying to open a bottle of healing pills with one hand, but eventually gave up and crushed the bottle, then threw two pills down his throat.

The vines that were still extending above the ground quickly rotted away as Seni stretched his body. Color returned to his hair as it shifted from pale white to dark brown once more. The cloud of petals slowly drifted and settled down, clearing the air.

“Augh!” Min cried. “Dude, why are you naked!?”

Seni flexed his unimpressive muscles. “Only real masculine men fight without any clothes, like wrestlers of ancient times. Also, I was afraid I’d just get my clothes destroyed during the fighting.”

Liuan scanned him from head to toe. “You haven’t changed at all. Well, maybe your hair got a little longer.”

“You know, I just realized that this city is probably going to be flooded by the river within the next minute now that I’ve gone back to normal.”

Everyone slowly turned to look at Seni.

“...Wait, what did you say?” said Weishan.

A dark shadow was cast over them, blotting out the moonlight. They tilted their heads up to notice the enormous wave of water carving its way through the streets at top speed as abandoned ships smashed into homes and fish were swept through the alleyways.