Chapter 43 Aftermath

Clover shook Mercury awake.

“Merc! Merc!” {Clover}

“Hm. I am awa. CLOVER!” {Mercury}

Mercury pushed Clover’s hands away and tried to stand up but fell to his knees.

“MERC!” {Clover}

“*Groans* I am fine. I just *Groans* What about you? How do you feel?” {Mercury}

“I feel fine. Actually, I feel better than normal.” {Clover}

“Good. Good. I, ahw, how long have I been out.” {Mercury}

“I do not know. But I do not think it has been ” {Clover}

A large loose rock on the roof of the cave fell on top of Clover’s head. It spilt in two and Clover was unfazed.

“long... What was that?” {Clover}

“…”

“Later. We can, ahw, deal with it later.” {Mercury}

Mercury forced himself to stand and walked to the cave entrance, using the cave wall to support himself.

“Clover, we need to do something. This may be hard for you to believe but I am not… fully human.” {Mercury}

“I know.” {Clover}

Mercury stopped walking.

“…”

“What?” {Mercury}

“Well, I overheard you and Earthlight talking on the boat.” {Clover}

“What boat? I… You knew since that long ago?” {Mercury}

“Yep. I just assumed that you would tell me when I needed to.” {Clover}

“…”

“Clover… TELL ME NEXT TIME! Ahw. I did not go all out to stop them because I did not want you know too much. And because of that you got poisoned and I had to… I had to… What did I do?” {Mercury}

Mercury grabbed his head in pain.

“I… I do not remember… HOW!?” {Mercury}

“Merc, are you okay?” {Clover}

“No! I do not forget. I remember everything. Ever since I had a memory, I have remembered I have seen, heard, or smelled.” {Mercury}

“Gross.” {Clover}

“Not what is important right now. What I did must have messed me up. But we need to… Clover, what is wrong!?” {Mercury}

Clover fell to her knees, tears in her eyes.

“I… I remember them.” {Clover}

“What?” {Mercury}

“I remember my parents.” {Clover}

“WHAT!?” {Mercury}

“It… It was soon after I was born… We were on a ship? I do not know. I just see her face… Two people were fighting each other.” {Clover}

“Clover.” {Mercury}

Mercury started lumping towards Clover, as Clover fell deeper into the memories.

“One looked at my mom, and then Mom jumped from the ship. Then nothing till the beach.” {Clover}

“Clover!” {Mercury}

“WHY!? WHY CAN’T I THINK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE!?” {Clover}

Mercury fell in front of Clover and put his hands up to her face, making her look at him.

“Look at me. What do you see?” {Mercury}

“I see… I see your face.” {Clover}

“Keep that image. Focus on it.” {Mercury}

“Okay.” {Clover}

“Breath.” {Mercury}

Clover breathed in and out.

“What do you see now?” {Mercury}

“I still just see your face.” {Clover}

“Good. Good. Stand up, we can figure this out later. For now, we need to move.” {Mercury}

Mercury stood up and tried to help Clover to her feet, but she stopped him.

“Merc… What happened to me? It was more than just normal stuff, right?” {Clover}

“…”

“MERC!” {Clover}

“I feed you my blood to stop the toxin from killing you… but when people drink my blood, they go… crazy. They become… not themselves. I am sorry. I did not have any other option to save you.” {Mercury}

“But… But I am still me.” {Clover}

“That is the problem. I have no idea what is going on. This has never happened before. I am just glad you are safe.” {Mercury}

“Mercury, thank you.” {Clover}

“That might be the first time you said my name correctly on your own.” {Mercury}

“Feels weird.” {Clover}

“…”

Mercury and Clover giggled.

“Ahw. Still hurts.” {Mercury}

Clover got up and put Mercury’s arm over her neck and carried him to the exit. When they came outside, they found Ivy, the other archer, and the master on the ground. The master looked like he fell from high up but was still barely alive. Mercury realized that it had not been more than a half an hour since they fled into the cave.

“Clover. I am going to make some needles. I need you to poke everyone with them.” {Mercury}

“What are you going to do to them?” {Clover}

“Find out why they did this… then kill them.” {Mercury}

“NO!” {Clover}

“Clover. I do not want to kill people, but they tried to kill us first.” {Mercury}

“I know but” {Clover}

“Clover, the fact you do not want to kill them is great. It shows how caring you are. But if they walk away from this, it will only bring more problems. More people trying to kill us, or people close to us.” {Mercury}

“…”

“Can we give them a chance?” {Clover}

“Clover, I will do it. You can just look away if want to.” {Mercury}

“No. I am a part of this.” {Clover}

“Okay.” {Mercury}

Mercury created three needles out of his blood and handed them to Clover. Clover went around and poked each person with one of them. The needle wormed its way into their blood stream. They started waking up.

“Let’s start with their master. Clover, cover your ears… The screams make it worse.” {Mercury}

Clover put her hands over her ears as Mercury started. The Master screamed as Mercury looked deep in his memories. The archer and Ivy woke up and jumped to their feet, before tripping and falling.

“Looks like what I did messed up everything around us as well.” {Mercury}

“WHY!?” {Master}

The pain stopped. Clover uncovered her ears, as the master stopped screaming.

“What? How?” {Master}

“I got what I needed. Quite unfortunate too.” {Mercury}

“What do you mean?” {Master}

In the master’s soul space, a flood blood appeared and shallowed the master’s soul.

(“After I killed your brother, you still stayed in this industry.”) {Mercury}

The master could not respond as his soul was shattered. Ivy and Bullseye could only watch on in horror as their master died for seemingly no reason. Mercury looked at them.

“Leave.” {Mercury}

Bullseye pulled out his bow and fired an arrow while Ivy threw a knife at him. Clover tried to get in the way but could not in time before Mercury’s body was pierced by them. He was unimpressed and unfazed. Their bodies turned to dust as Mercury broke their Nascent Souls.

“Clover, I gave them a chance.” {Mercury}

“I know… thank you.” {Clover}

“We still have one more.” {Mercury}

Mercury pulled out the weapons and directed Clover to carry him to where the land slide happened. There they found Kindling pulling himself out of the pile. He was shocked when he saw them.

“HA! So, you managed to escape from the others but when they come back!” {Kindling}

“Weird, why do I feel… Oh, yours must be another branch… I am an idiot for not realizing sooner.” {Mercury}

“What are you on about?” {Kindling}

“So, does that mean? Oh, I see the problem now.” {Mercury}

Mercury looked into his soul space and found that his ‘soul’ was only his left side. The right side of his body was gone. Mercury willed his ‘soul’ to grow back and it did. He looked at the connections to his blood but out of the corner of his eye he saw something. He turned to look at it, before deciding it was for later. He focused on the connections and found Kindling.

“Clover, I am good now.” {Mercury}

Clover let go of Mercury and he walked toward Kindling. Making a needle out of blood as he did so.

“What? How did you do that? WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” {Kindling}

“Fall asleep.” {Mercury}

Kindling instantly fell asleep. Mercury walked up to him and stuck the needle in and read his memories. He did not wake up. Mercury killed him as painlessly as possible.

“This is weird.” {Mercury}

“What happened?” {Clover}

“Well, that master guy was told to kill us while bringing Kindling along. Kindling reported back to Grand Elder Radiant Firelight when the day was.” {Mercury}

“That creepy person wanted to kill us?” {Clover}

“The master used a middleman to talk to the one who hired him but that is the only answer that makes sense. Let me see if I can contact Earthlight.” {Mercury}

Mercury pulled out his jade connected to the Grand Formation Master’s.

“Why not Starlight?” {Clover}

“Well, I have his long distance jade, but me calling him would probably make more problems than it solves.” {Mercury}

Mercury pushed his divine sense into the jade, but no one answered.

“That is a problem. The Grand Formation Master did not answer.” {Mercury}

“Were you not trying to contact Earthlight?” {Clover}

“I do not have a long distance jade for him. I hoped Teacher would be near Earthlight.” {Mercury}

“Oh, okay.” {Clover}

“But that gives us time to deal with the other thing I found.” {Mercury}

“What?” {Clover}

“Just please do not be embarrassed.” {Mercury}

“Why?”

Mercury went back to his soul space. He was naked but tried to will some clothes on himself. It worked.

(“Good. I hope it works for Clover too.”) {Mercury}

Mercury looked over at Clover and the brownish yellow ball above her in his soul space. He went over and touched her shoulder. The her in the soul space did not open her eyes, but Clover did feel something.

“What was that!?” {Clover}

“You felt that?” {Mercury}

“What did you do!?” {Clover}

“Try to follow that feeling and see.” {Mercury}

“Okay?” {Clover}

Mercury nogged the Clover in the soul space and she slowly opened her eyes.

(“Where? Merc?”) {Clover}

(“Interesting.”) {Mercury}

“Can you ” {Mercury}

(“Move between ”) {Mercury}

“Spaces” {Mercury}

(“Easily?”) {Mercury}

(“STOP! That hurts my head.”) {Clover}

(“Okay, I will keep it here. By the way… try imagining yourself wearing clothes right now.”) {Mercury}

(“Why?”) {Clover}

(“Look down.”) {Mercury}

Clover looked down to find herself without clothes on. Mercury had already turned around to give her privacy.

(“Weird.”) {Clover}

(“Weird? WEIRD!? You are naked and all you can say is weird!”) {Mercury}

(“Is it not?”) {Clover}

(“I mean. It is weird but think about modesty and your privacy.”) {Mercury}

(“But only you are here, and I trust you.”) {Clover}

(“Thank you for your trust. BUT STILL!”) {Mercury}

(“Fine. It is done.”) {Clover}

(“Really? It was that easy?”) {Mercury}

Mercury turned around and found Clover standing wearing her normal clothes.

(“Yeah. It was not hard.”) {Clover}

(“Good… I have to rethink about what this space is then.”) {Mercury}

(“Where are we?”) {Clover}

(“I thought this was somehow my soul space, but two people cannot share a soul space… unless. Could it?”) {Mercury}

(“What is it?”) {Clover}

(“Clover, try to move back to the outside world.”) {Mercury}

“…”

“I did it!” {Clover}

“Good.” {Mercury}

“What now?” {Clover}

“…”

“Merc?” {Clover}

“I need to you to try something weird.” {Mercury}

“What?” {Clover}

“Take out a knife or something sharp and cut yourself.” {Mercury}

“But that hurts.” {Clover}

Mercury held up the arm that was cut off by the master.

“Clover, do you remember that this arm was cut off?” {Mercury}

“…”

“HOW DO YOU HAVE IT!?” {Clover}

“That is part of my powers. I want to see if you can do something similar.” {Mercury}

“Okay. I will do it.” {Clover}

Clover pulled out one of her sharp sculpting tools and cut herself. She tried to cut herself.

“It is not working.” {Clover}

Mercury got closer to her.

“What?” {Mercury}

“It just will not cut.” {Clover}

Mercury saw that the blade was just gliding over the skin and not cutting it.

“That is… new.” {Mercury}

“Can you not do this?” {Clover}

“Well, I probably can. But not like this. Let me try something else.” {Mercury}

Mercury pulled out his knife and tried to cut Clover. It could not. Mercury then made a scalpel out of his blood and found that it worked.

“Owe.” {Clover}

Just as quickly as it was made, the cut healed. Mercury had a very concerned look on his face.

“Clover… Think about your hand changing.” {Mercury}

“Change how?” {Clover}

“I don’t know… Think about it becoming a Stone Mosse hoof.” {Mercury}

“Okay.” {Clover}

Clover tried to imagine her hand changing, it slowly started to morph but snapped back to normal.

“I don’t think I can do it.” {Clover}

“Maybe with time.” {Mercury}

“Merc… How are this different than what Cultivators can do normally? What makes you special?” {Clover}

“Hah, this is going to be a long story. I am an immortal creature. Thing would be a better description. I am pretty confident that nothing can kill me… Well, not quite any more after the past hour.” {Mercury}

“Really?” {Clover}

“Yeah, I mean I went to the sun once.” {Mercury}

“YOU CAN GO THERE! CAN I GO!?” {Clover}

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Thank you for reading.