Chapter 100

It was quite possibly the worst day of his life. Made all the worse for the fact that it didn’t seem to be ending anytime soon. A careening carousel of casual cruelty that wouldn’t let him off for the life or death of him—the latter seeming preferable at that very moment, so long as it was a permanent reprieve. A montage of murders, a symphony of suffering, with him, lucky him, smack dab in the middle of it. A lone spotlight paints the world a rusty crimson; a boot to the backside has him tripping face first onto center stage.

Each orchestrated demise more inventive than the last. Over and over, again and again. Until the heightened horror of it, the constant stress, the mounting worry, became more exhausting to maintain than anything. The snuffing of his candle light—routine, like clockwork—beginning to blend together after a fashion, into this chunky morass of general suck. His will to be present, “to live in the moment,” eventually draining away to reveal a rather soggy “I owe you,” drying on slick tile.

The world faded away to reveal an absence space, a yawning black abyss—falling into himself as he had done what felt like eons ago. And although this wasn’t the same as getting his eternal soul methodically ripped to shreds, wasn’t it though? He figured the end result was more or less the same.

To one side, in that inexplicably illuminated darkness, the promise of sweet sweet oblivion beckoned. To be honest, he glanced at it a couple of times. A place free from the pain. Free from the stress of moving forward. It felt like he was standing at a crossroads. It would be such an easy thing to do. To sink back into that bland nothingness. To forget himself in its voluptuous embrace. The void crooned to him softly, whispering in his ear:

“I’m only ever one step away. Stay a while, why don’t you? I can make all your worries disappear.”

He’d escaped its grasp once. He didn’t suspect that it’d happen a second time. For a while, he didn’t know how long, he genuinely considered it.

Jun turned his back on the void, embracing the everlasting pain, even as he somehow rose above it. It could touch him in this place, true, but it also mattered less. It was an odd sensation. How many times had she killed him now. A hundred? A thousand? At this point, he was beginning to lose count. There were only two ways this trial was ending, he knew. Either he broke, or his tormenter did.  He didn’t know about her, but he most certainly hadn’t come this far to give up now.

This… this was the part of the plan he hadn’t shared with the others, not even the system knockoff, in all its snide sagacity. It was the main reason he’d insisted Ivory not be here for this, despite the interesting possibilities their soul fusion offered. Put simply, he was risking it all on a hunch. 

He was under no illusions. 

He’d known what it meant to go toe to toe with a bona fide immortal. Or, at least he thought he did. That it ended up being worse than he could’ve ever imagined, was still well within expectations. She was a twice damned ascendant after all. A god among mortals.

His temporary titles? Yeah, they weren’t doing jack. At least not at this stage. He was outmatched. Outplayed. Totally and completely. In technique. In cultivation. In body, mind, and spirit, he’d never even really stood a chance. In all worlds, in all ways, he’d been screwed from the get go. Well, in all ways, that is, but one. The single area in which he, not only matched the sadistic tentacle Queen in power, but blew her aquatic tail fin out of the water. Now if only it weren’t the most nebulous attribute possible.

His astronomically high insight value

He knew a bit more about it now. The knockoff had thankfully seen to that. Insight. It was a rather holistic concept, delineated by two main characteristics. Universal depth, and universal breadth. The first referred to one’s intuitive sense for the underlying truth of things. 

The individual forces at play most never get to see are laid bare to those born with greater insight than others. While the second, breadth, refers to one’s internal grasp of the interconnectedness of all things. How every action creates consequence. And how that consequence creates ripples which, in turn, evoke change. Change which is as unpredictable as it is potentially far reaching. And, finally, the interplay between all of these entangled ripples.

It… wasn’t much to go on, really. Not something he’d have bet his life on a day ago, if he’d been given any other choice. Worse yet, he’d never really noticed any particular benefit to having his insight value as high as it was, though he supposed that was to be expected.

If he was understanding things correctly, just about every benefit he’d received from the stat had been subconscious. And while he couldn’t risk actually falling into unconsciousness in the state he was in—that would effectively be the same as surrendering to the void—he could drift along in this in-between place, and hope against all hope his overinflated attribute came to the rescue. 

In effect, he would balance on this edge of oblivion for as long as he could manage, and let what would be… well, be. And perhaps, drifting in this place of utter remove, deprived of tactile sensations, thoughts, and feelings, he might finally get to see his insight value at work.

***

Eyes unseeing, the boy turns his chin by the barest fraction of a centimeter. Reacting entire microseconds before she’d even properly committed to the attack. Her swift uppercut blows his head clean off his shoulders—punching a perfectly circular hole in the cloud-bank high above. The severe change in air pressure this action elicits tearing his body apart before the world inevitably fades to black.

Dammit! She’d given no indication that time! None! There was simply no way he could have anticipated her. She hadn’t even known she was going to do what she’d done until she’d already done it! So how the fuck was he still able to read her!?

He wasn’t getting physically faster, if anything he was slowing down—the toll of the ordeal likely weighing on him. And yet! Somehow he was reacting to her continued assault with greater and greater alacrity. Only improving by scant microseconds at a time, practically nothing in the grand scheme of things, and yet if this trend continued…? 

Impossible! 

And yet, on the off chance it did…? Nialla decided to take an immediate step back.

She wasn’t scared. No of course she wasn’t. She was merely acting with as much prudence as a being her age should, when presented with the strange and inexplicable. This time, when the world around her resolved into its bright and vivid tones, instead of launching herself mindlessly at the inexplicable creature, she cautiously hung back. Loosed a couple dozen spearing tentacles at a time. Overwhelming his pitiful defenses again and again, to tear into the succulent meat at its center, and so restart the cycle anew.

She didn’t know why it unnerved her so, but if her proximity was the catalyst, she wouldn’t go on blithely fueling his abnormal growth any further. She’d already done enough damage as it was in her rage. She would bombard him from afar until his mind shattered from the strain. Surely it couldn’t be much longer now? Then, once she’d successfully broken him, she’d be free to riffle through the pieces for the answers she sought. What unholy time formation she now found herself in, being the first in a long list of burning questions.

***

Lanyue gently cradled her son to her chest with a tenderness she would not have dared to display had he still been in his right mind.

A needy burble was all the warning she got. It was enough. Lanyue did not flinch as her boy clamped his sharp incisors around the tender meat of her neck. On the contrary, she redirected much of the passive spirit from that area, as not to shatter his teeth on the diamond-like skin afforded to her by her five star body.

A young man of his bloodline dynasty could not afford to be weak. And, in her mind, any unnecessary signs of affection on her part would only be doing him a great disservice. He would see, sometime down the line her methods would bear fruit. It was likely he wouldn’t know to thank her when the time came for him to make the truly difficult decisions, but she was just fine with that so long as he was strong.

She felt the warm dribble of blood soak through her neckline as he gnawed and tore away at her flesh like a dog with a bone—staining the ornate silken gown that’d been her great great grand mothers once upon a time, as he did so. The thought that the priceless family heirloom was now likely ruined never even crossed her mind. Rubbing his head with her free hand, she cooed softly in his ear.

“Yes, I know. Poor baby. You must be starving,” he shook his head roughly, trying, and failing, to tear a chunk free from her surprisingly resilient throat.

“I know. I know. But you have to be patient. Let mama fix you up something nice and hot, okay? Then, before you know it, you’ll be stuffed so full we’ll have to roll you around everywhere we go, mark my words.”

Touching down on the forest floor, Lanyue produced a cooking pot from her interspacial ring, had a fire roaring to life with a twist of spirit, and then began tossing ingredients into the pot. All the while her boy continued to gnaw away—glassy eyed and drooling.

In a perfect world, he would see her as a useful pawn with few, if any, karmic strings attached. A trust worthy ally in times of peace, as well as war, and one just as easily spent or discarded should the situation demand it of him. No good came from unnecessary ties, especially familial ones. They were all needless distractions that would only serve to sway his better judgment.

“After we’re done here, how’s about we pay a visit to your auntie Cecilia. Mama did promise she’d check in on her, after all. Would you like that? Huh? Go see auntie Cecilia?!”

Base sentimentality, after all, was not becoming of a great man. Leastwise was it becoming of an emperor.