Messiah 17 : Death_Unknown

He didn't know why. He wasn't very clear of what was happening, in exact.

But by the time he became remotely conscious of what he had been doing, Katachi had already leapt off in a flurry of rage, towards the tight-dress woman. His feet pushed against the cold, uneven stone, and his hand curled and clenched into a fist, flying towards her.

But the woman, nimble as she was, quickly reacted to his charge, and released a knot holding together the bottom sides of her long tight dress with her left hand. She then proceeded to bend herself around his punch, and using her left arm to intercept Katachi's hook and lock his right arm, she thrust her palm into Katachi's chest with a solid clap.

It was horrifying. Katachi experienced that fear once more, the true insignificance of his being wavering and quivering. He felt like a glass doll for that one moment, his entire body convulsing from the shockwave of the impact. It had been a solid hit to the center of his chest, but it felt like there was something... More, to that attack alone. It hurt way more than it seemed to have, with how the lady's arm was already outstretched fully when she struck his chest.

K : "Ukkkckkk, aah-..."

He fell backwards, and slid on his back. Katachi felt his entire body numbing. Getting up was hard, and painful. It ached and he felt his senses dulling, and he was afraid. Horrified. Katachi couldn't make out what to do at this point. He tried to breathe, but his lungs felt as though they had been paralyzed with the strike. They wouldn't take in any air, and he felt like straining his damaged diaphragm would be really bad.

His opponent is a powerful fighter whom delivered such a strong blow with graceful, unwasted movement. It was frightening how she managed to hurt him like this, when clad in that tight-fit dress. The Chinese frog that was near the bottom of her skirt was probably there in order to hold the dress together, to give a refined and modest appearance that had masked such strength, grace and ferocity perfectly.

K : "Kkk- acchkkk- *gulping air* HEERRRRHH Haa HEERRH Haa Heeerh... *muffled* Ooumph!"

He forced himself to breathe, and as the foul, miasmic air filled his lungs, he felt sick. He felt nauseous, and dizzy, and confused and disoriented, and his whole body went numb. He felt the juices in his stomach rumble and gather near the back of his throat. He was weak; Very, very weak. Katachi knew that, and even so, he struggled to get up. He forced his body to get up, because despite being weak, he had the Words of Power with him.

The event magic that could bring to reality anything it could represent. The magic, with its power increasing exponentially with its user's intelligence and knowledge, to defeat opponents that would normally be impossible to defeat for someone his stature. It was magic that could bend people to their knees, against their will. It was magic that could make absolutes possible.

He pumped strength into his legs. Though he had been physically weak, with the Words of Power, he could make a change. It was a magic that was essentially a wonder tool - If one knew how to use it, it would serve its purpose dutifully. He could make it so that none of this pain and misery would occur ever again. So that Roberia would not suffer the fate of the other women here. So that everyone here would escape from this cesspool of corruption and depravity, which was so similar to what he had faced in Mielfeud.

So that none may need to suffer for another, ever again.

(?! 那小家伙还站着?...)

He shifted his body mass about, and started heading towards the lady in a staggering, unguarded fashion. His feet, dragging and pushing against the caltrops on the floor, his right arm, clenched into a fist, and his injured left arm loose and dangling by the makeshift cast that stopped it from moving... It was clearly not a stance that someone fighting should use, for this was a stance that showed desperation and willpower.

Katachi knew. He waited patiently, and focused on the opponent. The surroundings didn't matter. The spiky traps and puddles of sweat and urine on the floor, the foul odor draped over the room, none of that mattered. He stopped his breathing altogether, and focused only on his opponent. As expected, her fear over his next action was putting her on an edge. It was reinforcing his own image power.

Even though he had been weak, it did not matter.

Even if he knew he had no way of defeating her head-on, it did not matter.

What mattered was using her actions to achieve his goal. He had to use his opponent's physical and mental strength against her, and he needed to make the opponent lose their sense of reason, their focused mindset. When she loses her composure, and starts becoming irrational herself, she would not be able to control herself. That was what he aimed at. To achieve that, he must begin with a logic-defying action that would throw her off completely.

*** ***

K : (I need to focus. First of all, I should start with something that won't accidentally injure or hurt the others whom are held captive here. 设定. Set body's flexibility - Extreme.)

A 定 glowed on his chest, and he straightened his back immediately, staring fiercely into her eyes.

(!! 金色的'定'?! 咒语?!?)

The lady seemed shocked at the sudden revelation of his Word of Power, and her eyes wavered. She began looking at her surroundings, and her eyes went everywhere, scanning and checking everything carefully. When nothing seemed to have happened, she finally exhaled, and locked her eyes onto Katachi. Though nothing seemed to have happened to her, her guard was up completely.

She stood in an odd battle stance, likely unique in Anik, and her legs wide apart, lowering herself to the ground such that she would not fall easily. *Cozy's Notes : With the wrinkled skin on her exposed thigh completely making this qi-pao wearing lady not-erotic. Rather disgusting, actually. Her skin is all cracked up and dry.* It seemed that she was experienced and well-versed with unfavorable situations like these, where her opponent was using something she didn't expect. Katachi couldn't take that lightly, and began by swaying his body left and right, to mesmerize her with a smooth, organic motion and lull her in a false rhythm.

She struck. She roused up a running start before pushing her feet against the floor, and sent a flying kick towards Katachi. Thanks to his flexibility, he was able to duck down and rotate her kick by pushing his right palm and left elbow up against her knee and thigh, spinning her about for a little and flinging her into one of the pillars nearby.

Her back rammed against the pillar head-on, and it shook the chains attached to it, creating a loud clatter of sounds. But, as expected, his opponent was tough. The lady caught herself on the pillar by using her arms to pivot herself, and pressed her feet against it, lunging herself forward.

His flexibility had become something completely amazing. If not for the 定 assisting him, Katachi didn't think he would stand a chance against the lady. He lied down on the floor quickly, and kicked her stomach with his soles, forcing her to raise her arms to guard her face from the crash.

She landed on a small puddle of urine, and slid against the cold, uneven and smooth stone floor. The lady widened her legs, and used the shift on momentum to swerve her body around to face Katachi. For an instant there, he saw in her eyes, an expectant light - Almost as if she had long predicted Katachi to run forward and attack her while she was down.

But Katachi was doing the exact opposite of what she had been thinking. He walked over to the support pillar with two people chained to it, and calmly grabbed at the chains.

And with his bare hand, he tore the chains apart from the pillar anchor, and lifted it with his right arm as if it were nothing. As he turned around, she saw on his chest, a second 定 had appeared somewhere beneath the first.

(!!) "哈啊!!"

She didn't have time to wait any longer. She knew what the boy was planning with that. By wielding a long mast-like weapon, he could distance himself from her, and attack her safely from mid-range and fend off her approach. But makeshift weapons like the pillar, unlike actual weapons, have more limitations to consider.

For instance, if the mast-like pillar was used as a stabbing weapon, dodging the thrust was easy.

K : (That's it. Come closer...)

For example, weapons this huge and bulky require a huge momentum to cause significant damage, but that momentum could only be built up at the end of the weapon's body facing outward during a swing.

"你真是太天真了!!!"

As the lady did an aerial dive to the side of the thrust, and rolled on the ground to cushion the impact, Katachi shot off the ground while pushing his full weight against the pillar with his right arm. With a loud slam, the pillar that was raised about a meter off the ground smashed downwards forcefully.

And it had done what Katachi intended for it to - It sandwiched the lady's ankle between the mast and the cold, slippery stone floor.

"呜哇啊啊啊啊!!!!!"

She screamed in agony as she tugged her now-limp left ankle out from under the pillar. The pain coursed through the nerves about the ankle, and she felt it swelling and bleeding internally. Strange, reddened spots began surfacing from the skin - A clear sign that the blood vessels within had ruptured and the wound was bruising. The pain was slightly dull, but any attempts to move the wound sent her nerves flaring with pain signals.

That was the price she paid for underestimating her opponent.

She quickly looked up from the wound. Katachi was picking up the pillar with his right arm, and raised it overhead, ready to slam another blow onto her other foot, ready to cripple both her feet. With all the strength she could muster, the lady pushed against the cold floor with her right, uninjured foot, and her hands supported her head and acted as a fulcrum to bring herself back up to a standing position.

Katachi's pose was weak and awkward, since he was holding a huge pillar above his head, and he wasn't using both hands to hold it because of his injured left arm. Taking advantage of that, she pushed against the stone floor, and glided across the floor quickly. She needed to stop him from attacking altogether, and she needed to end the battle fast, because delaying the treatment of her ankle is only going to make it worse.

So she started guessing. If he had began attacking because of the ladies around him being forced into prostitution, then surely using one of them as a hostage would stop his attack. She leapt to her right, reaching out to a random woman in hopes that the hostage would hold him back.

But she had not predicted for him to lose his focus on her completely.

Katachi smashed the pillar against another pillar, and uprooted the restraint on two more of the slaves.

(!!)

Katachi didn't even turn around to look at the freed prostitutes, and continued his rampage, completely focused on the enslaved. He seemed to have completely neglected the lady's potential to pose as a threat, with her ankle injured and her ability to dodge strikes safely, hampered drastically.

*** ***

Katachi is a frail boy.

He is by no means strong, and by no means courageous or smart. Being the bastard child of Mielfeud the adults had branded him as, he experienced first-hand the corruption in the town that was contagious to the point that even the children are affected to a degree. He took many beatings and scornful insults and prejudice by himself, and he never told Mother Rinnesfeld about his wounds. Though Mother Rinnesfeld is obviously not that clueless to the point that she wouldn't notice, he still tries his best to feign an innocent, serene atmosphere with her, so that she would not worry.

He was bullied frequently and repeatedly upon every trip to town and back, and he suffered the cruelty and malice of many. Children whom unknowingly broke something, say a fence door, pinned the blame unto him and disrespected him. Adults who realized how intelligent he actually was, to have seen past their guise and their misuse of the Trial of Sin with those cold, black and dull eyes of his all too well, made his life difficult on purpose. Hated by many and forced into a horrible fate, Katachi lived a life mainly of seclusion, hiding within the library of the church, away from the conniving eyes of the adults and the misguided anger of the children.

But the human's will to survive is strong. He never gave up on trying to make friends, even if they were to stab him with every approach. Katachi never gave up on that sliver of hope, even when he had been driven into a corner, even when he had been mocked and ridiculed and punished.

As the people in Mielfeud sought to make his life miserable, his will to live converted the adversary into his strength. He was never smart to begin with, but the circumstances forced Katachi to become observant. He had to pretend and imagine out their daily scenarios, and evaluated every little thing that happened - Their habits, their body language, their choices of answers, he memorized it and forced himself to master the art of predicting their behavior.

He forced himself to evaluate the situation quickly and determine the best outcome, and the actions that would lead to it.

The formidable will to improve himself and become someone capable of fending off this horrible fate of his own has tempered Katachi into a fine young man. Frail, perhaps, but a fine young man whom has mastered precognition.

*** ***

"你不理我!? 大胆的你, 你竟敢看扁我!?!"

She screamed, with a coarse croak and groan, and dragged the gagged slave girl along her side while hobbling closer and closer to Katachi, who wasn't paying attention to the whole process and was now rolling the mast on the floor to remove the caltrops. Some of the girls had begun running out of the warehouse-like area, with their bodies stark naked and truly free.

She hesitated for a bit, but the lady reaffirmed herself. Her tight dress, soaked with sweat and pee, tapered closely to her hostage. It had become extremely uncomfortable. It was a dress which served to bring out the femininity in women, and as such it restrained her mobility to some degree. She felt the problem getting tenser and more dire with each passing second, but she kept her guard up as she approached with the gagged hostage. With every leash he broke, a piece of her heart bled.

She wanted to release the hostage and start attacking him immediately. She wanted to stop the bleed in the business to recuperate the losses to some degree. But the lady knew that even a slight moment of letting up could be fatal. He could have been doing that action specifically to spite her to attack him carelessly, while playing a dangerous and careless game of temptation that challenged her very greed itself.

She had played into Katachi's trap perfectly, taking the safe moves to preserve her own life and painfully staring at the business go amok and wither away.

She could only stare painfully and etch closer and closer toward him, as he unbound another after another, prostitute by prostitute hanging on the stone wall. The foul odor in the air had been blown away by the full opening of the wide doors of the warehouse by the prostitutes, and in it fresh air flooded the room, making the air much clearer and more tolerable.

Gasping, the slave fled as fast as her bare feet could take her. Most of the girls in the area have already run off. She could only hold onto the one hostage, and pray that he would be forced to lay his weapon away. She knows that this is bad for the business, but she has deemed that the boy prioritizes the safety and freedom of the slaves dearly. With that threatened, she's convinced that he is bound to lay his weapon down.

Katachi walked towards the final slave girl trapped on a sort of humiliation tool - A sort of pillory designed for her lower torso and her butt, and stopped halfway when the lady's hostage stepped into a puddle of liquid on the floor. He turned his head toward the two, with the pillar still in his hand.

And just for an instant, she saw within him, a ferocious strength. The young, Ohdean boy had become someone completely different in an instant. She remembers something like that vaguely - Scholars mainly use their Words of Power to obtain a sort of edge over their opponent. And for the boy's case, his Word of Power granted him great power in many situations.

One word made him into a flexible dancer, whom delicately dodged and out-maneuvered her attacks. Another word turned him into a berserker of great strength, tearing apart everything in his way. The versatility granted by his Word of Power gave him the situational advantage he needed to play his plans out well.

*Cozy's Notes : Note that this applies only to normal humans whom do not use Words of Power, not Scholars. He can fight well against other human opponents - Most Scholars have little difficulty with that, but for battling other Scholars, it's a different story. A jack-of-all-trades may be good at many things, but he can never compete with an expert whom has delved deep into a specific field.*

She increased the chokehold on the hostage, and walked backwards as Katachi approached them slowly. It was certainly not going to be pleasant for her, but the lady tried her best not to separate herself from the hostage.

Then...

*** ***

"不错嘛, 小伙子. 你还真有一套."

A familiar sound rang from the outside. Katachi remembered that voice, because it had been the one that brought him here in the first place. He looked over to the entrance of the building, to see the fat man in another cloth vest and a different pair of pants.

"!! 旺估大人!!"

*Cozy's Notes : Yes. His name is Wang Gu. Better pronounced Wah-ng Goo by the lot of you who don't speak Chinese. And the girl's name is 梅兰. It could mean Merlin, but it's actually a feminine name. The flower of a plum tree and orchid... Very graceful, if not for her dried-up skinflint appearance.*

And close behind him were all the naked slaves, all of them with a 合 placed on their bodies. Their eyes were dilated, and they looked like lifeless dolls - They had the same sort of face as Roberia did just minutes before.

K : (!!! So that's the man responsible for this mess. He has a Word of Power too...)
WG : "怎么了? 没对梅兰下手吗? 你不肯下手, 就是说你是为了这个丫头而来的?"

And, with his hand outstretched, the girl in the lady's arms floated into the air, with a 合 on her body. She then flew towards the slave still stuck on the pillory, and something unbelievable happened.

The two slaves fused bodies.

Their bodies had literally melted off at an intersection, and the two separate people became a two-headed monster with half its skin in a different complexion than the other half.

WG : "死丫头, 真是个扫把星!"
K : "!! You... You fused them?..." (This is unheard of. They actually merged bodies? How are they to separate?)

*** ***

*Cozy's Notes : I'll be honest here. I'm not sure which term is the right one in Chinese - 扫把星, or 扫把鑫. I think it's the first one. The term's actual origin comes from people sweeping their yard and house during CNY, which is inauspicious as it rids good luck. In real life, this term refers to a jinx, a person plagued with misfortune and karma so deep that the people around them are affected. In this story, it has a symbolic, similar meaning - The jinx radiates his/her own image power out uncontrollably, and afflicts others with image power similar to the emitter. In the modern day, this person would be known as 'leader of the group'.

It's hard to explain with a small post, but just think of it as the person being so charismatic/influential that their image power makes others become similar to them, in terms of mentality, personality, morality, whichever. If there is a lustful jinx in the warehouse, the people in the warehouse would gradually become lustful. If there is a sane damsel in distress in the warehouse whom yearns for freedom, e.g. the last slave on the wall, people will approach her to resonate with her thought. In this story where image power is omnipresent and rampant, things like that do happen, much as how trees are extremely tough to cut down, and wood & paper are hard to harvest.

Many questions answered, many more to ask. Why did Wang Gu keep a slave that served as a damsel in distress in his brothel? Why would he go through all that trouble? Who, exactly, is Wang Gu? What is his purpose and role in the story? Is it solely to spite Katachi (implying that I'm a really lame author lol?) or was there another motive? Why did he capture foreign beauties from around the world and force them into prostitution? Well, it won't be answered in this route - Not when Katachi hasn't fallen into despair. He needs to view the world in a more negative light before he can uncover some of the uglier truths. Just know for now that Wang Gu is dealing in a really shady business.*

*** ***

Katachi gritted his teeth. He did not expect something along that nature to have happened. The fact that two people were fused together, and had half their bodies disappeared and spliced together like so, was enough to upset him greatly. They had lost their status as an individual, and two had become one. It was unnerving for him.

WG : "Ha, you, you you you you you, you no speak Anikan? It is okay. I speak Findeli."
K : (... !! He speaks Findeli... That makes him all the more dangerous. He's been to Findel for whatever reason he may have, and if he does have ties with the Findeli government, that would really be bad.)

There was an irritating smirk on the fat man's face, while the lady in the tight dress hobbled toward him quickly, out of harm's way.

WG : "You think you can come inside and ruin my blood hell is it? Don't think! I will... I will..."
K : (Blood hell? 'Don't think'? What blood hell?... Don't think what, exactly?... His speech is really flawed...)

*Cozy's Notes : I believe the term he was trying to convey is 'brothel'. But he spelled it wrongly.*

He was clearly not well-versed in speaking in Findeli, however. Katachi faced slight difficulty trying to understand what he was attempting to convey.

WG : "I will hit you! I hit you until you can not stand! Until your half strip grow road!"
K : (... What... What is he saying?... More importantly, he's the leader of this... This slave warehouse or whatever it is. He's holding people against their own will. Unless this is a, a sort of... A sort of prison made specifically for women criminals, I don't see why I shouldn't have freed them. And this clearly doesn't look like a prison, more of a torture chamber of sorts.)

*Cozy's Notes : Hahahahahahaha I'm dying. XD 打到你半条生路!! The sentence means beat you up till you're half-dead, but Wang Gu spelled out each word separately. 半 for half, 条 for strip, 生 for life/grow/birth, and 路 for road.*

Katachi clenched his fists.

K : (But, even if Roberia had dined and dashed, the charges should have stayed in Findel! The crimes do not carry over, not unless a specific report or decree is issued! He's clearly in the wrong, because he does not have the official decree for arresting her! This is definitely not a prison!)

*Cozy's Notes : Oh, but it is, young Katachi. This is a prison. Figuratively, at least.*

Katachi bent his body down, and the fat man took a couple of steps forward.

WG : "臭小子, 还欠打? 你们几个, 给我合群点, 围住他! 看他往哪跑!"

That one sentence mobilized all the slaves behind him into action. They all stepped forth and started heading towards Katachi in particular, with their hands outstretched.

K : (They're... They're like reanimated corpses...)

Katachi couldn't act. He couldn't hurt them, or the chances of them living a normal life would be severely affected. He looked past the front few and at the general mass of people surrounding him. People of many hair colors and complexions, from different lands and the like, were swarming him. If anything, he could say one thing for sure - He had to act fast, or they would seal his options completely.

K : (... Looks like I have to stop every single one of them in place. 固定! Fixate positions - Naked female! Naked female! Naked female! Naked female! Naked female! Naked female! Naked female!)

There were many targets to fixate, and he couldn't do it all at once. He had to do it progressively, one at a time, until they were all bound. The event magic he had didn't work as conveniently as a self-propagating curse that could afflict everyone with Pouchy Fingers on contact alone - He had to apply the effect onto each person personally.

It took a little over two seconds to have fixated everyone's positions.

ML : "旺估大人, 你可要当心! 那小伙子可是个学者!"

Katachi panted a bit. He was focusing so hard on fixating the women that he almost forgot to breathe. The air had been cleared, but the stinging numbness from the lady's palm strike has yet to fully fade away.

WG : "哦, 不错嘛! 他不说安妮话还会用咒语. 只可惜他他只会用, 不会说咒语."

It was cruel. Katachi didn't understand it fully, but he roughly knew what happened - The fat man had commanded the women to attack him. Katachi felt the rage that had been under his skin fluctuate and boil, and he started to clench his right fist very tightly.

K : (Unforgivable... He... He didn't even buy these women as slaves, but made them follow him on purpose?...)

So tight, that his right palm began oozing a thick, red blood.

K : (It's one thing to purchase a slave officially, and having them work like one. But to simply nab a person, without even telling their families where they are, or what have become of them, leaving them unaware of their plight and forcing them against their will... Absolutely unforgivable...)

The feeling of absolute disgust and pure hatred welled up behind his throat, and the blood from his hand dripped onto the floor.

For an instant, just for a brief moment...

*** ***

K : (... ? This feeling...)

Katachi felt something in him.

Something was clawing at him, wanting to escape, wanting him to do something.

He remembered this feeling - It was as if he was trying to cough something out of his mouth. He didn't know what, but something wavered and lingered at the back of his throat.

K : (... Hurts... My throat...)

It suffocated his throat. Just like it did that fateful day.

K : "Urrhh... Errrgghhhh..." (... Need to clear it... . 设定. Set displacement destination of storage book - From my bag onto my right hand.)

The book popped onto his right hand, and he held it gently.

WG ML : "?" (那是什么书?)
K : (解除. Remove obstruction - Throat.)

(Must punish...
Kill the fatso...
My daughter...
My beloved...
Vengeance...)

He hadn't notice the hoarse whispers by his ears because the irritation in his throat was very distracting. But, with a 解 placed onto it, his throat was cleared instantly, and with it, something escaped from his mouth.

K : "把他们的血凝华掉." (!? What... What did I just say?...)

*Cozy's Notes : Oh, shit. There's a lot of things to say here. First of all, yes, the Words of Power are alive. They are sentient, just like grimoires which seek to propagate themselves. They are created by 292 Great Sorcerors, but the process of creating them is an important lore I'm not spoiling so you'd have to read it yourself when the time comes. Secondly, the irritation in his throat is actually his body unconsciously struggling against the influence of the Words of Power. Clearing it meant that he was clearing his throat which blocked itself, letting the Words of Power manipulate him. Thirdly, HOLY SHIT, THE NEXT SCENE IS GOING TO BE HORRIFYING.*

The two of them stared at Katachi, in absolute horror. Katachi slapped his mouth shut with his right hand, in shock, but it was already too late.

It had begun.

*Cozy's Notes : The blood ritual. I have an excerpt, that happens to be the first draft of this part, called Death_Unknown as well, on my Wattpad and my Facebook. This is what I've derived at after working on it multiple times.*

The lady was the first to collapse. Her frail stature and her lethargy caused her to fall over quickly, and she frowned, feeling extremely uncomfortable. The fat man quickly ran to her, and squatted down to accompany her.

K : "!!" (Is... Is it me, or is there something around her?... Is she turning red?)

Around her, a red mist was gathering. It grew thicker and thicker, and she looked pale. Her cracked skin looked like the lands during a drought more than ever. Her eyes were fluttering between opening and closing, and she limply raised her hand out to the fat man, with all the strength she could muster.

WG : "不, 梅兰! 你可不能死! 我心爱的, 我的孩子呀, 梅兰! 我的孩儿不能比我早归!!"

ML : "... 旺估... 大人..."

She forced onto her lifeless face one last smile, and her head slowly drooped before giving way completely.

WG : "你不能死呀, 梅兰! 梅兰?!! 梅兰!!!!"

Katachi could only stare in horror, as the tight-dress lady saw the fat man off with a sad smile.

K : (... No... Not again... What-... What have I done?...)
WG : "你!! 你这个混蛋!!"

The fat man stared at him with anger, but he too began to feel funny.

WG : "凶手! 你连孕妇的性命都不留, 无情无义, 冷血杀手!! 你简直是个畜生!!"

Before he could take a step forward to vent his hatred on Katachi, he finally felt its effects. The fat man felt his entire body burning, engulfed in a searing pain from all sides. His scalp, his eyes, his ears, his arms, torso, soles, his body was covered in a pain, as if he had been thrown into a furnace.

WG : "!!"

It hurt. It hurt horribly. Every fiber of his being was coursing with pain. He struggled to open his eyes, only to see a strange, red mist about him.

K : "... I'm sorry..."

He heard the boy's apologetic voice ring soundly through the warehouse. It rang and rang inside his head, over and over again, like a broken record, and it only brought him to his boiling point.

K : "I'm really sorry... I... I didn't-"

WG : "你以为一个 "对不起" 就可以弥补你的过错吗?!"

The fat man took a couple of steps forward, then collapsed onto the floor, out of breath and out of energy.

WG : "把... 把孩子... 还给我... 我的梅兰... 我的... 孩儿..."

He felt it. Every inhale and exhale hurt his lungs. His body hurt so bad. The red mist had disappeared and gone when he walked, but it was coming back.

Or perhaps... The mist wasn't coming back. It never followed him. It was coming from his body all the long.

What they saw as a red mist...

... Was their blood, sublimated into a gas.

The expansion of volume from the blood all over the body punctured many tiny holes in every blood vessel. And so, the blood escapes the body ever so slowly. It was a fast process for his beloved, because she was skinny. He had been fortunate that he had more fat, so the blood took longer to escape his body entirely. But, alas, death is an inevitable outcome.

He looked up, and garbled something he himself couldn't quite make out. As his eyes began to close, the Ohdean boy walked toward him, with a horrified, pitiful look on his face.

K : "I'm sorry... I'm really sorry... If-... If only I knew how to stop the bleeding..."

WG : "... 孩儿..."

The whisper was all he could squeeze out from his lips, and he laid on the floor, motionless.

*** ***

M : "Ah, it's these two. Wang Gu and Mei Lan. I remember these two."

Mandred walked up to their dead corpses, and got a good look at them.

"Mandred! Get away from that corpse!"

M : "Nope. No can do, Troy. It's not coincidence that the Empress of Rugnud and that kid would travel here, and these two just happened to be dead, and their business shut down for good."

Mandred opened a small tin, and reached for its contents before popping one into its mouth.

T : "Show some respect, you moron! If there's any evidence missing because of you, you could be killed!"

His casual, carefree attitude towards the threat irked Troy a bit.

M : "Don't worry about it. I got this. You just sit your pretty ass down, and let me get to work."

Mandred stepped back for a bit, and began changing. His skin ripped open, and turned coarse, tough and turgid, just like wood. His body grew in size, and he had become something almost twice his actual size.

M : (I see... There's a sort of magical disturbance about their bodies. Their murderer used some sort of magic... But what kind of magic? I've never seen such weird-colored magic in my life before. Colorless and crystal clear, yet it causes a sort of distortion in the air...)

T : "If you destroy anything at all, so help me, I will rip out your Tafra oak arm from your body bare-handed. We can't compensate for any more damages."

M : "Get... Off... Back..." (What an annoyance. He should just shut up and let me do my job... Though, to be honest, if I had half the wisdom of Lotz, I'd be able to figure this out much faster. Other than that strange magical disturbance, there's nothing else to see.)

The Tafra oak treant raised its hand to its mouth, and spat something out. It cupped the object in its hand, and the treant shrunk and changed, and finally morphed back to the human known as Mandred.

T : "...So... What did you see?"

M : (Hmph. Trust him to be so eager for my results when he was yapping over how I shouldn't damage property. Transform yourself if you can, you idiot, or don't bother scolding me for it.) "Nothing. Just weird, distorted air."

T : "Again?... Hasn't that occurred enough times already?"

M : "Who knows. It only seems to happen in cases related to the Anikan. You don't think that means the Anikan actually project image power itself as a raw, physical force when they battle?"

T : "... Maybe..."

The two journalists could only ponder over the strange results they received.