Chapter 316: Sick of All This (Patreon)

Chapter 316: Sick of All This

Mercury stood in front of a middle-aged man with both his legs broken. The demonic refiner was still channelling some sort of life absorption technique that drained Mercury’s blood right from his body. The mopaaw observed it with a removed sort of calm. It didn’t particularly hurt him much; he simply regenerated faster than it drained him.

He’d out-regenerated the gosh-dang sun for months on end. Some piddly bit of blood draining wasn’t even enough to make him blink. Instead he just stared as the wounds flowed in reverse. Broken bones mended.

“How many more times do we gotta do this, man?” Mercury asked.

The cultivator grit his teeth, his skin ashen from the strain, his veins bloodshot, standing out starkly against his pallid, sickly skin. Mercury had broken his legs three times now, and still, the man was trying to escape. “You’ll never take me alive!”

Gun-Byeong kicked him in the ribs, then crossed hsi arms and looked at Mercury. “Just kill him already.”

Rolling his eyes, Mercury walked up to the pathetic, pallid man in front of him. “Look, buddy. I’m being really polite. Don’t mind you draining my blood. That’s fine. I just can’t have you running, you see? We’d just track you down again anyway.”

“How… did you find me?!” the man grunted, from between gritted teeth.

Before Mercury could even speak, Zyl waved his hand with a smug smile. “Karmic cultivation,” he said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “We can follow any of your drain targets to you. And you to any of your targets.” His eyes narrowed as he said that last part, as if he was staring at the myriad lines stretching out from the man.

Of course, Mercury could actually see those lines. Thousands of them, quite literally, dragging energy back to the idiotic life-drained. By the time he laughed and hacked up blood, his legs were mostly mended, and he even began pushing himself off the floor. Gallons of Mercury’s blood powered the ghoulish body.

“So what?” The drainer gave a wet chuckle as he spoke, still aching. “You would have to kill them all to kill me.”

Just then, Mercury smiled brightly. “Got it,” he said happily. He had activated his crown for a mere moment, a blink, a fraction of a second. There was a part of the connection he hadn’t been able to wrap his head around; their energy transportation mechanism. The packets weren’t wrapped in qi, or anything like that.

It sent energy in vital packets across the ground. A formless livening of greenery, brightening grass for a flicker of a second as it buzzed by. Now that Mercury understood, had the whole thing properly catalogued in his mind, he could- ah there. Yep. He’d spotted the weakness. 

And then, the only thing left to do was to target it. A simple application of <Carve>, and-

[<Carve> has levelled up! <Carve lv. 2 -> 3>]

In an instant, ten thousand connections decayed down to zero. No more stolen lifeforce, no more de-aging. There was a moment where the man furrowed his brows. And then, horror dawned on him. “What… What did you do? What did you do!?”

He sprang to his feet with blinding speed, the golden core in his chest roaring to life with stolen qi. A moment later, he landed on the ground again, as Mercury’s decidedly wolfish shadow lashed out and cut the tendons in his legs.

The man only grunted at the impact, but without the lifeforce he was stealing, the technique he had practiced for so long was tearing his body apart. It was, in the end, a parasitic thing. So much power at so low a stage, at the exchange of consuming lifeforce like a roaring engine. At the expense of the body, putting enormous strain on meridians and biological pieces that could no longer support that strain.

Mercury laid down in front of the man, bringing his snout eye-level with his pained face. “Now, think fast. Wanna die or have me shatter your cultivation?”

“What?!” The look on the man’s face swiftly went from pain to dawning horror.

Shrugging softly, Mercury remained unrepentant. “Those are your options, bud. Your body is tearing itself apart.”

A grimace spread on the man’s face. Blood poured as more wounds opened across his skin. It split, revealing green and angry red glows of leaking power, leaking life. It was ugly, watching someone bleed out, Mercury knew. But this man had killed thousands, and was going to kill thousands more. 

So, he didn’t feel that much empathy. Instead, he just waited. The man aged, bit by bit, as life fled his veins. Stolen years dripping away in minutes. He waited only until his first hair turned grey to ask. “Shatter my cultivation, then.”

The words came out harsh. He snapped his eyes closed, and Mercury nodded only once. A single <Carve> wrecked the man’s dantian, as he dropped all defenses. His cultivation art broke into smithereens. Decades of body strengthening, qi gather, heaven challenging… all ruined.

Mercury didn’t regret it. There was no worth in that. He looked upon the aged shell of a man, then, with a quick application of <Grain of Infinity>, put his legs back together. “There’s a handful more things we need to discuss,” Mercury said as the once-cultivator sat up with a grunt. 

“What else would you take from me?” the man lamented, as though he had any grounds to stand on.

With a roll of his eyes, Mercury answered simply. “Your technique. The power-stealing one. I’ll erase it from your mind.”

Again, the man’s eyes widened. “You can’t!” he begged. “I need it! I need to rebuild my cultivation, and-”

At that, Mercury felt disgust rise in his throat. This time, he was less careful than when ripping out the man’s cultivation. Mercury was tired of people who were so willing to hurt others. Perhaps, on Earth, this man would’ve gone to jail. Mercury didn’t have this option, so he would simply suffocate and bury his greed.

He drank in that accursed cultivation technique, letting it sink into the vast ocean of his understanding of magic. Just another piece of the puzzle, another application of power. One that, quite clearly, this absolute greedy piece of shit wasn’t suited for in the slightest. Nor was anyone else, apparently, so Mercury traced it.

Using his <Tapestry>, he followed that knowledge. He found every instance of it, as though using a search function on a word document, and he ate every last one. He left young masters bereft of cultivation methods. He left prodigies stranded, lacking their self-consuming method of cultivation. 

People who had been consuming blood essence for days, months, years… they’d need to put in a lot of work to change technique. But, well, changing technique was possible. At worst, he doomed them to live a normal lifespan. How cruel of him!

Like taking candy away from a baby. He snickered at the allegory, despite how serious the situation was. On the ground, defeated, laid the old man. He smacked the ground with a fist. “Damn you!”

“Oh stop whining. You still have a good thirty, forty years in you, even as you are right now!” Bun-Byeong chided the old man. The cultist had little sympathy for those who’d give up before even trying. “Just throw yourself into a few life-and-death battles. Find your dao. Help someone out for once in your life. Learn how not to be a damned parasite.”

Mercury thought that was a fair assessment, if somewhat crudely put. Gun-Byeong was a battle maniac. A spiteful, strong, proud man, who solved problems with his fists. He knew what he was about and what he lived for.

This pitiful guy on the ground? He didn’t have that sort of clarity. He’d even started crying, which Mercury understood, even if it was extremely selfish. “Look, bud,” the mopaaw said, “I don’t wanna ruin your life.”

“You already have!”

“Right, okay, yeah, I hear you. But also, you were kind of killing people.”

The man scoffed. “Dead-ends who had no potential!”

“Yeah so you’re describing that you were preying on the desperate. That’s not exactly an argument in your favour, y’know?” Mercury sighed. Some people were thick headed. “Look, if you want to, I can, like, give you a feeling of empathy or regret-”

“Why would I want that?!” The ex-cultivator recoiled in horror. “I am part of the unlawful faction, you moron! I would rather die than follow some idiotic code of morals! All other cultivators are tools to be used! The path to immortality is a solitary one, damn you! Kill me already, if you’d humiliate me so!”

Mercury turned to Gun-Byeong and whispered. “Are all cultivators like that?”

The large man grimaced as he crouched and leaned to match Mercury’s height. His whisper was more of a grumble. “Most, yes.”

Life in the martial world was truly ruthless. People would pick death over another 20 years of mortality. As long as they weren’t immortal, life was cheap. There was one priceless good, and it was time. Taking even some of that away was, sometimes, worse than murder. 

Sighing to himself, Mercury looked at the man on the ground. “You fuckin’ suck, dude.”

“Excuse me?!”

“I said you suck. You suck a million times over,” Mercury repeated.

The man, indignant, opened his mouth like a flopping fish. “I have lived for centuries! I invented my own cultivation art that reverses aging! I reached the Golden-Core realm with no teaching, clawing my own way up! And you would say that I suck? You are courting death!” He snarled, like a caged animal.

“Yeah, so what? You’re a lil talented, boo-fucking-hoo. Perhaps, in another life, you would have been someone, done something worth remembering, but not in this one. You’ve caused nothing but suffering. No kindness, no sociability in what you do. It’s sad and pathetic to live so selfishly. A whole lifetime and all you could do was lay on your deathbed, wheeze for more and take it from someone else.”

Mercury’s frown turned into a sneer. “So yes. I think your existence, up until this point, has been disappointing. I’ve erased that treasured technique of yours. And if you want to die, then I’ll kill you too.”

Something at his tone gave the old man pause. He didn’t request death this one time. After all, he was an addict to life. He’d sacrifice thousands for even just another day. Despite everything, Mercury had given him twenty years. It was, frankly, more than he deserved. 

He’d never cultivate again. Without meridians, without a dantian, with his energy scattered, that divine talent would be wasted. Maybe his desire could crystallize into another Skill. That was how the system worked, after all. It would be safer for Mercury to just kill him.

And it wasn’t like the mopaaw was squeamish about murder. He did it when necessary, but didn’t enjoy it. He’d killed the sect-ancestor without even blinking an eye. Yet, here, he hesitated. It would be so easy to just twist this guy’s beliefs, to <Unravel> him and graft on a bit of care and rip out some of that cold-heartedness. 

But he wouldn’t. Violating someone’s personhood that way would be worse than just killing them. Mercury was, however, comfortable doing something else. He reached for the <Tapestry> with his mind, found the strand that was this pathetic man in front of him, and then sank into ihn’ar.

The focus and meditation embraced him like a well-worn, well-warmed blanket. His mind stilled, its turmoil drowned in a <Babbling Brook>. 

Mercury had decided what to do, and only action remained. “Zyl, lend me a little bit of your flame, please. The undying kind,” he requested.

“Oh? Sure.” With a quick gesture, the dragon conjured a piece of dragonflame. It would burn eternally, flickering with that same rose-red shimmer that his crown carried. After all, crowns had passive effects, and now that Mercury had one, it was easier to see how Zyl’s <Desolation> leeched into so many of his Skills.

It was a volatile, angry fire for the most part, ready to ruin and break apart. But Mercury wrapped it in his <Weapon Intent>. That was a process that should, reasonably, have been impossible. The emphasis, then, was on the fact that it should have been impossible, not that it was.

Reason had been torn aside. The golden veil was not one of Mercury’s objects. Recognizing dragonfire as his weapon was an odd thing, but Zyl’s strength was his own, and the other way around. He’d trust the dragon with his life - even now, holding a flame just above his paw, he didn’t think that <Ruination> would touch him. Didn’t even crack his skin.

So, yes, it was his weapon, and Zyl had given it wholeheartedly. So, it was wrapped in Mercury’s intent. Gun-Byeong’s eyes widened at that, and the Beast leaned in to see more clearly, eyes shining with qi. Mercury didn’t let that distract him. 

[<Weapon Intent> has levelled up! <Weapon Intent lv. 2 -> 3>]

He continued on with his workings, the complex puzzle piece he had thought of to solve this problem. The man in front of him was a killer. A murderer of thousands. Mercury was, despite that, being kind. But not so kind he would be blind to what needed to be done.

Something had to change, or this man would simply hurt more people. So, Mercury needed three things. To detect when he hurt someone, to detect whether that hurt was justified, and to administer reasonable and direct punishment for it. Zyl’s ever-burning flame was good for that last part, but the other two were open.

<Tapestry> would solve them. It was a web of interaction. Every single thing people did to garner each other’s anger or goodwill writ down in it. Mercury was not yet skilled at weaving it - he’d barely carved a piece of it out, but he was good at dealing with individuals. For a moment, he <Unravelled> the old man, spooling him into his constituent parts.

It was, in many ways, a disgusting web of malevolence. Sickening strands saturated by centuries of cruelty. Mercury ignored all of that. Instead, he focused on overlaying his Skills - <Unravel> on top of <Tapestry>. He breathed in and out, then worked his <Magic>.

Re’zil was what bound them together. A deep resonance between the Skills, tying the two, temporarily, into one working. The man was unravelled, his piece of the tapestry laid bare and more malleable than it had ever been. The modification, luckily, was a simple one. 

A reflection of his own deeds, powered by dragonfire.

If the man harmed someone who had not harmed him, then he would suffer. If he harmed someone more than they harmed him, he would suffer. Minor things would be just pain, larger ones would burn away his lifeforce and push it outwards. Wounds he inflicted would heal faster, powered by his remaining life. 

Would that make it harder for him to protect others? Perhaps. Mercury looked at the man. At that tapestry. The way it curled with malice and hatred and greed.

He decided that worrying about the man’s good deeds of protection was… unnecessary.

Wrapped in his intent, the dragonfire obeyed. It flowed into the weave, coating the strands, flowing along the gentle loops Mercury had grafted on. Silvery strands expanded the golden tapestry, only tiny additions, yet with great impact. 

Mercury blinked. His Skills snapped off, and his crown, unconsciously manifested above his no-longer-existent head, disappeared. 

[<Tapestry> has levelled up! <Tapestry lv. 2 -> 3>]

[<Worldsense> has levelled up! <Worldsense lv. 1 -> 2>]

Two full minutes passed until Mercury’s head regenerated. His fur took a little longer than that, and he frowned. The fact that he had summoned the crown without meaning to was frustrating. Its pressure - and the way that he had been altered, presumably, had made the old man pass out on the floor. 

Gun-Byeong eyes the mopaaw warily. “Didn’t know you were a karmic cultivator,” the man commented, with a not-so subtly hidden tremor in his voice.

“I’m not,” Mercury replied bluntly. “My <Tapestry> has nothing to do with Karma. There is no equalization policy in it. It’s a simple record of connection.”

“Tracing of karmic threads, then,” the Beast of Slaughter replied with a shrug. Mercury decided he’d already lost this argument. If Gun-Byeong wanted to call it karma, then he’d call it karma. Whatever. “It’s scary, though. You could ruin someone without ever seeing them. Less honest than just punching their face in.”

For a moment, Mercury considered that, then smiled. “I could,” he said easily. “In the same way that you could pulverize a city. Isn’t that more scary? People who are so slow, they can’t even see you when you move normally.”

The notion of mass-destruction seemed to cheer the man up in the same instant as it put a small frown on Zyl’s face. “Yeah,” Gun-Byeong agreed. “All paths have their upsides. I simply have to hone mine until it beats all others. Thank you for reminding me.” He cupped his fist towards Mercury, then gave a swift, shallow bow. “I’ll meditate for a bit and see if I can manage to punch karma.”

Before Mercury could even wish him good luck, the man was already gone. The life-drainer in front of Mercury, Zyl and Juno was slowly stirring, but the three of them collectively decided they didn’t want to carry him to a city. Mercury had done his part, and the trio walked off far into the distance before he woke. 

Of course, the mopaaw did still check up on the killer with his <Worldsense>, but when he came to, the man simply began to stumble off towards the nearest village. Where, as Mercury had ensured, he’d live out a largely peaceful existence. 

Breathing in slowly, Mercury tried to focus on the road. For a long while, they all walked in silence. Juno rarely spoke anyway, but Zyl seemed contemplative. It took a while for the thoughts to leave the dragon’s lips, but Mercury patiently waited until they eventually did, when the mopaaw was picking healing herbs.

“You know,” Zyl started, “I don’t disagree with what you did.”

Mercury smiled faintly. “I know.” And he did. Zyl didn’t disagree, but the dragon was kind. He would have either killed or changed the man outright. It was not in his nature to just let people walk away scot-free. Even though it happened rather often.

Which is what Mercury thought. Hence why the next few words out of his mouth were a surprise. “But we need to talk about your crown. It’s hurting you.”

That was confusing. Mercury tilted his head in response. “Doesn’t yours hurt you, too?”

Zyl scoffed, then snickered. “Sasa. Yes, emotionally. Not physically. I have enough resistance that I can withstand my <Desolation>, even at its peak. You don’t.”

His words were true, but not yet helpful. But the dragon had more to say, he just wasn’t saying it yet. With a faint roll of his eyes, he channelled his annoyance into amusement as he walked. “Out with it then, fireman. How do I learn to not melt like a candle in a volcano while donning my crown?”

Once more, the contemplative frown on Zyl’s lips was wiped away by Mercury’s words. The dragon had a habit of brooding, just a little bit, so it was good that his boyfriend was a little more cheerful about things than him. “It might hurt,” he noted, only slightly afraid.

“Ah, a little hurt never hurt me!” Mercury said, bravely, eliciting another snicker. 

Zyl held his gloved hand in front of his mouth, gracefully stifling the sound. “Sure, right. I should have known. You are not particularly subtle, my love,” he chided without barbs.

“And you love me for it.”

With a flick of his hand, Zyl sent a very gentle blast of hot air at Mercury, who swiftly redirected it at the road, turning the gravel momentarily soft. After another dozen steps, he spoke again. “You’ll adjust to it naturally, as you use it, but there’s a technique to help with it. Partial manifestation.”

Mercury tilted his head, intrigued. “Partial manifestation?”

“Indeed. Crowns can be split up into smaller pieces, which can be called on one by one. Like so.” He pointed at his own head, where a single, rose-coloured horn appeared. The world around him turned swelteringly hot, disintegrating into nothingness in the heat. But it was more compressed, smaller than usual.

After only ten seconds, though, Zyl grimaced and dismissed it. “Despite everything,” he noted, “my control is bad. <Desolation> also sort of rejects partial manifestation. It’s in the name, really. Very ‘all-or-nothing’. I’ve been practicing since you got yours, so I could show you,” the dragon said with a smile. While walking, he massaged his temples slightly, then continued.

“Your crown might take to it better. <Understanding> seems less wholesale an ability than <Desolation>. Really, it sounds like the crown might lend itself to that sort of layered summoning. Understanding rarely comes all at once, after all,” he explained.

Mercury took a few seconds to think it over, then smiled brightly and nodded. “That’s brilliant, Zyl, thank you. <Mind over Matter> has already been adapting me to the crown, but the Skill itself is also growing stronger, so this will help get me adjusted faster. I’ll start practicing soon.”

“Failing a partial summon will invoke the whole crown,” Zyl warned. “It might melt you again, my dearest candlewax-based lover.”

With a laugh, Mercury had the earth rise up to meet the dragon’s next step partway, making him stumble slightly. Zyl stuck out his tongue in reply, then ruffled his boyfriend’s fur. For a  while, they were in companionable silence. “Thanks for teaching me,” Mercury said.

“It will hurt.”

“And that’s fine. I don’t mind the pain. I’ve got Skills to deal with it.” Mercury remained chipper.

“I don’t enjoy encouraging you to suffer.”

Bumping his side into Zyl’s affectionately, Mercury interrupted the self-loathing train. “Hey. It’d suck more if I didn’t know, after all.”

“Mh.” It got a small, understanding hum out of the dragon. And a small smile on his lips. Mercury decided that for now, that was enough, and he also decided not to start practicing the partial manifestation quite then.

Having his boyfriend be so squeamish for him was adorable in its own way. Looking out at the martial world, Mercury sighed softly. His <Worldsense> was already picking up on three more corpses left to cool on the road ahead, but whoever left them there was long gone. Before even seeing them, he commanded the earth to swallow them up.

Then, he gave another sigh. “Hey, Zyl?” he asked quietly.

“Mhm?”

“Wanna get out of here?” 

The dragon’s shoulders sagged with visible relief. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Laughing at just how blunt the reply was, Mercury smiled. <Itinerant> had been consumed by his crown, but he could still feel its effects. There was an easy respite for them to visit, far away from the martial world, and part of their destination for this visit. 

Reaching for the <Tapestry>, Mercury soon found the thread that connected him to Daryel, the gravity-mage whose wife he had rescued from Yearning back in the fae realm. “Ready?” he asked.

“Ready.”

“Ready,” Juno piped up, affirming from the shadows.

Smiling softly, Mercury took a step, and pulled all three of them through. They were met by the sound of birdsong and rushing water. 

Peace, for a little while.