Trash: Chapter 143 Disturbing Findings (Mr. Qiang Yi) (Patreon)

Chapter 143

Disturbing Findings

(Mr. Qiang Yi)

There is a certain satisfaction that comes from fulfilling your deepest desires. Most have simple desires, the want of a good meal, a silent moment of peace, or fulfillment with a hobby. For Mr. Qiang Yi, his deepest desire was the destruction of Death Eaters, and all things undead. The thrill of combat, of pushing himself to his furthest, knowing that any mistake will mean his life, that is what drove Mr. Yi.

To say he was an expert in all things undead, would be an understatement. Having been forced from his home country at an early age, he developed methods of identifying underlying patterns and variations within the very Death Eaters that plague this world. He was also the first to note that while many have only seen Death Eaters evolve once, going from a shambling monster to a near indestructible monster, he was certain that they could hand more importantly have evolved again.

Qiang was originally run from his home country, partly due to the economic collapse of his homeland, but looking back, he now wondered if there was more to his downfall. Everything was too well rehearsed, too targeted to truly be a coincidence. At least, this is what Qiang has come to understand since his departure and inevitable retrospective view of all things that happened.

First, there was the targeted assault of his family lands and holdings. Nothing too excessive, they do happen, but the fact that his family was the first hit was a major indicator. Then there was the fact that the assault happened after he posed the idea of there being multiple variants of Death Eaters. That the Death Eaters all had base qualities but could then adapt and advance based on what he called lineages.

These lineages allowed Death Eaters to do multiple things, from instantly getting into shadows, forming familiar contracts with traitors, or even creating weapons that come from their cloaks. There were other types of evolutions, use of elements, lightning coming from the hands, psychic assaults causing momentary distractions, but those Death Eaters were fortunately rare to find and contend with.

For today though, today was different. He had squared off with the first two most common types, and even witnessed his apprentice square off against an evolved third type. One who seemed to gain the ability to conduct psychic assaults at will. And as has become tradition, Qiang went around to each killed variant, and he gathered a sample. Simple things, things that would often go unnoticed when burning them in a pyre, discarded bone, tufts of hair for the younger Death Eaters. Basically, everything and anything he could gather would be used, preserved and cataloged for his experiments.

There was something deeper, an underlying madness that was almost too frightening to speak into existence. For speaking it into existence would make it real, and that was a frightening inquiry all together. For a moment, Qiang was fearful that he wouldn’t be able to get a sample of each Death Eater here. Fortunately, his apprentice provided enough of a distraction that everyone dismissed the fact that he was the only warrior willing to help move the bodies. That he would use his enhanced strength to break off a piece of bone from each, before placing the remnant inside his coat pocket into one of his dozens of empty compartments.

In fact, he was so certain that no one noticed his work. Well almost no one, as that intense tingling sensation at the back of his neck caused him to turn and face the distraction, only to find her there.

Knowing that his General was still there, watching him made him feel at ease. Qiang never did these experiments to try to pull one over on those around him. Rather, he used these times to share his findings and theories to anyone willing to listen. But only those he had vetted beforehand.

The General knew of his odd fascination and had even listened to his theories, after which time she looked visibly concerned with the findings. Realizing that he would have a moment, Qiang moved to the side and did what has become a pastime of his, namely analyzing the different samples he unearthed.

First, was a bone fragment that resembled ivory more than anything. With a few quick scratches with silver trinkets he had on hand, the ivory burned away. This was something that all Death Eaters had in common, the bones could be purged with silver. But what Qiang was looking for was a different kind of reaction entirely. Now that he had used silver to wear away the outer layer of bone for his five grooves, this is when true scientific discovery could begin. Taking out an alchemical pouch, he began pouring mixtures into each groove, a process that originally took hours in a lab, could now be done freely by hand in the field. A testament to just how much practice pays off. To no real surprise, none of the mixtures reacted with any of the grooves made. As Qiang was relatively certain, that this specimen came from his own kill, this was not beyond his expectations as he noted that none of his targets used elemental attacks of any kind.

Once the elemental affinity was completed, Qiang scraped a sample of bone powder into a small thimble sized vial with a clear liquid. Upon dilution of the bone powder into the small vial, the mixture turned a darkly ominous green. Nodding to himself, he then took the rest of the fragment and burned it away with his bloodline Skill, having mentally cataloged the Death Eater type and its lineage.

From there, Qiang went and quickly performed the same exact process to the other fragments that he had collected. As expected, there were multiple lineages that were discovered, each preserved in a different sealed thimble sized vial, four dark green, two yellow, one orange, and one dark purple. Four lineages, and the most disturbing one was that the dark purple, the nearly evolved sample also showed an affinity for dark magic, which explained the scythe it could wield from its cloak.

In all, the results were quite revealing. He would try to find time to present his findings to the General, the only other person who seemed to take in the scope of this type of research. In his mind he knows that there are four lineages, though he will have to argue with the General that the dark purple one was its own distinct lineage before the transformation, and not shown as a divergent lineage from its assimilation of a different core. An argument that he both dreaded and secretly relished the chance to explore. For he knew that if someone was willing to at least argue with you that you were wrong, then they had not fully made up their minds and were willing to listen to facts, he could deal with that as it meant someone else might be pulled further to his side.

“OHHH!” The crowd cheered, pulling Qiang’s thoughts from his findings and what they all meant. Turning towards the stage, he realized it was finally up to the main course, he watched as his apprentice deftly took a glowing dagger and plunged it deep into the chest of the condemned. Opting to use a different attack path than she had in her initial school attempt. This time, she dove up under the exposed rib cage and avoided cracking ribs and was able to easily reach the still beating crystalline heart within the chest of Sal and the others. From there, it was a quick move to lure the heart out, causing its snaking smoke like tendrils to reach towards the blade that both enticed the alien object and burnt it upon contact.

Sizzle, then Qiang watched as she deftly struck her hand at the beating heart, pulled it out and managed to use her unique blend of savagery, talent, and killer instincts to naturally destroy the corrupted heart as quickly as possible. Seeing her work with brutal savagery, leaving not even ash in her wake when she was done filled Qiang with a certain sense of pride. He was nearing the end, they all were.

The old guard would soon fall, misfits brought together by chance, but bound by fate. In his mind he remembered the time when he was first conscripted to the military, purposefully pretending not to know the local language to get out of all the troublesome tasks. Yet, the General was the first to see through his visage and assign him the role of a scout, then somehow, he found himself given the option to join her group permanently as a scout. An act that he never knew was possible, that healers had that type of authority, to get four fighters, and two support members, regardless of their country of origin.

Probably for the best that he didn’t know he could be asked to join any healer’s squad, otherwise he would have joined one of the weaker healers that tried to lay low. A perfect life for someone wishing to coast by in life as he was, when he first joined the military. At the time he was resentful of his seeming forced conscription, but it was the only way he would be granted citizenship as a foreigner. Given that his homeland had fallen, conscripting to the greater empire and then finding a place to settle eventually was the only course of action available to him at that time.

Originally, he wanted to lay low, do his six years and then retire to a quiet life. One where he would never have to face another Death Eater again. Fortunately, he had been found and assimilated by the General, a fact he initially hated. But looking back, it is the only reason he still lives today, as he knows for a fact that if he had hitched his horse to one of those other healers, he would not have survived the great purge.

Tightness. Qiang feels a deep ache within his chest as he thinks back to the night of discovery. The night that then Major Bloom came back with her team to be promoted, almost immediately. How she bunkered down and held off the wave of monsters that came, somehow knowing to use each member of her team to their utmost. That was when she came to Qiang alone at night and gave him the mission that would forever start his fascination with Death Eaters and their lineages. Swearing that when multiple lineages gathered, it was always well orchestrated and seemingly guided by an intelligent hand.

“Cough,” Qiang coughed violently, the acrid dust of spending so many years exposed to residual rot dust wreaking havoc within his lungs, as he found himself violently coughing for a few minutes straight. Finally, he composed himself. He had pushed himself hard these last few days, but it had all been worth it, especially as he could see that as promised, the General had found a worthy successor.

Smiling, Qiang watched as his apprentice burned away the last corrupted heart of someone who harbored Death Eaters in their souls. For while he called this healer his apprentice, he knew he wasn’t alone with this distinction, as all the members of General’s primary party had all similarly claimed her in their own ways. At first, he thought she was being too divergent, covering too many gaps and not specializing in any one field. Yet, seeing as she is now effortlessly eradicating corrupted hearts from living people, who still live after the corrupted heart has been removed is something that is unheard of.

Originally, they wanted to break ranks, to tell her just how amazing she is, but the General forbade it. When asked, she responded the same cryptic way she always did.

“Most people you tell a limit to, so they know how much further they must go, so they can reach their known potential. Then there are those very rare few, who you do not talk about limits to, instead you let them show you what we were truly meant to accomplish all along.”

At the time, Qiang wanted to break rank. To tell his apprentice that she should focus on one avenue and perfect it, that branching out too soon would leave her open and defenseless later on.

Yet as always, when identifying and nurturing talent, the General was spot on. A fact that was now being proven by the fact that her apprentice did the impossible, something that was only written about in legends when the wars against the undead first began. Myths that were passed down by word of mouth to give the next generation hope that a cure would be found that there might be a way to end this war of attrition.

“YEAHHHH!” Catarine, raising her hand with the last beating corrupted heart still beating high to the sky, the crowd cheered with excitement. By now she understood that this was as much about showmanship as it was about erasing corruption. With the glowing red heart beating within her hand, she let out a wave of purple energy that instantly destroyed the core, causing it to rot into an obsidian color, before flaking away into tiny particles of dust on the wind.

Looking at the survivors, Qiang saw that they had all been scarred. Their bodies covered in deep port wine splotches from where the Lightken flames burned them alive, causing the corrupted core to glow with intensity. Even after his apprentice, went to heal the wounds, the dark port wine patches remained, a testament to the ordeal that these survivors had survived.

“Now we have to ask ourselves the hard question,” Chief Lightken began, his words quelling the mass of onlookers almost immediately. “Should we forgive these people of their past crimes, now that they have been cleared of their corruption?”

It was a question that had to be asked. Normally, the answer was obvious, everyone should be killed, their bodies burned in an attempt to prevent future spreading of corruption. Yet, this time things were different. There was no further corruption to worry about. There would not be any future outbreaks if these people were allowed to live.

“I vote—” the Chief began but was quickly cut off by Qiang’s apprentice. Then as has become a tradition of hers, she did something completely unexpected, and Qiang loved every moment of it.

“I’ll be pissed if you waste my efforts on your fear mongering!”

Silence.