Chapter 718: Rebirth

Blood ran from many cuts that had been carved into the flesh of a once young and talented body. Flawless flesh had been transformed into a torn canvas, displaying the cruel art of a doubtlessly twisted individual.

The twisted artist in question was standing with his head lowered, scrutinized by the golden gaze of an obviously displeased fellow. The man with the golden eyes looked from the mess of flesh hanging from a chain and then back to the responsible party. Then the man let out a sigh and shook his head, “Clean up this mess and follow my orders properly next time, or I’ll have someone do this to you.”

Then the golden eyed man left the room and left the cruel creator alone with his work. A finger traced along the edge of a bloody incision, managing to barely avoid the touch of blood to their digit while admiring their own handiwork. This strange fellow couldn’t understand why no one else appreciated the enormity of his talent and the beauty of his work. Unfortunately, it seemed none of these people knew what true art was. Without much time remaining, the ‘artist’ carved a few more strokes onto his ‘masterpiece’ and then had to carry the corpse away to dispose of it properly as ordered. If he didn’t properly attend to his duties, then he wouldn’t be able to create any more ‘art’ in the future and might get turned into an ‘exhibit’ himself.

Once the corpse was tossed into a pit, the man shoveled dirt over it, finishing the task with a few pats of his spade upon the fresh soil to tamp it down. Then he walked off to attend to his more mundane duties, lamenting the fact that interrogations only happened on a sporadic basis.

He was completely unaware of what was going on under the ground where he’d just left. The mutilated corpse shuddered a few times and then the belly button split apart. A blunt object covered in an unknown goo burst out of the newly formed orifice. Thin, spindly limbs shot out from the ruptured navel and the small object pulled itself out of the wrecked body, burrowing into the fresh soil. The tiny creature was somewhat pill-shaped, holding its body up with four legs while two others at the front had vertically oriented pincers which it used to dig and tunnel. Strangely, the insect’s four legs did not come out from the sides like a lizard or ant, they came out from its underbelly like a four legged tripod. It had a pair of somewhat short and stubby antennae, and it moved very quickly for a burrowing bug, especially given its strange hunched over posture.

The little bug burrowed for a while, gaining distance from the fresh grave and stopping at the roots of a tree where it licked and sucked sap. The little creature fed upon the sap of the tree through its roots and slowly gained strength.

A few days later, there was a glimmer in the tiny creature's eyes and a thought surfaced within its tiny head: I’m back!

It takes a few weeks of time before the little creature has gathered enough strength to poke its head above the surface of the soil and take a look around. It finds itself in a forest that it does not recognize and then burrows back down again. Over the next few months the little bug digs its way in a single direction, popping back up to the surface once a week to take a look at its progress. Over four months into this burrowing voyage it finally runs into a problem.

What is that vicious energy?

Weak as its body was, it didn’t dare to step into that dangerous territory and so, it turned, burrowing into a different direction. The tiny bug became confident that it was only a matter of time before it could go around this dangerous obstacle. A few weeks later it bumped into the same barrier again and changed course once more. During one of its weekly peeks, it saw signs of life in the distance, catching sight of a two-legged figure before it ducked back down and continued to burrow.

Months later, the little bug would have had a look of duress upon its face if a bug’s face could express such emotions. Instead, it was burrowing back towards where it saw signs of humanoids. No matter which direction it had burrowed towards, it always ran into the barrier and it could only presume that this area had a complete perimeter. The tiny bug approached that location it had marked and slowly observed the surroundings. With a few weeks of burrowing to move about and examine the area it finally had a direction.

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Hah, I finally found their tracks.

It took the bug a few more weeks to burrow and follow a somewhat more worn area that indicated a path. Then the tiny bug peeked upon the surface and found a large, many storied building. It approached closer and spent even more time moving around the area trying to learn the layout of the large building and the purpose of the smaller buildings beside it. It finally found a tree close to one of the common footpaths and started to gather information. It needed to keep feeding to increase its strength even as it spied upon the locals. Its tiny body couldn’t move very quickly, nor could it spend large amounts of time in a place without a sufficient food supply.

It tried to enter the buildings to overhear more conversations, but there were barriers around the buildings that stopped him from burrowing too close to them. The bug resigned itself to the passive information gathering from waiting by this tree at a crossroads. The few people that liked to relax under the tree and share gossip became its most treasured friends, even though those people had no idea this little bug even existed.

There is a barrier around this whole valley? I figured as much. How can I get out?

“You worry too much, no outsider can pass through the barrier.”

A pair of people were speaking to each other, just close enough for the bug to overhear from his hidden position among the tree’s roots. Then he heard a faint set of footsteps and a laugh, “Are you worried about the Three Kings? Don’t be a fool, the Three Kings work for our Sect Leader, they’d never have the guts to betray him, and even if they did, Jianhong is right. They’d never make it through the barrier.”

This admission seemed to silence the first of the three people that had been talking and the bug was immediately concerned.

No outsiders can pass through the barrier? Does it even block insects? How does it know who to let through?

Many months more of listening later, the bug got the information it was looking for. The barrier only opened for those with a special token. With this bit of information, the bug migrated to a different position to get closer to those it had heard would be most likely to carry one of those tokens. The large multi storied building was the headquarters of this Sect, while the smaller buildings were the living quarters of those in the Sect. Many people walked into the building every morning and then back out again every night. The bug finally figured out which symbols and uniforms signified those with more authority in this sect so it chose a new spot near where they passed by every day.

One of these people will have a token, right?

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