Chapter 98: 96 – Hunted

From a brisk walk she broke into a sprint that rendered her a blur for all but Shang and a few of his more perceptive lieutenants, lightning arcing over her legs, its tendrils writhing around them and the muscles writhing under her skin in concert.

Brave man though he was, Shang was not this brave. He was the first to break rank right after he barked retreat order, thus technically protecting him from being considered a deserter.

The Homunculus smashed right into the firing line just as he turned, and he saw those lightning-wreathed sawteeth rip through the necks of two men at once. A moment later when he finally got into a full sprint, the cleaver was heard swinging followed by two more heads thumping to the floor.

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It chased them through the alleyways, stalked them from behind every corner, hunted them like they were animals. Like it knew exactly where they were at any given time. One by one it found them and butchered them, cut them down, and broke them. Shang saw it outright punch through one of his men’s heads. 

...And the entire time, it laughed. It taunted them. It made light of their struggles, of what they were, it promised its entire being as a tidebreaker against the Empire. It proclaimed its open defiance of the Divine Emperor’s will and reaffirmed its full intent to annihilate everything they stood for. 

Truly this creature, this beast, nay, this monstrosity, truly it warranted being hunted down throughout all of Ikesia, nay, wherever in the world it might go, thought Shang. As if in response to his very thoughts, the beast’s dulcet voice echoed from the other side of the thin wall he was leaning against.

“There’s nothing you whoresons can do to stop me, to extinguish me! It was your aggression that set me on this path, it is because of your petty malice that I have decided to cut the pillars from beneath your false man-god’s palace! I’ll be your fucking monster if that’s what you want me to be! Come on, come hunt this monster! See what happens! You fuckers can’t wound me in a way that matters!”

Pieces started clicking in Shang’s head, perhaps because his convictions had been shaken apart and loosened at the seams by the preceding display of violence. He’d never taken too much interest in the matter, but as far as he remembered the People’s Independent Volunteer Militia had proactively targeted the homunculus from an early point, and not in response to aggression. It was… Yes, he remembered, the first time she was brought up as a target was a day when some of the local Transformed had attacked and were slain by her and one other Ikesian out near a grain field.

Before he could think of getting away, before he could even fully process the contents of that monologue and the implications of it, the beast dropped down from above right next to him and lunged at him. The reality of what was happening didn’t even hit Shang before his face was being pressed into the dirt and the crushing weight of the creature bore down on his back, her inhuman grip crushing his arms and twisting them behind his back.

He was forcefully yanked upwards, just outright lifted off his feet, and she placed him on her shoulders as if he were a log of wood. Whenever he so much as tried to move or speak, she pressed down on him with crushing force or even sent an overwhelming surge of electricity through his body. 

Shang was certain that she would carry him into the middle of a street and execute him, make a show of him. He considered whether he would be able to reach and invoke the Emperor’s Mercy talisman that he had hidden on his person, and moments later, she manhandled him face-first against a wall. She yanked up his shirt, ripping it in the process, and pulled the talisman from where it had been taped to his back. Oh no. Thinking about activating it must’ve agitated the magic and thus alerted this doubtlessly magic-sensitive living weapon to its presence.

There was the sound of that jade slip hitting stone, then that of its magic chittering as it was ground into pieces beneath a bootheel. Next thing he knew, he had been turned around like a ragdoll and she was staring him in the eyes. Those… Those were the eyes of an immortal hermit. How could a homunculus possess something meant to denote one as a pseudo-immortal? Certainly the lowest order of immortality, merely granting five centuries of additional lifespan through slowed aging, but even something like that couldn’t be falsified.

Every fiber of his being told him to ignore it and just wait until she would inevitably kill him, but he couldn’t. 

The same willingness to doubt his orders which had caused him to fall from grace was now making him doubt the monstrosity of this creature. And if this wasn’t a monster, what of Ikesians? He had fought them, he had killed them, but every memory of wickedness that kept him up at night pertained to his own allies…

A skull-rattling slap broke him out of his dissociative trance, followed by a demand: “I know you speak Ikesian. You will tell me the location of your staging ground as well as Zheng Zemin and Luo Mu. I will know if you lie, so talk. Refuse, I’ll fry you, maybe take off a limb or two, and hand you over to the governor’s men. Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll make sure you end up a protected prisoner without broken bones.”

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Zelsys was really just making shit up as she talked, but that didn’t matter. If a Pateirian could be compelled to directly and overtly betray the Divine Emperor, they could become a valuable ally. On the other hand, if this guy had a geas, he’d be dead before he could become a problem.

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