2026-08-25 02:47:46Next morning in the streets of the slums, Gao moved through the dusty, filth-ridden alleyways, and everyone who caught sight of the brute looked on with expressions of sheer, unadulterated surprise.
At this point, the hulking thug wore a face flushed with raw, burning embarrassment. He was walking back from Zareth’s shabby makeshift abode, but something about the sight was profoundly, unnervingly different. Murmurs immediately began erupting across the overcrowded slum paths.
!!!
Gao held Zareth carefully in his massive arms; the thug was carrying the sickly young man using both of his broad arms, transporting Zareth directly toward the post he was supposed to occupy.
He held the fragile, sickly Zareth up above the mud, and the surrounding crowd stared with wide eyes, completely shocked by what was unfolding before them. This was entirely contrary to anything Gao was ever known to do.
"Is... is that Gao? What in the world is happening?" an old, scruffy-looking man wearing tattered rags muttered, halting his task of sorting through trash as he squinted through the morning sun. "I thought that frail kid died weeks ago!"
"Since when did Gao start treating that brat like delicate porcelain? What is going on here?" another beggar whispered nearby, leaning toward his companion in disbelief.
The people of the slums were thoroughly accustomed to seeing Zareth being physically dragged through the dirt by the merciless thugs of the Red Panda Gang, a brutal treatment in which Gao had always been the undisputed worst.
Among the low-ranked thugs of the territory, Gao was notorious for his violent temper; he used to regularly beat up, kick, and throw the frail Zareth into the mud whenever they came to fetch him from his rotting shack. For the gang members to handle him with such begrudging care was a scene so impossible to imagine that the watching crowd stood frozen, utterly stunned.
Meanwhile, Zareth rested comfortably in Gao's arms.
Though he maintained a calm exterior, an internal expression of profound shock flickered across Zareth's mind. He was coming to a startling realization: the sheer rate at which he could perceive his surrounding environment was far beyond anything a normal human without Qi flowing through their meridians should ever be capable of doing.
Even without a single thread of active spiritual energy running through his channels, he could perceive every sensory detail and hear every hushed conversation with absolute, flawless precision. It was as if his physical eyes and ears had been trained over lifetimes; his senses could naturally filter out ambient chaos and lock onto a specific conversation happening dozens of meters away, focusing purely on the sounds coming from wherever his gaze fell, no matter how distant.
He stared out at the sprawling, dilapidated slums as the morning wind blew against his pale face. It was the very first time since his harrowing soul-awakening that he was seeing the open skies and the world outside his dark room.
"Zareth Crow..." Zareth thought to himself, a cold drop of sweat trailing down his temple as he processed the unbelievable sensory input. "Are these eyes even normal human eyes? How on earth is a perception of this caliber possible for this vessel?"
His eyes shifted slightly, sliding over to settle on the broad, contorted face of the thug carrying him. He could clearly see that Gao was on the absolute verge of bursting from sheer rage and embarrassment.
Zareth's pale lips curved into a dark, subtle smirk.
"No need to be shy about anything, Gao," Zareth whispered in a low tone that carried a terrifying, icy weight. "Everyone is just doing their job. So as long as you behave yourself, your little secret is going to remain perfectly safe, and nothing will go wrong for you. Oh, and by the way, the repulsive filth you have been forcing down my throat for the past weeks? You had better refrain from feeding me those craps from now on."
Gao’s body stiffened violently. With heavy hesitation, bulging veins popping along his thick neck, and eyes bloodshot with suppressed fury, the thug swallowed his rage and finally spoke through gritted teeth.
"Y-Yes... don't worry, Zareth. I will... I will do as you say," Gao stammered in a whisper, his raspy voice trembling with forced compliance. "As long as... as long as you also keep your end of the bargain."
The pathetic, strained way Gao spat those words made it glaringly obvious to anyone watching that he was being forcibly coerced into submission even though they could not pick the words that was being said.
Deep inside his mind, Gao was fuming, his thoughts screaming in chaotic anger.
"What the hell is happening with this brat?! He was never like this! Did getting sick and almost dying twist his brain around?! Is this even the same Zareth?! This weak little bastard would never dare speak back to me, let alone threaten my life! What in the world is going on?!"
pissed off beyond belief, Gao recalled the moment that had taken place earlier that morning, when he had stomped into the shabby abode fully intending to drag Zareth out by his hair...
Earlier...
After Zareth had finished his late-night reflection on how to navigate his desperate situation in the slums, he had eventually fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep. He slept undisturbed until the early morning hours, when the makeshift wooden door was violently kicked open by Gao.
Thud!!!!
"Wake up! Wake up, you useless brat!" Gao had roared, stomping into the cramped room with his usual arrogant, predatory snarl. "Time to work! There's no time for sleeping when you still have a massive debt to pay!"
The brute strode over to the creaky wooden bed, grabbed the thin, filthy rug covering Zareth, and ripped it off, tossing it carelessly onto the damp floor.
Clutch!
Gao clamped his thick, calloused hand around Zareth's frail right wrist. But just as he pulled back to violently haul the boy off the mattress—
"Don't you dare touch me like that, you scruffy thug," Zareth said suddenly.
His voice was dead calm, and his pitch-black eyes locked onto Gao with an icy, piercing gaze that froze the air in the room.
!!!
Gao paused instantly. He was completely taken aback. With his massive hand still clamped around the scrawny, paper-thin wrist of the boy, he slowly turned his head to glare down at Zareth.
"What did you just say, you little brat?" Gao growled, his snarl widening into a terrifying sneer as if he intended to swallow the boy whole right then and there. "Did I hear that right? Do you dare repeat what you just said to me?!"
To the original Zareth, that towering, murderous face would have been a nightmare capable of inducing terror. But the soul inhabiting the vessel merely stared back without a single flinch.
"Remove your filth from my wrist and keep your hands to yourself, you scruffy thug," Zareth repeated, his voice dropping into a deadly, unbothered whisper.
Gao's eyes flashed with violent madness, and a dark smirk twisted his mouth. Without a single word of warning—
Snap!!!
Gao released the boy's wrist, and in a split-second blur of motion, his heavy hand shot forward, clamping tightly around Zareth's slender neck! The force of the strike shook the fragile bed frame violently. With a single, explosive thrust—
THUD!!!!!
Gao slammed Zareth like a helpless ragdoll against the rotting wooden wall behind the bed, suspending the youth's weak, frail body several inches off the mattress!
"It seems you've recovered a bit too much, kid!" Gao roared right into Zareth's face, spittle flying from his mouth and landing on the boy's cheeks. "Do you have a bloody death wish?! Do you want me to snap this twig-like neck of yours right here and now?!"
As his breath was cut off and his vision threatened to turn dark, Zareth did not panic. He stared straight into the murderous eyes of the thug without the slightest hint of fear.
His cracked lips parted, and he squeezed out a low, venomous sentence:
"Does the Red Panda Gang know... that you have been secretly tipping off the Shrouding Gang... with the trade routes for the Blood mandrake?"
!!!
The moment the words left Zareth's mouth, Gao's murderous posture shattered. His hand began to tremble violently against Zareth's throat.
"W-What... Y-You...!" Gao muttered, his face turning completely pale as horror drained the blood from his eyes.
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