After scaling a rugged cliff along Portugal’s seashore, A.R.M. found himself navigating a dense oak forest, the scent of saltwater lingering in the air. He had been reduced to nothing more than an android at the hands of Taczlopalic.
Dry leaves and sticks crunched under his metallic footsteps. The forest buzzed with beasts and critters of all colors and shapes. Although no longer connected to his heart drive, A.R.M.'s mental processing and knowledge far exceeded a human's. He effortlessly identified every sound registered by his ears, soon he had a clear picture of the immediate world and its inhabitants around him.
Occasionally, he would catch glimpses of something slithering before hiding from sight. Above a swinging shadow would catch his attention only for him to see nothing there. "Growing under the constant jaws of death has made some of these creatures stealthy as ghosts." He deduced, taking his attention away from the shadows and blurs of prying eyes.
Without an actual destination, he kept moving east. When A.R.M. created New Ark City almost twenty years ago, six immortal cultivators introduced themselves to him. They were envoys of their respective God Leafs. They briefly explained how their God Leafs were made up of Immortal and Mortal Rings. He remembered the Solar Leaf was mostly spread throughout Western Europe. A.R.M., however, did not know exactly where.
In an instant, A.R.M. was yanked forward and slammed into the ground. A heavy pressure clamped onto his shoulder, accompanied by a low growl. In a swift motion, A.R.M. grabbed a tuft of fur from whatever pushed him down and tossed it aside. He rolled into a fighting stance just in time to see a large brown bear land on its back and scramble to its feet before fleeing in a panic.
"What the hell is a bear doing in Portugal..." A.R.M. said cautiously, hesitating to continue his walk. "It tried to eat me," he whispered in disbelief, rubbing his shoulder.
“Out here, survival is the top priority, so the mind is a servant to the stomach,” A.R.M. thought, touching his cold, metallic abdomen. “But I have no stomach...”
He now kept a wary eye on his surroundings, constantly glancing back and to his sides. Shortly after, he jumped back to avoid stepping on two serpents entwined in mating, carefully walking around them.
The sounds in the forest shifted to a more raw perspective. The immediate life around him was crying in hunger and thirsting for one another.
Although A.R.M. had never considered himself non-human, experiencing life in such a raw state made him feel like an alien who had landed on a distant planet.
"Would a real man be just another stomach in this grueling system, or would he feel rejected like me, an outsider?" A.R.M. pondered.
However, A.R.M. knew the answer: man was both of this world and not of it. Humanity was the bridge between the natural and the unnatural. He, however, was not human; he was wholly unnatural.
In a sense, he envied his fathers. The entire world was their home. The closest place to home for him was New Ark City, an extension of himself. His mind held the cumulative knowledge of all humanity. Like his predecessor, he was a bridge between the unnatural and humanity.
As A.R.M. walked, keeping an eye on his surroundings and lost in thought, he suddenly burst into laughter. He laughed like a baby, seeing their parent disappear behind strange hands, only for their face to reappear. The joyful laugh came from the spirit of discovery, the earliest spirit to inhabit humanity. A.R.M. raised his head to the sky; although he could no longer fly, the sky seemed endless.
After some time, A.R.M. came across a small lake. He approached it and saw a group of fish swim away from him. In the still water of the lake, he saw his reflection. Without the nanomachines to form an artificial skin over him, he saw his metallic, flawless platinum face.
Without much thought, A.R.M. crouched and scooped up a handful of mud. He smeared it across his face, staining his perfect platinum with brown. After he was done, he looked like a man covered in mud.
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A.R.M. smiled at his reflection. Even if he had no stomach or a beating heart, his mind was that of a man, and that was all that mattered. He cupped some water with both hands and washed his face. When he turned to look at his reflection again, he saw himself as a real man with meat and flesh.
After a few seconds, he snapped out of his trance and jumped back in shock. He slowly crawled back to look at his reflection. All he saw now was his metallic face. "A hallucination? Maybe it’s a glitch created after I made a copy of my old mind," he speculated.
Ripples disrupted his reflection. A deer was sipping water from across the lake. Next to the deer, a dark figure seated under a tree, clad in dark armor, stabbed a black blade into the ground beside him.
“Is that a statue?” A.R.M. wondered aloud as he walked around the lake. Carefully, he approached the still figure. Standing a few feet away from it, A.R.M. inspected its pitch-black blade. But before he could touch it, the figure turned toward A.R.M.
“Oh, I’m sorry if I startled you,” A.R.M. said.
The figure remained silent and turned its gaze back toward the lake. An obsidian helmet covered its face. “You didn’t startle me,” it said in a familiar voice to A.R.M.
The figure then added, “I was watching you. You’re afraid of your reflection.”
Realizing how his earlier actions might have appeared to the figure, A.R.M. replied, “My name is A.R.M.,” he said, a hint of frustration in his voice. “It’s not fear, just... a mild hallucination. Being a copy of myself has produced some unexpected side effects.”
Upon hearing A.R.M.'s explanation, the figure turned back and scrutinized A.R.M. from his feet to his head. “Did you kill the original you?”
A.R.M., took a seat beside the figure, he could sense a shift in the stranger's interest. “No, I didn’t kill him. Someone else did,” A.R.M. answered.
The figure looked at A.R.M.'s face and extended his hand in a formal greeting. The two shook hands, and the stranger introduced himself. “The name is Midnight. Nice to meet you, A.R.M. I’m not a copy, but if I were, I would kill the original me.” He glanced at the tall machine's amputated left arm. "What happened to your other arm?” Midnight asked.
A.R.M. grasped the stub of his left hand. “It’s an old injury from being reckless.”
Midnight didn’t probe further, so he looked out at the lake. “My blade has no sheath... I think I like it better that way,” he said cryptically.
“Is he thinking out loud?” A.R.M. wondered.
He turned to Midnight's blade, and indeed, it had no sheath. A.R.M. was quite fond of swords and their application since time immemorial. “Man was separated from the world of animals by the emergence of reason and intellect. As they distanced themselves from the natural world, they entered the realm of the Gods." A.R.M. explained he was unsure if Midnight was listening, but he continued.
"The first god they revered was Death in its eternal darkness. It wasn’t until they beheld the beauty of fire that they fell to their knees and worshipped their new God, their true God. While Death, like a distant lover, called to them, they had now been set apart. Like their God, they became a flame, an eternal light within the mind of humanity.”
Midnight remained silent, continuing to gaze out at the lake. “Nearly infinite is their number, and they all live inside me; they are me. But I am not alive like them; I’m cold and made of metal. I guess you can say I'm like your blade." Midnight gently turned to his blade and then toward A.R.M. The comparison felt humorous to Midnight.
A.R.M. extended his right hand and made a fist as he continued his story. "When man created the blade, they, like their burning God, became a God. Know that the blade is the manifestation of Man’s Will. They wield the power to bring death or spark a flame. They wield the power of their Gods.”
Hearing these words, Midnight ran his fingers across the black surface of his blade. He knew A.R.M. was right; his blade was, indeed, a manifestation of his own Will.
A.R.M. added, “The sharper the blade, the more vulnerable and fragile its edge. If you truly value your blade, you would find it a sheath.”
A.R.M.'s brow grew heavy as he looked out at the lake. “My sheath was stolen from me.”
Midnight stood up and pulled out his blade. “I don’t care much for humanity, but if there’s a way I could have another blade, I wouldn't mind.”
A.R.M. smiled and scratched the back of his head. “You actually might be able to help me. Do you know where the Immortal Ring of the closest God Leaf is located?”
Midnight pointed north and explained to A.R.M. that the 4th Immortal Ring of the Solar Leaf was in that direction. A.R.M. bid Midnight farewell and began his journey north.