Kai strained against his bonds as Omilaena leaned closer, truly testing their strength for the first time. He'd pulled a little when he first awoke, still loose from the poison, and now tried with real strength. Unfortunately, they had definitely been created to hold someone like him... he thought he might be able to break free with his full monstrous strength, but he needed to save the attempt for the right moment.

"Right now we're still dangerously close to the city," she told him cheerfully. "We can't move too fast or risk breaking cover, which means I have time to burn."

She was clearly toying with him, so he refused to give her the satisfaction of a response.

"This entire process has been so very stressful for me, I wanted to work off some of that." Omilaena suddenly stepped up onto the table beside him, crouched against his thigh. "You've impressed me twice now, and I like that."

She slid one leg across his body, straddling his hips. He was painfully aware of how thin her dress felt above his pants and his body responded automatically. Omilaena chuckled and put a hand on his chest as she began to rock back and forth.

"You aren't going to complain, are you? So very focused and respectful, but you're still a man and I know what you want." Omilaena leaned forward, teasing her breasts against his chest until her face was just below his. "Come now, won't you let me feel your real - mmm - strength?"

"Do what you want with me," Kai said flatly. "But let the others go. They were just trying to defend their city, they shouldn't suffer f-"

"Fuck, you're depressing." Abruptly all of the seductive expression vanished. Omilaena pushed against his chest, not as a sexual maneuver but just lifting herself up and off him. "You take all the fun out of things."

Kai stared at her. "That's fun to you? Last time we met you went on about how you didn't-"

"Different situations." She waved his words away with one hand. "Seducing a young barbarian full of himself? Sure, of course. I could have been all, 'oh no, you're too masculine for me' and then just when you thought you had the upper hand... but now I'm just sad. Were you going to go on about how you'll endure this for the sake of your wife and innocent children?"

Her emotional shift had been so abrupt that Kai could only stare at her suspiciously. Normally he would have wondered if she was mad, so emotionally unstable that she was dangerous, but there seemed to be something different. Omilaena moved just a little too fast, as if she had to wait impatiently between each precise movement.

"I actually do find you interesting. Most in your position are really full of themselves." Omilaena regarded him curiously. "You did better than I predicted during the fight, too. If you're going to be so stiff, don't worry. I won't touch you and I'll let you go once it's time. But cooperate along the way or I'm going to get bored."

"You already know what I want," Kai said. "Just leave everyone alive."

"So you don't care about the thefts? Why risk your life here?"

He wasn't sure how to answer that without giving away Zae Zin Nim's secrets, and he thought Omilaena was the last person he should ever reveal anything to. If she really had stolen from both the Brightwind cultivators and the largest merchants in Yulthens, then she had an enormous amount of leverage. When Kai refused to answer she cocked her head slightly.

"Hmm, still suspicious?" Omilaena asked. "I promise, I'll let you go if you entertain me. Leaving someone growing so quickly alive might be a risk, but what's life without a little fun?"

"What do you want me to say?" Kai shrugged within his bonds, loosening them a little more. "I know almost nothing about you, and asking anything would just look like I was pressing for information. If you're telling the truth about letting me go, then that means it must benefit you in some way."

"Ah, you're smarter than you look!" Omilaena reached out to pat him on the chest as if mildly amused.

A moment later she frowned and put her hand back. There was nothing seductive this time: her hand felt like steel as it pressed against his heart. She muttered to herself in a language he didn't understand, then pulled down her goggles to examine him. Chakra passed through him, almost like a spiritual sense except strangely twisted.

"That's curious." Omilaena pulled up her goggles to examine his chest more carefully. "I don't know what that is and I'm actually conflicted. I was telling the truth about liking you, but now the logical thing to do would be to dissect you. Well, I'll try to make it painless."

She shifted closer and a syringe appeared in one hand. Kai growled and broke one arm free, managing to grab her wrist. His hand was much larger than her arm, but the bones in her wrist might as well have been steel.

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"Are we really going to do this?" she asked, staring at him pitilessly.

"You want entertainment?" Using his full strength, Kai was able to push her arm back. "Tell me why. What's so important that you have to use people as materials?"

"Oh, it's the same old story. Everyone thinks they're seeking power, but what we need is knowledge. I don't want to inherit some skill left to me by distant ancestors, I want to understand. Everyone here... I don't mean Deadwaste, it's true of Cloudspire and Rosemount and me... we're all fumbling with incomplete knowledge when there are far greater powers out there."

"Believe me, I know."

Omilaena smirked. "I really doubt you do. This world is broader than-"

"Powers like the ones that attacked the Frontier, right? I was there."

Her smirk vanished, along with all attempt to resist him. An instant later she managed to pull out of his grip, watching him with an intense gaze he hadn't seen before. "Are you lying to me? That seems absurd on the face of it - you should have been destroyed instantly - but I don't know why you'd try such a lie."

"It's the truth." Kai broke his other arm free and slid off the table on the other side, still watching her carefully. "I saw something I shouldn't have and the Frontier elites teleported me back before I could die."

"And what exactly did you see?"

"Warriors with power I couldn't explain. There was a man with Physique that seemed nearly invincible, someone who I think dropped the moon on us, a bunch of techniques I couldn't understand... everything was in some kind of special phase, wholly superior to..."

He trailed off as he realized Omilaena was staring at him, starry eyed. She took a step back and shook her head. "Holy shit, you're telling the truth. I felt the battle, but you actually witnessed it?"

"Yeah." Kai rubbed his wrists, no longer so certain things would end in a fight. "Does that matter?"

"For most of my life, everyone has told me I was crazy, that I was seeking phantoms. But I knew there was more power out there that all their ancient traditions couldn't explain, and with that battle, I got proof."

"So that's why you wanted to dissect me? You think I have some secret you can use?"

Omilaena waved her hand idly and he noted that the syringe had vanished. "That was the plan, but now it seems like I should definitely keep you alive. Is there anything I can do to get your real cooperation?"

"You think I have a lot of trust for you right now?"

"That is the trouble with using such forceful methods. Fuck." Omilaena sighed and leaned back against the table behind her. Once again, the seductress was gone and she looked merely disgruntled. "I've done this to myself before, too. Alright, look. My plan was to drop all of you when I needed a distraction, and I promise I won't harm anyone on the way. If I do that, will you cooperate and answer a few questions?"

"You'll stop threatening if I cooperate? That's a shitty deal." Kai looked her in the eye and refused to budge. "If you're sincere about this, I want some answers too."

"Fine, fine. About what?"

"When we met before, you implied I had no idea what was going on in Krysal and mocked me for it. Well, by now I hope you believe I'm actually trying to do the right thing. What's wrong with that?"

"Oh the funny part is just that you're working for the worst of the lot." Omilaena lifted one leg and ground her heel into the ground. "Pretending to be all moral while you live on top of the poor suckers mining your crystals."

"The workers?" Kai blinked as he tried to absorb that information. "I've seen them, they aren't badly treated."

"Either you're a coldhearted bastard or you mean the workers in the cities. Those aren't the ones I'm talking about. There are others who live underground in the caves, worked to the bone, never even seeing the light of day."

"What? Impossible."

"Are you serious right now?" Omilaena almost laughed, then narrowed her eyes. "You are. You don't seem like an idiot, but how do you not understand? Every society in history has been built on the backs of its lowest classes, Krysal is just more absolute about the division."

What she said seemed like absolute madness, so he just held the idea at a distance while he interrogated her. "I've been here for months and no one so much as mentions it?"

"I'm sure they did, but you didn't understand. What kind of utopia are you from?"

"I'm from Goralia. It's-"

"Right, I recognize the phenotype, but I've never been." Omilaena snapped her fingers together. "Your home is roughly equitable - sort of a caste system based on Class, but you pretend people are equal. They don't do that here. The entire time you've been in Krysal, you've been living among the richest of the rich, the ones who want to pretend they deserve it. That's why I mocked you earlier."

"That's a lot to accept." Kai rubbed his eyes as he tried to square the idea with everything he'd experienced. "How do th-"

"Hold on, I think I've been more than fair. I answered your questions, now I have some."

She went on to ask him about what he'd seen in the Frontier. Since she had cooperated so far, Kai did his best to recount the battle, including every god-like warrior etched into his memory. Every time she asked more precise questions, even after he explained that his spiritual sight had been blinded. It seemed she had been telling the truth about being interested in the base mechanics of power.

"That's enough from my side," Kai said, even though he wasn't sure how much more he had left to share. "So what are you doing in New Laeneria? Do you actually care about the lower workers, or do you just use them as a rhetorical weapon?"

"Look, I'm not here to raise up the afflicted or overthrow society." Omilaena shrugged with one shoulder. "But sure, I killed the most oppressive crystalliers, took their shit, and gave the workers a chance to figure things out for themselves. That's enough to get me labeled a 'Maneater' of course."

"And your actions had nothing to do with it, I'm sure."

"Alright, maybe I'm a little to blame too. But I definitely haven't been experimenting on the poor saps. For one, they don't have enough power for me to learn anything."

"Is that why you stole things from the auction?" Kai asked. "You're seeking a higher form of power, so you needed pure forms of power to experiment on?"

"See, I knew I was right to like you." Omilaena was about to say something else, but then her smile vanished. With a startlingly quick movement she moved to the back of the room and pressed her hand against the wood.

"What's wrong?"

"Fuck, we're being followed." Omilaena glanced back at him over her shoulder. "I guess you're serving as a distraction sooner than I thought. Those cultivators found us."