Endured he had despite the overwhelming impulse to do otherwise, endured despite it being painfully difficult to do so. He did not kill that man in the end. Now that he had decided to resolve these emotions which had been freed to some extent, he would put in his best effort, just like he did his best to survive despite having no desire to live. He would make sure all of those involved in that incident would face the same ending, not just the one who was heading it all.

Another jump and he disappeared just a moment before the cargo train crashed into his body, appearing mid-air. His body drained of all Qi was in a state of indescribable weakness while his mind, filled with harsh and insidious voices, was in disarray.

Crashing onto one of the floating pathways that made it possible for those who wanted to see these dead remains to have access to them, he lay there, on the cold and wide pathway that was similarly constructed out of ice just like the columns.

He had decided to return using this place, knowing he would be in this weakened state and this was the only place in this otherwise cramped settlement that was usually devoid of people.

Inero-ie stayed there, core without even a wisp of Qi and similarly, no Qi circulating through his Qi circuits. A sensation not unlike suffocation took over his being but much more terrible. Every cell of his body protested, urging him to somehow get out of this state but he disregarded it all, enduring. But that was the problem with enduring, it did not make the problem go away and so with every passing second, that feeling got worse, his core started becoming unstable, his body quivered.

Finally, on the precipice of death, he took out the empty Refined Core from his mouth and swapped it with a new one and with his tempered will, slowly, calmly extracted a wisp of Qi from the core despite the shadow of death thickening. As the Qi moved toward his core, he wondered if he should just roll a bit to the side and kill himself. Due to the Melding, he was undetected so when he rolled, no barrier would prop up for his safety, and falling from a height more than a kilometer would surely reduce him to a spat of blood, meat, and bone.

The voices in his mind suddenly became more prominent, making the aforementioned proposition more and more attractive but he had been enduring them for a long time. Since he could remember, they accompanied him, clawing at his mind constantly. He had survived until today because, just like everything else, he could endure their effort to reduce him to a mindless thing.

He kept extracting Qi from the Refined Core and slowly his body calmed down though it still trembled occasionally. Once his body fully stabilized, he jumped down the floating pathway, landing on the one below it, and like that, he moved towards the location which he always used since a long time ago.

Like always, he could sense almost no one in this place. With this being the lowest floor of the Grave Tower, that was only to be expected. Remains got sent to this place when their relatives no longer paid for them to be kept on the upper floors, and now that they were here, they could not go up again. This meant only those remains ended up here who had no one to care about them making this place devoid of humans, thus devoid of any noise that usually filled every other part of the settlement.

***

Once again his mind was a humongous landscape, with no memories to decorate it, with no emotions to color it. This protected him from the voices but also put him into an almost inhuman state. He did not care as long as the voices went away.

With his body also having recovered, he stood up and headed towards the exit. All this while he had been maintaining the Melding and thus was undetected. This made it so that there was almost no record of his presence. Now if the data related to his entry could be manipulated successfully, he would truly become a ghost, having no record of existence within this settlement.

As he was heading towards the exit, he saw someone he had not expected to see. Ranarge. ‘Why is he here?’ the thought birthed in his mind, disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. Ranarge had brothers, all harvesters, all with whom he had met before. Especially when they would come to the shop Fria-al had set up for her amusement. They had been still alive before and considering their experience he did not think they would die.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

As the Threads warped around Ranarge and his surroundings, he found he was just sitting there, without doing anything.

“Sigh… will I be able to meet him?” uttered Ranarge just as Inero-ie was going to retract his Threads, causing Inero-ie to stop.

Inero-ie considered the words he had heard. ‘Why is he searching for me?’ Inero-ie thought but still stopped. This time especially this man had done a big favour by allowing him in. A favor that could have him killed. But Ranarge had still done it without any hesitation.

A single Thread connected with Ranarge and subsequently, his voice was transmitted to the other man who suddenly stood up straight, looking around for Inero-ie but unable to find him.

***

“No,” Inero-ie replied bluntly the moment Ranarge urged him to return to the capital. He could not go back now, no matter what. Especially now that his emotions had become unsealed and his mental state was easily disturbed at the slightest of the issue. The jump was a perfect example, before he had met the White Snake, at worst his mental landscape would loosen a bit but it was not like now when just a single jump would shred his mental landscape to pieces, leaving him defenseless against the ever-encroaching voices.

He needed a stable mind to successfully undergo his first Shedding which would then allow him to explore the Frozen Sea alone. Leaving now would only cause the emotions to fester even more than they already had, not to mention whether he would be able to do so. The formation he had seen back at that place, the discussions he had heard, and the contract that he had signed, allowed him a glimpse of what those people were capable of.

Maybe there would be new rulers ruling over this settlement if he left now and came back at a later date.

“Just this once, please, I implore you, just listen to me this once. I can’t delay the report for much longer and once they find out, Seeker Fria-al is not here to protect you,” Ranarge said in a voice so quiet that it was indistinguishable even in this cold and completely silent tower filled with dead.

“I cannot. And you can submit the report. They will not find me,” Inero-ie replied, his reply appearing loud but at the same time completely silent.

Ranarge kept on insisting though without any result. Still, he did not give up, racking his mind to spin up arguments that may get Inero-ie to agree. He had been trying, repeatedly, but failing to sense Inero-ie. This had made him excited. In this state of invisibility, there was a chance Inero-ie could get into the Teleportation Station without getting caught. Once Inero-ie had gotten away, the nobles would be unable to do anything. But there was no reply after the few sentences Inero-ie had spoken at the start.

It was like he was trying to converse with an inanimate object, and he would have felt much better if it had been so but receiving not even a no or yes even after making his throat dry dimmed the spark within him. He could feel the connection was still there, Inero-ie was still listening, but there was no response, no reaction.

As the supervisor in charge of all the entrance and exit gates of the settlement, he had almost always been there every time Inero-ie returned, each time with injuries worse than before, making them all wonder again and again how he was still alive. Then he would also see the Seeker Fria-al that would always be there when he returned, exploding with anger upon seeing the injuries and the few times Inero-ie had been conscious, he had acted like this, listening silently just like now. Attentive, listening, but not replying. Frozen face like a mask which he had never seen showing any emotion or expression.

“Sigh… I understand how Seeker Fria-al must have felt. Anyway, I have contacted her so it would be better for you to return before she comes here,” Ranarge told Inero-ie, hiding the fact that there had been no response despite so much time having passed. He hoped it would force him to return.

“Farewell,” Ranarge said with slumped shoulders, step by step heading out of the Grave Tower. Though brief, this conversation which had almost all been one-sided, had left him drained of all his motivation. He would still do his best to delay submitting the report but that was all he could be with his authority.

This once again made him filled with respect towards the Seeker. She had been his guardian for such a long time. ‘How did she endure his behavior and still keep that emotion despite such a long time,’ Ranarge wondered.

‘She truly is different, completely different from the parasites that live at the top,’ Ranarge thought. The Seeker families had forcibly plundered the efforts of others, crushing any that posed their authority any danger.

As headed for the nearest train station, he prayed once again those parasites would get a taste of all they had done to others.