Threads were surrounding him, enveloping his body and spreading outwards in his surroundings. The cocoon was invisible and ready to alert him at the slightest sense of danger. But there was no danger, only drowning darkness and haunting silence that had made home in this once-alive shop.

Inero-ie woke up. Where before the fatigue and pains had filled his mind, there was a quietness now. There was no pain, no hunger, nothing, just quietness in the absence of anything, and in this vacuum, the whispers reared their biting heads, scraping claws that seemed even louder due to the completely silent and lightless room he was in.

Before it could further grow, he dived into this desolate mental landscape. Unlike before when it had been completely devoid of any memory to decorate the vast expanse of emptiness, devoid of colors painted by varying emotions, at this moment there were once again some memories, some colors. They were few, but in this empty space that was his mind, they stuck out.

He started working on the task at hand, carefully collecting each memory, each color, and then once again locking them up in the deepest recesses of his mind. Since his last meeting with the White Snake, this cleanup had become regular.

Though he had never been able to gain resistance against the voices that constantly kept filling his mind, he had long ago created a way to reduce their impact to a minimum and that was by sealing his memories. With the memories and emotions sealed, a void was left behind in his mental landscape, and these voices were left with no memories, no emotions using which they could effectively harm him. What he gained in security, he lost in his memories and emotions.

One after another, he kept on collecting the memories, kept on collecting the emotions. Each and every time, they tried to drown him in what was now nothing but past, past happenings, past emotions, to make him reminisce, to make him feel. He did not want that so he did not allow himself to be pulled into them. His decision was without hesitation, to collect them and then seal them, in these past few months, he had already become familiar with this task.

The memories were all old ones, as were the emotions, from the time he had just escaped that place, some were clear, some were blurry but the feelings they evoked were still the same, still as powerful. There were only old memories and emotions, the seal not only suppressed his past memories and emotions but also made it harder for new ones to stick.

He was thankful, with there only being old memories and emotions, he only needed to resolve them and then he could advance without any danger.

***

Inero-ie recalled the data he had stored about the target, not from his mind but from his Threads. The seal made it incredibly difficult for memories to take root and there was no discrimination between the memories, that was what made the seal so effective. But it was an irony, he wanted to forget so he placed the seal upon himself but he also needed to remember if he kept working towards the goal and desires that he had.

It was for that matter he had created an auxiliary spell that further expanded the use of the Threads. Not only did they allow him to perceive his surroundings, but he used them to store his goals, his desire, and anything that needed to be remembered.

He could not remember anything new, the memories faded away, and the emotions slid away. At the same time, he could remember everything that he needed to, with an ever-expanding sea of information that only kept growing bigger with the passing cycles.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

As all the data regarding his target flowed into his mind, a plan started forming on how the target would be neutralized, captured, and then replaced but here was the main problem. How would his companion, that girl who would replace the target, how would she get there? Taking her with him was a dangerous task and if possible, he would not do it. Taking anyone with him, especially another living being, would massively increase the toll on him, and he did not even know whether the ability would work stably.

All of his skills and abilities were tailor-made for him alone. He had never worked with anyone after he had started working solo, never had any thought of working with anyone, making his abilities overly specialized just for his own use.

While he came up with a plan, he headed towards the Grave Tower, once again using it as a transit to jump down the Layers, heading to the subsector that Revensol and his group had been staying in all this time.

***

“Any possible way for you to go there?” Inero-ie asked the woman who was to be his companion in this mission after explaining his plan. The answer he had received, he had already expected but also found strange. He could not go up through the lift because the whole area in the vicinity of the lift was lit up with such intense lights that not even shadows were present. After having entered the settlement illegally, he could not go up through them, especially for the kind of things he was going to do. But it made him wonder, why these people, seemingly so hell-bent on revenge, had no way of bypassing the security measures on the lifts.

“No, I am not of this settlement so I can’t,” the woman replied with what he had already been expecting.

Now that the burden of taking her along was on him, he quickly decided upon the way he would go about doing it, and so, before she could even retaliate his punch landed on her chin and his Qi flooded her chin, attaching her bain, and she was unconscious just as her eyes were widening. By this time, both of them were under the effect of darkness Melding. His arms quickly supported her body, then he picked her up with one of his arms and headed towards the Grave Tower.

The reason for doing this was simple, he did not want to show his ability. The interest Revensol had shown in his ability was not necessarily a good thing and though he had refused his offer to permanently join his group, it would be strange if that was enough to stop Revensol.

Had he himself not gone to every length to try and die, even if it meant stretching the oath he had made to his limits, why would they not go to any limit for their revenge? The conversations he had heard, and the massive amounts of data he had observed, alluded to an insanity that was present in Inero-ie himself, something that he was fully aware of.

Threads converged upon the unconscious body of the woman, monitoring her internals, especially the brain, using his Qi to keep her brain in a state of shock that would keep her unconscious.

***

A distance of 10 centimeters separated him from the ceiling as he clutched to the massive ice column, his senses on the other side of the ceiling, waiting for the cargo train to pass for the opportunity to present itself. Once again he adjusted the unconscious body he was carrying and though the weights were unnoticeable, that had never been the reason he did not want to bring her along.

He had been constantly drawing pure, dense Qi from the Refined Core in between his teeth, saturating his body and that of her with the pure Qi as he readied himself for the massively increased load he would have to bear.

Inero-ie disappeared the next moment and emerged in the airless cargo tunnels. An intense weakness leached all strength from his body but he did not cave in, he did not stumble and before the incoming cargo train could even touch either of them, he jumped.

He emerged on the next Layer, his breathing haggard, as his control over his Qi was almost on the verge of slipping before he forcefully reasserted his control over it. This was the result of using unoptimized skills. Just two jumps had reduced him to a state worse than going all the way to the top. Still, he endured and despite the choking feeling that had filled every part of his body, he controlled his body, dragging himself as well as the body of the unconscious woman, who now seemed as heavy as a mountain.

Despite the pain, he endured, because he could, because he endured far worse.