In one of the backrooms of The Slaughterville City Museum of Asian History and Culture, several workers were preparing an exhibit on Lu Bu. He was a general and warlord who lived in the late Eastern Han dynasty of Imperial China. Their major job was to document the actual history of the man and how Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a very famous fictional story from the 14th century, shaped his legacy and image in the minds of present-day people.

While working around the statue, the workers were startled when it suddenly cracked. The workers scrambled around trying to do something. Anything really. Then the groaning started, and the cracks grew larger. The groans sounded almost human, but no one paid any mind because why would mundane people. No one knew what to do, so all they could do was watch.

When the cracks met each other, the statue fell apart. Or at least that was what the museum employees expected. Instead of that happening, it was only an outer earth layer that fell off and revealed a large, blue-skinned man adorned with ancient Chinese battle armor.

Suffice it to say the employees were stunned. So stunned that they did not even think of running from the strange creature. The creature trailed his eyes along each person in the room with each person paling when its eyes passed them.

From one moment to the next, the creature disappeared and reappeared behind one employee. The next it was behind another and the first was looking at their back via their head that had been turned one hundred eighty degrees. In the following moments each and every other employee followed the first in looking behind them.

The creature panned its gaze across the room again and then walked away.

***

*knock*

*knock*

*knock*

At 8:45 in the morning I was awoken by a series of knocks at my door. When I opened it, I took in my visitor, a tall thin stick of a man that was shaking like a rabbit.

“Agent Cooper. I can call you Agent Cooper, right? Right. Agent Cooper I am your new partner, Dominic Plantain.” A lamb being led to the slaughter said to me. Turns out I did not quite quit the MFBI as much as I thought I had. They just swapped me and Slaughterville’s head because they really wanted me here for some reason. I’m beginning to think the MFBI and I have two halves of the same story.

Due to my continued employment, they needed someone to keep an eye on their resident Code F/D. That meant they either needed an experienced one that would do a great job for a long time or an inexperienced one that was disposable and judging by my new partner’s … well everything, it was the latter.

“Two things. First, we work a night job, which means our 9 to 5 hours are PM to AM not AM to PM. Second, we have an investigation that I was notified of last night. Let’s go.” I told my new partner.

I then walked out from my apartment and shifted to my work clothes. I heard Dominic trailing behind me.

We reached the site of the massacre about half an hour later. I tended to avoid museums, too much temptation. The last thing I wanted was to take an important cultural relic from the people they belonged to, even if they were not who they should really belong to. The second to last thing I wanted was to forever be tempted by something my morals would not allow me to have.

As a result, we skipped the tour and quickly went to the scene of our investigation. It was to mundane eyes a relatively bloodless and sterile scene. To my senses though the place was infested with blood, death, and undeath.

"Oh my god!" the rookie to my left shouted. Muy unprofessional.

“Oh, there is no god. Well, there are gods, but no overarching all powerful force of goodness and rainbows.” I told my partner.

With quite the confused face, “what do you…”

“WATCH OUT!!!!” I shouted before attempting to tackle him out of the way. Alas I was too late. I knew that Dominic was not long for this world, but I thought he had at least a day in him.

A zombie punched my new, well old, partner’s head off his shoulders.

_

Lu Bu

“One of history’s most skilled warriors only slightly dulled by his new state of being”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Grade B (A+)

_

I turned and took in my new friend. He was a giant of a man that spewed war, death, and undeath essences. He held in his hand a pillar that was shaped into a facsimile of a spear.

I took out my brand spanking new gun.

The figure blurred towards me and every bullet fired was stopped by his spear.

He launched me into the wall.

As I flew through the air, I turned it into armor to soften the blow. I did get my clock rung though. When I saw the blur heading towards me again, I scrambled out of the way.

I did eventually get to my feet though. I quickly turned the concrete floor into a set of grey armor and turned my gun into a pair of trench knives that poured out the golden light of faith essence.

The next set of fighting I won’t get into as it was quite embarrassing. While I was close to the peak in terms of human fighting ability, this zombie was at it in every respect. Mena’s Book simulated a combat talent quite well, but it was dwarfed by even an average level of talent. Usually this does not matter as the level of skill I had was matched by very few people in the entire history of this world, but Lu Bu had an even greater level of skill and his talent was at the mortal peak.

While I had collected a lot of talents in my time, none of them were combat related. You see concepts were important in my ability. Me being a builder, a crafter, a poet, a writer, a healer, or any other artistic or creative occupation worked with it. Me being a warrior could work but would dilute my concept of being. My opponent was a great example of this he had reached the peak in combat, but almost certainly lacked any ability or talent in creation.

All this to say I was losing and losing badly. Also, when I say losing badly, I mean fighting poorly and losing as a result, I was not doing a poor job at losing i.e. winning.

There were only two reasons I was still in the fight. The first was my stars with my shadow star allowing me to slip around the room using shadows and my sand star allowing me to turn concrete to sand destroying his footing. The second was that Lu Bu’s mind and body were ravaged by his undeath making him just a little delayed, just a bit sloppy.

Even with these advantages Lu Bu was adapting and learning. Every time he reacted just a bit quicker to me popping out of a shadow, was just a bit quicker to regain his footing.

Good thing I wasn’t just randomly jumping around the room, I was collecting the remnants of his shell. When I got enough, I shifted the covering into a mud like substance and slowly covered the zombie in the Grave Dirt. Which was a death aspected earth essence that was the primary component of the zombie’s previous and current casing.

I now had a statue that no one knew still existed, I promptly stored it away. I then created scorch marks to justify why there was no zombie anymore.

I had a long day ahead of me telling the MFBI why my partner was dead in less than a day.

***

I was able to slowly drain the zombie over the course of days. I also found traces of why the zombie got free all of a sudden. Whoever was ushering in the night had freed this zombie and judging by the fact that it stuck around and waited to ambush me, tried to kill me.

I did get three things out of it though. The first was a greyish brown star hovering between the black and brown sections of my tattoo containing Grave Dirt. I also was able to learn some sealing concepts from the scraps of paper talismans that were once whole inside the casing.

Lastly, I was able to get a useful artifact out of it. Due to how I killed it, I was able to perfectly preserve the body and soul of the creature. I just released the core spark of the soul into the afterlife when I was done. Death would not mind as this soul was one that believed in reincarnation, so the plan was to clean it of its past life anyway. I even saved death the trouble.

Jekyll’s Hide was a grayish brown leather jacket with diamond stitching on the shoulders. It provided a better mana sleeve that was automatic that put me at peak human for this world. It also let me access Lu Bu’s combat talent without diluting my core.

_

Jekyll’s Hide

“If you were to say I was one, it is only because I am so much of both”

Tier Three

A jacket imbued with the abilities and concepts of one of history’s greatest warriors

_

So, all in all it was a decent day of assassination attempts and harvesting.

Being:

Body:

[Bone Apple Tree]

Soul Tattoos:

[Celestial Weaving]

[Sand: Tier Three]

[Water: Tier Five]

[Faith: Tier One]

[Holy Water: Tier Three]

[Shadow: Tier Five]

[Necromancy: Tier Five]

[Rot: Tier ErRor]

Special Abilities:

[Consumption: Tier Nine]

[Wound]

[Empowerment: Tier Nine]

[Empathy: Tier One]

Current Equipment:

Head:

[The Black Wasp Jackal’s Face]

Earrings:

[]

Necklace:

[]

Clothes:

[Jekyll’s Hide]

Rings:

[The Mentalism Ring]

[Mena’s Book]

[Petrifying Ring]

Bracelets:

[]

Shoes:

[]

Armaments:

[Beastly Heart]

[Murder Weapon]

Storage:

[Chi Organ]

[Spirit Shards]

[Various Utility Artifacts]

[Various Articles Of Clothing]

[Death Dogtags]