Dasha, the dealer on the floor, and everyone else in the Moon Club were eerily still. The barrier remained visible as blood trailed down like a slipping, dying hand, breaking into deeper streaks of terrifying scarlet.
With a sharp breath, Dasha asked, “Your name?”
The dealer glanced at him, terrified, the smile on his face shaking. In spite of his fear, he got up and returned to his seat. “I…my name is Liu Ch'ang-yu…I…” His gaze flickered, his mind struck by the headless body five feet away from him.
Dasha calmly rolled out the Geas of Service, a parchment of light-yellow with an awaiting pen on top. “Try not to be surprised,” he said. “You know who that is.”
“Don't talk about her, don't speak about her, don't mention her, don't talk about her, don't speak about her, don't mention her,” Li Ch’ang-yu muttered. “Haa…hahh…” He gulped the heavy air, glancing at the corpse and then back to the parchment. Nervously, the dealer began to write the terms and conditions, his left leg bouncing anxiously. “So, regarding terms…”
Writing by pen and not by the mind; it was an intentional action. A way to unsettle the dealer further, to get him to subtly bend to his will. The more he wrote, the more he pushed aside his fears and the more he failed. If it wasn’t for Jack’s mask and the natural negativity it radiated, Dasha might have been in the same condition. Thinking, reconsidering, and subconsciously lowering himself toward a god-like figure. Thinking over and over again that you were truly, wholly nothing. That your death meant nothing. It was the rational response to world-bending authority.
“Six months of deliveries,” Dasha requested, cool as ever. To see his dealer shaken up like this was a huge advantage. He could practically hear the other man’s racing heart. “Ten thousand points per delivery once a week and a hundred kilos.”
“Ten thousand.” Li Ch’ang-yu whispered it like a ghost.
“Shall we bump it to twelve thousand?”
“S-sure…”
His leg continued bouncing. Dasha was pleased. The negotiations were going in his favour and so was the man himself. “You shouldn’t be so nervous,” Dasha said. “If she wanted us dead, we wouldn’t be talking.” Indeed, even with all his S-class weapons and Late Stage Foundation Establishment, he and everyone else here were nothing but specks to those belonging to the peaks of the abyss. The backing of the Whispers meant nothing. Until he brought true results, he was but an ant at the bottom of the hierarchy. The chills lingering from her horrific display of power were addicting.
Dasha was equally nervous as he was excited.
“That’s…” Li Ch’ang-yu stopped writing and looked up at him, frantic. “I-I suppose…”
“Whether it’s the Dark Sector, Earth, or the Heavenly Tower, power reigns supreme. There is nothing we weaklings can do about it, hm? We can only live and help each other. Claw up a mountain that others can simply fly over.” Dasha placed a finger on the parchment and turned it over to his side. He politely took the pen from his shaking grasp and set up the contract in his stead.
“Does it look good?” Dasha turned the parchment back over once he was done. He made sure to include some stipulations favourable to Dasha. Li Ch’ang-yu, eyes reading it in a hurry and mind swirling, nodded. The contract was set. From here, the dealer should have immediately handed him his share of monster meat. Li Ch’ang-yu was a second too slow and Dasha brought out a glass of pink crystals.
“Here,” Dasha said, pushing the glass forward, “a token of goodwill.”
“What…is this?” Li Ch’ang-yu’s confusion caused him to prolong the deal further. He picked up the glass and squinted. “Pink crystals? Some kind of material?”
“Monster meat first, please.”
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“Ah, yes, of course.” His free hand brought out a small wooden box. Dasha was confused at the sight of it. “Here’s the key,” Li Ch’ang-yu said, handing a small silver key over. Dasha went with the flow and calmly slipped the key inside the small circular hole in the front of the wooden box. There was a click and the sudden emergence of magic circles all around the box. Opening it, he saw a tiny, condensed beating heart. “The heart of a Chi,” Li Ch’ang-yu declared, confident again.
[ Transfer Details:
10,000 PP —> 1x Magical Box (Heart of Chi)
Accept? ]
Seeing the points hit his bank account, Li Ch’ang-yu’s confidence bolstered further. All this time, he had been smiling, never letting a frown take over. His emotions were contingent on his eyes and other facial features. It was interesting and easy to understand. Put simply, he was the type to bottle up his fears and anxiety, putting up the facade of a kind, open merchant to pretend that he didn’t hate his standing in the world.
‘A low-level member of the Unorthodox group, a merchant in the Dark Sector, a servant to another man, and rational fear.’ Dasha took out another bottle of Dream Meth.
“May I know what this is, friend?” Li Ch’ang-yu asked, puzzled. Dasha put the wooden chest in his inventory and stood up.
“Consider it something to use to have your dreams temporarily realized.” Dasha stood up. “A gesture of friendship.”
“Friendship, eh?”
“After all…” The man in the white mask began to walk away. “They are all us weaklings can cling onto.” The moment he touched the bloody barrier, the world shifted and he was back inside an empty Victorian era house. The headless body and overflowing blood at the table beside him was the only sign of life. A snap had caused all this. A snap had defied the laws of the Moon Club and the White Abyss.
‘Just what kind of magic does the Imperial Noble Consort possess?’
***
“Ah…”
Upon returning to his lab, he got back to work. Production of Dream Meth was of highest priority, next to cultivation and then dissection. He wrote multiple magic circles and filled up multiple bottles in seconds. To the side, he was already cooking up another batch of twelve. His full consternation at this moment was for wide-spread distribution, which caused the intruding Xavier to pause before speaking.
“Impressive,” Xavier commented.
“I met the Imperial Consort.”
“Oh?” More emotion rose from his voice in that one word than in anything else Xavier had ever told him. “I am surprised to see you live, Jack. From my understanding, she is quite like you. She takes a keen interest in corpses that intrigue her and dissects them.”
Probably because he wasn’t Jack the Ripper. To her, someone a part of the Imperial Sect, he was just another, if not slightly dark, Foundation Establishment cultivator. Nothing special. Or…perhaps he was spared on a whim. Who knew?
“She killed a man at the Moon Club,” Dasha stated while working.
“I pity those that have to do the clean-up.”
“The blood was still,” Dasha noted.
“...hm. Did you not interact much with the Dark Sector in your old life?” Xavier asked.
“My time was in the sun with the Templars,” Dasha replied.
“I see. You will have to ask Daughter regarding her magic type. Information on the Imperial Noble Consort is restricted. I presume we have a deal of some kind with them,” Xavier said. Dasha was a little surprised. From his observation so far, Xavier swung around authority second only to Daughter. “However, I would wager she’s stronger than you at your prime.”
“What makes you say that?”
“A hunch,” Xavier said.
“Your hunches are never wrong?”
“Was I wrong about you?” There was a smile on him, the brim of his hat hiding away the rest of his face, and for a second Dasha wondered if he knew that he wasn’t in fact Jack the Ripper.
‘An Imperial Consort stronger than a Champion? Then how strong is the Kangxi Emperor?’ He had seen the Emperor battle but it was hard to grasp his power since he witnessed it through what was effectively a television screen; the same way normal people wouldn’t be able to understand the skill level of an athlete unless they saw them in-person. Dasha wondered just how would feel if he was in the presence of the Kangxi Emperor. Would he feel that same foreboding sensation?
“Are you afraid?” Xavier asked, his smile widening.
Dasha stopped working and turned to him. “No. I feel relieved. It means there is something to look forward to. It means the White Abyss still has worthy foes to defeat.”
“I see.”
‘That’s right, it’s thrilling.’ The goosebumps were a sign that the White Abyss was worth conquering. Defeating a bunch of nobodies would have been uninteresting. He had known there were individuals far, far stronger than him. He was aware of the disparity in classes and what it signified in the wider world of the Heavenly Games. To simply listen meant nothing, however. Mere words to slot into the endless library that was his mind. To see and experience the death they could bestow was like an awakening. Perhaps it was the mask’s influence seeping through, but that was how he felt right now. His desire for victory and power was growing
“I have continued observation on Charles Mackley,” Xavier said. “He is a bit too happy.”
“The withdrawal symptoms are kicking in,” Dasha said. “I will go visit him in a few hours. Get ready for widespread distribution by next week.”
“Understood.”