Chapter 155: The Nikoi

Chapter 155: The Nikoi

Hearing Silas, all four of them turned toward him. One of them wore a cloth that covered his head, while one had casual clothes with a ring on his finger. One had a light green gem on his clothes, which he might have taken from a pirate, while the remaining one had a blue cultist robe.

The man with a covered head looked at Silas suspiciously. "Who are you?"

"Just like you, I’m also in a bounty." Silas said smoothly as he adjusted his collar and sat beside them. He pulled a map out, putting it on the ground. "This is a Bloodborne Sea map; let’s work together then."

The man with a ring stared at the map for a long moment before he exchanged a look with others and spoke. "How do we trust you?"

"We all have a bounty, right? It’d be better to stay together to survive." Silas answered, although he had already planned something before they reached Ciradyl.

The cloth wrapped man leaned back. "Let’s see what you have."

"Information about the Sea."

Silas pondered in his mind, believing that his plan would work. ’I’ll get their trust and once we reach Ciradyl, I’ll take that artifact and escape.’

***

Back in the fields of Ciradyl, both Lin and Zhuo had already been there, standing in a large place surrounded by various farms and trees.

Just between the fields, a forest aligned up, reaching somewhere deep in an animal sanctuary.

Inside the forest, a group of men emerged from the treeline, running toward the narrow pathway. They were dressed in rough, worn leather, and each carried a rifle or a bow. Their faces were hard, showing the coldness of hunters.

They heard the leader of the group who might have spotted a mystical animal. "There it is! Don’t let it get away, or else we will lose the money!"

Lin and Zhuo ran toward the voice as he heard the hunters; Zhuo’s motion eyes tracked the motion streaks that were a movement of a small animal with fast, agile motion that resembled a cat.

They quickly entered the narrow line of the forest where they found the hunter, running toward it.

The leader shot a bullet toward the animal, but Zhuo’s hands redirected the motion of the bullet as it hit a tree beside before he appeared in front of Nikoi.

It was a small creature that was no larger than a domestic cat, with two tails that whipped the air. Its fur was the color of a setting sun, while its eyes were deep crimson. On its legs and ears were strange black straps made from its soft furr.

As if sensing their presence, the Nikoi turned its head toward them. Its crimson eyes narrowed toward Zhuo, who stood ahead of it, letting it escape.

Lin appeared directly beside him with her serious gaze that asked no attempt to let them follow as she spoke. "Even when the hunt for the Nikoi is prohibited, yet you are attempting to kill it?"

Seeing the resemblance of the previous queen of Ciradyl Lin, one of them said to their leader. "That woman has unusual hair, and her clothes look royal... is she Lin Shouxing?"

The leader’s gaze wavered as he took a few steps back and examined her. "If the officials find us, then we’d be behind cells; it’s better to escape."

They turned, but as they took a few steps, their legs trudged. Zhuo pulled their motion streaks to pull their movements, making them fall hard on the ground.

Next, Lin opened the portal directly beneath them as they fell inside the police station; she slowly walked forward and peered through the door, where few police officers looked at them confused. "They are hunting the Nikoi illegally, so don’t let them get out of the cells."

With that, she closed the door and turned toward Zhuo, who looked behind where that Nikoi had gone, his motion eyes looking through the blue streaks.

"Lin, I found it, there." He pointed toward an old, large stone near a small cave, where only a small hole was opened enough to enter.

Lin walked forward and pulled the boulder away from the cave as the dark path opened into a place surrounded by long grass.

Both moved inside as Zhuo saw multiple motion streaks that resembled the Nikoi.

The grass shifted as a few Nikoi ran through the grassland. Lin noticed instantly that the whole place had a strange barrier that completely hid the place from normal humans; it must have been caused by a mythical creature.

In a while, they found a large tree where a few of these creatures sat, licking their paws and scratching their ears with claws. Some of them were curled to sleep peacefully as a voice that seemed identical to cat’s purring came.

Zhuo found the same Nikoi that had run away from the hunters as it was trying to climb the tree.

Thud!

And fell.

Lin moved quietly as they came behind the nearest tall grass to hide behind. Zhuo used the motion lines to hold it in place so it couldn’t move as Lin moved in to hold it quickly.

She held the Nikoi with its back and it frantically moved its paws while hissing in an attempt to escape, which it might have believed to work often.

Zhuo walked toward it and looked at the creature as she lowered it to the ground while keeping her hands on its body. "As the Ordinal requirements, we need to kill it and make it alive by beating its heart?"

Lin stared at the small creature, her eyes narrowing. "Yes."

Zhuo glanced around and sat down beside her, under the tree. "But... that’d mean we have to kill it, right?"

"That’s what the requirements said, but it’d be difficult to do."

"I can’t do that for power; I can’t imagine what it’d have to go through. Won’t it be traumatized?" Zhuo only stared at the creature, who now seemed to slightly calm down as it stood on its four legs and stuck out its small tongue to taste the air.

Lin also nodded and let go of the Nikoi, who glanced back as the weight shifted before running away. "Yes, we need to find a dead one."

The Nikoi slowed down and tilted its head before purring and running forward in the grassland.

Zhuo understood that it was moving toward a motionless streak; he quickly followed it alongside Lin.

Within moments, they stopped near another tree with a large hole in the bottom that seemed like a house for them.

Inside lay another Nikoi, but its body was silent and didn’t move. The creature licked its fur and tilted its head back at them. Zhuo moved closer as he noticed that it was dead. Lin pulled the page out of her purse, which had the Ordinal Six requirements of the Arbiter of Motion Authority.

’Find a place where motion is denied and get two hearts and stop your own.’ She read and asked him. "Zhuo, you know that the second requirement is too dangerous."

"I know, but I’m ready."

Lin couldn’t argue as she finally gave him permission to perform the ritual and stepped back four meters from him.

Zhuo swept his gaze around where the small grass was moving and even the Nikoi’s fur; alongside the air itself, how could he find a place where no motion exists? That’d mean freezing time, which can even mean stopping his own breathing. His eyes widened as he realized the truth of the requirement. ’I need to stop my own heart, maybe because I myself wouldn’t feel any air around me... can I truly stop everything around me from moving?’

He opened his motion eyes as the world instantly shifted into thousands of motion streaks. "I need to do it before one second, or I’ll die."

He traced the motion streak before his hand gripped them. The grass stopped moving first, then he moved his hand toward another streak and caught it before merging them together and said, "Lin, take the alive Nikoi out of the place."

She pulled the creature out of the barrier that had begun to form.

Zhuo’s hands caught every single motion streak one by one, stopping everything around him as his ribbon in the wrist began to glow rapidly. As the surrounding air froze completely, leaving no motion, not even the movements of grass nor the fur.

Finally, he peered through them directly inside the heart of the Nikoi that had stopped beating, then he peered inside his own heart. He adjusted the dead streak, aligning them perfectly and copying the same movement of his own heart.

Just then, he finally saw its heart move again, but now the important part. He finally held the streak of his own heart and clenched it tightly, leaving no movement as his heart died, stopping instantly for a fraction of a second and his body fell, letting go of the motion streak that brought his heart back into movement.

"Gasp!" He breathed and he stopped himself from falling halfway through.

Lin moved quickly and grabbed his shoulder to support him. Just then the wind curled around him as a large hurricane of wind exploded outward, almost slipping Lin to lose balance.

Zhuo’s ribbon burned, making his wrist red from the burn as the number shifted from seven to six, where the name hadn’t appeared yet.

The dead Nikoi stirred as it woke up and purred slightly.

Zhuo stumbled back. His ritual had finally completed, leaving behind the timer of 31 days.

***

Two days had passed as Aiziq stepped out of the ship first. He had worn a suit that seemed like a professor, his long mix of wavy and curly hair dripping down his shoulder.

His eyes were covered by a blindfold when he stepped into the Ciradyl, a place where he had come last time eighty years ago and entered again after another resurrection.

Where someone was already waiting.

Murphy Law.