Second Genesis

Chapter 575: Puppet

Xerchen’s body pulsed as though every beat of his heart was ripping through the whole thing, the wound through his chest twitching strangely around the blood spike Grey had buried inside him.

Grey didn’t actually know if this was going to save the bastard, and if he had been sure the blood could help his own condition, he would have taken every last drop for himself without even pretending otherwise.

The problem was that Grey’s body wasn’t the real issue anymore, his Neural Frame was, and blood wasn’t going to stitch together the microscopic fractures running through that mess. He wasn’t actually sure how he’d heal that in the first place.

Xerchen was different. He wasn’t a Vampire, but he was a gnome, and if Grey had learned anything from dealing with the Mechanical Jaw Lineage, it was that gnomes were freakishly good at digesting things and turning them into their own strength.

Considering a lot of the power flowing through the blood had originally belonged to Xerchen in the first place, Grey figured the idiot should have an even easier time reclaiming it than anyone else.

Grey’s lips suddenly curled upward as the hole in Xerchen’s chest began to wiggle. Thin strings of flesh stretched across the opening, wrapping around one another until the wound started closing from the inside outward, and a moment later Xerchen’s body jerked as he sucked in a deep, ragged gasp.

Grey watched for another second, satisfied enough that the bastard probably wasn’t going to immediately die, then casually threw an arm over Mauve and Elowen’s shoulders.

Both of them startled before Grey leaned more of his weight against them and said, "Hey, hey, less jostling around, I’m heavily injured and might die any moment now. Be more careful with your husband."

Elowen immediately rolled her eyes, but Mauve’s lips twitched into the smallest smile, and despite everything happening around them, the familiar stupidity coming out of Grey’s mouth seemed to loosen something in both of them. The moment Grey acted like Grey again, they relaxed.

Everyone else’s attention was still locked on Xerchen, trying to figure out what the hell Grey had just done, when an enormous surge of power suddenly exploded from the gnome’s body.

His delayed breakthrough into the Command Class had apparently reached the point where it couldn’t be suppressed any longer, and the excess energy that belonged not only to Xerchen but also the strength stolen by his master came rushing back into him all at once.

His foundation filled, his stats climbed, and his presence surged so violently that even the Dominion Class Guardians paused, their pupils constricting as they felt the pressure rolling from a boy who certainly shouldn’t have been anywhere near their Class yet. Their expression grew solemn.

The misunderstanding formed almost instantly.

Everyone had watched Grey bring Xerchen back from the edge of death, and now the bastard was suddenly overflowing with a ridiculous amount of power. To the Guardians, the obvious conclusion wasn’t that Grey had restored what had been stolen from him, it was that Grey had somehow turned Xerchen into a puppet.

All three of them reached the same conclusion at almost the exact same time: Attack now.

Grey’s grin spread until he looked like a madman watching a trap snap shut exactly the way he had planned. He looked like he was on his last legs, and the Guardians probably thought they could deal with him whenever they wanted, while leaning on Mauve and Elowen only helped sell the impression that he could barely stand without support.

In their minds, Xerchen was the immediate threat, and if they removed him quickly, Grey would be easy enough to clean up afterward.

They were wrong about the second part.

They were even more wrong about the first.

Even before Grey drained The Immovable and returned all that stolen strength, he had already suspected Xerchen could handle a Dominion Class existence on his own. If the annoying little genius had successfully broken through to Command Class back then, Grey would have been even more confident, but now Xerchen had done exactly that while also digesting a large portion of his master’s power.

BOOM.

The three Guardians moved at once and immediately stopped.

Xerchen’s Resonant Sense expanded without warning, swallowing the surrounding space so heavily that the gravity inside it seemed to thicken into something tangible. Their Dominions tried to bloom outward and were shoved back toward their bodies almost immediately, the pressure forcing them inward before they could properly establish control over the battlefield.

The most ridiculous part was that Xerchen didn’t even seem fully aware of what he was doing. He was still trying to stand.

One hand pressed against his forehead like he was nursing the worst headache of his life, while the wound through his chest continued knitting itself closed beneath his torn clothes.

Xerchen blinked several times, squinted through the haze hanging over his senses, then finally focused enough to see the hostility written across the faces of the Guardians in front of him.

His memories returned all at once. Grey watched it happen in his expression.

The moment Xerchen remembered his master’s arm punching through his back, remembered his bloodline and Resonant power being ripped away, rage surged through his body hard enough to make the pressure around them spike again.

Then something else followed it, quieter and heavier, and his expression cracked for the smallest moment as grief settled beneath the anger.

A single tear slid down his cheek and Xerchen’s Resonant Sense wavered.

The three Guardians seized the opening immediately, roaring as their Dominions expanded again and folded into one another, reinforcing themselves until the pressure multiplied several times over.

The ground groaned beneath them and the atmosphere inside the catacombs thickened, three different Dominion structures weaving together while Xerchen was still barely standing.

Grey’s eyes shifted.

The Boundless was gone.

He turned his head just in time to see the enormous bastard charging straight toward him while The Eternal, The Radiant, and The Forsaken kept Xerchen occupied.

Grey groaned. "Of course."