"Guhhh! Hack!" Lin Zhou coughed rapidly, with blood propelling explosively from his mouth. Combined with the nosebleed, it made for an impressive amount of blood flowing out of a child's body.
"Ughhh... the last thing I remember was that Factory of Power threatening me. What the hell happened?" Lin Zhou felt even more dehydrated than before, and sweat coated every part of his exposed skin that was not already covered with blood. When he looked at his skin, it was bright red, as if he had been standing in the sun for 10 hours.
"Water... water!" Lin Zhou switched the language he was using to the native language that he absorbed from the boy's memories. The boy had received a basic language class to teach him some basic words when he was still with his "family". It was how he was able to interpret the words of these foreigners.
It came extremely natural to Lin Zhou, even more so when he was trying to pronounce his mother language, which made him a bit surprised. He was not a linguist, so he could infer that the memories he absorbed also applied to muscle memory.
"Orange?" One of the kids took note that Lin Zhou was speaking normally again, only to suppress his screams when he saw the sorry sight of Lin Zhou.
"Drip. Drip. Drip." The sound of blood droplets splashing across the floor sounded ever louder as Lin Zhou walked towards the rest of the children clumsily. It drew attention towards him, since the children who saw him were struck with fear by the monstrous appearance of the bloody boy. His eyes had swelled up, and there were boils all over his face.
The healthy teenager that attacked Lin Zhou earlier was looking after the workforce from the second floor to make sure that no one was slacking off. He could see that some of the children's faces had changed to an expression of shock, so he turned his head to look at who was distracting them.
When he saw Lin Zhou, he was similarly frightened by him. How could a person who had bled out so much still be alive and walking? Was this a blood puppet? He had heard stories from Mr Huxley about the mysterious paths that some Omnis took.
According to Mr Huxley, he had a friend that specialised in Blood Puppetry. It was said that once a corpse was drained of blood, the Omni would fill the corpse with some of their blood
and use it as a puppet to control.
Furthermore, if the Omni had advanced to a high rank, they could even awaken the lost powers from the dead puppet's life to bring a qualitative change to the power level of the puppet. The puppet could even be altered to make its body stronger through alchemy, making it stronger than when it was living.
"What if an Omni is attacking us? The attacks have scaled up recently..." The teenager trembled in his place, his hand curling into a fist. He tightened the fist out of fear.
"Wahahaha!" An obnoxious laugh replaced the eerie sound of blood dripping. Anyone who had heard this laugh before knew that it was from Old Huxley, which was an extremely rare occurrence. Few things could make the sadistic thin man laugh.
Stroking his goatee, he walked down to the second floor, wanting to talk to his protege. When he saw the teenager shivering, his face contorted with displeasure, and he whipped the boy with his whip. The teenager winced in pain from the intense pain of the whip. Even though he was wearing 2 layers of cotton clothes, it could barely absorb the impact of the whip.
"How can you be my successor if you can't bear such a normal sight? This is peanuts compared to what I saw in the frontlines of the Absolute Test! Man up, Sullivan!" Huxley gripped Sullivan's shoulders tightly. His fingernails sunk past Sullivan's clothes and into his flesh, drawing blood.
"Do you feel scared? Do you feel scared? You shouldn't be." Huxley whispered into Sullivan's ears, before pulling back and laughing loudly. "Ahhh, it's been so long since I've had such a fun time."
Patting Sullivan on his head, Huxley commented on Lin Zhou's appearance. "Look at him! I've never seen anyone ignorant or brave enough to actually undergo blood integration without the stabilisers. He must have really gone crazy for more power after that beating I gave him." Huxley spoke more animatedly the longer he talked about Lin Zhou.
However, Sullivan knew that this was the effect of the blue tobacco. It twisted one's perception of time, slowing or speeding up their reactions. Mr Huxley frequently used the potent substance to pass the time. He had already grown addicted to the substance ever since he used it in the Absolute Test, the ruthless battlefield that nations held their battles in.
Sullivan looked back at the twisted human that was on the ground floor. Lin Zhou was now crawling in the ground, as he had lost strength in his legs. He softly cried out, "Water, water!"
"So thirsty... I feel so thirsty!" Lin Zhou's mind had only become dimmer as more blood leaked out of his body. His ears, noses, eyes, were all covered with red hot blood. The metallic floor began to shine yellow, while the blood that he left behind started sizzling.
"How unlucky. If the captive today was an unaffiliated Omni, I wouldn't have to clear up such a dangerous Fused." Huxley took out a pair of leather gloves from his back pocket and wore them, as he directly jumped down from the second floor.
"Get the hell out of here, and evacuate to the sixth floor bunkers! I don't want to have to clean up your bodies, scumbags!" Huxley threatened the children in a menacing tone, making all of them move with just a hand gesture of his.
Sullivan aided Huxley by guiding the children to the bunkers. All of them had done this routine whenever independent Awakened tried to rob the factory of its valuable blood to sell for white gold coins, so they were already extremely familiar.
Huxley walked towards Lin Zhou, who was now by then extremely deformed. His whole body had collapsed into a blob, which had maws that were filled with teeth.
From this maw, blue fire was being breathed out every second, which Huxley was wary of. The blue fire twisted and warped in the air, which would have been considered a spectacle, if not for the fact that it was coming from a horrific monster.
"This monster actually acquired the ability to use sigil magic. Black-grade spell, Forgefire. Ice Sword should be able to counter it." An icy hilt appeared in Huxley's hand, as a symbol formed out of blue and black lines appeared in his mind.
From the hilt, a cold blade simply grew out of the air. There were even vines intertwined around the sword to add to the visual flair. Since the ice sword had formed fully, Huxley chanted a small phrase under his breath.
"Under the sky, speed is might!" Huxley propelled himself forward without any resistance, slashing the ice sword downwards. A chilling aura spread throughout the area the moment the sword was used to attack, freezing the movements of Lin Zhou.
Lin Zhou was unable to do anything as the sword sliced down. He could still think, but there were no eyes for him to see, no touch, no smells. In short, all of his senses were cut off, and he could not control the body.
"What is happening outside? What's happening to me?" A great fear seized Lin Zhou's heart. Ever since he got backstabbed by those "friends" of his, he had lost all the trust he had in other people, and wanted absolute control of himself, to an almost unrealistic degree.
It was the main reason why he had rejected the Factory of Power in the first place. In the voice, he could feel the manipulative influence that his "friends" had exerted on him, which made him instinctually reject it.
"But... what was it for?" Lin Zhou slumped down mentally in his mind. Was this a prison? Would he be ever to get out? "I want to live..."
The ice sword morphed into serrated edges to rip through the blob-like Lin Zhou's flesh more effectively. Lin Zhou exploded like a grape when popped, spraying burning blood everywhere, but with the chill radiating from the icy sword, it was entirely negated.
"This is why I say blue tobacco is the good stuff. That's why I can do feats like this!" Huxley could still feel his heart pumping excitedly.
It had been so long since he was able to fight an enemy, as his Lord had signed a contract with the other Lords three years ago to stop the attacks on each other and merge their forces into a centralised group. No more Awakened dared to attack factories anymore, which made Huxley extremely dissatisfied. How could he exercise his combat skills if there was no enemy?
"That Orange boy... was it? I should have toyed with him a bit longer. Then again, he could have really killed me with that fire breathing. I should go take a nap. How exhausting, having to deal with these maggots all day long." Huxley did not turn to look back at Lin Zhou. He was extremely confident in his forte, the ice sword, to bring death to every enemy he met.
That was how Lin Zhou, who was controlling a mass of flesh hidden within the gore, managed to avoid detection entirely.