Mac and Hai waited as the old man struggled to set one foot in front of the other. The tiny waves that would often brush his legs were more than enough to make him fall on the water way too many times.
"Heh, He is leaving the sea as gracefully as you did." Mac said.
"You are joking, right?" Hai asked.
But before Mac could answer, as the old man tried to get up from one of his many falls, he puked.
"Nope. That is not much different." Mac joked.
Hai did not hear Mac's stupid comment, as her attention was totally drawn to the old man as he vomited. She probably never felt so revolted in her life. The Crimson Coast was a significant place to her, and seeing someone defiling it like that brought out a horrible side of hers. But her distaste lessened as Hai noticed that most of the old man's spew was blood.
"Are you alright?" Hai managed an obvious question.
"I am... I am not!" The old man said as he weakly inspected one of his hands.
"Oh well, that sucks." Mac rudely said. "But, you see, we are trying to deal with the trouble that you caused." He specifically left his own involvement out of the conversation. "So, don't you think that you have, like, a moral obligation to help us?"
"I cannot help!" The old man looked up at Mac and Hai. The sea had washed out most of the dirt from his face, allowing both kids to clearly see what expression the old man was making. He was in complete despair. "I am not a cultivator anymore! I am useless."
The old man's body furiously trembled as those words left his mouth. His eyes lost focus as he stared into the distance. It seemed his whole world had collapsed.
"Hey, calm down there, mate!" Mac said. "What do you mean by that? You were doing all that cultivator stuff less than an hour ago! What happened to you?"
Hai watched in silence, with her face unchanged. This night had made her used to disappointments.
The old man's eyes recovered focus, but in turn, they reverted back to the ones of a crazy person. He looked at Mac and ran towards him. When he finally reached Mac after diddling his whole way, the old mal grabbed Mac by the shoulders.
"Please, Mac Key Kast!" The old man pleaded. "There is not much time left for me! I don't even know if I will live to see the moon engulf the sun tomorrow! You need to become my disciple now!"
Mac was nearly overtaken by Deja Vu. But there was a difference that shocked him. Mac effortlessly managed to overpower the old man and escape from his grasps.
"You really are not a cultivator anymore," Mac muttered with disbelief.
Mac then took a closer look at the old man's face. Now that the filth had disappeared, Mac noticed strange dark marks spread around his whole face. It was like the veins in his face were overflowing with dark blood. Even his eyes were darkening.
Mac did not know if he wanted to learn what those blotches meant. He had too many problems on his plate already.
"Old man, what is your name?" Mac decided to ask.
But the old man did not answer. Instead, he kneeled on the sand and continued to beg for Mac to become his disciple.
Mac asked the same question again. But this time, he used Hidden Will.
The old man"s body stiffened. He was like a robot as he answered Mac's question.
"My name is Hosuto, Lapido Hosuto." The words came out of his mouth like paper from a printer.
Mac looked strangely at the old man. For someone to so easily fall prey to his Hidden Will, they must have almost no will to fight back.
"Listen well, Lapido." He said while still using his Hidden Will. "I don't have the time nor the energy to deal with you right now. So I want you to stay out of my and Hai's way until we finish what we have to do, okay?"
Mac smiled when Lapido nodded and stopped imploring. He saw the chance to use the Hidden Will to command Lapido and took it. That move of his would save him from a lot of trouble, even if he felt bad for using it like that.
And just like that, the old man was left in a semi-trance state, Where Lapido was allowed to have his own thoughts and make his own decisions. That is it, if he didn't go against Mac's wish.
"You used that weird speech power of yours." Hai noticed. She remembered how hard it was for her to deal with it back when they first met.
"Hidden Will is the name." Mac shrugged. "You would be surprised how useful this ability can be." Mac did not bother to go into details as Hai did not ask further.
Hai, indeed, wanted to know more about that mysterious power, but she feared that the response would involve something evil. When it comes to Mac, who knows? Certainly not her, yet.
"So, will we have to take mister, eh, Hosuto with us?" She changed subjects.
"Naturally. Otherwise, Lapido would be killed by the-" But Mac's words were cut short as he heard groans coming from somewhere behind him.
Hai also heard the sound, so she turned around in a rapid spin, almost dropping Olito in the process. Mac, on the other hand, leisurely looked over his shoulders. He somehow knew there was no threat.
They immediately spotted where the sound came from. It was from one of the three invaders that accompanied Olito before Lapido attacked them. And to be more specific, the sound came from the one Mac took out, as the other two were still unconscious.
Mac went closer, with Hai and Lapido following close behind. The invader was layed on the sand, in pain. Mac's attack that hit him carried a lot of weight, way too many for his chest to take. He glared at Mac whit rage and disgust.
"You..." The invader murmured amidst his moans of pain.
"Still alive, huh?" Mac said and then turned to Hai with a smile. "See? I told you before that things could be worse."
Hai did not answer nor react. She was busy thinking about what they would have to do with the awake invader. And she had a nasty feeling about it. Hai feared that they would have to kill him. But she did not know if she would have the strength to do it or even allow Mac to do it.
Mac, in turn, did not think much about Hai's silence. He crouched beside the wounded invader and inspected the place where he hit. He touched it.
The invader screamed. Mac had actually broken the bones in his chest when he attacked him. The pain that he felt when Mac put pressure there was near unbearable.
"Well, will you look at that?" Mac showed a smile. "We not only have someone that can tell us crucial information about our enemy, but also an easy way to make him talk!"
Hai was already terrified when she heard the invader's nightmarish scream, but somehow, Mac's words sounded worse to her ears.
"Are you planning to..." She was not able to finish her sentence.
Mac did not answer her incomplete question. He directly proceeded with his new scheme.
"Hey! What is up? What is your name?" Mac sounded to be enjoying this more than the kidnapper act.
The invader, in response, looked at Mac dead in the eye. "I know... who you are!" He said while he gritted his teeth. The rage in his eyes spiked in intensity.
Hai closed her eyes to try to escape from this uncomfortable reality once again, but the invader's strange words made her look.
"Oh really?" Mac was unperturbed. "But that is not what I asked, is it?" Mac pressed the broken chest, which caused the invader to contort in pain. "Now, one more time. What is your name?"
"You are... Mac Key Kast," The invader was stubborn and continued from where he left.
Hai looked carefully at the invader and then at Mac. "Do they know each other?" she thought.
"Ah! Thanks for telling me that." Mac pushed the wound again and got the same reaction. "But anyway, what is your name?"
After screaming for a few moments, the invader looked at Mac again. Unwilling to stop, he mentioned a couple of words that Hai would hear way too many times in her life.
"You are... the Hevi of experience!"
Mac pushed his chest once more.
"Mac!!! What does he mean by that?!" Hai yelled to be heard as the invader was also screaming.
"It is a very long story," Mac said with a tinge of sadness in his voice. "I shall tell you later."
Hai looked at Mac suspiciously. She had heard Mac saying that "Hevi" word a couple of times. Does that perhaps mean something important?
Lapido was in silence during the whole interrogation, but at the mention of the "Hevi" word, his hands twitched a little. He also seemed to know something about it.
"It is all your fault..." The invader was not done talking yet. But he was talking like he was delusional. The pain was getting to him. "They will be coming for you, my friends. For vengeance, everyone will leave the cave to get to you. You are done... Hevi of experience." And so he passed out.
"Oh well, I guess I went too hard on the torture." Mac got up and started to walk away. "But seriously now, we have been here on the beach for too long. Let's leave already and find someplace to hide where we can think about our next steps."
Hai had things she wanted to ask Mac about what the invader said right before passing out, but she followed him in silence. They had spent over an hour on the beach, and the more time they wasted there, the more likely they were to be seen by the invaders.
Mac reached the barrier and climbed it as easily as if he was a monkey. When he got to the top of the wall, he looked down at Hai.
"I guess you will be unable to climb while you are carrying the kid, right? Throw him to me!"
Hai hesitated. She had been carrying the collapsed Olito this whole time as he was their hostage (Again, she despised thinking that). But to throw him just like that sounded like a horrible idea, especially if Mac was the one supposed to catch it.
"Ah, I got an idea!" Hai said. She then proceeded to use her highly concentrated and harmless flames to create a small platform. She then put the kid on top of it and slowly but carefully lifted him over the wall.
"That is a good idea, I guess," Mac said with disappointment.
When Olito got closer to him, Mac inched to grab him.
"No!" Hai stopped him.
"Uh? Why?" Mac said. "I can just grab him and jump down the wall."
"Yeah, but I don't need your help!" She said. "Besides, you are gonna somehow mess this up. I know that very well!"
"That is so mean of you, to not trust me." He said as he eyed the fire platform safely landing on the other side of the wall. "But I guess you do have a point."