Chapter 18: No remorse, not anymore
A gushing sound picked his attention below him. There are four small holes near the area where the roots drilled themselves.
In the four cardinal signs, North, West, South, and East, a weak pulse of dreamy water poured out from the depths of the earth.
This dreamy water made a small pond itself and a very tiny amount of it suffused in the air giving off a calming scent.
"The crystal-like drop of water." He remembered that crystal that calmed his emotions, colors, and memories earlier.
He then remembered that this is his new start in this new life. He doesn't know if he should thank fate or be a pious believer of some God out there but there is no succeeding divine intervention if that is what happened.
After dazing for a few more blinks of time, he willed to have a long robe with a hood and long-sleeved. He doesn't like the breezy feeling his bare skin is giving him. Plus, his little brother is twitching from the cold.
The lotus stretched one of its oldest crimson red petals and formed the robe its owner wanted. That old petal detaches from the main body and it didn't cause any harm to the lotus.
Just like old flowers ready to wilt and be blown by the winds. This old petal is ready to serve its master. In its new form
This crimson red robe also comes with auxiliary clothes like underwear and medium pockets on both hips, a portable pocket on his right chest as well as four more pockets inside of the robe.
With a slight flick of his right hand, the robe changed from a plain crimson red color into a robe with white lines, gold cuffs, two small bells appeared on his belt, and a small orange lotus projected below his feet to be used as his transportation.
"Woah! I have lotuses that appear whenever I step in midair. This is so cool." In the novels that he read, one must step on a lotus to become cool.
This is what he thinks he looks like. But funny enough, he isn't cool.
With a long-sleeved robe and a lotus underneath him, Martin looked like a weirdo on his new clothes, and with the addition of bells chiming, a complete creep, that is him.
"I have to adapt to the surroundings. This is a new world and in most of the manga and light novels I have read, a transmigrated individual should act and dress like the native."
"Where exactly are the natives, by the way?"
When he stretched his sensor, there was no native within the star. He used his sensor to try and peek into outer space, to his dismay, really no neighboring stars or asteroids can be found in his area.
"What do I do now?" Martin has found his first dilemma.
"I have prepared a lot of thinking when I see an aboriginal, but now that there is no one… What a waste, my precious thoughts." He looked around once more and all he can see are the patches of grasses, the small pond of water underneath him, the cloud haze above him, the crimson red lotus, and nothing more than the death-stinking aura around him.
"Well… you could try increasing your control… over your powers… first. On top of all… what a weak Blood Body you have."
A very soft female voice, with a few seconds of pauses in between, was intercepted by his sensor. Upon searching for the whereabouts of that voice, Martin found a small dandelion, with two leaves, swaying on an inconspicuous crevice a thousand meters away from him. It swayed there on top of a pink stone. 'Wait, pink? It also doesn't have the death aura.'
"Who are you?" being new in this place, Martin has his suspicions. Therefore, this stranger gave him a deep impression as well as a grave threat to his survival.
Not waiting for the response, he then willed for the lotus to attack that dandelion. To ensure his absolute safety, blasting this plant into smithereens is the best possible step of action. No one said he would be diplomatic if he finds the natives. He had just seen his entire family butchered and nobody can stone him for being a murderer, right?
Too much betrayal happened in one night and Martin does not want to be dead in this life's next few minutes. He is now afraid that this second chance will be for naught. 'Man up Martin and kill.' He told himself inwardly.
A surprise attack is best countered by a pre-emptive strike. So before the enemy could make their move, one must beat them to it first.
Alerted by his owner to awake, the sleeping lotus mobilized its humongous petals to guard Martin.
The three of its primary roots stopped collecting particles as they each hollowed the end part of their roots and now it looked like a particle cannon.
Its newly gathered energy from the particles of light is ready to shoot beams. Though it is meant to be used for the healing of the planet, now it's for survival.
The rest of the roots continued their work, accumulating for reserves, for a possible prolonged fight.
Just before the three-particle cannons could disintegrate the small dandelion, a rapid response of pleading, with no pauses, from it came over, "Please don't! You already destroyed my entire civilization and now even I, the last of my kind, will be destroyed by your hands?"
The charging particle cannons stopped temporarily by the flick of his hand. 'Me? Destroyed its civilization?'
As the new owner of the entire star, Martin's thoughts are enough for any living creature existing inside of his planet to hear what he meant to ask.
After saying those sentences without pauses, the dandelion seemed to be weakened. "Yes… Me… talking… exhaust… vitality."
He was shocked that with just his thoughts, other people or creatures could hear what he wants. He wondered if the lotus can temporarily keep his consciousness so that he can prevent any words from escaping his body.
And the lotus did have such a strange yet practical ability. Upon getting the owner's approval, the lotus sucked his thinking out of his Blood Body and stored it into its seed pods.
Odd enough for him. His soul is still intact in his body but his consciousness and thinking process is in the seed pods.
'Do you hear me now?' Martin experimented, but when he received no answer, his anxiety lessened. So, with his consciousness, he can now control the main body.
Every word the dandelion said was longer and heavier compared to the last one. Its stalk, no longer swaying. As if every form of action decreases its reserved energy.
"Give… me… energy," after these few words, the flower stopped moving, in any sense.
Martin waited for a few minutes, but seeing no reaction at all, his tension spiked. 'What have I done? I did a genocide. My Christianity is dwindling, profanity rising.' Guilt is gnawing him inside.
But he remembered that in one of the light novels he read, there was this powerful creature that can take become like a virus and steal someone's fate and in turn become that someone?
'What if this dandelion is…? When it senses my energy, it will have the ability to control me. And then I will die for sure. I won't let you.'
Indeed, aside from money, paranoia is a difficult enemy to counter.
'Think Martin, think. The dandelion lives here and it can accept energy coming from this planet. Aside from the death aura, which it doesn't want, it is my energy that can nourish it. My energy has the strain from this planet from the crystal and in a way, I also own this planet. But I cannot give my energy. Aha! The particles of light from outer space. The dandelion is foreign to it. 'Okay. Let's try it first.'
Instead of using his own, Martin guided a speck of the gathered particles of light towards the plant.
Martin moved it so fast that the poor plant couldn't react at all.
Upon getting contact with the particles of light, only a very tiny portion of it was digested and the rest set the flower ablaze like a star.
"Are you trying to kill me? Fire energy will incinerate me! What a moron….hick" before she could finish her sentence, she suddenly stopped speaking. She was supposed to be 'greatly weakened' and greatly weakened means talking must not be that fast.
"Aha! An impostor of weakness. You are just waiting for me to make a mistake and you're going to kill me, aren't you?"
Martin hates people who are lying and using their weakness to cheat people and then just kill others wantonly. All those people don't deserve to live. His experiences taught him that and anyone who says otherwise must not have been killed for them to deny his claims.
No matter what, whether a person or dandelion must face his retribution.
"Hear me my dear lotus! Kill this goner! Pulverize it that not even a granule of its existence is circulating in my territory."
He could still help others, but no strong attachments and only those who deserve it. If they speak falsehood, they die. If they act up of weakness to fool other people, they die. If they look like Raul and his goons, Bing, and Beth, they will die.
Martin, at this point, doesn't care about the deaths he caused. One person, two, a group, a community, hell, even a whole planet, he doesn't care.
His goal is now thinking about his survival and nothing more. No need to trust others because they are all liars and manipulators.
The last time their family became soft-hearted, they were reduced to cold corpses.
The charging cannons lit up. These endpoints stored a powerful beam that no technology on Earth could develop. For sure, this back-stabbing dandelion will regret its action on the netherworld.
With another flick of his hand, three fist-sized beams burned the dandelion.
'I could not even say sorry…' remorse enveloped the little flower.
She then knew, to speak to people such as these psycho, no lies, no putting up acts, just speak the truth. 'If there will be a second chance, I shall speak the truth the moment I see him again.'
Just as he said, the dandelion is no more. Speck clean.
He then used his sensor as well as empowering it with the all-around abilities of the lotus. Five hours passed, just to make sure that every crevice and gap between rocks and soils are not hiding another plant that can threaten his life.
Finally, after confirming a hundred times, no other creatures are lurking around him.
After setting off the tension, doubts flooded his mind at some point. But with the shaking of his head, all second thoughts were cleared.
"If I want to survive, I have to be harsh to myself, to not let that tragedy ever happening again. No more mercy, no more trust, only I will matter."
#Strong