Path of the Deathless

257 (II) Extraction [IV]

257 (II)Extraction [IV]

Since he'd known the head chef, Georges had possessed a mop of dirty blonde hair, messy and untamed. That hair was nowhere to be seen. It had either fallen out or been shorn to the scalp, and his head was pockmarked with busted boils that leaked trails of dried pus. The rest of his body was also dramatically diminished. Georges was never a large man, but he was filled out in several ways and possessed something of a beer belly. Now, however, he was rail-thin, and his hospital gown swayed from him like clothing draped over a pole. And then there were Georges's eyes. They were so bloodshot that Shiv thought there were pools of blood forming around the head chef’s irises.

Shiv sucked in a breath and took a step back, something inside him clenching tight in vicarious pain and misery.

Georges, comparatively, just blinked as he squinted back.

Shiv managed. He had to force the words out of himself.

Georges blinked twice, and slowly, a smile worked its way across his face. But even that small shift of expression seemed to cost the head chef a significant effort. His endurance had been wrung dry, his physique hollowed. He was close—close to the edge of oblivion; the disease was eating him away.

But Georges didn't seem to care. With every passing second, the smile on his face grew like a flame building to a full blaze. Georges gestured at himself, and Shiv couldn't help but laugh.

Shiv’s laughter only intensified.

Georges just rolled his eyes.

Dimly, he got the sense that Uva was shaking her head off, muttering something about men. Even further in the backdrop, Hymn whispered something about size being a downside after a certain point, considering the tissue damage—something Uva and Shiv both didn’t want to hear from him.

And then it was Georges’s turn to laugh. And that's what he did. He laughed, loudly and truly, until a coughing fit overtook him. A coughing fit that ended with him choking and fighting for breath. Then the illusion was broken. Georges’s sickness reasserted itself, and the joy on Shiv’s face was extinguished thusly.

Shiv shook his head.

Georges eyed him.

Shiv replied.

Georges laughed hoarsely.

Shiv was momentarily speechless.

Georges sniffled, and he looked around the mindscape.When Shiv didn't reply, he sighed.

Shiv mumbled, frowning. Just how much did Georges manage to read from his eyes all these years, even when they were still all black?

Georges asked again The head chef of Swan-Eating Toad shrugged. Despite being so close to death, he seemed utterly indifferent to its presence.

Shiv swallowed and finally managed to spit out the thing that troubled him most. The thing that connected him to Georges, to everything that wasn't death and destruction.

Georges let out a cough.

Once more, like so many times before, Shiv found himself surprised by his head chef.

Georges replied.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Shiv asked. His fists were clenched.

Georges replied. Georges shrugged and spoke no more of it.

That vast pit of disgust Shiv felt toward the Ascendants only grew.

Georges rasped.

Georges's form flickered, pulsing in and out of existence.

Shiv called out, worried that his mentor was dying before his eyes.

Georges choked out. He sounded like he was gagging on his own tongue. Georges chuckled at his own, absurd joke.

A loud, choking gasp came from Georges, and the chef shuddered in his bed.

Shiv snarled those words desperately. He tried to seize Georges, but the man’s mind was getting weaker, his consciousness drifting further. He was slowly turning translucent—blending with the coiling mists that made up this place of thought.

Georges wheezed but still managed a defiant sneer.

Shiv’s rage combusted inside of him. But there was no easy enemy to strike at—absolutely nothing he could do. Anger failed him. His skills failed him. And with nowhere to go, Shiv felt desperate fear overtake him. He almost whimpered in despair.

Georges only shook his head.Georges began coughing again.

Shiv practically begged.

The head chef went still.

And without any warning at all, Georges winked out altogether. Where he once existed in the mindscape was nothing. Just curling fingers of mist. Just stray winds of thought and fading memories.

Shiv knelt before nothing and struggled not to come undone.

Uva said from behind.

Sage of the Enkindled Heart:

Shiv said, forcing himself to stand.He kicked his dry lips.

As he turned, he saw Uva approaching him—and she stumbled to a halt as she looked into his eyes. She flinched at the black flames of loathing spilling out from him, rising into the air like columns of smoke. They had nowhere to go; he had no one to use them on here. He needed to make himself useful. He needed to move fast.

he said, reaching forward, cupping her head gently, desperately.He stumbled away from her, and his mind entered a trance-like state.

Uva breathed. Her Psychomancy mana snaked around him and bound him tight, carrying her worry over. Shiv staggered as his Shapeless Tides rattled against her mana field. Part of him wanted to rip himself free, to fling himself at someone to fight—to make them tell him where one of these gates might be located.

But Shiv was more than just a brute now.

Shiv said, turning to look at her over his shoulder.His words were like a mantra, and his mind became an engine of desperate determination.

A sequence of feelings flashed behind her eyes and trembled along her strings, but she hardened herself.

Hymn looked Shiv up and down with an uneasy expression. “And… what are you about to do in your current state of mind?”

The Headmaster winced.

Shiv insisted.