Lucian stared at his broken body on the ground. There was no sign of life left in him.
Nobody would wait until he reached a saphire rank when they could just easily kill him before that happened.
He hated pain, but what he hated more was the satisfaction others got out of seeing him suffer.
The barrage of insults from Voice was not helping, so he did what he did best; make it eat its own words.
'Could you fix my broken bones, Voice?'
He exchanged places with Voice in his mind, becoming an overseer of his body instead of the one experiencing it first-hand.
He might not have adapted his physical body fast enough, but he definitely had adapted his mind.
Becoming stronger than Voice was always his top priority.
It came above wealth, fame, or power. If he could not conquer his own mind, how could he ever hope to conquer others?
'Voice, fix my broken bones,' he repeated, but this time, he was not asking, he was demanding, 'Like how the southerners do.'
Voice did not like to be treated like this, and made it known, so Lucian tried to borrow Mathieu's body to treat his own.
Edmund and his knights already left, thinking Lucian was dead. Their plan was simple: make it look like Mathieu was trying to force himself on Lucian, the latter ending up dying in the process, the former in an eternal coma.
From what Lucian saw, they used an internal bleeding method on Mathieu, clogging his brain with his own blood, and making sure that he would never be the same person again.
Lucian had picked up a few of Voice's abilities, and learned to use them in his favor.
Shackleds could infiltrate a dead person's mind, for example, so Lucian had to kill Mathieu in order to achieve that.
'Voice, kill him for us,' he ordered, taking on the troubles being opportunities in disguise mindset,'It's a great experiment opportunity for both of us to learn something new.'
Lucian's body twitched in response, slowly moving its broken arms towards its pocket, taking out a handkerchief to cover Mathieu's nose and mouth with it, suffocating him to death.
Mathieu was in no state to put up resistance. He died easily.
Lucian took control over his body, and it came naturally to him. He never noticed a shackled taking their time to adjust to the body they possessed, so he didn't either.
The body did what he wanted it to do without any problem. There was no last wish from the previous owner of the body, which made the body weaker. Lucian was unable to stop the rotting process of the flesh. He had to work fast to not become a walking corpse.
Mathieu's body was different from Lucian's.
He had no idea what kept its skin from turning blue, even after his heart stopped beating. It was as if he was frozen in time, in a state that he died in but refused to accept it. Stubborn like Lucian himself was.
He went straight for the treatment of the bones. He wasn't a physician, so he realigned his body to the best of his ability and knowledge, and then secured them with a makeshift splint.
'It will take me at least a month to recover completely. There's no time for that. Think, think, think...' he stopped, remembering that he had yet to pass the silver stage.
He could use this chance to try and speed up his recovery.
If he could melt his bones like silver and then reforge them, he would be as good as new. Or at least he hoped so.
He heard galops in the distance, getting louder and closer. The Duremont's faction knights, led by Mathieu's brother. He had to hurry.
Still in the control of Mathieu's corpse, Lucian used it to carry his body outside the tent to the river and jumped into the water, letting the stream carry him away.
Edmund probably wanted to use Lucian's death to force Celine into helping him deal with the Duremonts once and for all.
No body, no evidence.
Lucian's business was not prepared for war, so he had to hide his body to avoid conflict for the time being.
Also, the more people searched for Lucian and Mathieu, the better. It should put some pressure on Edmund, and give Lucian a chance to escape.
He would have followed the Duremonts as Mathieu if it weren't for the fact that his body was dead and he couldn't control two bodies at the same time.
Showing miracles (coming to life from death) was not on Lucian's bucket list today.
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Lucian left the stream when the moonlight became too bright, and found a small cave to hide in. It was cold and damp inside, but it was better than nothing.
He switched bodies and started to silver stage the body.
"Ha..." He gasped for air as soon as he was back in his body, the pain from his broken bones made it hard to focus.
He already learned how to transfer heat to his fist to melt Blocky. Now all he had to do was transfer that same power to the broken bones.
"Ughh..."
The burning pain was indescribable. He felt like a cauldron of melted metal, slowly cooling down and hardening again. He had to protect his flesh from overheating and being burned alive.
This was not how the night was supposed to go. He was supposed to spend it on a refreshing walk with his Celine and not in a cave with a cold corpse.
Speaking about corpses. Did it just move? Was it Lucian or was it the wind playing tricks on him?
'Stop playing jokes on me, Voice. I'm in no condition to deal with a shackled.'
'It's not me,' Voice responded.
'Hm?'
Lucian paused his training to check on Mathieu's corpse.
"Where am I?" Mathieu sat up, holding his head, "Urgh, my head hurts." He looked down at the body and then at his hands, "Am I dead? Am I a ghost?"
He pinched himself and felt the pain, "Ow!" he cried, "I clearly remembered saving the mother with a stroller from the ice cream truck, then…"
This Mathieu was even weirder than the previous one, speaking loudly to himself like a madman.
Mathieu looked around and saw Lucian, who stared at him silently, jumping in fright, "Ahh!" and then he quickly tried to run away. He tripped over a rock and fell face first into the rock, dying on the spot.
Then another Mathieu crawled out of the same body that had been lying in the cave since the beginning. This one was silent and observant, looking at Lucian with suspicion.
Lucian could only guess that the previous Mathieu was not the last one.