188 The Bug In The System

How Reed had been killed.

He'd grown tired of waiting, his patience had run thin in the wake of his busy schedule. There were still two fissures left on the table, along with a host of additional minor jobs he had to attend to.

In light of that troubling agenda, Reed felt it a waste of time to wait for Velvund to assist him. Time was his enemy — every second wasted was a tremendous waste he could not afford. 

So Reed did what he thought was most optimal to allow him passage into a highly guarded cavern that a squad of concealed men, evidently experienced Chosen from their Anima fluctuations, had not wanted him to enter. 

These veiled Chosen, clad in sophisticated environmental suits, were the dominant race that ruled the West. They were known as the Nuedo to the rest of the continent or the "Diamond Men" to much older folk.

The fourth race that had... purchased the land that would become the West during the Unification War.

What price was unknown to the public and a subject of legend. Nevertheless, it was a hard truth — the Nuedo had bribed the other dominant races at the time of the Unification War with an offer none of them were unable to refuse...

Of the various races that had come to inhabit Mulia, they had been the only race that had not participated in the gratuitous bloodshed of over territory. In fact, it was even rumored that the Nuedo had not lost a single life over the course of the senseless insanity that had taken the continent by storm.

They paid their way out of a major world war. 

They took residence in the depths of the harsh mountain ranges of the West and not the untouched wildlands that made up more than half of their territory.

They were a people of notorious secrecy such that even after five millennia, only a handful of confirmed truths were known about them. 

For these reasons any many more, the bizarre, withdrawn race that had taken the West for itself earned the moniker of the Diamond Men.

As difficult to find as actual diamonds, as wealthy as if they were made of them, and lived where they could only be found — the bowels of the earth. 

But of course, none of this mattered to the dismembered corpse that laid strewn across the entrance of the cavern protected by the Chosen squad. 

The mysterious intruder was, without a doubt, completely dead. Even for a Chosen, there would be no recovery from such a thorough.... dissection. What remained of the intruder could have been mistaken for a misshapen heap of bifurcated puzzle pieces. 

Why do such a ridiculous thing? To throw oneself into the maw of death without caution? 

The Chosen sighed and chalked it up to madness or perhaps, grim desperation. 

"Why give it all up?" murmured the man. 

"This way of life is not for the weary of heart," replied another older Chosen further back, as he sent out a pulse of heated Anima to dispose of the remains. "Someone who'd willingly do this was already dead, I reckon."

"Either way, the situation's been resolved. It's time to head back," said the leader of the squad. He sent an all-clear message to his superiors and then the squad retreated into the dim cavern without another word... 

Along with an unforeseen guest. 

...Already dead, my left nut! Overdramatic bastard. All I did was lose a little mass in a slightly... irregular method. 

Comfortably nestled with the shadow of the fellow that had seemingly grown a conscience after "murdering" Reed, was a razor-thin sheet of transparent fluid without a hint of elegance.

That indisputably pathetic existence was none other than Reed himself, much to his displeasure. He despised that he had been forced to assume such an archaic form, but couldn't deny that it had worked like a charm. 

As he currently was, Reed had more with the primordial bacteria that inhabited Mu's seas billions of years ago than anything else currently alive.

A humiliating fact that he was not oblivious to as he squirmed his way underneath the shadows of the Chosen squad, ruminating on the fact had already ruined his brand-new suit and cloak in record time.

Something tragic bubbled up in his heart when he realized that the feeling of shame and embarrassment related to being completely ass naked was beginning to fade. And for a very serious moment, Reed contemplated whether or not he had unfortunately opened a door he would not be able to close. 

T-There's no way in hell I'm... an exhibitionist weirdo. I'm no degenerate! I'm a pure and respectable man, a beacon of old-fashioned modesty and dependability!

...Or so the ooze puddle tried to convince himself as he idly passed the time until he could escape from the shadow he had taken refuge under. Thankfully, a small opportunity appeared — a hall of shadows formed by the shuffling movement of many people came around after the Chosen squad passed through a heavily reinforced, pressurized bulkhead.

And then, a mystery unfurled itself before Reed, to his mild surprise. The people residing within the cavern weren't hideous freaks, as he had previously imagined. 

They were a little strange, but not the fantastical enigmas he had expected out of them. 

Pastel white, with a hint of blue mixed into that unnatural skin. Irises that had a touch of enchanting iridescence depending on the angle you observed them. They are delicate souls, thought Reed, for they seem to lack a great deal of vitality...

Reed's eyes could not be fooled — the moment he glimpsed upon a mortal of their race, he detected a fragility in their bodies that was anything but normal. Their hearts beat weaker and slower than a human's or avunian's did; So, too, were they feeble in many of the other aspects of their physiology. 

Even the force of gravity had been manipulated to accommodate their weakened bodies. By Reed's rough account, he weighed 15% less than normal. 

It was not a recent thing, either. As far as Reed could saw, that weakness was inherent in them from birth. A ruthless curse of the flesh — that was the only thing he could perceive it as. 

Life naturally did not approve of such a twisted development, which meant that it was something that had been inflicted upon them in some way. 

Though it intrigued him, it wasn't something he had the time to look into at the moment.

Whatever beset the people of the West was at best an auxiliary concern for a later date, so Reed slithered away in between the shadows until he made it out of a labyrinthian complex of immaculate corridors and extremely dim greenish-blue synthetic lights. 

A normal human would have been completely lost below in the world of near-darkness and abnormal silence. Much to Reed's annoyance, the people of the West were stoic and tight-lipped bordering the extreme. 

He had heard nary a word from anyone after he took off from the Chosen squad into the depths of the subterranean installation. The fellows were more machine than man, in some respects, but Reed chalked their attitude up to the fact that they were probably military personnel of some kind.

They're well-disciplined soldiers. More than I'd expect such a... delicate race to have trained, but I guess this makes some sense, too. The greater the shortcoming, the more effort one will require to make up for it...

The big picture was not that difficult to assemble once he had gathered enough of puzzle pieces. In fact, he felt ashamed he hadn't come to the realization sooner.

Pitiful. So, so pitiful. That even a race as burdened as this — requiring environmental suits just to operate outside — was beset with the misery of having to fight against the Infestation. 

Reed had heard of the fabled "Diamond Men" from Velvund and the old tale about them, but everything that he had seen so far betrayed his initial expectations. But the name fit them well, all things considered. 

Resolute bunch, these people. Diamond-hard souls; Brittle-glass bodies. 

Onward Reed slithered until he finally broke out of the military complex and squeezed himself out into an enormous open area — a mountain range... that had been completely hidden away from inquiring eyes. 

A holo-optical shield had been built around it, masking it with an artificial lightshow resembling a massive assortment of craggy mountains and sparse wildlife. 

How very thorough. Hiding it away, but why go through all the effort? The fissures aren't outwardly attractive enough to warrant attention. Any normal person would have seen it and thought nothing more of it than a deep chasm. 

No, wait. Why? It's not like their people would ever see it since they live inside of the mountains. Other Empires? Doesn't make sense.

The Dreaming Council rules them all — there are no secrets in Mulia for them. The royal families of the Four Empires are just proxies-in-name, figureheads for them. So, too, are the forces under their control, every Chosen alive. 

It wasn't adding up.

Why hide this fissure? For their own safety, or someone else's sake? Or perhaps, for a reason that I haven't considered yet? 

...It's so difficult to ponder all these things when you have the perspective of an amoeba.

Out of sight, Reed squirmed himself into a narrow wedge and began the unsightly process of reconstructing his body. For an outside viewer, it would have been a disturbing sight watch him shape flesh, bone, and blood, but for Reed, it was something... intimate. 

It was a morosely humorous thing — a normal person would have been embarrassed about being seen naked, but Reed felt it embarrassing to be seen in a state of bodily flux.

To him, the feeling of being caught in a state of flux would have been akin to being caught in the middle of taking a shit by the whole of Mulia. The idea of someone seeing him right now filled his tender heart with dread.

Ah, to be nude... yet again. But I refuse this turn of events! I will not be known as the Streaking Prince. Fuck that. I'll not be remembered as a habitual pervert, not if I have a say. 

Without the Mark of Responsibility, Reed had all but lost most of his affinity with Anima such that it no longer loved him. It no longer responded to his summons and in fact, even seemed repelled by his presence — a natural development considering the nature of his newly transformed existence. 

But where Reed had lost his personal curse, he had attained something equally usable in return.

It had no name, not that Reed knew of, which made sense since he had probably been the only being to have ever successfully obtained it... without going completely insane.

He had given it a name in secret, the brand new ability he had manifested.

A boring name, really. Just a brainstormed term, not something he planned to use forever. Reed wanted to give it a cooler name, but gave up after a couple of minutes of trying to come up with a replacement.

Reed took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and then...

A lonesome figure melted into the surrounding world until he completely vanished from sight. In this ethereal state, he was gone from the world in the truest sense of the world. No one would be able to find him, not even Chosen with Anima at their behest. 

He called it... Logic-hacking. As in, hacking the world's logic to suit his interests. A gross violation of natural order and absolute heresy to all who lived under laws governed by Structure.

And he was starting to become slightly addicted to it. Not that he knew that was happening.