Deviant: No Longer Human

"…"

Tap…

"…"

Tap…

"Is he still… raping that woman? Doesn't he ever get bored?"

Yanyan's voice echoed lazily down the stone passage. She was yawning, her steps unhurried as she strolled deeper into the damp cave. She'd been running errands for Wang Xiao outside, one of the tasks he'd given her was done, and she came to report.

She was used to it by now. Her father using Yang Yuhuan's body whenever he felt like it. A million years was more than enough time to grow numb to the sounds echoing from this cave.

But today was different.

The smell hit her first, bloody, metallic, and damp. She blinked, slowing her steps, her eyes adjusting to the light glow of the cavern. The familiar blue flame still burned at the center, its light spilling cold across the stone. But next to it, a pale silhouette flickered, white light, in the shape of a woman.

Yang Yuhuan's soul.

Wait... Soul?

Yanyan's breath caught, her gaze shifted to the ground, and her blood ran colder.

Crocodiles. Thick, scaled beasts with jaws wide as coffins. Dogs, too, their fur matted with spit and blood.

And Wang Xiao… feeding them.

CRUNCH!!

She froze as one of the crocodiles snapped its maw shut, swallowing an arm whole.

Her eyes darted to the flame again. Yang Yuhuan's soul trembled faintly, but her body, or what was left of it, was being torn apart.

Yanyan's mouth went dry. 'Did Father actually… cut her body into pieces and feed it to the beasts?'

She'd never once seen him burn Yang Yuhuan's flesh, not in all the time since Aegis' death. The body had been left there, almost like an ornament, a vessel trapped in the act of absorbing the flame. But today… he'd decided to end it.

And Yanyan knew the cruelest part.

Yang Yuhuan could still feel it.

The blue flame had trapped her in a paradox, she was conscious, she could sense every tear, every bite, but she couldn't move, couldn't resist, couldn't even scream.

Her soul just quivered silently in the light while her body was reduced to meat, bones splintering between jaws, blood dripping into the dirt.

For the first time in ages, even Yanyan felt a chill crawl down her spine.

"…Father…" Yanyan's eyes flicked between the gnashing crocodiles and the pale silhouette. "…don't you think one ally was better than another enemy? Won't she go mad after waking up?"

Wang Xiao didn't look back, his voice came cold, "She called my body weak."

CRUNCH!

Another crack as a dog ripped off a piece of Yang Yuhuan's thigh.

But this time, Yanyan moved first. She grabbed the bloody chunk, ripped it apart with her own hands, and tossed it to the dog.

"Here, little puppy. Sweetest part of her…"

Wang Xiao blinked at her, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Her priorities were always very clear.

"What happened with Yuriko?" he asked.

Yanyan knelt, idly feeding the beasts, her tone casual. "I spoke with her. She said she expected it."

"Hm? Expected it?" Wang Xiao frowned, eyes narrowing.

Yanyan nodded, but her gaze trembled for a moment as she remembered. The first-generation Yuriko, their conversation on the very day she began her reincarnation cycle, still like a bad taste on her tongue.

"She said she was certain her last reincarnation would resist… that it would find help. But she didn't expect that help to reach back in time to find her."

Wang Xiao tilted his head, eyes narrowing further. "And what is it she actually wants?"

Yanyan's lips twisted faintly. "To ascend. To reach the pinnacle of strength, but her plan has a flaw… the resistance of her own reincarnation. She's fighting herself."

"And afterwards?" Wang Xiao pressed.

Yanyan let out a sigh, tossing another piece of meat into snapping jaws. "Afterwards? She doesn't know. She admitted it. She was shooting in the dark. Her best guess? The helper she counted on would be stronger than her, and somehow, she'd die by that hand. That death would continue and finally complete her cycle and let her transcend."

Wang Xiao's shoulders loosened, the tension leaving him with a slow exhale. For a moment he thought she'd actually calculated the future.

"Well. She's in for disappointment. Even if I kill her, even if her cycle of thousand reincarnation completes, the moment she ascends, an Executioner will be assigned to take her out."

Yanyan shrugged, tossing another bloody scrap to the crocodiles, her tone filled with mockery. "She doesn't know that… she's dumb."

Wang Xiao nodded absently. While carving up Yang Yuhuan's body earlier, he had found something strange, what she was talking about: refining a body.

It never really clicked before. Her flesh hadn't been normal, neither had Kaelvar's, that Executioner. They weren't wrapped in mortal skin at all, their bodies were... vessels.

'Then what about mine?'

He glanced down at Yanyan kneeling at his feet, her back lit by the flame. Her posture, her back, her obedience, tempting enough to bend her down and take her right there. Her buttocks almost begged for it. But that wasn't what he wanted today.

Not her body.

Power.

'What if I refined a vessel for myself using Dark Energy itself?'

Would it make every attack meaningless? Would it let him consume the energy of others instead of resisting it?

Only one way to find out.

He told Yanyan what he intended. She, of course she agreed. But she was clever enough to point out the problem: dark energy wasn't just a force. It was origin matter. If his soul touched it raw, it could consume him just as easily as she tried to shape it.

So they'd need control.

Carving it carefully around his soul, binding it like a sheath instead of drowning in it.

Experiments first.

Yanyan started small.

A puppy.

PUCHI!

The instant she tried channeling the energy into it, the body withered, collapsed, then disintegrated. Even the soul shattered into pieces.

That was when Wang Xiao decided, maybe it's a bad idea to let her try this on me directly.

____

It was the year 1995 A.D. His last stop before returning to the present.

Why here? Because he remembered. Last time the Hell Spirits appeared on Earth, they hadn't possessed bodies right away, they drifted, hunting. And Yin Yue, the one that later merged with him, should be roaming at this time.

He'd almost forgotten about that spirit. But forgetting didn't erase the truth: Yin Yue was a stain on his pride. A defeat, something he wanted to wipe away.

Would he take her into the present? Possibly. But that meant aligning timelines. If he pulled too hard, he could erase himself or worse, overwrite himself. Past and present were linked. Whatever touched his past would touch him. The only way to make it stick was to override everything, including the wills of other apex beings in the universe.

That meant picking a fight with existence itself.

He hovered near an old chimney belching black smoke when he felt it, the thing he'd been searching for.

"There you are…" he muttered.

The Hell Spirit looked like a floating jellyfish, translucent tendrils writhing as it struggled. He snatched it up, examined it, then let it go.

He didn't need to cage it, he only needed to study the architecture of its soul.

The structure was alien, twisted.

If he could map it, then maybe, just maybe, he could use that cursed sword to cut other soul shards apart… and stitch them back together into something...

Would it work? He didn't know.

He had tried to find Yin Yue directly, but whatever devoured her in the Graveyard of Gods had erased her utterly. That place was as mysterious as the hand that caught Kaelvar's explosion.

Maybe too mysterious.

And Wang Xiao couldn't shake the thought: was there a connection between the two?