The Perfect Path To Insanity

Keres sat cross-legged on the Grey zone’s dirty street. The zone now eerily quiet except for the distant creak of loose shutters and the soft scrape of people moving somewhere deeper in the district.

Justice had already been seized.

Keres held the cat’s front paws upright between his hands and began swaying them left and right, forcing the small body to wobble in place like a tiny dancer.

Justice’s hind legs hung uselessly while his thick tail flicked in slow annoyance across Keres’s knee.

"Look at this," Keres muttered with interest, turning Justice slightly under the golden evening sun. His fingers brushed through the cat’s coat, pushing the fur apart as he examined it. "You definitely grew more fur since the last time I saw you."

Justice narrowed his eyes but did not fight him.

Keres leaned closer, squinting critically. The pads of his fingers rubbed along the cat’s ear.

"And these ears... pointier too." He tilted Justice’s head to the side. "Bigger than a normal cat’s ears."

The cat’s whiskers twitched irritably.

Humming and now running his hand slowly down the back of Justice’s neck, Keres’ eyes twinkled.

"Oh, I see it now!" His tone brightened with realization. "The fur here is growing out more."

He scratched beneath Justice’s chin and along the side of his neck.

"I’m calling it early. You’re a Maine Coon kitty!" he grinned wider as he scratched deeper into the thickening coat.

He lifted Justice slightly higher and studied his features. "Ohh. You’re one big handsome kitty. So cute!"

Justice’s body relaxed in his grip.

A deep, rolling purr started low in the cat’s chest and built until it vibrated through Keres’s palms. Justice’s eyes narrowed to slits. He turned his head toward Fei Ming and grinned.

"I’m handsome," he cooed, his smile turning into a self-satisfied smug.

Fei Ming stood three paces off, his back against a wall with arms crossed tight across his chest.

"You have never seen a mirror in your life," he answered.

Justice’s tail snapped once sideways. "Tch."

"Hahaha!" Keres let out a short, breathy laugh and eased Justice down to the ground. The cat landed lightly and shook his fur out with a quick ripple before settling beside Fei Ming’s boots.

Fei Ming shifted his stance forward half a step. He was done dragging things out. If things moved slower for him, it wouldn’t be good. Whatever Keres came to tell him, he needed to know. Turning to Keres, he asked,

"Tell me about this ’nebula political struggle’."

Tilting his head back to meet Fei Ming’s eyes. Keres grin stretched slowly across his face. "Well... after you sent twenty-two Wrath worshipers straight to hell and left your mark, I asked around."

Picking cat’s fur off his shoulders, he added while flaying his arms, "And it turns out your plot thickens!"

Fei Ming blankly stared at the theatrical man.

"Do you wish to know?" Keres asked.

"Yes."

Keres pushed to his feet. Dust clung to his knees; he slapped it off with quick pats.

"A certain prayer was heard yesterday." His tone lost some of its playfulness now. "Wrath already hates you. That part isn’t new. Now a few more pairs of eyes are on you."

He lifted a single finger up to the sky. "Ymir’s one of them. I call him a ’hungry giant baby’ hehe."

Somehow, this was funny to Fei Ming. The cosmic slugs never once cared about him. RiaKai had even told him they all found him boring and called him a worthless being. All of a sudden, he was like an intoxicating bag of sugar everyone wanted to taste or toss.

Who even was Ymir? "Tell me the prophecy," Fei Ming said.

Keres’s grin sharpened. He closed the gap until their faces were inches apart, like he was staring at Fateless non-existent soul.

"Heh. I should, right? But—" He stopped.

"Last time I asked about your Path, you swore you had none. Yet look at everything you’ve pulled off. No one without a Path does half that. So come on." Leaning in closer, his eyes locked hard on Fei Ming’s. "What’s your Path? Satisfy this one itch for me."

’Hmm.’ Fateless bent down, scooped Justice against his chest, and turned away.

"Why do you care? Curiosity doesn’t fill your stomach or line your pockets. Why push?"

Taking a step further away from the pink haired young man, he continued, "I’d rather dig up the prophecy myself than let you pull strings again, Keres." He paused, half-turned his head back to see Keres once more.

"However," Lowering his gaze at him, he added, "my response has already confirmed one thing for you."

"Which is?" Keres asked.

"My Path does not belong to the four." Then Fei Ming turned his face forward on the road and resumed walking.

Sucking air in through his nose, Keres let it out in a long hiss. His fingers traced his shirt and tugged out a metal pin. As he was about to use it, his hands stiffened. "Huh?" Spasming and twitching, the pin wrenched free from his grip and suspended itself in the air between them.

"Ack—easy! I’m not poking you. Relax."

When his hands stopped twitching, Keres snatched his pin up in the air and stuffed it back in his shirt. Another question lingered in his mind while looking at his hand. ’How the fuck did he do that?’

But that wasn’t the case now.

Sighing, Keres gaze flickered to the left. "I figured that out too late. Your Path, I mean. But the way you talk... they hate you too, don’t they?"

Fei Ming stopped moving. He gave no answer.

Keres’s shoulders sagged. His bangs fell forward, hiding his eyes as he began walking the opposite direction.

"If that’s how it is, then you should at least hear the prophecy—" He cleared his throat roughly.

His boots scraped softly against the stone road. "I don’t know the exact wording," he admitted. "But it went something like this:"

Slowing his pace as he walked, he started talking.

"’A fateless man has defied our god.’"

The night wind stirred faintly between the buildings.

"’The Ender of Worlds, he proclaims himself.’" Keres gave a small humorless chuckle.

"’If he lives, we shall diminish. He brings calamities and ill fate.’"

He continued walking.

"’If the Beloved fails, the Fateless being shall bring anguish to your souls.’"

Waving a dismissive hand, Keres tried smiling as he said, "Something like that."

Keres stopped briefly at the corner of the street. "Withered leaves," he said under his breath. "Aren’t we all?"

His voice dropped lower as he chose his own path. "I’ve got enough information now to scrape through the next calamity. I don’t know the newest prophecy about you. Good luck—you’ll need every scrap of it. Hope I see you alive next game."

Keres turned and walked off. His boots scuffed softer and softer until the sound vanished, disappearing into the deeper darkness of the Grey Zone.

Now, Fei Ming stood still, Justice held against his chest.

The ginger cat lifted his head. "There’s a prophecy about you?" he asked. Then he tilted his head in confusion. "What’s a prophecy?"

"Shits cosmic slugs invent to feel important," Fateless replied, walking again.

"Let’s find somewhere to stay."

They moved through the tight streets in the zone. The plague had driven most people indoors. Only those infected without a place to stay or driven out of their homes laid on the streets.

Fei Ming walked for nearly two hours. It was now nighttime.

He passed narrow alleys, abandoned storefronts, and rows of cramped houses where only a few dim lanterns burned behind closed windows.

Buying a house here would not be simple. Without someone guiding him or vouching for his identity, no one would sell property to a stranger. Nor would they come near one.

Not during an outbreak.

He would have to try again tomorrow. Another option of his was buying a home in the Citadel zone. But the ticket alone was worth 50,000 coins.

Even if he could afford that, it would leave him nothing to cover for the cost of living in that zone. If he managed to sneak into the zone like he usually does, it would take minutes before he gets fished out by the awakeners.

It was too risky.

His best luck was in this zone. Here, he could grow stronger and feed on more cores.

After another hour, he stopped at a corner. Justice shifted in his arms.

Moonlight poured silver over the street. Sitting down on a nearby rubble, Fei Ming admired the bright moon. A breath of relief escaped his lungs and he relaxed. ’Things will be alright. It’s just a fleeting moment.’

But then Justice’s ears flicked straight up and his amber eyes went wide.

"Behind you!"

Whoosh!

On instinct, his body bent backward.

A steel solitaire card sliced the air where his head had been. It clipped a thin strand of his dark hair before embedding itself into the wooden wall behind him with a hard crack.

Standing up, Fei Ming slid several steps across the dirt road.

Lifting his right hand, the Sword of Justice appeared in his hand, duplicating into twenty pieces as it hovered around him.

Then he looked up.

A pair of dark eyes watched him with quiet intensity.

A figure stepped from the black gap between two buildings. Black hair falling over his broad shoulders.

Dark eyes pinned on Fei Ming. A long cape draped from broad shoulders, stirring in the night breeze. Dozens of metal cards circled the man’s body in slow, even orbits.

"My prayers," the figure said, his deep, hollow voice carrying through the still night air, "have been answered again."

Fei Ming squared his feet wider. The swords tightened their rings.

The man let out a low, grating laugh.

"Tell me... Do you want your death quick?" he asked. The cards rotated faster. "Or drawn out until you beg?"