Chapter 289
Knowing Mila’s timeline gives me something to work with. If she’s selected, the Mayor will be invulnerable to almost all political attacks. If she’s not, they will still be targeted by his local opponents, but to a lesser extent.
Now that everyone is finally gone, and Johan has locked the door to the room to keep everyone out, I return to my cultivation. The pure Death Energy with no trace of other cultivation energy is a whole new experience for me. It’s working, merging my Domain and fortifying my cultivation simultaneously; it just feels very unusual. It’s a if the pure energy is directly shifting my body further away from mortality and towards the Demonic, the Dark half of divinity.
I focus on channeling it through the soul shrine, purifying it, and making it more compatible with my body as I sink into a meditative trance and try to find a way to deactivate the collar. Inside the cage, I think it might be possible. If I can coat it in Death Energy, it will fail to activate when I leave, thinking the Wearer is dead and become an inert metal piece.
But after a few attempts, I realized that I could do more than that. It’s intended to drain the life force of the enslaved person to feed itself. With a slight tweak, It will instead gather all surrounding energy, like a rechargeable battery. The trick is to block some of the Inscriptions circuits and force them to reroute when it activates.
I wish I had Elder Song here for this; he could show me how to do it in minutes. Instead, I work at it all night, and I’m only 70 percent sure it will work correctly. If it doesn’t, who knows what might happen.
Mayor Johan himself comes to get me just after dawn, and I stop my work, praying that I’m not about to blow my head off with a malfunctioning slave collar. I get dressed quickly, braiding my hair and lamenting that I can’t pull out a brush for fear of discovery.
"Good morning, puppy. You’re coming to work with me today; I’ve got a collection of meetings about the Councilors Proposed changes to slave treatment. You’ll get to visit with others like you, ones broken and trained to be pets, and the council will decide if the practice needs to end."
"It sounds like you’ve got a busy day."
"You have no idea. But for the most part, I’ve got the votes. It’s just the last few amendments that are causing trouble. But that’s for us to discuss. Are you ready, or do I need to carry you?"