Epilogue: Devouring

Gunsmith had gone more than thirty hours without sleep. He was covered in filthy mud, had gone a long time without food or rest, and had repeatedly used his powers and pushed himself through strenuous physical work along the way. Even so, he decided to grit his teeth and keep going. He had to get the Eternal Core as far from those ruins as possible.

He kept heading west, determined to cover whatever distance he could, and pressed on until dusk. At last he could go no farther. Hungry and exhausted, he collapsed beside a tree. Even if a snake crawled onto his face now, he couldn't be bothered to lift a hand.

Late that night, something bit Gunsmith's leg. The sharp pain woke him instantly. He reached down but found nothing, then felt the wound. It didn't seem serious and hadn't bled much.

Still, Gunsmith began to feel uneasy. The optimistic explanation was a bite from a large mosquito. A slightly less optimistic guess would be a spider, a venomous snake, or a scorpion. This could get him killed.

He had slept for at least five hours and felt considerably more alert, so he sat up straight and waited to see how his body reacted. About ten minutes passed without any obvious discomfort. His pulse and breathing were normal, and the wound showed no sign of worsening, swelling, or becoming painful. Only then did Gunsmith relax a little. Perhaps it had just been a harmless grass snake. These creatures spent the day sleeping in gaps beneath trees or among dead branches and rotting leaves. Maybe he was blocking its front door.

Just as Gunsmith was about to lie back down and go to sleep, he suddenly heard footsteps. They weren't an animal's footsteps. They were human, and whoever it was was wearing boots!

In the darkness, with little to see, a person's other senses naturally grew sharper. Gunsmith was already exceptionally alert, his ears attuned to everything around him, and now he could hear with particular clarity.

Gunsmith counted silently. One, two... Four people in all. Cannibals? No... Bare feet sounded different from shoes on vegetation or soil. These people were all wearing shoes, and definitely not the kind woven from grass. Could they have come to rescue him?

Sure enough, he soon heard them talking quietly among themselves. They weren't speaking an indigenous language, but one he understood. Gunsmith was delighted. These guys had finally arrived. They really were dedicated, still trekking through the jungle searching in the middle of the night. He was about to stand up and make some noise when something struck him as odd. Why weren't they calling his name? This was a rainforest, not a residential neighborhood. The animals weren't going to complain about noisy humans, and sound carried farther at night.

Then it occurred to him that perhaps these rescuers had spent all day shouting and were tired. But there was another problem. Why weren't they using any lights as they moved? Could they see in the dark? Would they really bring night-vision goggles on a rescue instead of flashlights? If they made no noise and gave no sign of their presence, wouldn't they be very likely to miss the person they were rescuing if he happened to be asleep?

A frightening and all too plausible conclusion immediately took shape. As he saw it, there was a fifty-percent chance these people had nothing to do with him. The other fifty percent was that they had come for him, but not to rescue him...

Gunsmith stayed out of sight, taking even greater care to conceal himself. They very likely had night-vision equipment. He had to be extremely cautious.

"I thought I heard something just now," a voice said.

The speaker was standing about five meters from Gunsmith, and the other three weren't far away either. Those words brought Gunsmith out in a cold sweat. He hardly dared breathe.

"Shut up. You're always making a fuss. During the day you said you'd found the target's footprints, and we spent ages following them, only to lose the trail at the river."

"That's why I said he might have fallen into the river and drowned."

"Our orders are to bring him in alive or produce his body, and to do it as quickly as possible. There is no 'might have.' Understand?"

"I still don't get it. He's just a weapons consultant. Why go to all this trouble?"

"Hmph... Haven't you heard? He's an important man. Every member of the crew on his plane had been quietly replaced with our people. The plan was to take him somewhere secret and lock him up. Nobody expected him to suddenly disappear in a place like this."

At this, a host of possibilities flashed through Gunsmith's mind. Who were these people, really? HL? EAS? Or did they serve some powerful figure in Tiandu? Even within the Empire, the power struggles among its many factions were extremely complicated. He couldn't rule out someone placing great value on his talents. It was also possible... that these fellows belonged to Steel Commandment. Getting their undercover operatives aboard a plane probably wouldn't be too difficult. If it really was them, their reason for capturing him was very likely revenge for the earlier "Blue Gift" plan.

"I think the kid's just damned crafty. He noticed something was wrong, killed everyone on the plane, and made his escape. Those few seconds of the final distress transmission were just a smokescreen."

"We can consider those questions once we've found the target. Besides, don't you find it strange? All our instruments mysteriously stopped working when we entered this rainforest, then suddenly started working again on their own this morning. I have my doubts about that distress transmission too, but... what's happening here may be far more complicated than we imagined."

Another voice interrupted them. "Enough chatter, both of you. Who knows how long the night-vision equipment will keep working? If the machinery and compasses stop working again, we'll waste another whole night."

Their voices grew more distant. The four spoke less and less, until only footsteps remained. Then those too faded away.

...

Another morning, humid and sweltering.

The plane wreckage looked wholly out of place in the rainforest. Four men in full outdoor gear were examining the area around it.

They dug through the soil and unearthed the bodies Gunsmith had buried, but found nothing unusual about the causes of death. Nor was there any useful evidence inside the plane, apart from some missing seat belts and seat covers.

"It's completely wrecked. To establish exactly what caused the crash, we'd have to haul this pile of junk into a hangar, or bring a whole team and their equipment into this damned forest to examine it," one of them complained.

"At least we can confirm one thing. Charles Rohl, also known as Gunsmith, isn't dead. He buried these people, which means he was still perfectly capable of moving around, and very likely knew nothing about the crew's plan. We need to step up the search. If we encounter him, we can approach him posing as rescuers."

"Hey! Who are you?" The man who had just been complaining spotted a stranger.

He was a white man who looked to be in his thirties or forties, prematurely balding and unshaven. He walked toward the four at an unhurried pace. He didn't seem dangerous. He held no weapon, and his expression showed no hostility.

Still, the four approached him with great caution and formed a tight circle around him, keeping a distance of about two meters.

"Sir, can you understand us?"

Darkwater was silent for two seconds, looking over the four men. "There are many things I'd like to ask you."

"What?" None of the four could make sense of this unexpected remark.

One minute later, Darkwater was still standing in the same spot. Around him lay four corpses: one Strong-rank ability user and three Normal-rank ability users.

"Now I know enough." His face changed several times in an instant. Five different faces appeared in succession, each twisting across his features. Finally, his head became black and hairless, with a texture like something half-solidified, though all his facial features remained. His eyes were set deep in their sockets, with no distinction between whites and pupils, and gave off a deep, piercing blue-green glow.