Time seemed to slow down as I realized my mistake. I’d thought that my jab would’ve made the human come for me, to try and prove what they could do under the assumption that I was a Staura. Not double down on being a dick to their platoon.

At least the guards had the presence of mind to run the hell away. “Ah, shit.” I muttered under my breath, activating //WIPE-AWAY on the human and launching myself at them.

An oily stain spread out around them, like a slyk trying to force itself out of my visor. I barely had time to recognize that my helmet’s Slykened Sight had actually activated for once, making it more than obvious who I had to go after. It hadn’t been so obvious before, but I guess the only enemy I’d used it on was the slyk creator. An oily stain around a slyk was about as useful as a marker underwater.

The guards’ screams of terror told me that they’d already seen exactly what the human could do to Staura. My mind instantly raced to the hostages in the barracks, but I didn’t let myself dwell on the second-worst possible option. The worst being that all of Okeria’s former party had been wiped and made useless.

“Don’t run! Let it happen!” The human screeched, an edge of desperation creeping into their voice. Then they stopped and crossed their arms. “Just kidding. You can’t run.”

A vortex of purple miasma erupted under the closest Staura guard, and another under my feet. I felt a slight tingle, like I was standing in a sandy breeze, but nothing beyond that. The human didn’t even bother looking back at me, but before I could decide what to do, the guard’s armor darkened a shade and the miasma closed in.

It wrapped around the guard’s armor like pulsating veins. The guard’s voice cut out in the middle of a plea for help, and the human sighed theatrically and held up their hands in a ‘what can you do’ motion.

“Ah, you people. So fucking irritating.” They snapped, extending a hand that bled purple light towards the incapacitated guard. “Do I have to erase everything to get a competent–”

My spear interrupted their self-righteous spiel. It slid through their chest with almost no resistance, and the purple light retreated almost instantly. The human looked down at the spearhead protruding through their ribs, coated in ruby red blood, and gasped. Half in surprise, and half because I’d just pierced one of their lungs.

“You fucking weed!” The human cried, grabbing my spearhead with their hands and entrapping it in purple veins.

I didn’t want to risk losing my weapon. The exit wasn’t as clean as the entry, blood leaking down the human’s pierced armor in a waterfall that would’ve easily killed an unarmored person. But a pierced lung would put a lot of strain on their armor.

The human’s wet, wracking cough was a horrible sound to behold. “How’d a lesser lifeform like you manage to break free?! My core has never failed before!”

“There’s a first time for anything.” I said coldly, sending my slashes out with a gesture. The human dodged as well as they could, but still suffered some horrible wounds as they backpedaled towards the fleeing mass of guards. They bumped into the poor bastard that had fallen to their guide, slammed a hand into the guard’s chest, and sent a pulse of purple light through the veins.

The guard’s armor cracked, purple light shining through as their body started moving unnaturally. Like a marionette on strings, but puppeteered by someone who didn’t know that joints only bent one way.

“Kill him!” The human gurgled, staggering behind the monstrously empowered Staura for protection.

Not a word came from the guard. Their armor creaked and shuddered as their arms and legs were forced to move outside of their natural ranges, with their neck and head completely unmoving compared to the rest of their body. Like a doll’s head on a stake driven through a pile of worms.

Before I did anything, I designated the mutilated guard as a second target for Wipe-Away. Another oil stain spread out from around them, proving again that I needed to test how my equipment synergized with each other before I went out fighting with it. My stats began rising at a steady pace as I dodged reckless blow after reckless blow, all telegraphed enough that I wasn’t at risk for taking damage. But the damage they did to the guard was substantial.

Purple cracks deepened. Veins burrowed in further. Clear fluid began leaking out from around the guard’s elbows and knees. The human was pushing this poor Staura beyond what their body was ever meant to do, and their core was completely sidelined for the fight. The warped guard was probably much weaker than if they’d been able to use their core and gear.

I ducked under an arm that had been swung at me and slightly changed my thoughts. They were definitely weaker. I was barely even trying to dodge their attacks at that point; wipe away was draining their stats faster than they were threatening me. I sidestepped a reckless charge and carved my spear up the guard’s side, feeling the small stat boost from the Blessing of the Leech Tyrant sap away the last points of the guard’s speed.

The warped guard simply stopped. Their armor seized up, and no matter how the veins pulsed to try and remedy that, the guard was done. Wipe-Away hadn’t given me a notification that the guard had died, so they were technically still alive in there, but it couldn’t be by much. I shot the guard one last glance before refocusing on the human, who had stopped running after the platoon. Because they’d caught the entire platoon.

“Drown me.” I groaned, pulling my slashes in close. “Don’t you care about them at all?”

The human cackled, and that was my answer. I placed a slash under my feet and pushed off, rocketing towards the human as I replaced it with a different one. The human yelped in surprise as my spear caught them in the neck, and I kicked them in the chest as the guards closed in on me. They skidded away, trailing droplets of blood along the ground, and gasped for breath through a destroyed throat.

I spun my slashes out around me, cutting into the guards and sprinting out of the mass.

The human held out their hands and babbled something incoherent that could’ve been begging for their life. But I saw the purple strings gathering on their fingers. They were about to try to use their core on me again.

Oh, this was going to be precious.

I slammed my spear down next to the human’s head and stared down at them. “Surrender.” I demanded, already readying my follow-up for when their core completely failed.

“Fuck you.” The human spat, but thanks to their throat, it came out more as a profane gurgle. They grabbed my arm, and I felt that same tingle again, yet multiplied by a hundred.

If that last one was like a sandy breeze, this was like a tornado in the sahara. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, feeling the oil in my body fighting back against the human’s guide. It was trying to take hold in the non-human parts of me, but those parts were inexorably entwined. They were as much human as they were Celaura, and as much oil as they were blood.

“No. Fuck you.” I retorted calmly, transforming my spear into a sword and slamming it down through the human’s stomach. They screamed. A lot. “Looks like you made a false assumption about me. Turns out I’m not as inhuman as you thought.”

The human froze, then… relaxed. “Oh, thank god.” They sighed, trying to sit up even though I’d just driven my sword through their stomach. “I thought I’d never see another real person ever again. You… aren’t Jewish, right? Because I can’t work with J–”

My fist collided with the human’s face. Multiple times.

“Don’t fucking talk to me like that. Undo your guide or I’ll kill you.” I ordered with as much hatred as I could force into my voice.

The human held up their hands in surrender. “Okay, okay! Fucking hell, don’t be such a–”

This time my elbow had the pleasure of shutting the human up. “Don’t finish that goddamn sentence. Who the heck are you, and how the hell did you get here?”

“I should be the one asking you that!” The human argued. From how fast their injuries were healing, they had to have a good recovery stat. That’s what the sword in the gut was there for. “Were you chosen by Voralk too? She told me there were other chosen, but I’ve only seen goddamn salads since I got to this world. What happened to everyone from last time?”

Well. That cleared up a whole lotta questions.

“Voralk. What’s she the Embodiment of?” I demanded, praying to whatever Staura gods were watching me that the chosen didn’t say ‘endurance’.

“Abandonment.”

Cold relief flooded over me. I couldn’t deal with having to work with someone who threw away Staura lives just because they were a human supremacist. “Did you get sent here to begin with?”

The human nodded vigorously. “My Embodiment sent me away for some reason. Probably because I’m so much better than the other humans that they needed me gone so they’d stand a chance.”

“Yeah, right.” I muttered. If I was this moron’s Embodiment, I’d send them the fuck away in the hopes that their mouth got them killed. “How’d you get in contact with Scalovera? Did he come to you, or did your Embodiment send you to him?”

“I have no idea. I cleared a few hazards to get some better gear, and then my Embodiment sent me to Rainbow Basin. That’s where I first met the salads.” The human pointed at the pile of unmoving Staura guards behind me for emphasis. “Freaks, all of them. But one of them paid me in gear and cores. Well, he didn’t pay me in cores, but who’d miss a few grassholes now and then?”

The human laughed heartily, as if they’d just told the world’s funniest joke. My disgust rose to a level I didn’t know possible. I’d met a lot of horrible people in my last life, but none of them were this casually horrible. Some of them were murderers, and rapists, but all of them carried a darkness that showed they knew the kind of scum they were. This human… they were proud of what they did. They relished in it.

Could I even risk working with them? They obviously had information, and seemed overly willing to share, but could I put Jun and Okeria in danger to get at it? Not to mention Mortician and all of Okeria’s friends, who I also needed for information and security. The human had even managed to carry their hate all the way through thirty-five years of hell. What kind of horrible person could do that?

“Oh I haven’t even introduced myself.” The human smacked themself on the forehead and chuckled. “I’m Dylan Erickson. I survived ten years before a lot of people stuck swords through me because they couldn’t handle being around someone so pure-blooded and better than them.”

I reflexively snorted a laugh at that. Ten fucking years. Not even a third as long as I’d lived, and he’d been killed by his own people. They must’ve found him just as insufferable as I did.

“Well, Dylan, we’re about to have a very short conversation.” I said flatly. “Answer my questions like your life depends on it.”