Equilibrium and the Implanted Voice

My reverse scale sensed it first—the fact that those things had completely cooled. The lingering fever in their flesh, the cooling flow of blood, the final traces of energy settled between bones and organs. Things I couldn't read until recently. Now I know. There was no more moving life inside them.

The moment certainty hit, hunger clawed at me from within again. It wasn't just stomach-growling empty. It was the shaking void of an emptied gut. The sensation of something that had filled my body draining away, leaving the shell to rot from the inside out. I'd pushed the last of my reserves into Yeon Mujin—a full body's worth of energy—just to keep him going. I couldn't hold out any longer. I slithered forward to the two corpses almost slipping across the ground.

The moment I crouched low, ready to draw out the remaining energy, my motion froze. I could absorb both. The question was which to take first. The choice would twist my entire body's direction. One was the remnant energy broken off from Yeon Mujin—close to Dao Force. Not identical, but the flow was similar. Pure, straight, with few impurities. Taking that first would let me hold onto my crumbling balance.

The other was the black one's yodan. Murky, sticky power like poison. Purely in terms of the flesh, it was far more direct. To forcibly patch my body on the verge of tearing apart and suppress the madness of my starving core, that would be quicker. Pushing more yokai force would accelerate my slide toward beast. But taking the Dao Force-like energy first would at least restore balance to the two flows tearing at each other inside me.

I hesitated briefly. Hunger felt like it would rip me apart right then, and my flesh craved the stronger one. But something else came into focus first. Tilt any further here, and there'd be no coming back. I drew up the energy left from Yeon Mujin first. It was pure. The complete opposite of the black one's. Not rotting poison for the flesh, but clear energy straightening my twisted insides. It drove in like a wedge between the torn gaps.

The flows tangled inside me shuddered. My original state was already heavily tilted. If yokai force was eight, Dao Force was two—and even that was torn in places, useless. But the new power shoved up the collapsed axis. The flow slammed to one side slowly regained its center. It was nearly half-and-half when it happened. That's when a familiar shape took hold inside me. Ouroboros. It had been there since right after my mutation, cycling through me. A grotesque, precarious loop where they devoured each other on the verge of snapping.

That trajectory was changing now. With the pure Dao energy entering, the two forcibly meshed flows began finding their places bit by bit. The gnawing motion to avoid breaking apart settled into a push-pull cycle. Taiji. The snake biting its tail, overlaid with the Taiji orbit. The malformed cycle was approaching its proper form.

And from that balanced core, a long-submerged sensation rose to the surface. Shin-sik. This time, it was clear. Not a faint brush. The tool I'd wielded in my daoist days, like erecting an extra layer of sensation outside my body. It settled back in sharply. Close to full restoration. But not all my old spells returned. Just the root of shin-sik; the techniques built atop it still slumbered.

One sensation hooked vividly among them. Domain. Gate Opening. The art of making the space outside the body part of the spellwork. I couldn't deploy it right now. Just a clue had surfaced. But the direction was clear.

Hunger hadn't vanished. I'd barely balanced things; the void itself remained unfilled. Tension pulled under my teeth—the kind that eases only when biting prey. My gaze locked straight on the black one's yodan. No hesitation this time.

The moment I swallowed it, dense yokai force slammed into my flesh first. Muscles twisted under scales, bones and tendons tightened. My body didn't suddenly bulk up. But it hardened immensely. The gaps on the verge of collapse sealed; the unstable tremors snagging on each scale settled. Efficiency was lower than expected, though. The reason showed itself quickly. The black one's yodan was pure, no doubt. But it'd taken Yeon Mujin's Parasol Sword energy head-on. The exterior looked intact, but much of the interior had burned away. So this was the limit.

There was reason for the restrained returns despite the sense of devouring something immense. Hunger persisted. The rampaging void had been tamped down ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a step, but the hole gaped open. My tongue tip scraped the floor on its own. The freshly swallowed yokai force churned immaturely inside. Scales quivered faintly. The impulse to tear and swallow more bubbled up from below, even suppressed.

I exhaled shortly. That pinned the impulse in place. Then I raised my head. Deep inside there. Yeon Mujin, the black one, me—we'd all been drawn that way. The sealed structure that seemed the cause of this mess. Shattered metal, half-exposed stone, traces of an ancient barrier lingering between. No reason to ignore it now that I'd come this far.

I slithered deeper along the passage. The structure remained in place. Same as when I'd first seen it. Under the metallic surface, dry stone layers showed; tangled in between were translucent walls and unknowable frames. The floor had been pried up from below, platform and tracks twisted and torn where the structure had forced its way up. Traces of being shoved upward forcibly.

What had changed was me. Before, I'd only grasped the surface dissonance. What flowed inside, where it knotted—no grasp at all. I'd only vaguely sensed it was concealed. Now I saw. Thanks to shin-sik's return. Beneath the surface, the Dao formation forcibly patched together drew clear. Not exactly as I knew it. Twisted in places, added on in others. But the root was the same.

The seal was strong. Reason the contaminants couldn't touch the center. But it unraveled for me. Not intentionally. As shin-sik swept the structure, my gaze lingered on one point. That was the knot's core. The moment my gaze touched it, the knot began untying from within. Like a lock meeting its key.

I paused. Huh? That was odd. A seal woven this tightly shouldn't unravel like that. No one in this world could have undone it. Yet a mere glance opened it. No time to dwell on the incongruity. One face of the structure quietly parted.

A space like ruins or a lab. Metal and stone intermingled. Smoothly finished walls exposed dry stone layers; translucent panels partially remained on the ceiling. The floor dipped in a circle, radial grooves from the center extending to the walls. Devices long dead still clung to faint glows in the dark, not fully extinguished.

At the center stood a stone structure like a tree. Strange shape. Gray stony surface rose like a trunk, branches splitting off; from somewhere inside flowed a familiar wavelength. Not identical. But akin to my power. Flow neither Dao nor yokai force, belonging to neither alone. Similar to things I'd brushed past before. Ancient, parched, like a husk left behind.

Drawn like a moth, I approached. Pressed my snout to the structure. In that instant, something cold yet lukewarm surged back into me like reflux. Too directional for energy, too material for information. It pierced my skin, burrowed to the back of my head, and forcibly took ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠root there.

Before reason could judge, my body convulsed first. Tail lashed the floor, denting metal. Coils twisted wildly to wrap the back of my head. Head scraped the same spot against the wall, snagging and tearing a scale. Fangs bent toward my own rear. Impossible angle. Knowing that, my jaws still gaped.

I dropped low instantly. Minimized scale contact with the floor, narrowed my field of view. Tongue flicked out, tasting air. No scent. No heat. No heartbeat. Yet the voice rang clear.

My tail coiled once, then released. Instinct surged again. Didn't know what it was, but it read all my reactions.

Irritation rose at the light tone, but I suppressed even that. Unknown place. Structure akin to my power. Upside-down scale embedded in my head's back. Something too human reading my reactions. I knew too little. It knew more—at least some. Better to extract what I could than rip it out now.

Fangs snapped toward the embedded spot again. Futile. Mind-read? Thought it, and response lagged slightly.

The voice distorted once. Like cracks between letters, trailing off. A small spark at the back of my head. Prickling up my nerves—from inside leaking out. Ah, it's struggling.

The voice sharpened, then warped at the end again. That was the last. The inner sensation sank a notch. Voice persisted but density plummeted. I lowered slowly. Coils stayed tight. Muscles twitched beneath. Scales quivered faintly; venom dripped between fangs. Hit the metal floor, bubbled white, etched marks. One drop, another.

Reason suppressed as best it could. Body wouldn't obey. This was the limit for now. Thrashing wouldn't dislodge it. Body hadn't accepted; mind had to first.

Needed time to sort thoughts. Unknown thing embedded at my nape. Claims I can't remove it, or I'd break too. Could be lies. No way to verify. But one thing certain: whatever it was, it knew more about this world than me. And what I needed to check first wasn't usefulness, but whether it held my throat.