Watcher Yaxiu

"What 'Touch'?" Yaxiu found it completely baffling. These sorcerers were always coming up with new terms he had never heard before. "It actually succeeded... Heath actually succeeded! How is that possible? How could this be?!" Xilin hissed under his breath. Suddenly turning into a master desk-clearer, he slammed his fist furiously onto the desk, sweeping the Curtain of Knowledge off with both hands and sending it crashing to the floor, where it shattered to pieces with a sharp clatter. Yaxiu swallowed hard. "Calm down, calm down. Why don't you explain the situation to me? Who knows, maybe I can provide every kind of support except substantive help—ugh!" The tree trunk suddenly compressed inward. Yaxiu instantly felt crushing pressure bearing down on him from all directions, squeezing him so hard that respiration became agonizingly difficult, as if he were about to be flattened into a Yaxiu sweetheart cake at any second! *I... I can't breathe!* "Still not fighting back?" Xilin said coldly, raising his left hand toward Yaxiu in a gripping gesture. "Your physical body is still so fragile. If I'm not careful, I'll crush you into paste. I'll count to three. Three, two, one—" *Am I done for, just like this?* *If only I had killed him just now... If only I hadn't come looking for Xilin... If only...* With death knocking at his door, Yaxiu unexpectedly discovered that he was not nearly as tough as he had thought. His heart was actually flooded with regret. He had assumed he did not care all that much about clinging to life, but reality proved otherwise. Or perhaps what he clung to was not life itself... Yaxiu instinctively shut his eyes tight and clenched his teeth, waiting for the final agony before death. Yet after the countdown ended, the tree trunk did not crush him into pulp; instead, it loosened slightly, allowing Yaxiu to breathe freely once more. He opened his eyes and saw Xilin stumble and collapse against the desk. Tears streamed down the elf's face, yet a smile crept onto the corners of his mouth. "You really aren't Heath... You really aren't... Hahahaha! He succeeded? He actually succeeded? How could he succeed?!" Yaxiu watched in silence as Xilin wept and laughed. After a long while, he finally asked, "What were you testing just now?" Disregarding all decorum, Xilin simply sat on the carpet leaning against the desk. Only after a moment did he reply, "The real Heath held the 'secret key.' It required no sorcery power, not even words. As long as Heath activated the secret key, he could control any cultist—including me." Deep, bone-chilling terror surfaced on his face. "That was a corruption far more terrifying than death—a total deprivation of self-control! I once tried to commit suicide, but death was no excuse for disobedience. The instant before taking my life, I lost control over my body. Only after completing the tasks he assigned did I regain the right to 'use' my own body... From then on, I could never resist any command of his, forced to exert my utmost to carry out his will. "From the moment you held the Heart Sword to my throat, I knew you weren't Heath. But I didn't dare believe it, didn't dare take the risk—perhaps Heath was merely acting, perhaps you were just an alternate personality he split off, or perhaps..." Xilin's voice trembled violently. "I simply didn't have the courage to believe that Heath could ever disappear. "I was afraid you were nothing more than another of his cruel tricks." Yaxiu looked at Xilin's right hand. "You mentioned Stunning Eye earlier..." "You didn't inherit Heath's memories?" Xilin raised his right hand. The hole in the palm was perfectly round, like a puzzle missing a piece, allowing moonlight to pass straight through. "This was a hole Heath drilled out personally. It was the price of the ritual." "Ritual... the ritual faction?" "Indeed." Xilin looked down at his hand. "To be fair, though the price was steep, the effect of 'Stunning Eye' is exceptionally powerful. Anyone I gaze upon through my palm falls into a cognitive stupor lasting several seconds. During that time, the target cannot perform any action whatsoever, unable to even blink." Hard crowd control! Yaxiu felt the true terror of this sorcerer control ability down to his bones. He had not been able to resist that cognitive stupor at all earlier, because during that state, the thought of 'resisting' could not even form in time. If an ordinary person's thoughts were a waterfall, with countless splashes and churning waves surging every second, then Yaxiu's thoughts just now had been akin to a stagnant bog, where only after an eternity would a lone bubble rise from rot. "Of course, such a formidable effect isn't without limitations," Xilin said. "Stunning Eye can only work on a person once, because only the first time carries the shock; after that, only the spectacle remains." "Because I was affected by Stunning Eye just now, you were certain I wasn't Heath..." "Heath had already looked into my Stunning Eye long ago," Xilin said calmly. "Heath had viewed every single cultist endowed with Stunning Eye across the cult. He would never allow his followers to hold any means of countering him." Although there was no proof, Yaxiu was trapped in the tree right now; Xilin could make him do handstands and defecate if he wanted to. Xilin had no reason to lie to him. Even so, Yaxiu still found it hard to believe. After all, Heath was absolute scum who was not even a sorcerer. Without Yaxiu, Heath probably would not even have survived Igola the Fair Beast, that rookie killer; Igola would have stripped him of all his contribution points and cast him down to the very bottom of the prison hierarchy. If Heath really was some big villain with hidden trump cards, then... where were those cards? *I came all the way here to sub in for you, and you didn't even leave me a single trump card?!* So Yaxiu still felt as though Xilin was insulting his intelligence. A two-hundred-year-old Two Wings elf, actually controlled by a non-sorcerer human in his twenties? If Yaxiu were to tell this to Sword Princess, she would probably retort, "You're too young to be reading so much sleazy smut about underlings dominating their masters." After a moment of silence, Yaxiu asked, "Why are you telling me so much?" "Because I'm considering," Xilin said, staring at the floor, "how to deal with you. "After all, the final mission Heath left me was to kill you." Yaxiu froze. "Kill me... Wait, but I am Yaxiu Heath. You mean—" "Precisely." Supporting himself against the desk, Xilin stood up. "The last mission Heath gave me was to do everything in my power to kill him. To thoroughly and utterly obliterate Heath once the ritual concluded." The corners of Yaxiu's mouth twitched, and his pupils shrank. "So my arrest by the Bloodmad Hunters... Valkas... the Blood Moon Trial... and Gerard's visit... they were all..." "All 'your own' will," Xilin said. "I was merely doing everything in my power to carry out 'your' orders." *The one who wanted to kill me was Heath?* Even as Yaxiu tried to convince himself that Xilin was lying, his heart pounded frantically despite himself. Endless malice and venom submerged his thoughts like an abyss. A chill pierced straight to the core of his heart, seeping through his entire body. In a daze, he seemed to hear the mocking laughter of countless people. From the very beginning, he had been a chess piece, arranged with absolute precision. He could not even tell who the true mastermind was. He felt like a child watching bullies toss his schoolbag back and forth, desperate to fight back but not knowing whom to hit, so overwhelmed by grievance that tears threatened to fall. Yet for some reason, no flames of rage ignited within Yaxiu to dispel the bitter cold inside him. He calmly accepted the truth that he had been played. He could even look on with detached indifference as his own thoughts churned and boiled, like watching someone else's sorcerer manual, admiring a turbulent and breathtaking story. When you can observe suffering, you are liberated from suffering. When you can observe yourself, you are liberated from fate. Anger, resentment, and regret solve nothing. Only absolute composure, precise judgment, and machine-like execution can pierce every secret, comprehend the truths of the world, and carry out one's will. Do not let bodily hormones sway your thought. Do not let tedious worldly conventions shackle your imagination. Do not let unknown fate shatter your composure. *Yaxiu, you must watch yourself. You must transcend reality. You must consider the correct next step, execute strategies that maximize benefit, and exploit every resource at your disposal.* *You need only treat others as tools.* *And treat yourself as a tool as well.* *Then, you can become Yaxiu the Watcher, free of all stray thoughts.*