Chapter 364: Something Was Better Than Nothing
I walked back into the mansion with four men following close enough behind me that I could practically hear their minds racing.
Of course, no one said anything at first. They weren’t the best when it came to communication, and I wasn’t that far behind.
But I was willing to bet that every thought that was burning the hamster wheels in their heads were because of the injured man outside the wall, the marks under his skin, and the fact that the Devourer was still alive somewhere after I had done my best to convince both myself and it otherwise.
Or maybe they were waiting for me to say something.
If that was the case, they were going to be seriously disappointed.
I crossed the entrance hall without slowing down, heading straight for the staircase. My body wanted sleep, my eyes were burning with the effort of keeping them open, but, me being me, my brain was already running like I had three massive vats of Red Bull.
Hell, I was pretty sure that I could taste color at the moment, and I hadn’t touched a drop of the sweet goodness.
But things had to be done, and my brain was already working on Plan ZX.9.
Of course, that was the exact moment that Zhenlan decided to ruin my entire morning. "You need to eat," he announced like his word was law.
I couldn’t hold back the scoff/laugh that came out of my mouth. I was way too... awake to put up with anything that came out of his mouth. Waving one hand in the air with dismissal, I continued to my destination.
"Only if Chenghai makes it," I called out over my shoulder. We all knew that he wasn’t going to make me food, so at least that would take the guys attention off of me for a few hours while they fought amongst themselves.
Maybe I should have an actual Red Bull for when this whole burst of frantic energy burnt out.
And it would.
I reached the stairs and started climbing before any of them could object to my lack of breakfast.
Cocking my head to the side as I climbed up the stairs, I thought about everything in my space. I was pretty sure that there were a few cheese Danishes that I couldn’t bring myself to eat before. They would work perfect as the hold me over.
Seriously, the tricky part wasn’t have an infinite space that could perfectly hold everything... it was forcing yourself to actually use the supplies that you wanted, knowing fully well that after you used them, you never got the back.
Reaching the top of the stairs, knowing fully well that no one was behind me, I pulled out a Danish and crammed it into my mouth, forcing my brain not to freak out and add and amendment to one of my plans that would result in me getting more of these things.
Maybe I should have listened to Zhenlan and eaten something....
Nah. I wasn’t going to admit that that man was right. After all, a dead clock was right twice a day.
But back to the long list of things that have currently ruined my day..... The Devourer was alive.
You know what? That was pretty much the biggest issue I had. That ugly oversized maggot had almost killed me, escaped before I could finish the job, and had apparently spent the time since then eating enough people to keep itself alive.
Which meant that that... thing... had gotten stronger.
But I hadn’t.
I didn’t want any plant powers in this life, and I pretty much just used them... haphazardly. Sure, I had fought a lot of zombies, but that was chicken feed.
If I wanted to kill the Devourer and make sure that it stayed dead this time, I was going to need to get stronger.
Life would have been so much better if this could be one of those video montages where I snapped my fingers and suddenly I was a kickass baddy that could take out anyone who looked at me wrong.
Oh, who was I kidding? I was already there.
But still... all joking aside. I needed to get stronger, or else I wasn’t going to be walking away from this.
And I really wasn’t sure if the third time really was the charm.
The bedroom door was still open when I reached the second floor. I stepped inside, closed it behind me, and walked toward the bed.
The sheets were still wrinkled from the night before, twisted around the pillows and pulled loose from one corner of the mattress. Yuche’s shirt hung low enough on me to cover most of what needed covering, though one sleeve kept slipping down my arm every time I moved.
I sat in the middle of the massive king sized bed and pulled my legs up beneath me.
Then I reached into my space.
Zombie cores spilled over the sheets in front of me, rolling into the folds and knocking against one another in a dull clatter. There were more than I remembered collecting, though most of them were useless to me.
Grey.
Brown.
Red.
Blue.
Yellow.
A few colors I didn’t care enough to name because none of them seemed to be green.
I started sorting through them anyway, pushing everything I couldn’t use to one side and gathering the green cores into a small pile near my knee.
Small being the important word. Both in size and in number.
Most of them were barely bigger than my fingernail and a few were cloudy enough that I almost threw them back into my space without bothering to touch them. Hell, the biggest one wasn’t even the size of the first joint of my thumb.
Pathetic.
Then again, even mosquitoes had a little meat on them.
Probably.
I had never tried eating one, and I had no intention of starting now.
I picked up the first green core and closed my hand around it.
The stone softened almost immediately. Its hard surface melted into my palm before the energy spread slowly through my hand and up my arm.
My plants stirred.
Not enough to shake the walls or make the vines outside move, but enough that I could feel them. The roots under the mansion stretched in my direction, brushing against my power before settling again.
I reached for another core.
Then another.
Each one melted faster than the last, but the energy inside them disappeared almost as quickly as I absorbed it. They were too small and too weak to do much more than take the edge off the emptiness under my skin.
Still, something was better than nothing.