257 You Want Some Hanky Panky?

[POV: Alice]

Alice remained seated, her hands cradling the warmth of the teacup, when Da Ji leaned forward, her voice calm yet probing.

“How is my brother?”

Alice hesitated for a moment. She had grown accustomed to Da Wei’s façade of unshakable steadiness, but she knew better than to lie to Da Ji. “He has been having more and more of those strange lucid nightmares,” she admitted. “Though he hides it well, I can tell when he’s shaken.”

Da Ji frowned, her sharp eyes narrowing. “Strange. I am already much like an Ascended Soul. My cultivation roots in the Longevity Path, and I should be suffering something similar if it were natural. But clearly, I am not.”

Alice stirred the tea lightly, watching the steam curl upward like ephemeral threads. “It’s only a theory,” she said carefully. “Avoiding the corruption that comes with reaching the Eleventh Realm is possible if it’s done off-world, the same way he managed it. If that’s the case, then what he’s experiencing has to stem from something else entirely.”

She lowered her gaze to the dark surface of the tea, her mind drifting back to the gods of Losten. Many of them had spiraled into madness, their divinity corroded from within. Some had insisted that it was faith itself, the twisting weight of countless prayers, that drove them insane. She had seen what worship could do, reshaping minds and bending once-noble spirits into grotesque reflections of their original selves.

Da Ji’s tone cut through Alice’s thoughts. “Do you really think going against his wishes is right? He refuses to be made into a god, and yet that’s exactly what we are pushing him toward.”

Alice’s lips curved into a faint smile that held no warmth. “He’s conflicted. Better this way. If my assessment is right, the nightmares, the strange episodes… those are not from his cultivation or his constitution. They’re from faith itself, twisting him. Right now, he’s more vulnerable than ever. He lives purely on his spirit body, and his constitution is… beyond strange. To exist without a soul, yet still create one, that isn’t something this world or my world was meant to support.”

Da Ji folded her arms, her expression darkening. “And if the Supreme Void had succeeded? What if what we’re seeing is not faith twisting him, but him unraveling?”

Alice set down her teacup with deliberate calm. “We better not think along those lines. Entertaining that possibility helps no one.”

Yet her thoughts betrayed her composure. Even in Losten, where unnatural things often walked the world, it was impossible for a lifeform to exist without a soul, save for necromancy, and even they required anchors. For Da Wei to live like this was nothing short of abnormal. It was entirely possible the Supreme Void had scarred him in ways unseen. The worst case was too dreadful to speak aloud: that the Supreme Void had succeeded in seeding itself into him, or worse, was slowly using him as its vessel to escape its prison.

By then, Da Wei had already left, leaving the two women alone with their tea. The conversation turned quieter, but no less grave, as they exchanged thoughts on what more they could do to shield him, or at the very least, ease his burden.

At last, Alice rose, brushing down her robes with careful dignity. “I’ll think on this further,” she said softly. With a final nod to Da Ji, she left the shrine, the weight of too many unspoken worries clinging to her steps.

The air was lively with the cries of vendors.

“Fresh buns, soft as cloud, two for a copper!”

“Herbs from the northern groves, healing for wounds, clarity for the mind!”

“Charcoal! Charcoal for cheap!”

Alice paused by the roadside, her crimson eyes lingering on the growing rows of makeshift stalls. She let the sound of bargaining, the shuffle of sandals, and the laughter of children wash over her. The city was alive in a way it had not been for years.

‘Not long ago, there wasn’t even a stall in sight,’ she thought. ‘Now, one by one, they are beginning to appear. Small, scattered, but undeniable. It means something… something real.’

Taking the long way back to City Hall, she walked beneath the hanging lanterns, their glow flickering against brick and wood alike. The years passed here were but drops in the ocean of her long existence, and yet they weighed heavily on her heart. In such a short span, so much had happened. She could not even cling to certainty anymore. Even the name, David, was slipping away from her.

It was his true name, the one she had first known him by, the one she swore she would never forget. But with each passing season, it blurred, as though some unseen hand scrubbed at her memory. No magic she wielded could restore it, nor could her vampiric resilience guard against the erosion. Not even the oldest of her kind probably had an answer. That was the true terror of this world: the Hollowed World itself pressing down upon them, warping things even beyond recognition. And that wasn’t even to mention the False Earth, with its own dangers lurking like carrion beasts.

‘If I had my way,’ she thought bitterly, ‘I’d drag him from this cursed place, back to Losten where at least the rules of existence held steady. Even if he cursed me for it, at least he’d still be whole.’

By the time she arrived at City Hall, twilight had already spread its veil across the streets. She moved swiftly down the familiar corridors, the sounds of the city fading behind her. Yet when she pushed open the door to David’s office, her breath froze in her chest.

David was convulsing violently, his body jerking as though pulled in opposite directions. Bones jutted at odd angles, threatening to pierce skin, his frame grotesquely distorted. From his back, a ruined set of wings erupted, jagged, broken, and drenched in ichor. His very being seemed caught between dimensions, tearing itself apart.

Alice staggered, her hands tightening on the doorframe as nausea welled up from deep within her. She fell to her knees, unable to steady herself. The polished wood floor beneath her was no longer familiar; coarse hair follicles sprouted from the planks, patches of dead skin forming across the grain. A warm wetness seeped through, the unmistakable stench of blood rising as it bled from the seams.

Her gaze rose in horror to the ceiling. From its plaster, crimson drops began to fall, a drizzle at first, then a steady rain of red.

And Alice, trembling, stared at the floor, too afraid to lift her eyes again.

David’s voice cracked as he writhed, his form caught between shapes and dimensions. “I need to help them… I need to do something to make their lives better!” His words were broken, choked out between spasms. “It’s all my fault… everything… it’s all my fault!”

Alice’s nails dug into the warped floorboards as she crawled forward, her body shaking. The bile that threatened her throat, the instinct to recoil from the stench of blood and the grotesque scene around her, pressed against her mind with suffocating weight. Every step closer felt like dragging herself through filth that clung to her soul. But she pressed on. She could not leave him like this.

Her arms finally wrapped around him. The instant her skin touched his, it burned. The holy energies gathered around his contorting body seared her flesh, sending blisters and cracks across her arms. Yet she held him tighter, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. “David,” she whispered, her voice trembling but firm, “it’s going to be fine. I promise. You’re not alone.”

Her lips moved into incantations, weaving spell after spell into him from Calm Mind, Tranquil Heart, and Spirit Soothing. Anything that could ease the storm consuming him. She could feel the spells fraying on contact with the chaos radiating from his body, but she refused to let go. “Stay with me,” she urged, pressing her words into his ear, as much command as comfort. “Breathe. Just breathe. I’m here.”

The room began to change. Slowly, the hair and blood receded, the smell of iron fading with it. David’s twisted frame shifted, bones sliding back into place, wings retracting into nothingness. The grotesque illusion ebbed until the world looked ordinary again… His office returned to quiet, almost peaceful.

David slumped against her, dazed, his eyes unfocused. Her own arms smoked faintly, the burns from his holy power closing over and mending at last. When clarity finally returned to his gaze, he blinked at her, utterly unknowing of what had just transpired. “What? You want some hanky panky?” he muttered, with that infuriating lopsided grin.

Alice’s hand shot up on instinct, smacking the back of his head with the full force of her maxed strength.

“OW!—” David yelped, clutching the spot like a child, tears welling in his eyes. “You would’ve killed anyone else, you know! Good thing it’s me!”

Alice exhaled slowly, her face a mixture of relief, frustration, and exhaustion. Her breath had steadied, though her heart still beat unevenly from what she had just witnessed. She kept her arms loosely around David, not out of affection but to anchor him. When his eyes finally cleared, she pulled back slightly and fixed him with a stern look.

“Do you remember anything?” she asked.

David tilted his head, lips curling into that infuriating smirk. “You want some hanky panky?”

Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Try again.”

He flinched as though he’d been caught stealing, looking like he was about to bolt from the room entirely. But then he froze, studying her expression, and something in her seriousness pressed down on him. With a weak grin, he tried again. “You… want a baby?”

Alice stared at him, utterly unamused.

Inside, she wrestled with three possibilities. ‘Either he’s in one of his mischievous moods and trying to lighten the air, he’s actually serious, or… his condition really is worsening.’ None of the options comforted her, least of all the last.

“David,” she pressed, “what happened just now? Do you remember what you were doing?”

He blinked, shrugged, walked to his chair, and answered. “Nope.”

She leaned in closer, voice firmer. “The room was bleeding, your bones were jutting out… you have wings, David. You don’t remember?”

He gave her a puzzled look, but then, just as she thought something might be stirring in him, his eyes glazed over. His focus slipped away like sand through her fingers. The dazed look lingered for a few moments before he shook his head and grinned again. “What were we talking about?”

Alice clenched her jaw. She tried again, walking him through the grotesque scene, describing every detail to shake him back into awareness. But each time, right as she felt him teetering on the edge of recognition, his mind blanked. He forgot the conversation itself, like reality was skipping over the truth.

Her thoughts grew heavier. ‘It’s getting worse. Before, he at least suffered strange visions and would confide in me, no matter how bizarre. But now… now he doesn’t even recall them. He can’t.’ The weight of that realization sank deep into her chest.

Finally, she gave up, exhaling a long breath. “Not long ago, you went berserk. But you won’t even admit it to yourself.”

David looked at her, then grinned with that reckless spark again. “So… hanky panky?”

She rolled her eyes and shot back, “You don’t even have a dick right now, David. You’re in your spirit body.”

His grin faltered, but he quickly raised two fingers, wiggling them.

Alice pinched the bridge of her nose. “You do realize vampires don’t feel pleasure of any kind, don’t you? And just so you know, I’m fully aware you’re resorting to this just to avoid paperwork.” She crossed her arms. “You can’t flirt or joke your way out of here, David.”

David slumped back dramatically, flailing his arms like a child. “Come on!” he whined, almost crying.

Alice’s sigh carried the weight of both exhaustion and concern.