Chapter 583: I Need Power!
In the days that followed, something changed between them.
Mika couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
But now, when he returned from his trips, Anya was always there. Waiting. Ready with a hug and a smile and some silly story about the pictures she had drawn or the games she had invented.
She also made sure he rested, curling up beside him when he slept, her small body pressed against his as if she could shield him from the nightmares that plagued his rest.
And when she ate the blue sludge, she didn’t just eat it.
She savored it.
She thanked Mika for it. She told him how strong it made her feel, how healthy, how grateful she was that he had found such wonderful food.
Because every bite was a piece of him. Every meal was an act of love so profound that Anya could barely comprehend it.
The least she could do was honor it.
Mika noticed many other changes as well.
He noticed how she never complained anymore, never cried, never asked when rescue would come.
How she took charge of their little corner of the cavern, organizing supplies and keeping things tidy and finding new ways to pass the time.
The way she look at him had also changed—with a fierce, protective love that seemed far too intense for a six-year-old girl.
But he didn’t question it. He was too tired to question it.
He just accepted her presence, her warmth, her unwavering support.
She was his anchor now, just as he had once been hers.
They had become a team. A partnership.
Two children against the darkness, holding each other up when the weight became too much to bear alone.
—
By unfortunately, by the fifty-eighth day, nearly two months since they had fallen into this nightmare—
—Mika’s body was finally beginning to fail.
It wasn’t the kind of exhaustion that could be cured by a few hours of rest, or a decent meal.
It was the kind of exhaustion that had seeped into his bones, into his marrow, into the very essence of what he was.
Every movement was a battle. Every breath was a conscious effort.
His legs, the ones that had been severed and regrown more times than he could count trembled beneath him like those of a newborn fawn, threatening to buckle with every step.
His vision had begun to betray him too.
Sometimes he would see double—two Anyas, two buckets, two paths stretching out before him.
But worst of all was what had happened to his body.
Mika had always been a healthy child, solid and strong despite his young age.
Now, looking at him, one could count every rib through his papery skin.
His cheeks had hollowed out until his face looked almost skeletal.
His arms, which had once been capable of lifting things no five-year-old should be able to lift, had withered to thin sticks that could barely support the weight of a bucket.
The constant regeneration had finally taken its toll.
His body was cannibalizing itself, burning through its reserves at a rate that even his extraordinary constitution couldn’t sustain.
And beneath it all, the Anti-mana continued to crush.
He was a creature of pure mana trapped in a world that was fundamentally hostile to his existence, and it was killing him by inches.
Anya watched all of this with a mounting sense of terror that she couldn’t quite hide.
She tried everything she could think of to help him.
She made him sit down while she fetched water from the stream.
She tore strips from her already-ragged clothing to make cool compresses for his forehead.
She tried to make him laugh with silly faces and jokes, the same way he had done for her when she was the one struggling.
But none of it worked.
"Mika." She said on the morning of the fifty-eighth day, her voice barely above a whisper. "Please. Please just rest today. Just one day!"
"The adults can skip one meal. They won’t starve. Look at them—they’re healthier than they’ve ever been."
Mika followed her gaze toward the far corner of the cavern, where the adults were gathered.
They did look healthy. More than healthy, really.
The older doctor, who had been gray-haired and wrinkled when they first arrived, now looked like a man in his prime.
The fat administrator, who had been so obese that he wheezed when he walked, had shed his excess weight and now moved with a lean grace
Even the nurses, who had been plain and tired-looking before, now possessed an almost unnatural beauty.
Their skin glowing, their hair lustrous, their features somehow sharper and more refined than they had been two months ago.
They didn’t look like people who were starving.
They looked like people who had been dining at a five-star restaurant every night.
"It’s not about hunger anymore." Mika said quietly. "It hasn’t been about hunger for a long time."
Before Anya say anything back, the adults noticed that Mika wasn’t moving toward the fissure.
"Boy!" The older doctor’s voice cracked through the cavern like a whip. "What are you waiting for? We’re hungry!"
The other adults echoed him, their voices overlapping into a chorus of demands.
"Yeah, get moving!"
"We need that fruit!"
"Stop being so lazy!"
Anya stepped in front of Mika, her small body positioning itself between him and the approaching adults.
"He’s not going anywhere!" She shouted, her voice trembling but defiant.
"Can’t you see he’s exhausted?! He can barely stand! Skip one meal—just one—and let him rest!"
The doctor’s face twisted into something ugly.
"Skip a meal? Skip a meal?" He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Do you have any idea what you’re saying, little girl? That fruit is keeping us alive. It’s making us stronger. Healthier. Better."
"And you want us to just...skip a meal?"
"You’re not even starving!" Anya shot back. "Look at yourselves! You’re the healthiest you’ve ever been!"
"You don’t need food—you want it! There’s a difference!"
"What we need or want is none of your concern." The doctor said coldly. "The boy has a duty. He fetches the fruit. That’s how it’s been, and that’s how it’s going to stay. Now step aside."
"No."
"Step. Aside."
"I said no!"
And then Mika’s hand settled on her shoulder.
"It’s alright, Anya."
She spun around to face him.
"No, Mika, it’s not alright! You can barely walk! If you go in there again—"
"It’s fine." He gave her that smile, the forced, reassuring smile that she had come to hate. "I’ll go get the food. It won’t take long."
"See?" The main doctor said, his tone dripping with condescension. "That’s a good boy. That’s how children should behave—listening to their elders, doing their duty."
"You could learn something from him, little lady."
Anya wanted to kill him. The urge was so sudden and so violent that it shocked her.
She had never wanted to hurt anyone before—not really, not like this.
But looking at the doctor’s smug, satisfied face, she could imagine nothing more satisfying than wiping that expression away forever.
But Mika was already moving toward the fissure, his steps slow and unsteady.
And Anya, her murderous rage momentarily forgotten, hurried to follow him.
"Mika, let me help you. Please. At least let me carry the bucket."
He didn’t argue. That, more than anything else, told her how exhausted he truly was.
—
But this didn’t last long as by the sixty-first day, Mika’s body finally gave out.
He had pushed himself beyond all reasonable limits, driven by sheer willpower and the desperate hope that rescue would arrive at any moment. Fauna would come.
Someone would come.
All he had to do was hold on a little longer, just a little longer and everything would be okay.
But no one came.
And on the sixty-first day, as Mika emerged from the fissure carrying the bucket of blue sludge, his legs buckled beneath him and he collapsed.
"Mika!"
Anya was at his side in an instant, the bucket clattering to the ground and spilling its contents across the stone floor.
She gathered him into her arms, cradling his head against her chest, and the moment she touched him, she knew something was terribly, terribly wrong.
His skin was cold. Clammy. His breathing was so shallow that she could barely detect it.
His eyes were half-open but unfocused, staring at something she couldn’t see.
"Mika? Mika, can you hear me!?" She shook him gently, then harder when he didn’t respond. "Mika! Answer me! Please, say something—anything—"
But Mika didn’t answer. His head lolled against her shoulder, and his breathing grew even fainter.
"No." She whispered. "No, no, no, no—Mika, you can’t do this. You can’t leave me. Not now. Not after everything. Please—"
Just then, shadow fell over them.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"
Anya looked up to see the adults gathered around them, their faces twisted with fury.
But they weren’t looking at Mika. They were looking at the spilled bucket, at the blue sludge now smeared across the stone floor.
"You useless boy!" The older doctor snarled. "You couldn’t even carry a simple bucket?! That was our food! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!"
"He’s dying!" Anya screamed. "Look at him! He’s literally dying, and all you care about is your stupid food?!"
"Dying?" One of the nurses snorted. "He’s just tired. He’ll recover. He always does. But that food on the ground isn’t going to recover, is it?"
The adults didn’t wait for a response.
They dropped to their knees—all of them, doctors and nurses and attendants alike and began scooping the spilled sludge from the ground with their bare hands.
"Tasty! So tasty!"
"Don’t leave a drop!"
"Hey, piss off! That’s mine!"
They licked the stone floor clean, their tongues scraping against the rock in a desperate frenzy manner.
They looked like animals. No—worse than animals.
Animals at least had dignity.
These creatures, whatever they had become, had abandoned any pretense of humanity.
But the spill wasn’t enough. There was never enough.
"That’s it!?" One of the nurses demanded, licking the last traces of blue from her fingers. "That’s all there is? We need more!"
"He needs to go back in." The fat administrator said, pointing at Mika’s crumpled form. "Wake him up! Make him get more!"
"Are you insane?!" Anya positioned herself between the adults and Mika, her arms spread wide. "He can’t even stand! He can’t even breathe properly!"
"If he goes back in there, he’ll die!"
"Then he’ll die doing his duty." The main doctor said coldly. "Better that than all of us starving."
"He’s not going anywhere!" Anya shouted. "He needs rest! He needs—"
"What he needs..." The doctor interrupted. "...is to do his duty. He’s the one who fetches the fruit. That’s his role. That’s his purpose. And if he can’t fulfill that purpose, then what good is he?"
The casual cruelty of the words struck Anya like a slap in the face.
Mika had done everything for these people.
He had fed them when they were starving.
He had treated their wounds when they were injured.
He had risked his life over and over and over again, literally sacrificing pieces of his own body—to keep them alive.
And this was how they repaid him?
"Get out." She said, her voice trembling with rage. "Get out of here! Now!"
"Or what?" The doctor took a step closer, and there was something different in his eyes now.
Something calculating.
Something hungry.
"What are you going to do, little girl? The boy is clearly incapacitated. He can’t protect you anymore. And we still need that fruit. We need..."
His voice dropped to a whisper, reverent and hungry.
"...power. I need more power."
"Power?" Anya repeated, confused despite her fury.
The doctor laughed—a cold, manic sound that echoed through the cavern.
"Yes, child. Power! Haven’t you noticed? Haven’t you felt it?"
He raised his hand and, with a casual gesture, brought his fist down on a nearby boulder.
Boom!
The stone cracked, then shattered, fragments spraying across the floor.
"Ever since I started eating that fruit, I’ve been getting stronger! Faster! Better! This is the strength of the blessed—the strength that’s always been denied to mortals like us..."
"...And I want more of it."
"I’m faster than any athlete who ever lived."
The administrator boasted, and to demonstrate, he leaped onto a boulder ten feet away with a single bound.
"No human should be able to do that. But I can. Because of the fruit."
"I’m growing more beautiful every day." One of the nurses added, running her fingers over her flawless skin. "Men used to ignore me. Now they won’t be able to look away."
"I’ll be the most desired woman in any realm!"
One by one, the adults demonstrated their newfound abilities.
Enhanced strength. Enhanced speed. Enhanced senses. Enhanced everything!
They had been eating Mika’s flesh for weeks, and it had transformed them from ordinary, corrupt mortals into something approaching superhuman.
And they still wanted more.
