His newly formed white hands gently rested on her cheek. Emotions passed between their eyes, and he spoke again. The world listened, but the woman broke into tears.
"You can rest now!"
Tears rolled down her crimson cheeks. She looked at him momentarily. "I want to serve you!" Her voice was like wind howling through a bowl, filled with self-pity and resignation.
Her eyes invoked something in Eiran—a magnifying feeling he had subtly felt when that man had burst in bloody gore—and he replied.
"You will. Now rest, sleep!" A wave of happiness spread across her face. Calm joy forced a smile in both her eyes and lips, and she breathed slowly before becoming limp, her body reaching the ground.
It was as if a battery had been removed from her body.
It took a minute for the world to wash that presence away and breathe out through the loud, moving wind before everything returned to normal.
Doctor Gerard observed everything with clinical scrutiny. His gaze hardened as he barked in his grating voice, "You are a necromantist?"
The way he spoke made Eiran's demeanor change. Hyper-focus took center stage, which also brought his hyper-intelligence—forged from his celestial instinct—to the forefront.
"Is that what this is called?" he asked, not with his voice but through the doctor's blood.
The doctor tried to halt that connection, wanting the baby to use his voice. A second later, he recalled he couldn't do that because of the thing the baby had placed in him.
Eiran continued to speak as he glanced at the pitiful woman below his stone perch. "That's not my talent. This is just an aspect that sprang up when I wanted to leave the battlefield."
"Only a necromantist with the talent can raise the dead," the doctor said.
Eiran retorted, "Have you met me? Certainly you have."
His voice became low as he continued, "But certainly I am far different from most... I'm tired."
Eiran's focus waned and he lay on his back, hands spread as he tried to think about his connection with the woman. But that focus demanded too much of his brain power.
"Interesting. My apologies—I reacted negatively. Necromancy is usually considered beyond the limits of what doctors and healers can do. It's taboo in most areas. And I dabble in it, but with no success due to how dangerous it is."
"Is it… evil?"
"Hmm. That's a complex topic, if you ask me."
"Will you be a danger to me?" Eiran asked as he sat up, tired but staring at the doctor.
"Ha. Good question. It's hard to hold back my urge against you—a fine specimen with great talent for blood magic and now raising the dead. My former self would have slaughtered thousands to reach you... but no, I won't be a danger. The question is: will you be a danger to me?"
"Why would I be? I'm just Phase 1, and you've never harmed me. Besides, I only hate one person in this world, and you know who."
Eiran was thoughtful before he said, "I love this world. I love people—whatever love is. I don't want to harm anyone."
"You feel lonely?" The doctor came and stood before the red woman. "You can gauge the grade of everyone, and you are greater than them all. I bet even greater than the golden man."
Doctor Gerard was connecting dot after dot and grasping the sensation the baby was feeling.
"Yes. He is the only one close to my status," Eiran commented, his eyes also on the woman. She looked dead—her body cold and shrinking, as if inside her skin was just air and no organs, which was the truth.
"I have a favor to ask," Eiran said.
"Nonsense. You do know I'm your adoptive father, right? That makes you true royalty and I'm your benefactor. Ask away."
The man's tone changed, filled with both pride and desperate acknowledgment for the baby to be his own—not out of malice, but for... he didn't know.
He frowned. This wasn't like him. He spoke again, "Tell me about what you placed in me. My apologies if I sound untrusting, but too many things prowl this world that are beyond reason. My experience won't..."
"It's a blessing," Eiran said as he turned around and slid off the rock, holding himself with his new hands before dropping on his butt. His face scrunched as if to cry, but he calmed down a moment later. "You are virtually unkillable as long as the essence is inside you."
He knelt before the woman. With his hand, he closed her static, open eyes but her face caved in slightly at his touch, and he pulled back—he didn't like it.
He continued to speak, "It's finite, exhaustible if too much injury is afflicted upon you."
He stood wobbily and looked at the towering figure of the doctor. "I still don't like you. You're ugly, and your voice is grating to listen to."
The baby then tried to walk. This time he succeeded, but after a few steps he fell. He giggled and tried again.
The doctor shook his head. This boy—he had forgotten what he wanted to ask. "What were you going to ask me again?"
"Ahm." He fell and turned around. "Help her, please. The venom in her has corroded her insides. Because of me, her flesh and skin were saved. I didn't know what I was doing then, but now I understand a bit. She needs new organs to function properly."
"Can't you regenerate them?" the doctor asked.
"I think I can, but I don't know how." Then Eiran remembered something. "You can take control of the essence in you and... I don't know," he became thoughtful and said, "consume it now and make it nurture your whole body. You'll get accelerated healing—not like the one I explained, but your blood grade will take a leap and you'll be better than you are now."
"And I become your slave?" the doctor said.
"Nope. It doesn't work that way." Eiran hadn't put the essence into the doctor thinking he would have a fighting chance, but rather to serve as a radar to him whenever the doctor was close by and also to truly feel the man's true intentions toward him.
The radar succeeded, but reading his true intentions was a failure. The man's body was a fortress, and the gap between their phases was too much.
The woman was then covered in a bubble and floated before the man. "I have sent everything you need inside her Pyramid Palace. Also, a Palace Chamberlain will come to you in an hour."
"Make it a day, please. My Forge Form hands still haven't accumulated talent energy inside them. I want them to be full before I face anything."
"Alright. I can..."
"Don't you think they'll be shocked to see a talking baby?"
"They will, but that's what will make you special. The Chamberlain will be honored to serve you, believing that you can be in the game longer than most."
Eiran stood and continued his walking practice, forgetting that the doctor was around. The man walked out slowly, closed the door, and leaped toward the ship.
Instead of flying back normally, he used their most expensive teleportation. Arriving at the facility, he ran to the Golden Man.
"Father. He is a necromantist." He knelt, head bowed, and the woman floated inside his bubble.
The titan of gold frowned before several emotions passed through his face. In a step, he appeared before the woman and wrapped his hands around her as if he were carrying a rabbit.
"She is alive!" His deep voice echoed in the room.
"She is!" Doctor Gerald said in shock. He had felt her vitality, but she had no organs inside—not even a brain. Her flesh and skin were just a husk. This was not like other necromancy.
In other necromancy there is no vitality, only stench of death, and sometimes rot in the body—unlike this one.
The golden man shifted and appeared at a dissection table. He placed her there, removed her armor. Her body seemed like a deflated balloon with little air inside.
With extraordinary precision, using scalpels and other instruments, he cut her open. Inside was grade-one blood flowing around a swirling nexus at the center.
But on the flesh inside was black blood and tendrils that were attacking the fresh blood, tainting it. However, because of the nexus, the blood quantity never reduced.
"Blood Monarch venom!" Dr. Gerald said as he watched the man use his tools with great dexterity—surpassing his own—in removing the venomous blood.
Soon she was clean. Only the grade-one blood flowed around her. It covered the flesh and she filled up as if she had organs. Then some began to take on the function of actual organs, but they kept collapsing and reverting back to normal liquid.
Without being asked, Dr. Gerald brought glass containers containing different types of organs, and the golden man began to surgically place them inside.
The moment the heart was placed, the swirling nexus vanished and the blood flowed through the heart. Pathways resembling veins immediately formed throughout the body.
Other organs were placed, and the blood created connections with them. It was a magical phenomenon that even the golden man regarded with awe written on his face. His movements became slow so he could see every step.
Even bones were placed. The skull with brain inside was the last to be placed. A force formed around the woman as the place of incision reformed, healed, and with their x-ray vision they witnessed the organs inside syncing perfectly, becoming one cohesive engine like every human has.
She took a deep breath as cool wind filled with nature filled the room.
Then she breathed out—a dry wind with the scent of desert as well as dried, shrunken, long-dead trees whipped through the room, slamming into some tools and knocking them over.