The Karma between Kai and Seline Hao

AN: If the first part of the interlude (from chap 241 to 248) was about laying the foundation of Vol 3, then the next part (249 to 256) is about Preparations, Reincarnation, Plot progression and Character growth. Once again, you can consider it as a long chapter.

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Dusk, 2 days later

Buckfastleigh

There was an electric thrill of wonder and newly found expectations in the Hotel's room where Kai and Item-M had been staying since their arrival.

This thrill was more apparent on Item-M's beautiful cheeks that kept gaining the color of her hair, a bewitching smile surfacing on her thin lips now and then like a spell. Kai's comprehension, declaration, and renewed attitude seemed to have lifted her spirits, making her forget the abysmal events of yore and focus on the things to come.

Kai noticed these things and allowed himself a smile. His Items were as important as his Abilities and Skills. And among his Items, Item-M had the most living characteristic. She was like a power that had come with a quirk. In her case, this power was her experience, knowledge, and strength, and the quirk was… well, according to Kai, it was her ardent, reverential feelings related to himself and HIM.

"Has the auctions started, yet?" Kai asked, laying on the bed, and a few small objects hovering over his head using telekinesis.

Item-M snapped herself out of the dreamy expressions and nodded. "Yes," she answered, playing with a stranded lock of hair. "The 100 nations of the City of Leisure are grouped into 10 nations, making a Sector. The Auction is held by an independent organization, Seven Mystic Flowers, in all 10 sectors simultaneously. This organization has its roots on the 12th floor, and it has the backing of quite a few top organizations, including the Imperial House. One can even say that the top organizations use it to flush out Items unimportant at their levels. Still, it has a reputation of presenting Items, materials, and miscellaneous objects on the platforms that are unique considering the 2nd Set."

Kai's eyebrows pressed. "2nd Set?" he thought aloud. "Then the 5th and 6th floor's Contestants also show up in it"

"Exactly," Item-M blurted. "Many Contestants attend the auctions at the 10 Sectors, including those from the 5th and 6th floors. It is to make the auction impartial, as the 4th and 5th-floor Contestants can't go to the 6th floor. And the descending Contestants don't have to face mortal restrictions because of the same Set. A combined task force of Royal Guards and Flower Commandos of the Seven Mystic Flowers oversee the auction. With their Items, Skills, and status, they are quite formidable. Not to mention, the Set Lord of the 2nd Set attends the auction too, making his presence known in at least one of the 10 Sectors."

'So, in its Sector, Buckfastleigh is chosen for the place of the auction this time,' Kai reflected. 'Quite coincidental, but convenient.'

Item-M stood up, placed the chair against the table, and then eyed the tank and the charred figure suspended within it. She let out a sigh, shaking her head. Kai noticed it all, but he had his own thoughts to deal with the same.

"The auction will last for the next seven days, master," Item-M continued, her eyes thoughtful. "I have confirmed that with every next day, the auctioned objects will keep becoming rarer. Generally, there is no way to know which objects will show up beforehand, but I will try under and overhanded means. Anyone can attend the auction on the first six days, but for the seventh, one needs a token varying from 10000 to 50000 Mission Credits. I will attend the auction for the first six days, monitoring anything out of the ordinary. You don't have to trouble yourself till the seventh day."

Kai matched her eyes and smiled. Item-M's face flushed, and she looked down, finding a black spot on the floor quite interesting.

He knew what she was implying by her last few sentences, and it amused him she had to come to the point in such a roundabout way. "OK," he said, nodding at her. "I am sending you 1 million Mission Credits. Use them as you fit (-Item-M gasped-). Also, you have the corpse of Gyarados, right? Try to find everything you can about the Pokemon's scales. There are some odd properties about them I can't find out without further experiments. In the auction, give extra attention to full body armor, sabers, and materials that can serve as arrow tips for the Jet Wing. Buy some clothes for me and for yourself too. You have already scanned every part of my body, so that shouldn't be a problem."

The color of her hot cheeks excited Kai, and he couldn't help but grin at her. The moment she received the sum, Item-M almost ran off in shame, remembering some odd details that had happened in the last two days, Kai knew.

Kai took a deep breath, calming himself, and eliminated the various imagined images that had surfaced in his mind that included him and Item-M doing strange things to each other. Not to mention, whenever it came to take actual actions, he had always lost his desire for her. Now was not time time to think about it, though.

With the matter of the curse settled, now was the time to do something about the person in the tank.

He stood up, walked to the tank, and slumped down on the floor, his back leaning against the cold glass. For a long time, Kai sat there, thinking, preparing himself for a decision full of madness and uncertainty that had been bubbling up in his mind for the last two days.

Not once Kai had believed that there could be Karma between him and Seline Hao. Karma had become a powerful concept in the world of his previous life after cultivating blood essences had become a thing. So, he of all had an idea of what Karma was and how cruel the repercussions could be in the future if not resolved. Yet, Kai just couldn't relate to what Seline's choice of leaving the 2nd floor and going to the 1st floor had to do with him. Yes, he could understand her reasons for doing so, but he couldn't fathom how he was responsible for what had happened to little Hao and her afterward.

By forcefully tying her fate with him, that man had not only put Kai's future growth in mortal peril, but he had also forced Kai to be an eternal enemy of the Temple of Amon-Gorloth.

Kai ran his hands through his hair. "Are you listening?" he asked, his voice echoing in the empty room's silence.

No one answered.

He spun, faced the curled, charred figure through the light green fluid, and put his hand on the tank, his fingers kissing the glass. -/Are you listening, Ms. Seline?/- Kai asked telepathically.

He could feel the spiritual currents within the 10-meter radius around him, and though he had discarded it before, he could feel the faintest disturbance around the tank.

Yes. She was alive and awake, Kai told himself repeatedly before going with his decision.

Kai had been thinking about his Advance Telepathy since his arrival in the Game of Thrones world. But only after the week he had spent on Actaea with Item-M debating over Occlumency and Legilimency did he see a path where this Ability's destiny lay. If it worked, then Kai would take a major leap in these branches of magic, he knew.

This was a case where he would take that first step, for words weren't enough to reach a broken mother, even if spoken from mind to mind. Kai had learned some truths bitterly.

-/I can't bring back little Hao,/- he told her, words drowning into black oblivion. -/I can't bring back those moments and his smile, either. But I can give you what you desire the most. In return, I only want one thing. Let me show who I am. Let me tell you who Kai Stormborn is. And let me sing to you a song of blood, slaughter, and revenge, the likes of which you would have never heard of. Let me… try./-

'Emotions…' Kai called out to them; all of them. They surfaced, and even the deepest emotion left his heart, racing to his mind. Those emotions blasted apart in a chain reaction, making Kai recall the oldest memories. At last, those memories became thoughts; an ocean whose each frothing wave represented a thought.

Kai had been trying it, letting these thoughts linger in the front of his mind, the spiritual waves prickling the inside of his head like thousands of spiders crawling their way in and out. Yet, he never tried to push them out, because he needed a recipient to do so, and Kai would rather not share these thoughts with anybody, especially when he couldn't control them yet.

-/Accept them, Ms. Seline,/- he said, barely holding onto those thoughts. -/And if you agree to my terms, then let me experience your thoughts in return./-

Then, with the gentlest of the push, Kai nudged the thoughts, like pushing someone off, standing on the edge of the cliff. It was the easiest thing to do. Now came the hardest part; to guide those thoughts to her mind, using the spiritual currents around him as passageways. Veins popped up on his head, blue and red. His teeth rubbed so hard against each other that the sound could alone make someone wince at it. Blood seeped out of his ears and nose in two thin streams, and a pounding headache assailed him just as his thoughts touched the black oblivion that was Seline's mind.

Then they vanished, one by one.

His childhood, his life of learning and playing, his love for his mother and longing for a father, and his will to set things right for his family after growing up.

His joy for a brother and then his wrath for the same, his loss, his anger, his anger, his anger…

And then his last smile after revenge… all dropped into the black oblivion, melting into the blackness.

The silence within the room was choking.

Amid this silence, Kai's thoughts of his new life reached Seline's mind, as his HP bar kept losing points after points at an increasing rate, blood pooling below him, and the headache making him insane.

His Glitch, his Will to defy everything and to reach the peak of Absolute Power, his adventures in the various worlds, his feelings while eating dinner made by her hands, his rising power, and his Items. Those words, those experiences, and those inexplicable and unknown vistas of inhumane slaughters and cold, calculative actions all got transferred to her.

When the last thought trickled down, his HP bar was blinking, and the color of the floor had already turned red some time ago.

Yet, Kai waited. He waited with the same concentration, with the same expectation and hope as before.

'Say something…' he urged. 'Death is so vague, Ms. Seline. Life… Now, life is full of possibilities. Speak… Speak… Now!'

Not much Kai had been expecting to listen. And not much he received, either.

Just one word.

One simple word that only someone like Blood Demon could know the depths of; all thoughts, memories, and emotions compiled into that single word.

'Revenge…' her thoughts told him, taking shape in his mind. 'Revenge… Revenge… Revenge…'

A vein on Kai's forehead burst, showering the glass cylinder with thick black blood. 'On my name, Kai Stormborn,' his thoughts again found that black oblivion. 'I swear you will have your revenge. I will give you the power to kill them all. And if you agree to say the words, one day I will let you have at it with an Old One as well.'

These weren't words, but purest thoughts. And Kai had not learned how to fake them yet, as his proficiency in the Ability was too low and his experience shallow. These thoughts were something he truly believed in, and the charred figure within the tank must have known it too.

For the first time, the blackened flesh stirred, her hands and legs uncurling. There were no switches on the tank, but its lid burst open by itself, the light green fluid cascading out like a filthy waterfall.

Kai opened his eyes, his sight blurry, pain coursing through his veins, and blood dripping down his chin.

He looked at her as the air filled those burned lungs. He remembered seeing her, smaller, frail, her skin pale, but somehow she had a mother's charm and ferocity. Now she had no skin, her flesh oozing out a mixture of black filth and green fluid. Somehow, she sat on one knee and lifted her head.

Kai didn't look away. He saw her eyes without eyelids, her head without hair, and her mouth without lips.

He sensed her pain.

A horrifying rattling and grating noise escaped her throat.

Revenge… she must have spoken, thought Kai.

"Say the words, Ms. Seline," he said, his voice quivering. "Say them."

Their eyes matched, bloodshot, and burning with murderous emotions.

"Chaos…" she spoke, words coming out of her throat as ashy, broken hisses, "I… swear a Soul-Blood Oath… live at Blood Demon's command… die at his command… mine is now his… will be his too. I swear... Swear… Swear… Swear… name of Hastur; HE who is the Dweller in the Depths, the Bringer of Madness and Doom, the King in Yellow."

The epithets came out of her mouth like bullets, and she slumped down, losing all her strength. A dull, sickly yellow-colored drop left her forehead and made its way towards him, their eyes still looking into each other.

Kai's finger lifted by itself, the drop landing on its tip before he pushed it into his forehead.

And then he felt her.

Such hunger for revenge… He had only once felt it before; in himself.

"Rise," he intoned. "You are not Seline anymore. Nor are you a Hao. Both these things never were enough to save your son. Now, you are my savageness, my sin, and my spite. Now…"

Kai stepped forward, towering above her, looking down at her. "… you are Item-S."

Her neck crunched as her eyes followed his gaze, her feet slipped over the fluids, and her fingers cracked, bending at odd angles. But her eyes never left him.

"Rise," he commanded her again. "Rise, Item-S. Rise!"

Burned, moist flesh crackled, and a thundering noise rattled out of her mouth. She pushed herself up, and when she had raised herself to his waist, Kai's left hand reached for her hand, pulling her up, his fingers digging deep into her soft flesh.

Only then did he smile. A smile with bloody teeth.

His right hand blurred like a mist.

She gasped.

In one thrust, Kai's monstrous power had crushed her heart, his hand penetrating her chest, through and through.

"We are monsters, demons, everything but human, Item-S," he told her, tilting his head. "What do we need our hearts for?"

A mass of silver mist burst out of his right hand, entering the burned figure of Item-S, her eyes still staring into Kai's hazels as she fell into deathly darkness.

The Ghost Basilisk exploded with a Soul Chill at 100 percent, freezing her soul, a hellish frost crawling on her blackened body.

Kai neared her, a supreme demonic grin on his face making him look like a fiend. If this did not work, then he had already lost the chance to resolve his Karma. Yet, the Blood Demon's instincts were singing a song of victory, and he sang along with them.

"I will wait for you, my loyal servant."