Chapter 34: Reason to Change

The woman flew until the water of the lake suddenly rose up as the two maids held the woman up, they then started running while countless mannequins started rising up from the lake.

Rueben, with his head still burning, looked at her, then to the mannequins, then fell down to his knees.

Exhaustion came back once again.

His fingers started shaking, his whole body felt numb, he couldn't even see right because of the flames on his head. His lungs felt like burning, his whole body was hard to move.

Live.

Yet he somehow managed to grab the hand of a mannequin and opened his mouth wide and bit its neck before tearing its head apart from its torso. He then broke off its arm and smacked it towards another mannequin and sent out a kick to another mannequin's knees.

Rueben gasped, the flames were making it hard for him to breathe.

Stand up.

He got up from his feet and started using the mannequins as a way to move and use its limbs as attacks.

Approximiately 45 hours had passed.

The woman looked at him and her eyes shivered.

She opened her mouth wide and screamed,

"YOU MONSTER!!! WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU!!? WHY WON'T YOU JUST DIE!?"

Her voice filled with agitation and fear, fear of the unknown.

Rueben tore off another head away from its body and found that his whole body was already burning. Though barely, he could see.

It was hard. Really. Even breathing was hard to do. His body felt so numb that he was unsure if it was moving, his head was burning and now the flames are scattering around his body, his hands were shaking, his lungs were burning. He really wanted to just lie down and sleep, take some rest.

The endless hordes of mannequins, the endless porcelain and marbles he had to step on and crush just to move, he felt so tired.

He was sleepy, he really wanted to just die here.

Live.

But he can't, not yet, not until he saves her.

His burning body stood still as the mannequins started rushing at him with insane numbers that he could barely see, the pain of his entire body burning was so much that he could not even close his eyes because of it.

He got pounced by a mannequin and the mannequins started beating him up. One mannequin just started kicking him on the head, another one started using the arm of a dead mannequin and started beating him up with it, one mannequin was even kicking his shin.

Rueben didn't even understand what was going on anymore.

Rueben tried scratching his eyes but he didn't feel anything at all, probably because of the pain of him burning.

Then a sudden thought appeared on his mind.

Why hasn't he burned to death yet? Why did his body not become ash?

He ignored the mannequins, so much for their efforts to hurt him, and took a look at his hand before it was kicked away by a mannequin.

He turned to look at the mannequin who kicked his hand away, the mannequin stiffened, then turned around while looking up.

Rueben grabbed its feet and started smashing its head before continuing.

"^&$@*(%@%$???????"

He wanted to talk, then he found out that he couldn't hear anything, he also then found out that if he can't hear anything, then does that mean he couldn't smell anything? Speak?

He had not been smelling the flames for a while now so it must be why he felt numb.

Then another thought appeared within his head that made him even more confused at his situation.

Why is his body not dying? Even turning to ash?

He lied down and let the mannequins beat the absolute shit out of him while he calmly thought about his situation.

Rueben closed his eyes, not minding the beating he was getting. He then opened them again and just saw smoke, flames and darkness. 'What in the world should I do now? What am I turning into? Is this one of the effects of being blood drunk? No, considering that everyone loses their minds after they became blood drunk, it does not make sense that I would not be affected at all.'

'Then is there something within me that is changing my body? Helping me survive from being literally burned to death? That is ridiculous, there is no way. Am I not blood drunk? That must be the case, I have not gone mad yet because I have still my intelligence and rationality. Though, my actions have been rather beast like lately. What is going on? Am I turning into a monster? Yes, maybe that is it.'

His face then frowned, if you can still discern it from his charred black head with flames on it.

'Am I turning into a monster? And I accepted it too quickly… If it was me in the past, I would've killed myself before that thought came up into my head.'

Rueben slowly closed his eyes once again as he discovered that he had changed.

What was the catalyst of the sudden change? Rueben thought hard about the answer and came up with it.

'Sara.'

It was Sara. His sole resolve and reason to live was because of Sara. He had to save her atleast, he need to save her.

But why? What made him want to save her?

Rueben couldn't come up with an answer. 'Is it because I made a promise?' His thoughts went to the sudden flashback that happened a while ago.

But just that would be unreasonable and very out of character for Rueben.

Rueben was cold, calculating but can also be kind. His temperament was gentle yet rough when he was fighting. Rueben had studied psychology because he couldn't afford to pay a visit to the therapist so he needed to console and calm himself down and delay the inevitable. He knew that having a healthy and safe mind was a sure way to go sleep forever if they want to become a hunter.

That was why Hunters are trained when they are still children. Veterans had to instill all kinds of traumatic experiences into their tiny and young minds and help them create a strong and stable mind so that they could last much longer when they are dispatched to hunt.

The stronger your mind, the longer you survive.

That was what his teacher had always told him when he was young.

Rueben opened his eyes, he couldn't find an answer to help him understand why he had changed so he temporarily forgot it for now.

Rueben suddenly got up and kicked the head off the mannequin and grabbed two heads and smashed them together.

The woman, guarded by countless mannequins, was sitting on a chair and looking at Rueben cautiously.

After the initial ambush, her guard was completely raised up. She had been staring at her mannequin army just outnumbering the Hunter while Rueben was fighting them without stopping.

She became confused when Rueben suddenly let himself be beaten up by the mannequins for a few good minutes before fighting again.

After all, Rueben had fought the mannequins nonstop for 45 hours straight without taking a break. She had thought that Rueben had finally died of exhaustion but when he got up again, her enthusiasm dimmed a little. She was very much confused and even scared of Rueben because she could not understand him.

She could not understand how Rueben, a human being who may have trained his body and had God's Blood flowing within him, had not died from being so exhausted and having his body burned by literal fire. Yes, she knows that the fire was something that she conjured up and yes this all happened because Hershey threw this guy into her Domain, but she really wanted to know the reason why he had not died yet.

"What if…. No, maybe if older brother Frotus was here then he would have an answer… No, I have to learn how to stand up for myself. Mother have high hopes for me so, i can't break her trust in me. But how can I defeat this guy? I know I can't conjure up beasts and the reason why I was able to do that last time was because I captured and created a "Leader" for them to follow…"

The woman was mentally broken, she had schemed and planned on how to kill Rueben but as if he was shrugging all her efforts off by just standing there fighting!

Fear and doubts started planting a seed on her heart and her hand shook.

"I don't know…. Is he immortal? How? Even Mother is not immortal. How can he be one?"

She then watched a one of the mannequin's arm flew towards her as the maid's caught it in their hand.

She then turned her head to look at Rueben punching and kicking the army of mannequins and ignored the scene and continued scheming. If she can't kill him, then she should think of another way to deal with him.

3 days has passed.

Rueben had finally thought of using the water on the lake to stop the fire from burning his body but after the water was separated from its main body, it turned into sand, and when it returned, it turned back into water.

Then Rueben thought of another solution to cure his weird situation, he wanted to dive down like the previous time but he found out that he couldn't enter the lake at all. Making him doubt whether his memories were messing with him or something.

After all, he was not in the right mindset right now.

5 Days had passed.

Rueben was able to rest for a little because the woman stopped sending in mannequins over to him. Though she was protected by walls upon walls of mannequins and he was mentally tired and didn't want to deal with anything right now so he just left her along.

10 days had passed.

The mannequins had grown larger and stronger, they were also able to move more like a human than a doll with an exoskeleton within them, changing their movements and acting more like humans. Also, the flames had gone out. He didn't know why it took so long for the flames to die but there was nothing he could do about it.

20 days had passed.

Rueben was lying down when he found out that the woman was beside him, guarded with upgraded mannequins.

Rueben, who was charred black, was given a cup with blood on it.

He took the cup and took a sip on it and he started healing. His skin came back, his whole being was returning back to when it all began.

It seemed that the woman was ready to talk.

---

Long chap....