Bloody Odyssey

Chapter 83 83: Wishful Thinking.

A day later, Anastas stood beneath a fruit tree.

The branches stretched wide above him, heavy with ripe fruit that no one had come to harvest. The grass beneath his feet was overgrown, wild, left to grow as it pleased. And at the base of the tree, side by side, two tombstones stood.

His face was solemn.

The playful mask he wore like armor—the jokes, the smiles. In its place was something raw. Something real.

He gestured to the guard.

"Return to the clan."

The guard bowed and departed without a word. His horse's hooves faded into the distance, and then there was only silence. The rustle of leaves and distant call of birds.

Anastas turned to face the tombs.

"Mother. Brother."

His voice m tranquil. Barely audible.

"I have arrived."

He dropped to his knees. From his sleeve, he produced a flower—small, white, delicate. He placed it on the earth between the two graves, where the soil had long since settled and the grass had grown thick above them.

And he began to grieve.

---

Beneath the sunny sky, the House of Fall was busy.

Children ran through the courtyards, their laughter echoing off ancient stone. Adults moved between buildings, arms full of supplies, voices raised in conversation or command. The rhythm of daily life had not stopped—could not stop—simply because the world had changed.

And the world had changed.

The goblin troupes patrolled the walls now, their movements precise, their eyes watchful. They passed by the clansmen in perfect formation—five qcreatures moving as one, their blades gleaming, their presence an unspoken promise.

At first, the news had been met with disbelief.

Goblins? Protecting us?

But seeing was believing.

The clansmen watched the creatures pass. Some froze mid-step, their hands drifting toward weapons they did not draw. Others simply stared, their mouths slightly open, their minds struggling to reconcile what they saw with what they knew.

None dared approach.

Fear kept them back. Not the fear of violence—though that was there—but the fear of the unknown. These were not the goblins of legend. These were something else. Something made.

And in the depths of the lab, their maker worked.

---

The operating table was cold.

The man on it was white-haired, limbless, his body reduced to a torso and a head and the memory of what he had once been. His eyes were closed. His breathing was shallow.

Dax stood over him.

His hands were covered in sterilized surgical gloves. In his right hand, a fresh operating blade caught the sterile light of the lab, gleaming with the promise of precision.

He cut.

The flesh that had begun to heal—the body's desperate attempt to mend itself—parted beneath his blade. A fresh wound opened. Blood welled. Dax did not flinch.

On another operating table, completely bound, the Gargarion lay.

Its massive red form did not budge. Chains of star steel wrapped around its limbs, its torso, its neck—enough metal to hold a mountain. But its eyes were wide open. Aware. Conscious.

Dax turned around.

Blood dripping from his fingers onto the pristine floor.

"Orivorous."

He spoke to the red cyclops—the alien whose power was to adapt.

"I have gotten all the data I need from you."

His tone was calm. Clinical. The tone of a man discussing the weather, not the harvesting of a living creature's organs.

"I will be taking some limbs and organs from you. Since your power is to adapt and evolve, this should not be a problem for you."

The Gargarion did not respond. It could not. Its mouth was bound, its voice silenced.

Dax continued.

"I will be taking your limbs and your spine.. is that okay by you?" Dax asked tgen burst into laughter.

"I forgot you are bound." Dax smiled his beauty revealing to the fullest.

Instantly mechanical saws descended cutting the through flesh and bone with terrifying efficiency— but as it continued it's sawing force slowed significantly. The sound of metal scratching metal filled the lab, bouncing off the walls, a chorus of industry and horror.

Orivorous's eyes twitched.

Crack.

Its left arm broke free.

The bindings shattered—star steel, enough to hold a mountain, snapped like twigs. The massive limb swung toward Dax with terrible, collapsing force. Enough to crush mountains .

Dax laughed.

"You broke through star steel." His voice was light, almost amused. A man watching his dog perform a trick. "Orivorous, I have long since surpassed you."

He did not move nor dodge or even raise a hand.

"If you still wish to leave my lab alive…" His tone turned cold and absolute. "You will let me do as I say."

The Gargarion's arm froze.

"You know what?" Dax sighed. "I'll harvest your limbs myself. Then leave the spine to the bots."

He flicked his palm.

Cil appeared.

The blade materialized from nothing, hungry, its edge carrying the weight of everything it had cut, everything it had consumed. The moment Orivorous saw it, its body shivered.

Its expressionless lips opened shattering its mouth gaurd.

A strange sound emerged not quite a word but a scream.

Dax swung.

The arm that the aid bots had struggled to cut fell cleanly from the Gargarion's body. No hesitation. No resistance. Cil passed through flesh and bone like a knife through smoke.

Orivorous clenched its teeth.

Dax had given it no anesthesia or pain killer.

Blood sprayed from the severed limb in thick, pulsing arcs. A bot flew forward with a bucket, catching the crimson stream with mechanical precision. Nothing wasted. Everything saved.

Within seconds, Dax held all four limbs.

Carrying them to a table before his father's operating bed—arranging them, positioning them, studying them with the eye of a sculptor examining raw marble.

"It pains me," he said quietly, "that the first person I am cutting up is my father."

He picked up a limb. It was wider than his father's original parts—thicker, denser, forged by evolution and adaptation into something stronger.

"That is why I have to make sure this never happens again."

He began to work.

"I will make you better tgan any human."

The limb was placed against his father's shoulder. Then another against the hip. Dax stepped back, observed, adjusted. The body on the table began to look less like a broken thing and more like a work of terrible art.

"If I have my way…" Dax's voice was soft now. Almost gentle. "I will make it so that those around me never die."

A pause.

"At the end, what is the point of a long life if the people around me die just because of time?"

"Hahaha…"

The voice came from the Gargarion. Its limbs were already regenerating—new flesh crawling from the wounds, new bone forming beneath—and with its returning strength came its voice.

"Hana seve… faith will never let you."

It spoke in its mother's tone. Familiar. Haunting.

Dax remained quiet.

But there was truth in the words. The future is something I can't control.

"Synthesis."

Black goo burst from his palm.

It spread across the severed limbs, across his father's broken body, across the boundaries between what had been and what would be.

In the silence of the lab, beneath the watchful eyes of bots and bound aliens and a son who would not hesitate to threaten reality for his peace.