One-Eyed Monster

”Resistors?” Igor was very interested in this term. He had successfully enraged Nonoa, and now he knew he was about to hear a new story.

As for whether this story had anything to do with Tobin, Igor didn’t really care. He felt that since Tobin had stayed in this Border Realm and never left, it probably had some connection to this story. What’s more, in Nonoa’s words, Tobin was a kind of fire seed.

Fire seed—that was something where hope resided. Only hope would be described as a fire seed.

Igor kept running as he listened. This Border Realm was strange, but many parts of it were connected to the things he’d encountered before.

Even though the thread was still a bit blurry right now, it would gradually become clear. Whether his own judgment was right or wrong, it would show itself in the end.

”Yes, we are Resistors, Resistors of this Border Realm.”

”What are you resisting?”

”Soul Devourers!”

”And what’s that supposed to be?” Only now did Igor realize how unfamiliar he was with this term.

”They’re evil Spirits who only want to Devour other people’s consciousness and then replace them!”

”Aren’t you also someone who Devoured another?” Igor found it hilarious. ”Don’t tell me you’re not a Soul Devourer yourself?”

”Of course not. I did it to continue on. What I Devoured was a Soul Devourer!”

”A Soul Devourer Devouring a Soul Devourer. Interesting.” Igor mocked.

”My original body is long gone. I can’t return to my world. I just drifted around here aimlessly, burned to ash, smashed to bits, but I never forgot that I was a Swordsman!”

”And what does that have to do with you Devouring a Soul Devourer?” Igor asked, even though he was very interested in Nonoa’s story.

”You don’t get it. Wandering consciousnesses lose their sense of self very early. Aside from knowing I was a Swordsman, I knew nothing. Didn’t know where I came from, where I was going. With no body left, this consciousness was constantly Devoured by Soul Devourers. They would Devour me and then spit me back out, and because I had no body, I became an Abandoned One in this Border Realm!”

”So basically, you guys are trash nobody wants, right?” Igor asked. He felt his analogy was spot-on.

”You’re not wrong. That’s exactly how it is. At most, we can only serve as practice dummies for those Soul Devourers; we have no other use.

”Looks like becoming Nonoa was quite a complicated process for you.” Igor sighed.

”Enough talk. There’s a Soul Devourer up ahead. Looks like your appearance has already drawn their attention!” Nonoa suddenly tensed up.

”So what do we do?” Igor, on the other hand, wasn’t nervous at all. He was actually a bit excited. ”Are we going to Devour it too?”

”Don’t sink to the level of the enemy!” Nonoa looked at Igor as he spoke.

”Then…”

”We cut it down!”

”Nice!”

Not far ahead, a disheveled, long-haired figure suddenly appeared. The person wore tattered black clothes, staggered as he ran, and looked like a shabby cripple trying to sprint.

”That thing is a Soul Devourer?” Igor found it strange. The thing looked completely flimsy, like it couldn’t take a single hit.

”It’s a Scout! Make it quick. Don’t let this guy get the message back!” Nonoa drew his sword and swung it.

A slash of Sword Qi shot straight toward the shabby cripple, but the cripple’s figure suddenly shifted and dodged it!

”My turn!” Igor swung his own sword, and this time his blade didn’t fly out.

Yet the cripple actually dodged again.

”Oh, come on—” Igor was just about to curse when the shabby cripple’s body suddenly split in two and crashed to the ground.

Obviously, it had been hit by a slash of Sword Qi.

”Your sword bought me time. Now they’ll have to send out another Scout, and by then we might be far away already.”

Igor stared blankly at Nonoa. He hadn’t even seen the sword that sliced the shabby cripple in half. The speed was downright insane!

The whole thing had been done on the run; they hadn’t stopped even once along the way.

”Are the Soul Devourers really that big of an operation, that they can even send out Scouts?”

”They’re an Evil Force in this Border Realm. A lot of the monsters here are under their control now,” Nonoa said.

”What about you guys? Is your force strong enough to fight them head-on?”

”Of course not. We can only launch small, sporadic attacks against them. Right now the most important thing is surviving, slowly getting stronger. If we can stop those bastards, we stop them.”

”Where were we? Keep going.” Igor prompted.

”Wandering consciousnesses.” Nonoa hadn’t forgotten what he’d been talking about. The arrival of that Soul Devourer Scout hadn’t thrown his thoughts off.

”Right, wandering consciousnesses. Back then you didn’t know anything, so how did you end up like this, and even become a Resistor?”

”For that, we have to thank Sol. His appearance gave us wandering consciousnesses a reason to exist in this Border Realm.”

”He’s that impressive?”

”Of course!”

At this point, Igor realized Tobin Sol had finally appeared in the story—yet in such an important role.

”Let me guess—he helped you find yourselves, right?”

”We were already scattered; there was no way to ’find ourselves’ again. It’s more accurate to say Tobin helped us find a reason to exist here.”

”And that reason is to stop these Soul Devourers from invading our world, right?”

”Yes, that’s our goal. We’re going to protect our world, even in the state we’re in now.”

Igor scratched his head as he ran. There were a lot of details he couldn’t quite figure out; he needed to sort them out.

Conveniently, Nonoa kept praising Tobin Sol during this stretch. The praise was sincere, but to Igor it was basically a string of pointless lines. It gave him just enough time to organize his thoughts and list out all the confusing details one by one.

It didn’t take very long; Igor sorted things out quickly. He then rather awkwardly cut off Nonoa’s stream of praise. That praise could wait for later. Right now, he needed answers to those details—only by knowing them could he really play his part in this Border Realm.

”Can you tell me this: when your scattered consciousnesses were already a complete mess, how did Tobin gather you all back together, and how did he wake you up?”

Igor felt that ”wake up” was a good word choice. Exactly—Nonoa knew he was Nonoa now because someone had woken him, or you could say, hypnotized him.

Igor naturally leaned toward the former, because he firmly believed that Stan Sol’s older brother was neither an ambitious schemer nor a sinister man.