Gao Xia - The Three Armed Gatekeeper to the Underworld.

- Host's Mind: Layer 2 -

In a spruce garden filled with lush trees, carrying fruit. Some of the fruits were just growing and others were on the precipice of falling off like leaves in the autumn. If any mortal had found themselves here, they would swallow their saliva in anticipation, before quickly giving into their primal pangs of hunger.

Scattered across the area, flowers freshly bloomed, giving off a strong fragrance. At first glance, their placement looked random, but after closer inspection, one would see that they mapped out into a human skeleton.

In the middle of the garden, a wooden table comfortably sat with delicate patterns stretching along its top. Flashes of blue light would randomly come and dash across it to different areas, like electric signals moving from one hub to the next.

Two people sat around the wooden table.

The first was a mysterious figure with a body covered in what looked like a black fog. The fog would continuously rise forth from his body, before separating from it, and vanishing as if the fog's existence hinged upon it being connected to him.

The second figure had horns like the devil with scaled wings sticking out from its back, mimicking that of a dragon. He wore upon him a suit and tie with jeans that perfectly wrapped around his thighs both thicker than a lion's mane. When standing his body reached ten feet, making the other person sitting on the other side of the table look like a child in comparison.

The fogged figure snapped his fingers, summoning a cabinet with a label that read, 'named ones'.

The cabinet had five draws each labeled from top to bottom:

'Control'

'Combat'

'Perception'

'Progress'

'Soul'

Pulling open the first draw, the mysterious figure went through ten files before stopping on the one with the number three.

"Xie Ling is an odd one, he has an intense drive for improvement, however he also has an immense fear of death. Hahahaha..." the mysterious figure laughed as he took in a sip of tea, "The reason for it is odd though. His existentialism is hardwired to be at maximum capacity at all times. This means he's always painfully aware of himself, all his strengths, weaknesses, and habits. This forces him on a road of always trying to improve himself, however, it also means he thinks about the possibility of death at every waking moment, and should anything bring him close to death, he will begin to shut down, giving control over to one of the other three."

There are three rudimentary levels of fear, the first is caution, where you pay careful attention to the situation, not letting anything escape your attention. Otherwise known as the fight response, ready to react at a moment's notice.

The second is flight. It's a classical move, every third-grader knows it. If you can't win the fight, then just run away.

And the third is paralysis. Your muscles begin to tense up and freeze, This state has left many scientists baffled, after all, in what way does freezing one's self help them in a dangerous situation? Seems like a useless evolutionary trait. Some have stated that the reason one freezes up, is because if one encounters a situation where even running away is of no use, the body will then devote all its resources to the brain in one last-ditch effort to find a way out.

That is one of the many theories that circle the world.

"I personally believe it has to do with primal instincts. Some memories are remembered in a matter of seconds, while others take a while to pull back from the recesses of our minds. Simply put, there's only so much of our instincts we can pull out at any given moment. While birds have a natural talent for flight, they still need to be taught by another bird. So whenever we encounter something completely foreign, our bodies take a while to load the information or rather the necessary instincts for the task at hand."

"This ties into the next personality, Shi Zhe - The Predator."

- Southern Border: Armed Tree Forest -

The sky was dark. Starlight and moonlight hit the leaves of the Armed Tree, a tree commonly found in the Armed Forest.

A tired bird flying through the sky saw a beautiful patch of leaves. Not caring about why the leaves were perfectly placed together just like a nest, it decided to take a rest. However, the moment its feet touched the nest, the next opened up into hundreds of thin branches, catching and tightly holding onto the bird.

Before the bird could let out a cry for help, roots grew forth from the the branches, encapsulating any sound that might have otherwise escaped. The only sound in this forest was the whistling of wind as it passed through the trees.

BOOM!

A loud explosion came from the west of the forest, smoke quickly rolled in, filling the surrounding area.

When suddenly a man jumped out of the smoke. Both of his arms had been ripped from his shoulders, blood flowing forth, as the wounds slowly closed from the help of his Healing Type Gu Worms.

"Shit!" Gao Xia shouted as the pain coursed through his veins. Just mere moments ago he was enjoying himself in some cultured extracurricular activities, and then in the next moment, he was caught with his pants down, by what he could only define as scaled Oni.

Its eyes had nothing but contempt for the life-form beneath it, they were like white pearls with a dot drawn on them. No, Gai Xia did notice a small amount of fear hidden in them. However, due to his rapid blood loss and how fast things were taking place, he couldn't be bothered to peer deeper into the triviality of things, such as his opponents inner emotional state.

"Why did this happen to me?!" He shouted in indignation as his vision began to fade away. The memory of the devilish enigma still fresh in his mind, before his body crashes into the ground, "The. One.. Armed... Demon....".

- 1 minute ago -

Gao Xia was having fun with a recently captured woman, when a Striped Canary Gu flew in, momentarily distraction him from his fun time.

The Striped Canary Gu was a type of Gu for sending messages, it looked like a small bird with black and red stripes along its body, indicating to whoever received it that this message was of utmost importance.

"Hmm?". Not wanting to stop, Gao Xia continued his fun without reading the message, deciding he could do it after he was done. It was strange, usually he would read such an ominous message, however, today of all days, his fun felt 'extra fun' than usual.

That's when two blades made of darkness cleaved through the stomach of the woman, before turning into hands as they reached to grab him.

Instantly, Gao Xia's years of experience kicked in as he pulled himself back and activated his defensive Gu Worms. However, just as his arms were about to make it out of reaching distance, his back hit a solid wall. Looking back he saw a wall made of ice and at the other end of the wall was a rank-5 Ice Wall Gu, flying there.

Before he could curse the rotten situation he was in, Gao Xia felt the shadow arms grab onto his arms as a third blade flew through the woman's stomach, turn into a pillar, and hit him hard in the chest.

...

From the remnants of the explosion, a trail of smoke tailed behind Gao Xia from the cave.

Laying on the ground gasping for air, he sensed something coming from inside the smoke.

The smoke opened up like a tunnel, revealing at the start of it, Xie Ling whose body was clad in claws, missing one of his arms.

The mist danced around his body as he walked. With traces of moonlight piercing the few gaps in the mist, providing little beams of lights that decorated the ground around with with hundreds of shadows. Each step caused the shadows to move around him like a spinning top. The spots on the ground, shimmered from the moonlight, giving off the illusion of thousands of stars engrained upon the ground.

Xie Ling inspected Gao Xia's will and noticed the man was faking his loss of consciousness, and without missing a beat, he walked over to the body, while tilting his neck ever-so-slightly three centimeters to the left.

...

Gao Xia's mind was in shambles, he could feel it slowly slipping away, his hearing being the only sense still working. And with each step that Xie Ling took closer, Gao Xia calculated exactly where and when to attack.

Within fractions of a second, a third arm spontaneously grew from his spine, launching an attack directed at Xie Ling's neck, but the attack only met air.

In his heart, Gao Xia knew that there was no longer a point to this charade, and without any hesitation left, he commanded his Gu Worms to self-destruct. . . .

"What!?" He internally shouts in confusion as the connection to his aperture was no longer there. It was like all railway networks to his aperture had been cut off.

Meanwhile, inside his aperture the Gu worms were happily resting as if nothing strange was going on, their will still fully intact.

Xie Ling's hand rested on Gao Xia's extra arm, as huge amounts of will came forth from between the claws and entered Gao Xia's body.

The aperture is something sacred to Gu Masters, it's their way to control the uncontrollable, the ability to make their dreams come true, and the only way to touch upon the multitude of anomalies of this world. Taking away a Gu Master's means of communication with their aperture was no different than returning them to a mortal. His chances of living in this cruel world were reduced to nearly zero. No, it is worse than that because the word 'living' doesn't suit what a mortal's life entails, rather the phrase 'struggling to survive' better suited his current situation.

Over the last two weeks, Xie Ling had collectively hunted over twenty rank-3 and rank-4 Demonic Gu Masters, all in preparation for hunting a rank-5 Gu Master. If anyone else heard about his kill count, they would be in disbelief. not from the fact that a rank-5 Gu Master took down multiple Gu Masters an entire rank or two below him, but rather how he found that many Demonic Gu Masters in the short time span two weeks.

Finding Gu Masters was no easy feat, especially Demonic Gu Masters, as they've lived most of their lives on the run. Whether it be Scouting or Movement type Gu, all Demonic Gu Masters except an incredibly rare few, would always have a Scouting Type Gu and a Movement Type Gu.

Since Gao Xia no longer had access to his Gu worms, he was now an easy target. Xie Ling placed a hand on Gao Xia's head, and cast a killer move to put him to sleep. All of these last steps were done within a split second, as he reached his hand into Gao Xia's aperture and pulled out all the Gu Worms.

In this world to refine a Gu Worm one needed their will to reach the Gu one way or another. The most prominent method was to use one's own Primeval Essence as a medium to send their will into the Gu. Xie Ling could send his will into a Gu without using Primeval Essence as a medium, however, if he were to attempt refining another person's Gu Worms right in front of them, they would have immediately forced their Gu to self-detonate.

The solution?

Once making contact with the Gu Master's physical body, Xie Ling would bombard it with his will. Like causing a traffic jam, he stopped their will from reaching the Gu inside their aperture.

Sadly the acquisition of Gu Worms wasn't perfect, as the ones inside Gao Xia's head, were dead.

Typically physical contact wasn't necessary for Xie Ling to send his will into the target, however, the sheer amount of will being sent over changed a few things: First, when a large amount of will was sent over a long distance, it would begin to disperse. Second, It gave the person time to kill their Gu Worms before they realized their connection to their Gu Worms was completely gone. It was highly important that none of the orders from the Gu Master ever reached their Gu Worms.

Upon first coming to this world, it took up to a month of contact with someone to completely control them like a puppet. Granted the person also needed to have no means of defending against his attack such as an Emotion Path Gu Worm. However, it was still a huge boost of power when against people without any methods to defend against it.

After four months in this world, he learned to put commands into Gu Worms, consequentially he also gained the idea to store large amounts of will into Gu Worms.

Five months into this world, he'd begun proper experimentation on the creatures of this world. One of the things he learned was how he could rapidly send his will into others by implementing the use of Gu Worms along with it.

Nine months into this world he had to renew his framing of this world from that of a playground to something that could quite literally threaten his existence. The price was his arm, but what he got in exchange for it was incalculable. The claws of the Dagger Mole could be used to hide the will of a Gu that was hidden inside them. So he made clothes with the claws interwoven within. They also seemed to make it harder for Heaven's Will to pin-point his exact location, he couldn't quite figure out why they worked as he had first assumed that Heavenly Will's vision worked entirely upon sight. Meaning as long as he was out in the open, it could see him.

And now, ten months into this world he was standing over an unconscious rank-5 Gu Master. The cause for the Gu Master's loss of consciousness? He got complacent. He trusted too much in his Information Path Gu Worms to warn him of any attacks, never once even considering the possibility of a method that would completely bypass them.

Gu Worms began to fly out of the gaps in Xie Ling's armor, each flying into his aperture to replenish their used up will, before then again flying back into their respective claw. This was how Xie Ling bombarded the Gao Xia with will, by sending will out from hundreds of Gu Worms within a moment.

Originally these Gu Worms were going to be sacrifices for his experimentation. However, fate was a strange thing when he was attacked by that Gu Immortal, incidentally that attack got rid of all non Light Path Dao Marks on his body, including the ones from Blood Pact Gu.

This forced him to stay far away from Shang Clan, as explaining to Shang Yan Fei a well known warlord, that the deal they both made using the Blood Pact Gu was magically null and void from the unfortunate attack of a Gu Immortal! Would likely not end well.

The fight with the Gao Xia had begun and ended in less than three seconds, roughly costing 40 percent of his primeval essence from the exchange. A rather large amount considering how short the fight was, however, a cheap price considering what he gained.

"Odd? One of these Gu worms isn't Gao Xia's." Xie Ling took out the Striped Canary Gu and began reading the message.

"I've heard the news that Multiple Demonic Gu Masters have randomly gone missing. I have reason to believe that whoever is doing this is in your area. - Anonymous." As Xie Ling read the message he raised an eyebrow, as far as he knew Gao Xia didn't have any prior allegiances.

Taking a moment to think, he decided that it would be better to simply ask Gao Xia himself.

Bending down, Xie Ling started dragging Gao Xia by his hair back toward where he first attacked him.

Each footstep left an intentional imprint on the ground, to serve as future evidence of his virtuous deeds. While Gao Xia's body being dragged would damage the imprints, it wouldn't be enough to remove them.

Curios beasts from the surrounding area collected together to watch the scene. Like a field full of fireflies, their eyes were the only thing visible in the cover of night. They watched what used to be this areas most dangerous predator being dragged by a cripple, back into it's former hideout.

A long eerie silence followed for the next half an hour, it was as if everything was again at peace. The gentle moonlight cast light upon the trees, which in turn cast shadows across the ground. The many beasts in the area began to relax their muscles and calm down, as the stress finally began to subside.

Suddenly a loud soul-etching scream burst forth from the cave, reverberating throughout the entire forest.

"Since you have a method to grow an extra limb, can you also grow an extra head!?"

Each scream was worse than the last. The stark contrast between the silence before and the current screams was like the sky and the sea. While fish can't fly, it was believed for that brief moment, that if a fish were to feel the pain behind those screams it might just suddenly manifest wings in desperation to get away from whatever was taking place in there.