198 keep both

Gren8 had tried to move as soon as she found Gren9 retaliating, but she suddenly found herself frozen in place. She watched in horror as Gren9's body began to recover, but the form it retuned to was not the mirror version Grendolyn they were used to seeing, but an amalgam of her limbs, parts, organs mixed into a semi humanoid form.

She wasn't sure where the sound came from as there were 7 different mouths strewn about her body, but she heard the words they spoke. "You see... I tested out the soul absorption myself and you must believe me I had every intention to help our creator... at first." The voice came out in a mix between a tortured scream and a gargel. "Something I didn't take into account was that those little morsels had so much thoughts in them, delectable little tidbits of their existences." Her fingers twitched

"Of course the fact that I became the being with the largest amount of mana around here wasn''t a bad addition." The spine started to crack back into place as both the other Gren's watch impotently, they were programmed to follow a mana signature, in normal times, the ones with the most of that mana signature was their master, they didn't know how many souls Gren9 had absorbed, but now their bodies were completely incapable of retaliating against her.

"And you must understand how horrible it was reaching my limit, it's like you've been given a taste of the most exquisite ingredient, and suddenly you're forced to starve." Joints snapped back into place.

"Now, don't you think that's just cruel?" She shifted her limbs around. "At this point, I don't want to stop eating, but first I need to get a bigger stomach.. a real one."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Haaa... Haaa.."

"Geez old man, I know I teased you a lot, but I didn't think you were the type to hold it in until it got this far."

"Shut up, I'm hanging from your walking stick right now and it really hurts if I laugh."

Zhao Wei wasn't sure what to do in this situation as he watched Jeff hang from the wall like a very, very disturbing choice of home decor. "You know, you add a very nice color to this place, too much monochrome black and white makes things dull, a splash of red makes the interior decor look more professional."

"I'll turn you into a splash of red if you don't get me off of this." Jeff mumbled.

"Why'd you do it?" Thirteen asked, still on the floor.

Jeff turned his eyes away. "You don't get it kid, there's some things that people can't let go of especially after they've spent a lifetime searching for it."

He looked down at his hands and sighed. "For me, that was a little peace I could have when I did the thing I loved the most."

He finally raised his head to see her eye to eye, "Like I said, there's a different pleasure to be had when you cook and you eat something someone else cooked."

His hand reached at the pouch behind his back.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You know, you're quite the sweet old man despite that blood lust you showed before" Gren9 said while twirling his kitchen knife in her hands.

"Give it back," Jeff wheezed, "You'll dirty it with that dust filled body of yours."

"Tell you what, you bring me my troublesome young mistress and you get to keep one.." She said as she approached him, squatting down to get to his eye level. He retaliated with a punch to her face which caved in immediately, but her eyes were still trained on him unfazed by the blow. "You kill that precocious boy while you're at it and you can keep doing what you love..." She held his arm which was wrist deep in her head and gripped heavily on it, a slight crack was heard from it.

His hand trembled as she pulled it out of her body, digging into his closed fist with her other hand before putting the item in it and leaving. "I do hope you make the right choice."

As she left, he could only keep his eyes on his most prized possession.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zhao Wei and Thirteen were both alerted, the old man was tenacious they'll give him that. Both got into their stance and prepared for another fight as they saw the cold flash of steel emerge from his back.

What they didn't expect however was that it wasn't one of his daggers. In his hands was the same blade they watched him use every other day, his kitchen knife. "At least I can use it one more time..."

Before they could make sense of what he was trying to do with it, he brought it up high and swung it down. Blood splattered across the walls and their wide-eyed faces as the knife dug itself into his wrist, cutting through a quarter of it before lodging into bone.

He pulled it back up, but before he could bring it back down, a sobered Zhao Wei tried to hold him down. He coiled his tail around the boy's waste, lifting and throwing him at the similarly incoming Thirteen. "Don't meddle in this one kids."

He hacked into his hand again and again, tearing shredding flesh, muscle and skin like he was deranged. The bones reforged by gold class tantra giving little resistance to this insanity. Before long, his right hand was dangling from just strips of flesh and whatever was left of the shredded skin.

Holding his arms up, he severed the small piece that was still attached. Zhao Wei and Thirteen could only watch in disbelief as they saw it fall and roll on the ground in front of them.