The Law of Survival X and X So-called "Rebirth"

In a pitch-black world, Qi Zhou stood still. At the other end of the night was daylight, the only light in the entire world.

It was the light of an operating room: stark, pale, terrifying white light.

A blue-eyed child sat motionless on the operating table.

Countless tubes had been inserted into the child's body, slowly feeding liquids of various colors into him.

The child's hands and feet were covered in scars and bound with chains, shackling him firmly to the operating table.

About a dozen metal pads were attached to the child's body. A row of instruments connected to them beeped, their cold electronic screens all displaying the same words: xxx body part, replaced with an organ cultivated from xxx sequence cells, implanted without rejection, normal.

Qi Zhou slowly approached the white light, until it had swallowed every trace of the darkness surrounding him.

He gazed at the boy on the operating table, but the boy simply sat there, expressionless, paying no attention to his approach.

Qi Zhou examined the labels on the IV bags: toxins, magical beast blood, bacteria, sensitivity enhancers, and stimulants.

Qi Zhou reached out and pulled every IV tube from the boy's body. Then he grasped the shackles binding the boy's hands and feet and squeezed gently, crushing the chains to powder.

He gathered the boy into his arms. The boy did not move, paying no attention to anything he did.

He carried the boy toward the night he had come from. Just as he was about to step into that deep darkness, Qi Zhou lowered his head and saw a snow-white chain, bright as light, attached to the boy in his arms. Its other end merged with the white beneath his feet.

Qi Zhou said quietly, "May I take you away from here?"

The boy in his arms slowly looked up, his silver-blue eyes meeting Qi Zhou's.

In his eyes, Qi Zhou saw his own reflection-identical to the boy.

Once again, he said softly, "May I take you away from here?"

The boy did not answer. He simply stared at him with wide eyes, as though trying to imprint the other him, the one with black eyes, on his heart through his pupils.

Qi Zhou took the boy's hand.

Strangely, it felt as though he were holding his own hand, yet also as though his own hand were being held.

Qi Zhou said, "May I take you away from here?"

The boy in his arms remained motionless.

But Qi Zhou saw the chain at the boy's feet turn into specks of white light and, like the stark whiteness behind him, be swallowed by the darkness.

Qi Zhou stood in the darkness, holding the boy.

He smiled faintly and bent down to whisper in the boy's ear, "It's all right. Go to sleep. No matter how many times it takes, I'll bring you out."

He softly spoke the boy's name. "Noah."

Qi Zhou opened his eyes.

The fleeting images of the dream left him feeling as though a lifetime had passed.

Come to think of it, he had wondered about it after coming to this world. Why had he died, only to appear in another world? Why could he use a Nen Ability without ever having trained? Why could he always foresee extreme danger and escape it?

It had started after he put the Sonata of Darkness into the book. As though a power from the same source had been poured into a dried-up spring, a part of his body that had been dormant awakened. The feeling was hard to describe in words. It was as if he had suddenly discovered a limb he had never noticed or used before.

And now, he could use it at will.

"Noah."

Qi Zhou softly spoke the name. It was also the name of this body's original owner.

So there was no such good fortune as "starting a new life out of nowhere." The body's original owner had simply been willing to take in a wandering soul.

There was no "superpower" he could use just by opening his eyes. It was something the body's original owner had gained only after enduring countless torments.

There was no good fortune that let him sense mortal danger and suddenly wake up. Another soul in his body had been awake, warning him.

This was the power brought by the soul belonging to "Noah." Though "Noah" was unwilling to wake up, Qi Zhou could use this part of his power whenever he needed it.

Qi Zhou had first used this power that night, when he condensed all the Nen in his body into fire and threw it at that damned "leader of the Phantom Troupe." He had thought that killing him would be best, but if he couldn't, gaining a chance to escape would be good enough.

But he had been too naive, or rather... he had overestimated himself.

That man had dodged in an instant and closed in on him in another. He was so fast that Qi Zhou hadn't even seen the so-called "black shadow" before all four of his limbs were broken and he was knocked unconscious to the ground.

Then he had been thrown into a box.

As his consciousness lay dormant in the night, feeling despair and deathly silence, he saw "Noah" sitting on an operating table in a laboratory.

Ridiculously enough, Qi Zhou, sunk in despair himself, saw someone in even greater despair and found some of his own resolve. He walked into the white light permeated with death, carried "Noah" out of the laboratory, and brought him into the pitch-black, dense darkness that was nevertheless filled with a sense of safety.

But with each passing day, as the moon rose and fell, "Noah" would still wake up lying on the operating table in the laboratory.

It wasn't just the operating table. Qi Zhou had also seen Noah lying on a stone with his body cut open, sitting in a box, and collapsed on a gigantic mountain of garbage. He had seen countless cycles that ended in death, yet Noah had failed to die.

Every day, Qi Zhou went to find "Noah" and carried him from the white light into the darkness, again and again.

Perhaps there was a way to end the endless cycle of death that trapped "Noah," but for now, all Qi Zhou could do was pull "Noah" out of it for a short while.

Qi Zhou smiled bitterly.

He had nearly exhausted the strength and mental fortitude he needed to keep going himself.

How could someone who couldn't even light his own way illuminate anyone else's?

He slowly stood up, took a moment to collect himself, and tried to use his Nen Ability.

A while passed before his Imaginary Musician appeared in his hand. He didn't know whether it was because the Song of the Four Seasons ability had been taken away, but the book had become somewhat indistinct. It no longer felt like a real book in his hand as it had before.

Still, the Song of Taboo and the flute he had put into the book were there.

After putting the flute into the book at the concert hall, while no one was paying attention, he had indeed felt some change in the Nen book. But the situation had been too urgent for him to examine it closely, and now the change seemed to have disappeared again.

Qi Zhou guessed that it might be because the ability that carried the change had been taken away.

After he became able to use "Noah's" ability, his Nen had recovered a little. Though his body still felt terrible, at least he was no longer too weak to move as he had been before. Perhaps that was also because he had slept unconscious through the night and gotten some rest.

In any case, he could keep moving.

Qi Zhou dismissed the book in his hand and glanced at the wound on his arm. It wasn't deep. He used Gyo to cover it with Nen, stopping the bleeding.

Only then could Qi Zhou spare the attention to survey his surroundings.

He was probably at the edge of the desert. He could see streets in the distance, though... a settlement would have been a better description.

He stood in a small yard enclosed by a makeshift fence of assorted materials. In the middle lay a stone half a meter high and as long as a person, covered in dark bloodstains-clearly used as a slaughtering table. The thought that he had lain on it made waves of nausea wash over Qi Zhou.

The ground in the yard was dark brown, as though soaked in blood, especially along the path to a small tent in the corner.

Qi Zhou stood outside the tent without going in.

Even his nose, which could barely smell anything by now, caught the stench of blood and rotting flesh.

Qi Zhou covered his nose, took a step back, and raised his hand.

A moment later, he set out once more on his journey to an unknown destination.

Behind him, flames soared from the low tent, joining the weak sun that had just risen in the sky.