Chapter XVI: In the Garden of Flesh and Blade
Another year slid past like the shifting plates of so great planetary crust, and in its wake, my body had beco sothing approaching a divine biological thesis. The gene enhancents continued at a pace I deliberately restrained—not because I feared the power, but because I respected the margins of error. I had no enemies clawing at the gates of my life, no existential war looming on the imdiate horizon, and thus no need to rush the perfection of my form. The cautious scientist nestled within —the ghost of a past life, perhaps—insisted that each enhancent be stress-tested a dozen tis over until even the most obsessive compulsion would declare it flawless.
Nearly every organ, tissue, and gland had now been subject to improvent. My blood, once re red sap of mammalian life, now clotted with eerie swiftness the instant it touched oxygen, knitting itself back together like it resented the idea of bleeding at all. Injuries? Already scarce. But when they did occur—minor abrasions, muscle tears, the occasional dislocation from overtraining—they healed faster than human dicine could track. My bones, forged under the pressure of this high-gravity world and tempered further by my blossoming gyrokinesis, had hardened into lattices of reinforced biological alloy, creaking under potential rather than stress.
Muscles too, while not yet carved into the statuesque definition of an adult war-beast, now rippled with potential. Though I remained six years old chronologically, pound-for-pound I could outlift and outsprint a well-trained fifteen-year-old human with enough margin to make it a fair bet at a circus.
But there remained one forbidden temple I dared not touch.
My brain.
Kimchi warned early on, with a rare seriousness that halted even my most fervent enhancent fantasies: "Your psionics are not just part of your mind, Irvine. They are your mind. If you try to enhance your brain, your own powers might interpret the alteration as a hostile act. The consequences would not be academic—they would be catastrophic."
She said this while threading her claws through my hair, not unlike a mother brushing a dangerous thought out of her child’s head. The warning stuck. I filed it under definitely revisit later with extre caution, probably while surrounded by dical tanks and backup minds on standby.
anwhile, Crystal was still... rebooting? Rebuilding? Sothing-ing.
Apparently, my idle musing about fusing matter manipulation with psionic command had activated sothing unspeakably complicated within her. The poor girl was stuck in an internal feedback loop of conceptual processing. Her hive-brain—which was already skimming the theoretical apex of what neural mass could do—was now redlining, trying to model the combined taphysics of willpower, particle physics, and interdinsional calculus.
The fact that it was taking this long ant one thing: my throwaway idea was actually possible.
So while she computed the secrets of godhood in low-power mode, I entertained myself by binge-watching hive assaults on my bio-pad. Tactical logs. Battle replays. mory threads from the frontlines. Pure brain candy. I watched swarm tactics like a sports addict watching playoff finals, absorbing everything—flanks, pincers, feints, misdirection, psychic suppression, terrain manipulation.
And the more I watched, the more a heretical thought germinated in the back of my skull: I could do better.
If I were deployed with even a small, elite detachnt—custom-tailored, psionically bonded, and tactically drilled—I could tear through defensive lines like a vibroblade through at-paste. Create breaches. Collapse morale. Make the swarm’s job ten tis easier.
But alas—reality intruded.
Because as I was now, I would last maybe ten seconds in real combat. Less if the enemy had sniper drones. My mind? Sharp. My instincts? Well-fed. My experience?
Zilch.
No practicals. No live fire. Not even a damn slap-fight to my na. That, however, was about to change.
While I’d been playing war voyeur, Kimchi had been studying—actively integrating battle mories from every bipedal species consud by the hive. Her mind, now capable of processing twenty tis my speed when synced with the hivemind’s echo-stream, was having daily strategy chats with other free-thinkers. They coordinated what to rember, what to discard, and which muscular micro-movents mattered.
She wasn’t just prepping to teach .
She was building the dojo.
Speaking of the six-foot-six jungle nightmare queen, I hadn’t even noticed when she slithered into my bed and wrapped herself around like an affectionate constrictor snake. I was so locked into my bio-pad, watching a neural-strike sweep a bunker line in 3.2 seconds, that her full-body embrace barely registered.
"Kimchi," I muttered, only half-present, "why are you coiling around like a hentai octopus with separation anxiety?"
She giggled. That infuriating, low-voiced, syrup-and-steel giggle. Then sent a psionic whisper laced with amusent:
> "Kimchi has been here for twenty-three minutes, dear Irvine. You were in a delightful analysis frenzy. Kimchi did not want to interrupt. It is rare to see you so focused. Also, this position is comfortable."
"Oh?" I replied, smirking through the link. "And what does my clingy cuddlebug wish to inform of?"
I had made a mistake.
Her arms tightened. Her thighs—sohow also involved—tightened too. Her grip felt like living rebar.
> "Nothing, Irvine-mate. Your hug bug is simply doing its job."
She stayed like that for another two hours, cuddling with militant efficiency, ignoring every one of my increasingly dramatic pleas for freedom. Finally, on my twentieth request, she relented just enough to breathe into our link:
> "You once asked Kimchi to inform you when she was ready to teach you bipedal combat. Kimchi is now ready."
My entire body lit up like a stolen star core.
"Do we start now?" I asked, squirming against her iron-wrapped limbs. "Or are you going to keep violating my airways with affection?"
> "Not tonight, Irvine-mate. You may be genetically enhanced, but you are still a growing child. Sleep now. Fight later."
Grumbling but acquiescing, I eventually drifted off—though excitent curled in my belly like a coiled serpent made of caffeine and ambition.
When I woke, she was still wrapped around . It took ten solid minutes to escape her snuggle-lock, which I’m fairly certain was half genuine and half trollish. But I still took two hours with a psionic agitator afterward—my daily ntal defense drills weren’t sothing I could afford to skip.
On returning to my room, I found Kimchi already waiting for .
She stood like a monunt to elegance and lethality, each of her four arms holding an identical blade. White-tal swords with serrated lower halves and curved upper edges—savage, alien, but with a certain ceremonial grace.
"Nice cutlery," I comnted, nodding toward the glinting weapons. "They remind of your old scythes. Brutal and sexy."
> "Yes," she responded with quiet fondness. "This new body is sacred to . But the mory of what I was is also worth honoring. These are echoes. Blades shaped from rembrance."
I nodded in understanding. I too had a past life I could barely rember—yet sotis, in dreams, I saw glints of who I’d been. One day, I might forge my own weapons of mory.
"So," I clapped my hands together, "do we skip the boring part and go straight to spinning swords like a movie protagonist?"
Kimchi laughed. "No, Irvine-mate. First you must learn to move."
Reader, I was cocky.
Reader, I got my ass handed to .
Basic movent, as it turns out, is not basic. It’s a rewiring of posture, balance, reflex, and instinct. One foot slightly forward, the back foot angled 90 degrees. Knees bent just enough for fluid motion. Shoulders loose. Center of gravity adjustable. The goal was to always keep Kimchi in front of as she moved in impossible patterns.
At first, I managed. For ten seconds. Maybe twelve. But my body, still used to human defaults, kept reverting. I’d stumble. Overcorrect. Trip. Catch myself. Repeat.
Every ti I started adapting, Kimchi would change her pattern. New angle. Faster shift. Random pivot. It was like dancing with a goddess who hated rhythm and wanted to break your ankles out of love.
We trained for hours. My skin glead with sweat. My heart thundered like a ritual drum. My breath ca ragged and sharp—but fuck, I loved it.
All these enhancents, and finally sothing to use them on.
When I could finally keep up with her basic steps without falling over like a drunk toddler, Kimchi halted and gave a proud smile.
> "Well done, Irvine. You learn fast. Prey your age rarely gets this far this quickly. But then... you’re not prey."
Her chest armor flowed back into her skin, revealing her bare upper torso, and I sighed as I walked over to feed. I had considered quitting this thod of nourishnt—mostly out of pride—but they simply wouldn’t let eat anything else, and honestly, the nutritional density was unmatched. A superfood from a superwoman.
Kimchi, however, had... evolved feelings about the process.
As I suckled from her, she did her best to hide her expression—hand over mouth, trying to muffle the moans. Her legs shifted. Her breath hitched. Her pupils dilated like a drug hit.
She had developed a feeding kink, and she was terrible at hiding it.
Crystal never acted like this. She fed like a mother feeding her beloved child—warm, proud, reverent. But Kimchi? She looked like she was about to commit a war cri in her own brain.
Once I finished, I stepped away feeling completely recharged. Kimchi, however, stood bow-legged and trying very hard to pretend she was totally fine.
She was not.
"I need thirty minutes," I announced casually, pretending not to notice her state. "Catch my breath, digest the protein, maybe not get stabbed by a horny insectoid."
Her eyes lit up with entirely too much glee.
> "Of course, dear Irvine. Take all the ti you need. I’ll... be over there."
She waddled away, and I chuckled quietly as she pretended not to waddle.
> Get it together, Kimchi. Your mate is too polite to call you out. But if he ever does, you’re getting hit with the stick again.
And thus, my training began—in sweat, in steel, in deeply awkward pseudo-sexual undertones.
The path to godhood is weird, reader.
But I never said I wanted to walk it sober.
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