The Good Teacher

Before squeezing out the secret exit, Shuri paused. She had to wait for the signal before going through. In the meantime, she approached a reflective metal surface nearby and inspected herself one last time, taking note of her silver hair tied up into a worker's bun. 'At least no one can link me to the Royal family because of my Red Hair.' Her new rough attire could not hide her frail and lean form. Her flat chest, which had remained as such for a very long time even after hitting puberty, irked her slightly as she hoped it would at least fill up the loose folds in her chest that were there to accommodate her breasts. She reached into the firepit beneath the large put at the centre of the kitchen and pulled out a small handful of soot. Shuri knew that she could not survive with her impeccably soft and marble-like skin.

Although the dark residues could blemish and disguise her skin, they could not mask her azure blue eyes. For that, she pulled out a simple rope bracelet with a small, white mana gem tied to it from the sack around her back. Upon wearing them, her eye colour warped into a common brown hue which elicited a satisfied smirk. The smile, though, quickly diminished as another thought skittered through her mind. Subconsciously, she reached for the pendant around her neck and squeezed it in annoyance.

She was immediately drawn out of her sombre thoughts as a large explosion shook the ground. That was the signal!

____

As Eunuch Bang watched the all too familiar figure of Shuri turning past the door frame and recede into the corridor, a forlorn smile graced his lips. Today he would breathe his last, for the second time. He had already died once before, clinically, thus he did not fear death's morbid embrace as it approached him with open arms.

He remembered his first death vividly.

____

A coarse breath escaped Yor's lips as he turned over onto his back. On one hand, he cradled his intestines, with the other- where was his other hand? Probably well within the digestive tracts of that beast. He should be dead anytime now - his life cut short just seven years after his birth. Why was he here? Why did he end up like this? If this was all a coincidence, why was he cursed to experience it?

Another breath entered his lungs. Much less this time, it seemed as though there was just not enough space in his lungs to incorporate more air, what with all that blood sloshing around in there. Yor's life was nothing short of a curse - a bundle of misfortune wrapped in a rotten fibre of all things vile in this world. His parent's abandoned him at his birth for whatever reason - he should have died there. But a group of tramps found him amidst a mountain of rubbish, barely clinging on to his life. They raised him, not out of the kindness of their hearts. They used his petite form to run all forms of grifts, thefts and cons.

Yor coughed and his entire body rattled horribly sending another bout of pain across all his working nerve endings. It took a while for Yor to realise that his life amongst the tramps wasn't as peachy as he dreamed it out to be. He was a tool to them, something they were willing to drop at the first sign of trouble, which they did - which was also why he was here.

A muffled set of voices pierced through the surrounding woods. Yor's head turned towards it subconsciously. Did the beast catch up to him? His luck just kept getting worse and worse, hopefully, the damn thing would just put him out of his misery now.

The voices grew clearer, and they did not belong to the beast.

"Young Miss, we shouldn't be here, it is dangerous," a worried voice belonging to an elderly woman spoke up.

"But I want to see the Manticore!" A much younger voice of a girl matching Yor's age demanded.

"It is known to be extremely duplicitous and dangerous, Young Miss, we-" the elderly voice stopped. Yor could feel her gaze landing on him.

"What's wrong?" The little girl - the Young Miss - asked. "My goodness, what is that?"

"It's a boy," the elderly voice answered with a morose clip.

"W-Why is he like this?"

"Probably ran afoul with the beast. Tsk! When we commissioned for a distraction with the Black Beggar's Sect we didn't think they would send in a child!" The elderly woman boomed angrily.

"Can we help him?" The girl asked. Yor could feel her warmth approaching him.

"He's as good as dead, Young Miss," the woman sighed. A finger contacted his skin. "He's been pumped with the manticore's venom, he's lost too much blood and... body parts. I don't even know how he's still alive after all that?!"

"B-But we need to help him, we MUST!" The girl cried.

"Why?" The woman shot back.

"Because..." The girl drawled with a panic as she struggled to formulate a reason.

Yor suddenly felt a warm droplet of water fall on his face. It burned, but it was pleasant. Was she crying? What followed were a series of muffled voices - his consciousness was waning. Until darkness greeted him. Yor had died.

____

But he was reborn that day. He received a second chance, thanks to his Mistress. She saved him, useless dreck slated out to die, born with nothing but misfortune. Yor recognised that the life that belonged to him had ended that day - he was now living on borrowed time. His second life was to extend that of his saviour, by any means necessary.

To that end, Yor had failed. His Mistress had passed before him and it was his greatest failure. What use was living if his purpose existed no longer? But with her dying breath, Yor was handed a new task - a new purpose. This time, he would not fail. His Mistress would live on, through her daughter even if the blood of the defiler flowed through the girl's veins.

Yor, now no longer Eunuch Bang, tilted his neck back and forth, left and right, and released a long breath. He inhaled, then exhaled, inhaled... exhaled... inhaled... and paused.

|Toxic Apocalypse|

With a vigorous release of air, the pressure within the room amplified substantially. The mana around Yor undulated furiously, rotating in a dangerous whirlpool. With a scream filled with unbridled rage, Yor released the pressurised mana in a cone facing the front of the courtyard, engulfing the body of the comatose woman. A wave of green flame gushed forth, disintegrating the woman, destroying the entire front half of the courtyard, and turning the overgrown garden to ash.

From the wreckage, Yor ascended into the air. His clothes were turned to ash and dust, and the skin and flesh of his body were flaking off revealing his endoskeleton. However, what appeared wasn't the familiar sight of bone, but a rich brown structure. This structure completely replaced his form. As the flesh on his abdomen fell, it revealed more of this brown, wood-like structure forming a helical cage where his core was supposed to be, housing a magnificent and multi-coloured sphere pulsing periodically as mana circulated all over his body. Once all of his skin and flesh detached itself from his body, all that remained was his face attached to a wooden automaton of some kind.

Yor flexed his right arm, acknowledging the Vitalwood makeup of his body and took in another long breath. The air entered through his nostrils, disappearing in this automaton frame and causing the sphere in his core to pulse more vigorously.

At that moment, Yor's sight narrowed and caught the movement of multiple entities approaching his position. A provocative smirk graced his face as he amplified his presence by releasing a large pulse of mana outwards. As the mana spread outwards, he managed to catch the movement of Shuri disappearing into the artificial tunnel leading outwards. He sighed in relief internally.

'I must do everything in my power to ensure her escape.'

He refocused his attention on his opponents. A small squadron of mages of the Palace's Security had gathered in a defensive formation in front of him.

"Identify yourself, Intruder!"

"That's no intruder, that's Eunuch Bang... or at least that's his face," one of the mages blurted out in shock. "What have you done with Eunuch Bang?"

Yor snorted and raised his palm forward. A purple ethereal circle formed in front of his open palm, |Toxic Wrath|. A cone of green whirling frame burst forth and engulfed the squadron of mages before they could do anything. Once the flame settled, what remained was a melting mess of what used to be a human body and its intact feet.

Without wasting another minute, Yor burst forward and started to release another flurry of green flames along his path. The shrubbery and landscape of the Inner Court began to melt and disintegrate once the flames washed over them, though the various courtyards distributed along the area escaped the flame's deathly touch as the protective ritual formations did their jobs. Everyone and everything caught in the path of the flames not protected by magic simply ceased to exist.

However, Yor could not get further free of opposition. His senses caught the rapid approach of a powerful entity from the Main Palace. Yor heightened his guard the instant the identity of the approaching entity finally became clear.

"Head Eunuch Row," Yor greeted the youthful and lean figure that hovered before him. Although the man had an appearance of a teenage boy, Yor knew that the Head Eunuch was at least a hundred years old.

With an eerie smile, Head Eunuch Row called out Yor's name, "Eunuch Bang. What a surprise. I didn't realise you were hiding such a secret. What brought on this change of heart?"

Yor hurled a barrage of green |Fireball| attacks towards the boy-man and hurtled towards him. Head Eunuch Row dodged the attacks seamlessly and met Yor with a melee. He parried the left hook from Yor and locked the arm underneath his shoulder. Head Eunuch Row sent a jab towards Yor's chin and, while Yor was recoiling from the attack, he snaked his free arm around Yor's right arm, grabbed Yor's head and sandwiched them between his palms.

"I had high expectations of you. It's disappointing that it has come to this."

Head Eunuch Row revealed a psychotic grin as he started to increase the pressure from his hands onto Yor's head. He opened his mouth wide and pulled in an ungodly amount of air.

|Wail of the Banshee|

That was Head Eunuch Row's ultimate move - a transcendent scream capable of decimating anything caught in its cone of influence by tearing it apart particle by particle. It was clear he didn't want to waste any more time, Head Eunuch Row rightly recognised the danger of letting Yor live.

Yet instead of an impeded wave of sound, what left Head Eunuch Row's agape lips was a gush of warm blood.

"W-What?"

Head Eunuch Row lowered his head and saw two wooden things impaling him through his heart and through his core. He followed them to their base which happened to be right below Yor's shoulders. Eunuch Row had immobilised Yor's arms, but he did not account for a second pair.

Looking up, Head Eunuch Row's eyes met Yor's cold gaze. Yor freed his arms from Head Eunuch Row's lock and tore the man in two by jerking his second pair of arms sideways. In his second right hand lay a still heart and on his left lay a quickly dissipating core of a Core Condensation Realm mage.

Yor activated two spells on his first pair of arms, absorbing the vitality from the heart and the cultivation from the core. A dangerous gambit, but one that could tip the field in his favour given the identity of his next opponent.