The notification continued scrolling, text appearing in precise, clinical lines:
SCHRÖDINGER'S HEART - LEVEL 1
Description: The host's heart exists in a quantum state of superposition. It is simultaneously beating and stopped, alive and dead, functional and failed. This state cannot be observed or collapsed into a single reality unless the heart itself is physically destroyed or removed from the body.
Effect: Host exists in perpetual state between life and death. Traditional methods of determining vitality (pulse, heartbeat detection, biological scans) will return contradictory results. Physical damage does not register as fatal. Pain receptors remain active but non-critical.
Limitation: State collapses upon direct destruction of heart tissue. If heart is crushed, pierced, or removed, superposition ends and true death occurs.
Consequence: Until superposition collapses, host and observer are effectively immortal.
Cupid stared at the words, his rage momentarily forgotten in the face of sheer impossibility. Immortal. They were immortal. Tòumíng was dead and alive, his heart both beating and still, existing in some impossible space between states that shouldn't be able to coexist.
"What the actual—"
The notification flickered, new text replacing the old before he could finish reading.
EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED
HOST BRAIN FUNCTION: OFFLINE
ESTIMATED RESTORATION TIME: 5 MINUTES
SEVERE TRAUMA DETECTED
OXYGEN DEPRIVATION: CRITICAL LEVELS
NEURAL TISSUE DAMAGE: EXTENSIVE
AUTOMATIC REPAIR SEQUENCE INITIATED
WARNING: CURRENT INHABITANT "CUPID" GRANTED TEMPORARY FULL CONTROL OF HOST "TÒUMÍNG"
DURATION: 5 MINUTES
PURPOSE: ENSURE HOST SAFETY UNTIL BRAIN FUNCTION RESTORED
And then, beneath it all, one final line:
EMERGENCY SKILL SELECTION AVAILABLE - CHOOSE ONE SKILL FOR 5 MINUTE DURATION
Tòumíng's body moved.
Not slowly. Not with the jerky uncertainty of a corpse reanimating. He rose from laying to standing in a single fluid motion, going from trampled and broken to upright in less than a second. The workers closest to him stumbled backward, pickaxes clattering to the ground, eyes wide with shock.
"What the fuck—"
"He was dead!"
"I stepped on his head, I felt it, he was—"
Cupid stood in Tòumíng's body, looking out through eyes that should have been sightless, feeling the weight of limbs that should have been lifeless. It was wrong. Everything about it was wrong. The perspective, the sensations, the overwhelming immediacy of being first person instead of third.
But the rage. The rage was still there, burning hotter now that he had a body to channel it through.
The system notification pulsed, demanding attention:
SELECT EMERGENCY SKILL - TIME REMAINING: 4:47
A list appeared, skills scrolling past in rapid succession. Defensive abilities, healing powers, escape mechanisms. All practical. All designed to get the host to safety, to preserve life, to ensure survival until brain function returned.
Cupid's attention fixed on one skill near the bottom of the list.
TRUE DEATH - LEVEL 1
Description: Designate a target. For the duration of this skill, the target's quantum state collapses into absolute mortality. They become purely, completely, undeniably alive - which means they can become purely, completely, undeniably dead. No superposition. No uncertainty. No second chances.
Effect: Removes all protections, immunities, and supernatural preservation from target. Target becomes vulnerable to death in its truest form. A single fatal wound will kill. No regeneration. No resurrection. No quantum uncertainty. Just death.
Duration: Until skill expires or target dies
Range: Touch
Limitation: Can only affect one target at a time. Cannot be used on self.
The workers were backing away now, forming a rough semicircle around Tòumíng's standing corpse. Someone was calling for security. Another was praying. The young one who'd tried to help was staring with something like hope mixed with terror.
Chen, the first one, the one who'd stepped over Tòumíng's body to steal the quartz, stood frozen with a chunk of rose crystal still clutched in his hands.
SELECT EMERGENCY SKILL - TIME REMAINING: 4:15
Cupid should choose something defensive. Should pick a skill that would get them out of this tunnel, away from the riot, to safety. That was the logical choice. The smart choice. The choice that aligned with his purpose of preserving the host.
But logic had nothing to do with what he was feeling right now.
He looked at the workers. At their greedy eyes, their bloodstained hands, their pickaxes still dripping with pieces of the fortune they'd literally killed for. He looked at Chen, crying over stolen quartz while Tòumíng's blood dried on his boots.
The rage wasn't blind anymore. It had focus. It had purpose. It had a body capable of acting on it.
SELECT EMERGENCY SKILL - TIME REMAINING: 3:52
Five minutes. He had five minutes of control. Five minutes to ensure the host's safety. And what better way to ensure safety than to eliminate threats? What better way to protect Tòumíng than to remove the people who'd trampled him, stolen from him, treated him like garbage even in death?
Cupid's finger, Tòumíng's finger, reached out toward the notification screen. The list of skills hovered there, practical and sensible options glowing softly in the darkness.
His hand moved past all of them.
Stopped on True Death.
CONFIRM SELECTION: TRUE DEATH
WARNING: THIS SKILL IS OFFENSIVE IN NATURE AND MAY NOT ALIGN WITH EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS
CONFIRM? Y/N
"Yes."
The word came out of Tòumíng's mouth in Cupid's voice, cold and certain and filled with blinded sorrow turned to fury.
SKILL ACTIVATED: TRUE DEATH
DURATION: 4 MINUTES, 58 SECONDS
SELECT TARGET