Cupid stood in Tòumíng's body, surveying the tunnel through eyes that registered everything with crystal clarity despite the damage they'd sustained. The riot had mostly dispersed. Most of the workers had fled when the corpse stood up, survival instinct overriding greed, at least temporarily.
But not all of them.
Seven remained. Seven miners clustered near the exposed vein, their pickaxes still in hand, their packs bulging with stolen rose quartz. They stared at Tòumíng's standing form with expressions ranging from fear to defiance to desperate calculation.
One of them, a heavyset man with coal dust crusted in his beard, pointed an accusing finger. "This is your fault, you know. Sleeping on the job down here. Creating a safety hazard. We had to secure the area, had to make sure the vein didn't collapse."
"Yeah," another chimed in, a wiry woman with nervous eyes. "We deserve this. We've worked this mine for fifteen years. Fifteen years of breaking our backs while the bosses get rich. This is our retirement. Our one chance."
A third stepped forward, tears streaming down his face. "My daughter needs surgery. Real surgery, not the cheap clinic stuff. This quartz, it's the difference between her living and dying. You can't begrudge a father trying to save his child."
More voices joined in, each one adding their justification, their sob story, their reason why they deserved the fortune that Tòumíng had died finding. Medical bills. Debts. Starving families. Dreams deferred. The litany of suffering that defined life in the slums, now weaponized into permission to steal from a corpse.
Cupid didn't speak. Just stood there, Tòumíng's face expressionless, his damaged body swaying slightly in the weak light of the scattered headlamps.
"Hey!" The bearded man's voice took on an edge of anger. "Are you even listening? Don't you dare ignore us. We're trying to explain, trying to make you understand."
Silence. Cupid simply looked at him, tilting Tòumíng's head slightly, like a predator assessing prey.
"Fuck this." The man strode forward, his hand reaching out to grab Tòumíng's shoulder. "You think you're better than us? You think your suffering is worse? We're all drowning down here, kid. At least we had the sense to grab a life raft when we found one."
His fingers closed on Tòumíng's shoulder.
Cupid reached up with mechanical precision and placed Tòumíng's palm against the man's face.
TRUE DEATH ACTIVATED - TARGET ACQUIRED
The effect was instantaneous. The man's eyes went wide, his mouth opening in a scream that never came. His body didn't collapse or fall or show any sign of violence. He simply ceased to exist. One moment he was there, solid and real and angry. The next moment the space he'd occupied was empty.
Gone.
Completely, utterly, absolutely gone.
And where he'd stood, where his pack had rested against his hip, bulging with stolen rose quartz... nothing. The crystals he'd taken had vanished with him, as if they'd never existed at all.
The tunnel went silent. Six remaining miners frozen in place, their brains struggling to process what they'd just witnessed. A human being erased from reality like a mistake on a chalkboard.
Then panic.
"What did you—"
"He killed—"
"Run, we need to—"
But Cupid was already moving. Tòumíng's body flowed forward with inhuman grace, the usual limitations of pain and injury and exhaustion simply not applying. A hand shot out, grabbed the wiry woman's wrist.
Gone.
Her pack of quartz vanishing with her.
Another touch. The crying father reached for his pickaxe but Cupid was faster, Tòumíng's fingers brushing his neck.
Gone. Pack and all.
The tunnel became a hunting ground. Cupid moved through it like death incarnate, silent and efficient and absolutely merciless. Each touch was precise, clinical, devoid of the rage that had motivated the choice. The emotion was still there, burning in what passed for his consciousness, but the execution was cold.
Touch. Gone.
Touch. Gone.
Touch. Gone.
Six became five became four became three became two became one.
The last survivor wasn't one of the thieves.
He was young, maybe seventeen, curled against the tunnel wall where he'd been trampled earlier in the riot. His coveralls were torn, his face bloodied, one arm held at an awkward angle that suggested a break or dislocation. The kid who'd tried to help Tòumíng, who'd begged the others to get him to the surface, who'd been pushed aside and stepped on for his compassion.
He stared up at Tòumíng's approaching form with wide, terrified eyes. "Please," the word came out broken, desperate. "Please, I tried to help you, I swear I tried, they wouldn't listen, I told them to stop, I told them—"
Sobs cut off his words. He pressed himself harder against the wall, as if he could somehow merge with the stone and disappear.
Cupid stopped. Looked down at him. Tilted Tòumíng's head again in that same predatory assessment.
The kid's lips moved in what might have been a prayer or a final plea.
"Leave."
The word came out of Tòumíng's mouth in a voice that wasn't quite his. Flat. Final. No room for negotiation or debate.
The kid nodded so hard his neck must have hurt. He scrambled to his feet, cradling his injured arm, and ran. His footsteps echoed down the tunnel, fading into the distance, punctuated by occasional sobs and gasps of pain and relief.
Then silence again.
Cupid stood alone in the tunnel, surrounded by the evidence of his work. Which was to say, surrounded by nothing. No bodies. No blood. No signs that seven people had been standing here moments ago. Just empty space and disturbed stone dust.
He glanced at the system notification hovering in his peripheral vision.
TRUE DEATH DURATION REMAINING: 1:03
One minute. Barely any time at all. He should gather the rose quartz, get it loaded into a cart, get Tòumíng's unconscious mind back to the surface before brain function restored and he had to explain what had just happened.
Cupid turned toward the exposed vein, reaching out to grab the first chunk of crystal.
His hand closed on empty air.
He blinked. Looked closer. The vein was still there, still massive and glittering and worth a fortune. But the chunks that had been harvested, the pieces that had been broken free and loaded into packs, the fragments scattered across the tunnel floor from the riot...
Gone.
All of it. Gone.
"No." The word came out sharp, panicked. "No, no, no."
He spun, searching the tunnel floor. Nothing. Where Chen had knelt, where he'd carefully set that first perfect chunk of rose quartz before the others arrived... empty. Where the bearded man's pack had split open during the chaos, spilling crystals across the ground... nothing.
"Shit."
Cupid grabbed the pickaxe, raised it, brought it down on the vein. A chunk broke free, perfect and pink and valuable.
It hit the ground and immediately vanished.
"SHIT."
He tried again. Same result. The moment the quartz separated from the main vein, the moment it became a distinct object, it ceased to exist. Erased. Removed from reality just like the miners had been.
"Did True Death remove the gems too?" His voice rose, Tòumíng's vocal cords straining with the force of his panic. "Did I just— Did the skill count them as part of the targets? As their possessions? As extensions of their existence?"
TRUE DEATH DURATION REMAINING: 0:47
"SHIT. SHIT. SHITTTTTTTTTT."
The vein glittered mockingly in the darkness, a fortune that couldn't be touched, couldn't be harvested, couldn't be used. All because of a skill choice made in blind rage, because Cupid had prioritized revenge over survival, because he'd wanted to watch them suffer more than he'd wanted to actually help Tòumíng.
"SHITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT."