Or so they thought.
Inside Tòumíng's shattered skull, consciousness flickered in a space that shouldn't have been possible.
"Cupid?" His mental voice was weak, confused. "What… what happened?"
"WHAT HAPPENED?!" Cupid's response was pure panic, his usual sarcastic composure completely gone. "YOU GOT SHOT IN THE HEAD! THREE TIMES! THERE ARE BULLETS LODGED IN YOUR SKULL! HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU STILL FORMULATE WORDS?! HOW ARE YOU CONSCIOUS RIGHT NOW?!"
"Schillout, bro," Tòumíng's mental speech was slurred, distorted, like trying to talk through a mouthful of marbles. The bullet lodged in his language center was interfering with even internal communication, scrambling the neural pathways that processed speech.
"Don't tell me to chill out! Your brain is—" Cupid stopped himself, forcing control back into his voice. "Okay. Okay. Listen carefully. The bullets haven't fully penetrated. Schrödinger's Heart is keeping you in quantum superposition technically dead, technically alive, but your brain function is severely compromised. You need to check out."
"Whuh… what meanz?" Even Tòumíng's internal thoughts were coming out garbled.
"Check out. Willingly turn off your mind. Essentially try to die. Force your consciousness to shut down completely so I can take full control of the body."
"Humanz… can do thad?"
"Yes! The human body can do this when it sees no point in surviving anymore! It's a psychological shutdown response! Your brain is damaged enough that I need you to stop trying to operate it and let me handle this!" Cupid's voice was urgent, pleading. "I need you to die again. Trust me. Just… let go."
Tòumíng's consciousness wavered, processing this request through damaged neural tissue. Die. Again. Voluntarily this time.
"I… truz you."
"Good. Now stop fighting. Stop trying to maintain consciousness. Just… let go."
Tòumíng did.
His awareness faded, his consciousness releasing its grip on the damaged brain, allowing Schrödinger's Heart to maintain the body while the mind checked out completely.
"Fuck," Cupid muttered in the sudden silence. "I'm back to playing first-person. This is the worst."
-----
Outside, in the concrete storage room, Ghost Claw was still screaming, her hands reaching instinctively for the handgun holstered at her side—
"Tsk tsk tsk! Nononono!" One of the guards rushed forward, his weapon trained on her head as another guard yanked the gun from her holster before she could draw it. "Bad idea! Very bad idea!"
They surrounded her now, all three guards forming a triangle with Ghost Claw at the center, their weapons pointed at her from multiple angles. Professional execution positioning. No way to dodge all three shots simultaneously.
The bald guard was still on the ground, clutching his bleeding foot, groaning in pain but very much alive.
"Last words?" One of the guards asked, his voice almost cheerful. "We usually give people last words. It's polite. Professional courtesy."
Ghost Claw's eyes were still fixed on Tòumíng's body, sprawled on the concrete with blood pooling around his shattered skull. The teenager who'd helped her. Who'd used some kind of supernatural vision to find the blood ruby. Who'd thought he was in a fucking action movie and gotten himself killed because of it.
Her fault. All her fault.
She closed her eyes, accepting what was coming.
The guards' fingers tightened on their triggers
Tòumíng's body sat up.
Not slowly. Not groggily. The corpse performed a perfect kip-up, a gymnastic move where you spring from lying flat on your back directly to standing position in one explosive motion.
The body landed in a crouch, perfectly balanced, then rose to full height.
All three guards froze, their weapons still pointed at Ghost Claw but their attention completely diverted to the corpse that was now standing behind them.
The corpse that shouldn't be moving. That had three bullet holes in its skull. That should have been dead.
Cupid, operating Tòumíng's body like a puppet, grinned with an expression that Tòumíng's face had never made before, cold, calculated, predatory.
He moved silently, faster than should have been possible, his hands shooting out to touch two of the guards from behind. Just a light touch on their shoulders, fingers barely making contact.
The guards paused, feeling the touch, their brains trying to process.
Cupid paused too, his hands still on their shoulders, waiting for the skill to activate.
Waiting for True Death to erase them from existence.
Nothing happened.
Shit.
TEMPORARY CONTROL NOTIFICATION:
Host consciousness: OFFLINE
Cupid operating in emergency mode
Available skills: NONE
Note: Skills require host consciousness to activate. Emergency control mode limited to physical manipulation only.
"Fuck," Cupid muttered through Tòumíng's mouth, his grin faltering.
He'd forgotten. When operating the body in emergency mode—when Tòumíng's consciousness was completely checked out he couldn't access any of the M.I.N.E. system skills. No True Death. No Ore Sense. No Metabolic Healing. Nothing.
Just the base physical capabilities of the body and whatever combat knowledge Cupid had accumulated over his millennia of existence.
The guards were starting to turn, their weapons swinging toward this corpse that had somehow grabbed them from behind—
Cupid needed to say something. Tòumíng would have said something cool. A one-liner. A movie quote. Something to break the tension before the violence started.
"Die Hard… it's gonna… be… hard to kill me… like make me… die hard—" The words came out of Tòumíng's mouth, Cupid trying to channel the same action-movie energy that Tòumíng had been radiating. "Fuck, that didn't sound as cool—"