Chapter 59: The Sword That Purrs Beneath the Blood
A year and a half had evaporated like breath on frozen glass.
I was in the training chamber, shirtless and sweat-slick, flipping through data logs on my bio-pad while catching my breath. My latest sparring session with Kimchi had just concluded—a lovely little bout of ritualized murder-foreplay where she tried to remove my spleen and I tried not to disappoint her.
And today? She won.
Barely.
The scar across my chest was still wet.
My limbs ached in that yes-I-survived-but-it-cost-me kind of way.
But I was smiling.
Because finally—after all the grinding, sweating, bleeding, and recovering—I was ready.
I was leaving.
Not forever, not recklessly, but for real this time. An expedition. My first true solo venture out into the wider universe that didn't involve crash-landing onto a hostile alien world and accidentally becoming a cult icon for a flesh-consuming mega-intellect.
Y'know. Growth.
