Chapter 501: 501. Numerals
"500?" Zuzia blurted, voice cutting the cave’s heavy air.
"You may call me that." The voice replied, low and oddly resonant.
The figure in the dark shifted; the neon-blue numerals on the hood pulsed again as it regarded them, one by one.
"Interesting," 500 said. The syllables rolled like distant thunder.
"You are not a Dragonion, yet dragon-blood stirs in your veins." Its eyes—if they could be called that—glimmered when they settled on Tyler. Then it turned to Myrtle. "You have turtle-blood. You wear human skin as a mask."
"And you," the figure intoned, looking at Lanny, "your face bears a cursed mask. Emotionless. You don’t cry, you don’t laugh, you don’t smile, you don’t truly fear nor feel sad —they are all just an act. You perform what you think you should feel."
Lanny’s nervousness she’d been showing a moment ago stilled into something harder, more wary. He was right. Lanny never able to show emotions like others.
"In my previous world," she said, voice small and different than earlier—hushed, raw, "I was abandoned for this face. People feared me because I didn’t cry when they expected tears. But I am not empty. I do feel."
Mana gently placed a hand on her shoulder, offering silent comfort. The others were just as surprised, their eyes widening at the revelation.
They all wished to console her, yet they knew this wasn’t the time. A far greater problem loomed before them.
A pause. 500 said no more to her than a single sentence: "Remove the mask, and you will be whole." It spoke the words with neither cruelty nor kindness; merely statement.
It turned to Zuzia and Mana then, and finally faced Tyler again. "A dragon and a spirit," it observed, as if cataloguing.
Tyler bowed his head a fraction, the loose courtesy of a merchant to a stranger who might be powerful. "I am Tyler White. May I ask who you are, senior?"
The voice hummed, amused. "Who am I? A long tale.. It will take years to complete... Just Call me the Deep Valley Poison Sect Master or — just call me 500." The words made the laboring workers outside pause; numbers blinked on their foreheads for a beat, then vanished from their memory like a dream. They set down their burdens and returned to work as though nothing had happened.
"I... I would like to speak to you alone," 500 added. The cave’s atmosphere shifted; the others suddenly found their feet moving outward as if by polite compulsion. In moments, Tyler and the cloaked figure were alone.
"I... I am Dying..." 500 drew back its hood. The face beneath was a wooden puppet’s: smooth planks, jointed like an automaton, no mouth, no eyes—only the neon 500 burned across the pale wood. The effect was uncanny, the image of something made for a stage, older than the stage itself.
Tyler was taken back.
"If that makes you uneasy," the puppet-voice continued, "I can change." The wooden face splintered, skin and scale and flesh unwrapping, until a yellow-lizard man stood where the puppet had been: scales like burnished brass, eyes sharp as a hawk’s.
Here’s a cleaner and more polished version of your passage:
"Huh... What do you mean by dying?" Tyler had countless questions swirling in his mind, but he chose to start with that one.
"I..." The figure paused for a long moment before continuing, his voice low and heavy. "...am Numeral."
Tyler’s eyes widened. "Y-You are? How? Why are you here, in the Dragon King’s territory?"
Everyone in the North knew the name Numeral. His reputation stood on equal ground with the Dragon King himself— one of the true Overlords of the Seas.
"I am not him." the lizard-man said, voice a thin, strained thing. "I am a part of him. Call me Numeral 500 —his five-hundredth echo."
"Then your followers, the ones with numbers—are they clones, puppets?" Tyler asked.
"Not clones," 500 corrected. "Seeds. I plant seeds. They sprout obedience only when death scratches at their throat. Then the seed blooms." He lifted his face. "They are not mine by birth; they are mine by debt. I do not enslave for sport."
Tyler’s fingers tightened on the rings at his sleeves— small explosive glyphs, contingency charms. He kept them from thumbing the activation with an effort.
Tyler weighed that, The seed idea explained much— and implied something worse. If these people were walking mines of control, any conflict would risk turning allies into puppets.
"What do you want?" Tyler asked. his fingers tightened on the rings at his sleeves — that contains many explosive charms. He kept them from thumbing the activation with an effort. He also a step away from activating his Waypoint unit Terminal which can be used for opening a portal and escape.
The lizard man’s expression dimmed. "I am... breaking," he said simply. "My tether frays. I am—dying, in pieces. Clones degrade. The Numeral who spawned me —he made many like me, and one by one, we falter. My sections unravel into noise."
"Huh?" Tyler frowned, trying to grasp the 500 words. "So you’re dying. That doesn’t answer my question. What exactly do you want from me?"
The Lizard man turned back into his wooden puppet form.
500—tilted its wooden head. Its voice came out heavy, each word dragging through the air like a curse.
"It will take ten years for me to wither away. But I do not wish to fade into nothingness. I want to complete my mission before that day comes."
Tyler narrowed his eyes. "Mission? What mission?"
The puppet paused. Its hollow face seemed to turn toward him with deliberate weight.
"The mission... is to kill the One."
Tyler blinked, confused. "The one? Which one?"
500’s silence stretched until it felt suffocating.
Then realization dawned on Tyler’s face. His body tensed. "...Wait. You mean The ’1’?"
"Correct," 500 hissed. "The one who created me. The Overlord—Numeral himself. That is my mission."
Tyler’s jaw tightened. "That makes no sense. Why would he create a clone for the sole purpose of killing his own self?"
500 chuckled, a sound like wood scraping stone. "Let me explain with something simple. Imagine fish in a pond."
"...Uh?" Tyler tilted his head. The analogy felt out of place.
"Do you know what happens when fish live in a pond without natural enemies? Without predators to thin their numbers?"
Tyler scratched his chin. "They’d survive. Multiply. Live happily ever after, I guess. Isn’t that the point?"
"Wrong."
500’s voice cut like a knife.
"The pond would begin to rot. With no predators, the fish would multiply endlessly. They would eat all the plants, stripping the pond of balance. With no plants left, the water turns stagnant, poisoned, unbreathable. One by one, the fish suffocate and die. Not because they were eaten, but because nothing remained to sustain them."
Tyler fell silent. He could almost see it, a pond collapsing in on itself not from violence, but from excess.
"That does not happen," 500 continued, "when natural enemies exist. Predators cull the numbers. They preserve the balance. They ensure life continues."
"...So you’re saying you were made as Numeral’s... predator?" Tyler asked slowly.
500’s head bobbed in a stiff nod. "Among all his clones, I am the only one created with this singular mission. To one day destroy him. Once, long ago, I nearly succeeded. I almost pierced his core... but fate shifted. He endured. And now..." The puppet’s voice trailed into a sigh, wooden body creaking as it sagged. "Now my time wanes. I do not wish to end in failure."
The room was heavy with silence.
"Why me?" Tyler finally asked. His voice was low, uneasy. "He’s an Immortal. I can’t fight that. Why put this on me?"
500’s head tilted. The neon-blue digits on its forehead flickered faintly.
"Because you are not ordinary, Tyler White. You are a rare Dual Aura and Prana Practitioner. Few in this world even understand the meaning of such a path, not until the Immortal Realm. Your divine sense is stronger than most Loose Immortals I have met. Your vitality is... pure and High... Your life span too. Unbroken. You are one of the few who possess the chance to transcend and become an Immortal yourself. That is why you, of all people, could one day slay the One."
Tyler took a step back, unease tightening in his chest. "That doesn’t mean I want to. I never—"
500’s voice warped, suddenly darker, echoing like countless whispers layering over one another, "With a body like yours... I could kill him. I will kill him. I will take this perfect vessel and fulfill my mission."
Tyler’s instincts screamed. His hand darted toward the hidden rings filled with explosive charms. At the same time, he reached for his waypoint unit — dangerous to use in North where space is not stable but safer than letting himself be seized.
But his body froze. His hand halted midway.
"What—?!" His eyes widened. His thoughts dulled, slowed, as though tar was filling his veins.
"Do not resist," 500 murmured. Its wooden frame went limp, collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut. But its voice echoed inside Tyler’s mind. "I will not make you a mindless puppet. If I did, the One would notice. Instead... I shall simply replace you. I shall become you. Your flesh, your voice, your breath—all mine. Through you, I will hunt him unseen."
Tyler’s vision flickered. His limbs felt alien. Darkness pressed in around the edges of his mind.
For a moment, the cave was utterly still.
Then Tyler’s eyes opened again.
A faint neon-blue glow shone on his forehead—500.
And then, just as quickly, the number vanished.
A smile curled across his lips, one that was not his own.