'That guy always gives me the creeps!'
Ixion didn't know what that man's malfunction was, but he was not normal!
Who in their right mind would endeavor to make a weapon from souls, using a child as a nexus? That was something even the deplorable Ixion wouldn't do.
Let alone, the nameless man was merely working with theories and internal calculations…
He was gambling lives on math scribbled in the margins of madness.
Not that Ixion wasn't sinking on that same boat.
The scenes he was once shown by that wanderer were not entirely provable, but something he trusted in nonetheless.
'But still!'
Ixion wasn't kidnapping children and throwing them in a water-filled tube.
Ixion sighed as his soul drifted back to his room and checked on his body. Seeing that everything was alright, and the jester had not snuck in again nor anything else out of the ordinary, Ixion floated toward his backup body, which he kept hidden in the walls of an abandoned storehouse.
Ixion's soul slipped through the dirty streets and into the body.
A body that looked like his, but slightly shorter and weaker, with black hair. Ixion smiled as he looked upon the hollow cadaver.
'How long has it been…?'
'A week? Two?'
Floating into the body, Ixion's soul snapped into place, and the vessel opened its eyes.
He tried to get up, but quickly ran into a problem.
"My limbs are frozen…"
Rigor mortis had claimed this vessel, but it hadn't decomposed due to the curse placed upon it.
Ixion sat still and began whistling while forcing the heart to pump blood. As the muscles relaxed and warmed, Ixion painfully snapped them out of their stasis alongside a harsh crack and clicking of joints.
He even managed to stand and walk around, but the body was still enervated.
In the pitch-black room, the King paced around in circles…
"What should I do today?"
'Shall I visit Joe's Tavern?'
Ixion's main reason for coming out wasn't simply fun and to mingle among the people. He was also searching for someone. A person who could only be found when within a flesh-and-blood body.
Of course, that wasn't his only reason; he was also going to walk around and find a nice place for his statue!
'Perhaps the Grand Plaza…'
'No, no…'
A location like that would make too much sense.
'What about in the heart of the slums…?'
Now that, that sounded like what a senseless king would do.
Build a statue of a hated man in the place he was hated the most. So they could burn his treacherous face into their minds.
Ixion stretched his body a bit more.
"Ah, I think I'm alive enough now."
With a sadistic smirk, Ixion reeled his leg back and then kicked lightly into the stone wall. A little gap appeared, which was soon exacerbated by a few more kicks, making a hole Ixion could walk through.
He could have destroyed it in one go, but he didn't want to risk accidentally killing someone with shrapnel.
'I quite like this body… I don't wish to have to abandon it yet!'
As a cloud of dust and debris rose, Ixion stepped through. His smirk twisted into a full-on smile, and his face only visible due to the fires burning within barrels.
He had burst into the main room of the storehouse where a few dozen squatters lived.
A young girl with matted hair and a scar on her right eye shouted.
"Oh, oh no."
An older man with thinning hair pointed and yelled:
"H-he's back!"
All the heads within the building, lit only by dim fires, all snapped to Ixion. Well, Ixion's current vessel.
A rail-thin mom threw her hand forth and dragged her daughter behind her. A few people hid behind barrels. Some even extinguished the flames they'd worked so hard to keep burning, hiding within the darkness.
Ixion stepped over the rubble and threw his arms to the side.
"Why hello! Did you all miss me? The great Veritas!"