Chapter 25: Standing Ground.

Against his will, he rose from the pot to leave, but his body jerked midway as he wrestled for control. Then he fell back into the boiling cauldron.

When Tessa saw his performance, she nodded and said, "Good choice. Fight the worm and claim dominion over it."

"Nothing good comes easy. And just like physical exercise, the best impact is felt when you’ve reached your limit."

Robert, who was still nearby, heard what she said. His face changed many times as he considered returning to the pot. But he eventually sighed and stuck with his decision to give up.

As for Barnabas, he was now glaring at Alex. He was nearly baring his teeth as he thought, ’She complimented him yesterday too.’

’Why does she compliment him so much? And why does she not compliment me?’

He knew the answer to these questions, but it would have been better if he didn’t, because the answers only made him feel bad about himself, which in turn made him hate Alex even more.

He wanted to impress Tessa and would like to receive a compliment from her once in a while. Unfortunately, she only seemed to have eyes for Alex and ignored all of his hard work. Or so he thought.

’It was already bad enough that this pipsqueak managed to become an Apostle like me. Now he is actually trying to steal her heart. And right in front of me too. What an asshole!’ he thought, gritting his teeth in anger.

The person he was angry with didn’t notice, though. Alex was too busy wrestling with the worm to notice the glare of a jealous man.

The worst part of his fight with the worm was that he couldn’t cheat by withdrawing his consciousness. He had to keep his consciousness active, or the worm would easily take control of his body, which meant he also had to open his senses to the pain of his flesh being cooked.

The pain was so bad that he wanted to quit immediately. But he didn’t want to let the worm win, so he decided to hold on and keep fighting.

’Give me a minute. If you give me a minute more to withstand the pain, I’ll quit,’ he said, offering a deal.

’But food,’ the worm said in reply.

’I know you want food. I want food too. But we have to draw clear boundaries,’ Alex insisted.

’We have to agree that this is my body. I control it and get to decide what we do with it. In exchange, I give you food.’

The worm fell silent for a while, seemingly thinking. Then it asked, ’Plenty of food?’

’Yes, a lot of food. As much as I can find. Lots and lots of it,’ he said, painting a Grand and enticing picture.

But the worm wasn’t convinced. It said, ’Food now.’

’No. No food now. But there will be food in a minute. You either agree, or I will force us to stay here until we both die,’ he said, threatening in a solemn voice.

The worm took a while longer to think about his offer. During this time, the cooking got worse, and they had to spend more energy to heal their body.

The slowly increasing energy drain, combined with Alex’s threat, pressured the worm. The pressure also slowly intensified, so the longer the worm delayed, the greater it became.

Five seconds later, the worm let go of his body. It didn’t say anything, but Alex knew that it was stewing in anger.

’I’m sure it is counting the time,’ he thought, chuckling. ’Fortunately, it didn’t call my bluff.’

He didn’t want to be in the pot any longer, much less allow himself to be cooked to the point of no return. But he had to stand his ground and put his foot down on this issue. And just like a parent who might have gone overboard with their threat, he had to withstand the 60 seconds of pain so that he wouldn’t lose his authority.

’This is good,’ he thought, encouraging himself.

’You’re winning and controlling your worm, so it is good,’ he thought again for good measure.

He was keeping track of time, but even if he weren’t, he would know that 60 seconds had passed when the worm began to stir impatiently within him.

As soon as he didn’t need to suffer to establish his authority, he jumped up and rushed out of the pot, splattering hot water everywhere.

He was halfway out of the pot when Tessa threw the bloody arm to him. He saw the arm sail through the air in an arc towards him through the corner of his eye. Unfortunately, he was unbalanced and was not in a position to catch anything.

’How can I catch it?’ he thought, racking his mind.

While his conscious mind searched for a solution, his body acted on its own. Subconsciously, he leaned out beyond the point of balance, extended his hand, and caught the arm.

The arm was in his hand, but he was holding onto it with a look of confusion on his face, and his mouth was agape in surprise. He performed the series of actions, but he didn’t realize what he was doing until he did it.

He had wanted to catch the arm, and he had indeed made the move to catch it. But he didn’t expect actually to succeed. He tried it just for the sake of trying. He didn’t think he would succeed because he knew his physical performance wasn’t good enough.

He thought he knew himself and what he was capable of. But as it turned out, he wasn’t as knowledgeable about his capabilities as he thought.

When he looked back, he realized that he was now tiptoeing the edge of the pot. He held onto the pot with one hand while the other reached out to grab the arm.

He also realized the hand holding the pot gripped it so tightly that he felt as if he had steel clamps for hands, not flesh and fingers.