A Setback

When we got back to the square, Claudia nudged me and said,

"Let's go see the mercenary group first, then we can drop off these two. What do you say?"

Nodding in agreement, I followed her through alleyway after alleyway with the buildings growing slowly less and less well kept as we continued on our way. When we arrived, the building we came to sagged towards the ground as if trying to embrace the ground to escape their miserable fate of carrying so much garbage. But within these miserable places of fate was a nice well kept house with a flaming lance painted above the door. Claudia glanced at me saying,

"Try not to worry about the area too much, no one could hurt a coremaster like you."

I smiled back,

"Don't worry, I'll keep the bad guys away and the house looks nice."

Laughing, Claudia led me inside. Inside there were boards with all sort of job requests on all four corners of the room. In the middle of the room, there were three tables and in the back was a bar that was currently manned by an old man. When we entered, he looked up and he said to Claudia,

"Welcome back, you're early. All other squads are still out. Also, did you pick-up a new squad member?"

Claudia quipped back,

"No new squad member. He's just a friend I met in the forest. As for the other two, I'll leave them with you. I'm going to go show my new friend around the city."

As we were walking out, I couldn't resist saying,

"You really just wanted to come so you could leave your squad members and get me alone, wasn't it?"

Grinning she said,

"Maybe a little bit of the reason," before laughing.

She showed me around the city showing m both palaces for the two ruling families, the huge park in the middle of the city and tons of restaurants. One of which we finally chose to eat at. After eating, I

determined that the beast meat we had been eating earlier wasn't nearly as good as I originally had thought.

Comparing it to the steaks we ordered was like comparing heaven to earth. As it was getting dark, she took me towards their guild hall saying I could stay there until I figured out what I wanted to do. We were walking down one of the many alleyways on the way to the guild hall when I noticed something was off.

I wasn't sure what but was about to warn Claudia when suddenly ten people jumped down from the rooftop behind and in front of us. They were the ten coremasters from the Golden Lion sect who had bought the scales and teeth from me. One of them stretched out his hand saying,

"Hand over the green coins and the girl to us and we will consider us even."

I gave him a questioning look, was he really trying to take back the money he just paid me and expecting me to leave Claudia with him like she was some sort of property. With the most contempt I could manage to put in my voice, I answered,

"Fuck no, why should I give you anything. You bid for the items fair and square."

I saw him get a small smirk when he said,

"Well, you can do it because I'm the personal disciple to a sect elder. This means to you my word might as well be law. But more immediately you should give them to me because your life will be the price."

Not being able to stand being threatened anymore, I threw a punch at his chest. He tried to dodge and almost succeeded in surprising me with his speed before I remembered he was a coremaster as well. When my back hit his shoulder, it gave a satisfying crack and he dropped to the ground clutching his shoulder.

His friends jumped at me some of them even managed to clad a hand or foot in one of their elements much like when I just started practicing. Seeing this activated my core and clad my whole body in lightening nearly doubling my speed. They hesitated at first before charging back in. I dodged the first few punches before meeting one of them with a punch at my own shattering his hand and throwing him into the wall of a building.

He slumped against the wall no longer moving. Two down, eight to go. U dodged a few more blows before sending a punch into one of their chests, caving it in and throwing him back a few feet. I simultaneously blocked a kick towards the back of my head while urging my fighting to surge towards the attacker causing him to stumble backwards dazed allowing me to flip around and give a kick to his face practically causing it to deform as it flew back.

With nearly half the attackers incapacitated, the rest of the fight was much simpler and I quickly dispatched the rest of them. Seeing all those arrogant sect bastards on the ground, I made a smile rise on my face as I prepared to make some joke about how weak sect core masters were but when I saw the look of terror on Claudia's face, I knew something was wrong. I tried to reassure her saying,

"Don't worry, I took care of them. I wouldn't leave them with you."

This didn't seem to have any effect and she pulled out her sword and said,

"Hurry up and help me kill them all. Then if we hide their bodies, the sect might not be able to trace this incident back to us."

As she said this, she prepared to plunge her sword into one of them. Rushing over in a panic before she could finish he thrust yelling,

"What are you doing? You can't just kill people who can't resist. That's just wrong. I'll just go live out in the forest until this blows over."

Seeing my reaction she hesitated before saying,

"Fine, don't regret this decision though. If you're lucky, they'll be too embarrassed to report with them being beaten up by someone younger than themselves. Either way, you need to leave and go hide right now before anyone of them recovers."

Acknowledging this, I said goodbye rushing to the city gates and back into the Giant's Forest I had just left. I sprinted for awhile covering miles in minutes finally after a few hours, I felt like I had traveled far enough that no one was going to follow me. I set-up camp figuring I would hide out here for a week or so and then go see Claudia again to see if things had died down.

Before trying to settle down for the night, I set up a nice clearing to sleep for the night. I, of course, couldn't sleep with so many thoughts running through my head. Things like would I ever get to see Claudia again. She was the first real friend I had made since being since being taken in by my master. I tossed and turned all night, a million simulations of what might happen to go through my mind when suddenly I noticed faint sounds of something approaching the clearing I had made.

I jumped up adrenaline coursing through me. After my recent incident, I was way more cautious of anything approaching me. After looking around for a few seconds and not seeing any movement, I started to relax when immediately a laugh echoed through the clearing followed by an unfamiliar voice saying,

"Master, I found him. This idiot wasn't even smart enough to attempt to hide his tracks like his friend did."

Another unfamiliar voice echoed out in reply,

"That's not stupidity, my disciple. That's arrogance. He probably thought he'd have at least a day before we would start looking for him. Didn't you boy?"

With these words, an old man entered into the clearing with a silk robe that had a golden cummerbund across it. He was also carrying a canvas bag in one hand and an ordinary looking sword in the other. I prepared to fight but instead of charging me with his sword, he threw the canvas bag at me.

I dodged to the side but as it flew by, I noticed the heavy sent of blood wafting off the bag. When it hit the ground, it opened revealing the contents inside. When I saw what was inside the bag, I froze up and started trembling in shock. I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I was tempted to pinch myself to wake up from what I could only assume was a nightmare but I knew it wasn't. What I was staring at was the heavily mutilated body of Claudia.

They had chopped into small enough pieces to fit into the bag. Almost every inch of her skin was covered in some kind of wound indicating that she had most certainly not died a peaceful death. The only portion untouched was her face. Just looking at this site would sear the image forever into my memories of her head sitting on top of a pile of mutilated flesh. As I was staring in shock, the old man started swinging his sword as he approached me saying,

"Did you like our little present? Thought it was perfect and even better, give me a few hours and I can make you guys match!"

Hearing his taunts quickly turned my shock into anger. Unable to restrain myself anymore, I concentrated all the elements better than I had ever managed to before into forming a sphere of lightning. As soon as it was formed, I rushed towards the old man using every ounce of speed I had to plunge the spear into his chest.

Yet, his hand seemed to turn into a paw of some kind and then with disturbing strength swiped away my spear completely dispersing the lightening elements. Before I could even react, he slashed open my chest from my shoulder to my waist. I fell back, blood spurting from my chest and blackness creeping into my vision unnaturally fast. Before I was completely submerged in unconsciousness, the old man straddled me, a grin on his face and said,

"Don't worry, the poison of my blade won't kill you. It'll just make sure you sleep long enough to set up a room just for you."

After those words, I could no longer hold onto my fleeting consciousness and I faded away.