chapter 9

Pain is what greeted me as my consciousness slowly started to awaken. My entire body hurt. The worst was a radiating pain from my left leg. I strained my head to look down. My thigh was broken, it was easy to tell as a piece of bone was currently sticking out of my leg. I groaned, pushing it back in. The pain caused the empty contents of stomach to come up, resulting in dry heaving that caused my chest to ache.

My body was in agony, I couldn't move far, not with my left injured as it was. My eyes wandered around, I was still in the oasis, though the water was now stained red with the blood of who knew how many beasts. To my right, only ten feet away, laid a large lion, it had very labored breathing. Pierced I to its chest was what was left of my katana.

I sighed to myself, this is going to hurt. A lot. The consequences of not doing it were far worse though. Using my arms, I dragged myself towards the lion, moving an inch at a time. Each movement was agony, blood poured from my leg, and I am not ashamed to say that my shirt had a few more vomit stains. I could not stop, no matter how bad the pain was. The only way I was going to survive was to absorb the essence of this dying beast. I could tell it was strong, the wounds that riddled my body were no doubt from him.

Seconds dragged onto minutes which dragged onto hours, at least that's how it felt. The sun had yet to move as my destroyed body eventually reached the dying lion. Despite its injuries, it did not succumb to my aura. Its vitality slowly feeding into me, in turn sending a horrible it to my leg as it slowly stitched itself back together. Using the handle of my katana I pulled myself onto the dying beast. The scent of its blood was intoxicating, I drew my blade from the scabbard that was this lion's body, my heart racing at the abundant essence in its blood.

I greedily licked a drop of blood from my katana, the essence in my body quickly reaching a state of unrest. My eyes widened as I felt my essence surged. This was not a low-level beast. My eyes shifted around as I slowly took a step back. A sense of terror filled my heart as the wound from my katana quickly closed.

The sheer concentration of the essence this beast passively displayed was unimaginable, there was no way I had injured this beast, even in my chaotic state. My strength and speed would increase sure, but not enough to amount to a drop of water to what this beast had.

There was only one explanation. I was not alone. Somebody had injured this beast, leaving it for me to recover, and likely scare away other beasts. Perhaps my squad was nearby? But why would they leave?

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My squad was nearby, they stood outside the oasis, with them stood a familiar figure. She was tall with red hair and a scar running down her face. Skyler's angry voice could be heard reprimanding Lotus.

"Miss Lotus you were briefed on the situation, we are here to watch and observe him, not to give him a helping hand, and sure as hell not leave him a gift that will alert him of our presence"

Lotus's usual voice had an icy tone as she looked at her with unveiled contempt. "The only reason I agreed to this operation is that it would be beneficial for his development, however the way things are going are more detrimental then beneficial. You either change your plans or I withdraw him from the mission. I couldn't give two shits if you go crying to your father or the sect master, they both knew my conditions when the operation started." With hat she turned her back to leave, but her voice continued filled with malice "and if you ever put that boy in danger again, I will not hesitate to kill you"

A shiver went down Skye's spine as those words were spoken. She had often heard of Lotus's temper from her father but never imagined it to be this bad. There was nothing she could do but comply, after all the only people stronger than her in the sect were the sect master and her father. And if it came down to it her father may not be able to win the fight.

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I ran, that lion was not something I could deal with and it would be awakening soon. I did not have the strength to even injure it, I had not tried, but it was an instinctive feeling. My essence was full, but not overflowing. To avoid blacking out again I avoided the small groups of undead. All the while heading east. I had no idea how far I was off course, but if I continued like this, I would run into my squad eventually.

My guess was proven correct half a day later, I found the five of them battling a small group of the undead. Aster was firing her arrows at the undead in back, Brutus was in the middle of the pack, his great sword bringing destruction with every swing. Knight and Lily were standing to the side, observing the scene with Skye.

A smile unconsciously dawned as my face as I saw the familiar sight of Lily. I had only known her for a little over a month, but she was the only constant I had since entering this world, and I had already found myself cherishing the time I had with her.

I approached the squad as the last of the zombies fell. I couldn't imagine what they thought as they saw me. They probably imagined I had abandoned them. A look of pity could be seen in lily's eyes as she cast her eyes over my body. There were no obvious wounds, but my clothes were in tatters and stained with blood.

Skye was the first to react, her voice entering my ears in an all business fashion. "It's about time you caught up, it's been four days and the horde has moved closer to the city. We need to move fast." She tossed the hand crossbow that was belted to her side at me as she spoke. "Use this for now. Now that your ability is fully awakened, we can't have you using it until you gain control of it, I will give you an hour to rest, then we are moving out."

An hour break really isn't very long. Especially when you've spent four days constantly moving or injured. It was nice to have some down time, and of course to have some company. Of course, the only one I cared about was Lily, and to a smaller extent Aster.

I found it odd that I still did not know much about Lily, she seemed to want to keep her past behind her, which was fine. The past, or rather our lives on earth were over after all, and in a sense, this was a new chance for all of us.

The hand crossbow felt like it had always belonged in my had as I ran my fingers across the handle. Its weight was slighter heavier than a pistol, but I had some familiarity with it. I shot off a couple practice shots to judge the aim, before nodding to myself, putting it in a holster at my side. I only had 2 quivers left, the other had been lost somewhere over the last few days. My broken katana hung uselessly from my left side as we walked to the north. It just so happens I had not traveled to far west and had already made up for the distance.

The squad's balance seemed kind of odd to me as we walked forward. We walked in a V formation, with Brutus in front followed by Knight and Lily. Aster was behind knight and I was located behind Lily. Skye took a place in the middle of the four of us (Brutus not included). Skye forced Aster and I to switch positions eventually as I kept getting distracted by the swaying scenery in front of me. Lily only laughed at the obvious situation, sending me a wink as she grinned, telling me to get back to work.

The undead groups we encountered were getting more common, but they were dealt with easily by using this formation. Brutus would lead Lily and Knight into the group, while Aster and I were protected by Skye as we shot the stragglers. We managed to not lose any ammunition, which was great.

As time continued the time between each encounter became smaller, and the groups became larger. They all seemed to be shambling in the same general direction, the same direction as the horde, the same direction as the City of Taryln.

Our mission would be considered failed if the horde made it to Taryln but based on the pace of the undead we had encountered thus far, we had over a week before that would happen. Based on our current pace we would encounter them sometime tomorrow afternoon.

Even though we were separated by over 15 feet my eyes kept wandering over the backside of Lily. I don't know when I had started liking her, but it slowly happened. Perhaps it's like they say that proximity causes fondness, but I just felt like everything would be ok when she was by my side, or even just close.

My mind wandered to an incident that happened about a week after I had partially awakened my gift. We were sparring, and for once her kick didn't send me flying. It's not because I had suddenly gained some defense, my constitution was still at 1 after all, and would not be getting any higher any time soon. Rather, it was because I had seen the trajectory of her kick and stepped to the side in time.

The move seemed to surprise her, and she lost balance, stumbling towards me. Instinctively I reached out to grab her. Perhaps my touch had lingered to long, or maybe it was all just a set up, but as I was intoxicated by her faint scent of lilies, a smile blossomed on her face, with a faint blush to match. Seconds later I was on the ground, my manhood crying out in the pain from her sudden strike.

The memory of course ended with loss, but I think it was at that moment that I started to fall for her. That blossoming smile haunted me as I fell asleep and was my most precious memory. Even more than her swaying backside.

I couldn't help but smile as I watched her walk forward, she was tucking some hair, which was now a strawberry blonde, behind her ear as she looked back at me. I quickly looked away, pretending as if I wasn't caught. I could feel Skye's disapproving eyes on me as we marched forward, but I did not care. This entire mission was ultimately bullshit, all I had gotten out of it was blackouts that made me a little stronger. Well that wasn't true. I knew that when I started to cultivate again I had more than enough accumulation of battle experience to help me progress for a few levels. Before this was over, I would have plenty more. It was a shame that it was against these useless undead, I was able to easily see their actions, and make predictions based on their overly obvious movements. Until I was stronger, I would have to rely on sparring to grow, these undead simply were not a challenge.

Night quickly descended as I was lost in thought. We stopped on the top of a small hill to make camp. We drew lots for watch, but I'm pretty sure Skye rigged it as I got stuck with Brutus. Oh well, at least we got first watch. Watch passed slowly, with nothing major happening. I did manage to use the time to train my telekinesis some and was able to perform the cultivation while standing with my eyes open. It was only for a few moments, but it was progress.

The rest of the night passed, and we woke up with the rising of the sun. After a bit of breakfast, we quickly packed up and headed north. The entire team's nerves were acting up as we knew that sometime this afternoon, we would be encountering the horde.