Lean on Me

When she did not reply, he cleared his throat and said he'd be back with some digging tools.

As soon as Anh Hai left the edge of the blackened rim, Blake hovered in front of her.

"Jazzie." He called out in a soft voice, careful not to scare her.

She turned desolate brown eyes at his familiar voice.

"Blake." She whispered. "I saw you in my past."

He looked at her with sad amber eyes.

"If I hurt you, I'm so very sorry. Please forgive me."

"No, no. My death was an accident. You were a bit of a brute, but I don't blame you for that. You were just being a victorious King back then."

Blake sighed.

"Are you thinking of digging that grave up?"

Jasmine nodded.

"Unfortunately, me and Anh Hai are a bit weak at the moment so we may not be able to do it."

"I could help, if you let me." Blake offered.

"Who you calling weak!" Anh Hai exclaimed from behind her.

"You're back." Jasmine turned toward his voice.

"So this is the ancient King who killed me." Anh Hai turned towards Blake.

"You killed me in this life. I'd say we're even." Blake responded.

"We are hardly even. I'm a Master Overlord and you're what, barely a Novice."

Blake shot Anh Hai a disgusted look.

"I've only been in the system for a few weeks. You've been doing this for how long? And you're barely a Master Overlord."

"I will take over Tong Li's Exalted Overlord position soon."

Jasmine watched the interplay between the two Kings with interest.

"What's the ranking system?" She asked.

Without taking his eyes off Blake, Anh Hai responded.

"The Demon System has Initiate, Novice, Apprentice, Overlord, Master Overlord, Exalted Overlord, Legendary Overlord, and Transcended."

Anh Hai sniffed in disdain.

"At the moment, this guy has barely passed Initiate level. In fact, it looks as if he has just barely attained Novice."

Blake narrowed his eyes.

"Well, at the very least, this Novice can dig better than you can. Hand me a shovel."

Anh Hai stared at him with suspicion.

Blake was a talented poltergeist, there was no doubt. But digging with a tool from this realm was something that could not be maintained, no matter how good the poltergeist was.

He wanted to impress the girl with his digging prowess? Far be it for Anh Hai to stand between him and abject failure.

Without a second hesitation, Anh Hai threw a shovel at the apparition that was Blake.

Blake caught the shovel easily with one hand.

For a moment the shovel disappeared.

Under the weapons cache, a new number appeared. 10/20. 'Shovel' appeared under the tenth slot for weapons.

Now that it had turned into one of Blake's Demon System's weapons, he could use it to his heart's content.

"Where do you want me to start?"

Anh Hai stared at Blake's demonized shovel and wordlessly pointed at the gravestone.

Within a few minutes, they were hard at work, digging away at the area underneath the stone. Jasmine was still weak from her ordeals of the previous days, but she was determined to get to the bottom of all this, both figuratively and literally.

There were banyan remains everywhere. Between the three of them, they managed to gather up most of the remaining blackened and twisted limbs of roots and branches and heaved them over to the side.

Then, Anh Hai loosened the broad expanse of dirt in the middle of the charred circle with a pick ax while Jasmine and Blake dug what they could out, throwing the loose topsoil on top of the blackened tree limbs.

In this fashion, they worked together for several hours until a straggling crew of Anh Hai's finest fighters came out, bandaged and bloodied, to watch their efforts.

They saw the Overlord, breaking up the soil with powerful swings of the pick ax while a small weak girl was shoveling small bits of soil and flinging it to one side.

Meanwhile another force that they could not see was working alongside her, shoveling at ten times the speed and efficiency, making serious dents into the earth.

Having followed Anh Hai all these years, they were not surprised that a spirit or ghoul was assisting him with work. He was one of the best at controlling ghouls.

But it seemed to them that this ghoul was not being controlled by him, and in fact was working alongside the girl. Was she, perhaps an Overlord herself, with her own slave ghoul?

If this was the case, it was no wonder the Master Overlord was so smitten with her. For a man who killed people with little remorse, Overlord Anh Hai treated her with the gentleness that they had never seen him exhibit with anyone else.

Jasmine had no idea what the men around her were thinking about at the moment. She stopped to catch her breath and felt beside her, someone joining alongside.

It was one of the weaker men who could no longer even move his right hand. It had being bound in a cast and strapped to his body to restrict movement.

His injuries did not stop him though. He crouched on the ground next to her, digging with a small hand-shovel with his awkward left hand while chanting along with the cadence.

It was a light rhythmic sound that soothed Jasmine's soul.

The three remaining men, having taken up whatever pick ax and shovel they could find, were also joining in their efforts. Once in awhile, one of them would pause the digging to haul barrows of dirt away and dumping it elsewhere so the crew could continue to dig.

In this manner, several hours later, the first pick ax struck the lid of the coffin.

A loud cheer arose from the men, exhausted almost beyond their endurance but still fighting and working towards the cause they so zealously embraced.

They cleared the area around the coffin and lifted the heavy load out of the pit in which it had lain undisturbed for so long. The lid clearly had the mark of the queen.

This was her coffin.

As the men carefully pried at the opening of the coffin lid, Jasmine relived the final moments of that desperate life with a realism so profound that she gasped and almost keeled over.

Blake, standing next to her, caught her around the waist and held onto her, whispering soothing words into her ears.

"I'm right here. It's okay Jazzie. Just lean on me."

"Blake…" she whispered, unable to say anything more.

"Shhhhh. I'm not letting go. I will be here to support you for as long as you need me. I promise." He murmured into her ear.