Awake

A little more than half a day passed by and the village remained on high alert, the Bombyx family were uneasy about the state of which Ki was in or how serious the battle was that took place.

All they could do was keep the village stable and continue to keep everything running smoothly like always.

Lying with many dead bodies around her, Ki finally opened her eyes and looked around her surroundings.

She let out a light sigh after seeing the blood shadow group far away keeping guard over the surroundings.

She climbed to her feet weakly and then headed towards a tree and felt picked up a metal spike that had been embedded into the ground by the tree which had a small metal loop attached to it.

She then placed her hand on the thin line of silk thread that was tied to the loop and then began to follow along where the thread went while wrapping what she had collected around the metal spike.

After she unwrapped the threads from the tree she continued to the next tree and then the next which finally opened up a big enough path for many people to enter.

She exited through the path created by removing the silk threads and placed the metal spike into the ground once again.

Ki walked towards the group and began to talk as the figure that was disguised behind her began to head towards the location of the carriage. "I am heading back. Get the silk threads back, wrap them around the metal spike and then clean up the bodies. Make sure that you wear gloves and protection to cover your bodies and face to avoid coming into too much contact with them as you move them. Take them to a safe place and burn the bodies. Remove any arrows and knives from the bodies and anything they have carried with them and bring them along with you when you return."

Rashida looked a little relieved. "Don't worry about this and leave it to us. You look pale right now so go back to rest."

Although Ki had a long rest the place she had slept was the open forest so it did not provide her with the best conditions to fully recover from her fatigue.

She swept her hands past the slightly shorter parts of her hair that she had previously cut off and then walked off towards the direction of the horses and carriage.

When Ki arrived back at the mansion the first thing she did was ask for a large meal as her stomach was rumbling uncontrollably after undergoing such a physically and mentally draining change.

After eating until she was full Ki went straight to bed while Isaac, Rashida and everyone else dealt with the aftermath.

Ki spent the rest of the day and the next day in a deep sleep until she finally woke up in the morning after feeling refreshed.

She headed to have breakfast with the family and sat at the table.

Agnes looked at her granddaughter who now had a little more colour on her face and asked. "How are you feeling now? Do you feel any better?"

Ki nodded as she looked over gratefully. "I am fine now. I was just too overdrawn physically and mentally so I needed some extra time to rest up and recover. I wasn't harmed during the battle, in fact I have gained a lot during that day so it was a blessing in disguise for me."

Agnes sighed as she heard that. "That is good, so long as you are okay but next time take more people with you so you have better protection."

Ki shook her head and spoke. "This battle was more reliant on taking the enemy by surprise and making use of their disrupted senses so if I had more with me then they may end up making a mistake by accidentally attacking their allies or being attacked by their allies within the smoke. It was better to keep our peoples numbers as low as possible."

In fact during the battle there were a couple of times the enemy had unknowingly attacked and even wounded one of their own people.

Thanks to Ki's ability to sense and control her corpse puppet it helped to make use of her environment to the best of her abilities and assassinate many people with the combination of her poisonous palm arts and the corpse puppets poisoned hand knives.

Once anyone was wounded and their wounds were exposed and bleeding Ki could make use of her blood mystical arts ability to draw the blood from their wounds.

Additionally anyone hit by Ki's palm would be exposed to the feeling of having an uncontrollable and painful itch that spreads across their body at a fast speed.

Once the poison reached their lungs their breathing would become even more difficult.

The other poison from the corpse puppet caused those exposed to experience pain throughout their body as it spread beyond their limits and pass out or die from shock.

As the battle continued, more blood mists and poisoned blood mists kept gathering from the wounded people who had been slashed by the hand knives, self harmed to remove their infected skin and then the people that came into contact with the poisonous mists underwent the same effects.

So long as she and her corpse puppet maintained their connection and worked together while not getting trapped between a group of large enemies then Ki could use her greater agility and smaller body to remove as many enemies as possible.

As a woman her bodies frame was smaller and thinner than a man so she was naturally suited towards using this as her greatest strength while men are taller and larger in build and have bulkier muscles so they are best suited to utilising their bodies power.

While mens martial arts were more direct, brutal and deadly which best used their body shape, Ki and other women were best suited to avoiding attacks, parrying or deflecting them while looking for flaws in their enemy thanks to their more agile bodies.