Chapter 48

Arya walked back to the camp and saw that Baron Pax was greeting her at the entrance. 

Then his smile dropped and he pointed at something behind Arya.

Arya was confused and she prepared to fight but a sudden sharp pain in her heart knocked the wind out of her and she collapsed onto the ground.

A figure of a woman was the last thing Arya saw before she lost consciousness.

The demon woman laughed and she disappeared before Baron Pax fell down dead on the ground, his throat ripped out by the demoness.

Screams and cries of terror filled the air as the demoness swiftly and ruthlessly tore through the crowd of people as she slaughtered them all.

She zigged and zagged her away across the camp, knife slashing open people's throats and her clawed hand ripping out people's throats.

A bolt of lightning raining down from the sky forced her to leap out of the way and temporarily put an end to her killing spree.

Another bolt of lightning rained down from the sky and she was forced to continue leaping and dodging out of the way.

A large and twisting tree root erupted from the ground and pierced her side.

She growled and snarled as she swayed a little, pressing a clawed hand to her wounded side and glaring daggers at Assyrian and Freya.

She didn't pay too much attention to her surroundings when a punch of a fist was delivered to her jaw.

Or it would have if she didn't catch Ezekiel's fist, blazing with lightning, with her bare hands.

She then threw Ezekiel like a rag doll, flinging him towards a house.

Ezekiel was thrown so hard that the wall broke upon impact and Ezekiel went crashing through the walls and he was still flying through the air.

Freya and Assyrian turned around in shock and concern and the demon woman took advantage of this, she was there one moment and the next moment she was right in front of Freya.

Freya tried to put up a shield made from tree roots but it was too late.

Freya went flying through the air with a single punch from that demoness.

"Freya!!"

Assyrian summoned a bolt of lightning and threw it at the woman.

The demoness dodged and she grabbed him by the neck and yanked up off the ground.

Assyrian couldn't breath at all, the life slowly choked out of him, his face growing more and more blue. He grabbed the demoness's arm and summoned all the power he had left to shock that demoness.

She screamed in pain as millions of volts of electricity fried her and she dropped him, cursing and screaming in some sort of demonic language.

She turned towards him, eyes burning with rage and pain.

"I'LL KILL YOU!!!"

She lunged for him only to be kicked away with a single kick from Granite. He hardened the skin on his leg into stone in order to further enforce his kick.

That demoness only smirked as she got back up.

Granite was left reeling in shock as the amount of power he put behind his kick was enough to knock out a full grown dragon.

"Best you got?"

Then she proceeded to appear in front of him in an instant and kicked him so hard that he crashed through a wall and then the entire house fell upon him.

Kakia grinned as she brushed off her black dress.

She glanced around at the amount of destruction surrounding her and decided she must have killed off most of them.

Then an arrow went flying towards her from her right.

Kakia caught it with her bare hand and she flung it back to where it came from.

The woman screamed and she fell backwards, dead before she even hit the ground, her bow and quiver of arrows slipping out of her hands, the arrow lodged into her throat.

Kakia growled angrily. More pests to take care of, she thought.

Oh well, she had some steam she needed to blow off anyway.

….

Arya winced and her eyes slowly fluttered open as she carefully pushed herself up with her elbows.

Her head hurts. Her entire body hurts and her shirt was all bloody for whatever reason.

It was getting dark with the sun setting below the horizon.

Arya tried to stand but she fell over, all the strength in her body was gone now. 

What happened?

Then it all came flooding back to her.

That woman who stabbed her straight through her heart. Baron Pax also getting stabbed. The screaming and cries she heard before she lost consciousness.

No, NO!! Freya, Ezekiel, Assyrian, Granite, everyone.

Arya suddenly found the energy to get back onto her feet and she raced towards the village.

Baron Pax's body greeted her. Or at least what was left of it.

It was clear to her that the wild animals got to him and ate up his body, leaving behind a disfigured and half-eaten corpse with pieces of flesh and bone missing.

Baron Pax's red hair seemed to glow in the moonlight and Arya let herself cry for the first time in days now. She had to use every last drop of her willpower to not puke up her guts when she saw his body. But she did collapse right back onto her hands and knees and she had to look away, preferring to stare at dirty hands rather than a decaying and disfigured corpse.

She was exhausted, scared and all alone. Sure, she had her powers and she was a trained fighter skilled in swordsmanship and close combat but she was still human, a mortal. She could die and death would be slow and painful or quick and sudden for her. 

She died. Arya clearly felt the knife go through her heart and her life slowly fading away. So why was she still alive? She gingerly pressed a hand over her heart and felt it beating and pulsing under her hand, steady and strong.

Arya spent a few minutes trying to get her head back and pull herself back together.

When she walked past Baron Pax's body, she stopped, bowed her head and paid respect to the dead.

"Baron Pax, thank you for being my teacher and for the happy memories I made with you even if they were short ones. I'll try to find your family and see if they're okay…if not…I hope you find peace and happiness in the next life. I'll miss you and I'll always remember you for being a kind and amazing teacher towards me. Bye and rest easy now, Mr.Pax."

No funeral for him but Arya felt like she still needed to pay respect to him in some way.

She never looked back over her shoulder since she didn't want to remember Baron Pax as a decaying and half-eaten piece of flesh but as a living, breathing human being she knew and felt a bond with.

The camp was in total disarray. It was also a complete massacre.

Bodies were everywhere and blood stained the ground and walls.

Houses were destroyed and messed up and the scent of death and blood choked Arya.

The bodies had clearly been decaying for sometime now as the flesh changed colors and turned nasty.

Ary grabbed the edge of her green cloak and pressed it up against her nose. It seemed to help block out some of the smell.

She looked around. No survivors as far as she could tell.

….

After looking around the camp to see what she could gather and find, Arya managed to scrape together three loaves of black bread, some beef jerky, a few strips of salted fish, one apple, two pairs of pants, three shirts, a thick black trench coat lined with a soft wool-like material, dark green wool gloves, a short dagger of some kind, a small pack to carry all er stuff in and a water flask half-filled with water.

Arya had some food and water so her main priority right now was weapons.

A short dagger was a useful weapon but it had its limits.

A short dagger and her pretty knife were all she had right now.

It was pitch black outside now and Arya didn't dare to risk going outside.

She found a house that didn't look too badly damaged and made her way upstairs.

She collapsed onto the bed, not caring that she had been lying in dirt for like hours now and drifted off to sleep.

For once, she didn't have any dreams.