by Alan Bard
“You have three days to join the ranks,” she said, ignoring me. “After that, it’ll be too late, so try to do your best.”
Turning on her heels, she marched out of the room. Eli wanted to hug me, but Jelena came at him like a lark protecting its young from a vulture.
“Don’t touch him! He’s still very weak.”
Rio was looking at me warily. “This is the first time I see someone come back from the dead. So, how was it?”
“You won’t believe it... It’s dark as balls.”
“Yep, that’s him. He’s fine. I’m really glad you’re back, dude!” Eli beamed. “By the way, what did she mean by that? Too late for what?”
No one answered, as no one really knew. Joe folded his arms and stared at me blankly. Looking at him, I realized that I didn’t hate him for wanting to leave me behind. Having been resurrected, I felt... different. Like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I felt somehow tranquil... zen even.
Ksandra walked over to my bed and tapped me on the shoulder.
“Well done, lad! You did really good.” She sat down on the edge of it, her eyes burning with curiosity. “I almost died, too. The abyss was eating me up from the inside, and I couldn’t do anything. How did you handle it?”
I tried to spread my hands, but all I could do was shrug.
“He’s better now but he’s still weak, let him rest.” Jelena tried to sound affectionate, but there was a hint of menace in her voice.
They exchanged a look. Ksandra clicked her tongue.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she said. “He only has three days to get back on his feet. He should be getting back in shape, not sitting on his bum. Can you stand up, Nick?”
I was about to shrug again, but my stomach rudely interrupted me with a loud grumble.
“He needs to eat,” Joe intervened, “otherwise he won’t get his strength back. Ksandra, bring him meat and the mix of Sugar Leaves and dried Siderítis.”
You are suffering a 1,475 kcal deficiency.
Intelligence and physical characteristics are reduced by 70%.
Good, I’m just starving...
“Why the hell are you all still here?” Ksandra asked when she returned with the food. “Get back to training, now!”
Everyone wished me a fast recovery and ran off, leaving me alone with her. She sat down and handed me a cup.
“Here, cheer up and eat!”
I tried to grab the cup, but my hands were too numb to work. Ksandra had to feed me like a baby.
Attention, Nick! Seek calorie intake.
If you don’t eat soon, your physical characteristics will decrease by 55%.
For fuck’s sake, I know. I know.
The mixture of dried Siderítis and Sugar Leaves did make me feel good. I tried to take the cup again, but instead knocked it out of Ksandra’s hand, spilling half the contents. She deftly caught it and smiled at me.
“Clumsy... You sure you’re okay?” She took the meat and cut it into small pieces, holding the plate with her stump. “You ain’t getting dessert if you don’t finish your meal,” she said through a grin.
I ate, getting system notifications every five minutes about how my energy was being restored.
After feeding me, Ksandra took the Bone Knife out of her pocket and turned it over in her hand.
“We found your toy. What’s this?”
“The thing that almost killed me. It’s a reminder of my second birth.”
Belly full and tired, I threw myself back onto the bed, ready to sleep as if I had been training for hours. I closed my eyes and retreated into my mind. I was determined to make that trunk or die trying.
After several failed attempts, it was clear that I couldn’t create the entire trunk in one go, so I came to an idea to visualize each wall separately. The hinges were a bit tricky, but I managed in the end. It was kinda strange to look at the trunk from my childhood, so I quickly collected the threads that I had already cut, which had grown a little while I was conscious, and slammed the lid shut.
The next moment, I was back in the real world. Sounds of fighting were coming from the outside. I was alone. How much time had passed, I didn’t know. It could’ve been an hour, two hours, or maybe even a day.
I raised my hand and held it to my face. I tried to wiggle my fingers, but they were still too stiff.
I tried to stand up, but fell back down with a cry. I tried several more times, but without success.
I felt strange. There was enough strength in me to move, but the broken connection with the Core was acting up. I would remain sick and weak until I got rid of every last bit of the abyss.
After a while, I managed to sit, though not for long. Still, I was happy to have achieved even this much.
I spent the rest of the day trying to tire myself enough to fall asleep, so I could return to my mind to fight against the abyss. I saw the Сultivator shine a few times, as if trying to tell me something. Something greenish seemed to flicker on the trunk, but it came and went so fast that I couldn’t make anything out.
I would wake up, eat, and take Jelena’s medicine. She seemed to like taking care of me.
The next day I managed to get up. By midday, I was able to take a few steps, but then I fell and cut my brow. In the evening, I finally got out of the hut.
On the second day of my rehabilitation, I learned to walk, run, and jump all over again. In the evening, I even came out to spar with Jelena. To no one’s surprise, she kicked my ass. And even though the victory lifted her spirits, she looked confused by the fact that for the first time since she had got to the island, she managed to beat someone. I didn’t care that I had lost—I lay flat on the ground and watched the sky. But then I suddenly saw of a couple of threads crawl out of the ground and reach for my Core.
The image turned me cold with horror. I was afraid that another wave of Deformation might start growing inside me, and that I would have to fight for my life yet again. However, I didn’t receive any system messages about it. This made me suspicious, but I didn’t want to tell anyone about my ability to see Deformation inside myself. God forbid they learned about the Cultivator, who knew how they’d react? Despite the danger, it’d be better to wait a bit more—maybe Deformation obtained in an ordinary fight wouldn’t spread.
No longer happy with her victory, Jelena ran over to me and took my hand.
“Are you okay?”
I gave her a crooked smile.
“It is my own fault. I hurried with sparring.”
Will Victoria call me names for getting my ass handed to me?
“Get up and get outta here,” Joe said, then turned to Eli and Rio. “What are you waiting for? Keep training!”
I just sat there, staring at them, thinking that they were probably already far ahead of me, and that I would have to work hard to keep up with them. I tried not to think about the abyss.
Jelena rose to her feet and held out her hand.
“Can you stand?”
My head was still spinning, so I accepted her help. Victoria came up to us. She looked at me with a raised eyebrow, but said nothing. Jelena looked toward the gate and turned pale, as if she had seen a ghost.
I turned around, feeling someone’s gaze upon me... and turned just as pale.
There he was―Zeke―walking over to us as if he owned the place.
Joe rolled his eyes and turned away. “Fuck that guy,” he cursed to himself.
“Vicki!” Zeke greeted, all smiles. “So, I’ve decided to take advantage of your offer. You were right. This place is a shithole. No one wants to come here, which is why it’s the safest place on this island. I wish I had known where you were...”
Are they allies?
Rio’s eyes widened. Eli scowled. Jelena crouched like a cat about to jump, ready to tear at Zeke’s neck. Rio grabbed her arm.
“Let me go!” she hissed. “I’ll kill you!” she cried, “I hope you drop dead, you piece of shit!”
She managed to break free and l
unged at Zeke. He knocked her back down, but she jumped up to try again.
“Stop!” Victoria said. Jelena froze.
“Hey, fancy meeting you here.” Zeke grinned.
Victoria looked at him, puzzled, and he put his arm around her waist.
“I met them before the second Rite. They were quite naïve, inexperienced, and very arrogant. And one of them, her brother,” he pointed a finger at Jelena, “paid for his insolence. I see that you haven’t taught them anything yet. Especially that they should always follow the chain of command.”
He walked over to the frozen Jelena and wiped the tears from her cheeks with his finger.
“You’re all right, girl. Considering that you won’t have time to get much stronger, consider yourself lucky that you’re so good looking…”
“She’s a healer, a true cleric.” Victoria’s heavy gaze rested on Zeke. She was doing her best to suppress her anger. “As far as I know, there’s no healer in your cohort. But now your people and mine can complement each other.”
“Oh, don’t be jealous, babe. You know that I’d never change you for anyone.” He slapped Victoria’s butt; she didn’t even flinch. “Okay, show me your newcomers.”
“Four guys,” Victoria said, her voice cold as ever. “Gunsmith, healer, a universal and a classic soldier.”
“Standard package.” Zeke nodded. “The big guy, I suppose, is cannon folder.”
“We need those, too. Tanks are always a valuable asset.”
“Ha, that stupid face would aggro anyone.” Zeke laughed like a hyena. “Pretty good, pretty good, considering that it could’ve been much worse. What about your old-timers? No time to develop them? Mind showing me what you have left of the artifacts?”
Ksandra looked at him and grimaced. She had to restrain herself from ruining the relationship Victoria had established with Zeke. Eli was holding back, too.
“Continue training,” Victoria ordered, and led Zeke to her hut. Ksandra, hunched over, followed them.
“It’s hard to imagine a worse ally than Zeke,” Joe whispered once the trio was gone. “He’s a maniac. His rat face says it all.”
“Then why did our cutthroat bitch get involved with him?” Rio hissed back.
“We need to deal with the Alliance bastards before they find and crush us.” Joe shrugged. “We agreed to attack them together.”
“Are we really going to attack the Alliance?” Eli asked with genuine surprise.
“Either they kill us, or we kill them. We don’t have an option, really. We need his help.”
Jelena covered her face with her hands and sat down on the stone slab, trembling.
“I don’t want to be around that bastard. Shit! I’m sick of living in fear… I can’t do this anymore!”
I knelt down and embraced her. Clinging to me, she wept.
“I’ll get us out of here,” I whispered in her ear, my voice soft and confident. “I’ll save us all.”
I took her to our hut, laid her on her bed, and sat down beside her. I was trying to distract myself but I kept checking the Deformation bar—its percentage was the same as before.
Having calmed down a little, Jelena looked at me with the corner of her eye.
“Tell me, Nick,” she whispered and bit her lip. “Back in the cave… When the vampire grabbed me… Would you have done that for any one of us?”
“Yes,” I said without hesitation, and belatedly realized that I had chosen the wrong answer.
She was staring in front of her.
She sat by my bed for days, and she never stopped believing... She wanted more...
Not knowing what to do, I lay down and closed my eyes. I still had work to do.
I had a very long, hard and, let’s be honest, slow day, but I managed to destroy all of the abyss roots, including the new ones that had appeared during sparring. When I was done, I took off my gloves, put them next to the trunk, and stared at it for a while, trying to figure out how to lock it. I turned to the Cultivator, but didn’t get a clue. I was about to leave when the artifact pricked my hand with heat.
A greenish circle began to flicker on the front of the trunk, near the edge of the lid. I looked at, wondering what I needed to do. The ring pulsated in sync with the bracelet. They seemed to be connected. Something was happening inside the trunk. It felt like its contents were changing, but I didn’t dare look inside. I had had enough of all this, at least for today. I wanted to return to the real world and normality.
If I could call my reality normal anymore.
The light faded, and the bracelet became invisible yet again. Only the green ring remained on the trunk. I tried to convince myself that I didn’t care about this anymore, but deep inside I knew that I was just kidding myself. I was scared of this alien force. Scared that it hadn’t gone away.
Fortunately (how bad things must’ve gotten to call this fortunate), I had other things to worry about―the upcoming battle against the Alliance.
In front of my eyes flashed a picture of a naked girl hanging from a tree, her eyes pecked out by crows.
Are those people still human?
Chapter 22
MUTANTS
Twenty-five days before the Invasion
Today was the fourth day of my rehab. There was less than twenty-four hours left until our fight with the Alliance.
I woke up hungry in the middle of the night, and found Jelena’s hand resting on my arm. Once again, she slept at my side. I moved her as gently as I could, careful not to wake her, and climbed over her. I left the hut and went to the little house on the other side of the square, where the storeroom and the cellar were.
It was chilly. I shuddered and hastened my step, looking up at the star-studded sky. Deciding to postpone my midnight snack, I climbed one of the walls and looked down at the Wolf Moor. I had totally forgotten that the fortress was isolated from the outside world by hills. This was probably one of the reasons why the Alliance hadn’t found us and killed us yet.
Ain’t it funny how things turn out?
Not so long ago, I wanted to betray Victoria and was even considering joining the Alliance, but now, after what they had done to Anna, I was ready to fight against them, even if that meant working with a crazy bastard like Zeke. The thing that bothered me, though, was that there was very little time left until this battle—we were low-level, undeveloped, unskilled, and they were… well, frikin’ superheroes. You might as well been pitting a human against Superman.
In all honesty, I kinda liked my new strange power and the changes that were happening to me. On the other hand, it was scary what we were all being turned into—we were like the X-Men, no one would ever let people like us walk among the humans ever again.
For the first time in a long time, I thought of my mother—not with resentment, but with regret. She had no one but me, the stupid moron.
I would get out of here. No matter what.
Why in Earth did I want to rob a warehouse? Was I missing something? Ugh…
Mario seemed so insignificant now. I had been wrong about so many things.
On the other hand, Archie’s treachery was still a thorn in my heart. It was one of those things that I would never forget and never forgive.
Lost in thought, I chewed on the cured goat meat, and saw Victoria enter the courtyard. She sat on the edge of the bowl. Rising her legs, she rested her forehead on her knees, disheveled hair concealing her face. After a while, she felt my gaze and turned to me.
Blue eyes looked at me with disdain; her slightly puffy face made her look like a scared high-schooler, not like a ruthless bitch.
“What are you doing up?” she asked and squinted, one leg dangling over the stone floor. “Finally came to your senses?”
I shrugged.
“I was hungry. And now I’m wide awake and not sure what to do.”
She looked at me. Then she jumped down and rubbed her hands.
“Universal soldier… You know, I’m also trying to advance on that path.”
“Well, I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. I’ve been training, but I’m not seeing much result. If you don’t have any other plans, let’s train for a bit. At a low level, you’re more or less my match. Being a mage, my physical development is much slower.”
“Is it the same for everyone here?”
Her gaze was so tense that I felt slightly uncomfortable.
“Yes, the rules are the same, no matter the path, age or whatever. Some players have rudimentary magic abilities, and vice versa, but it’s very difficult to stay on a neutral path. I do think that I’ve learned something though, so let’s give it a try.”
I wondered why she needed those skills. I could get into the minds of animals and plant ideas into them, but she could control humans. There had to be some catch if she had decided to pursue this path.
“All right, let’s get this started.” She grinned and rubbed her hands.
“Last question. Can you mind-control animals?”
She shook her head.
“Nope, only beings with a consciousness. Mutants used to be human, so they’re my targets, too.”
I nodded.
We stood opposite each other. I grinned, realizing that I had gotten a chance to get my revenge without even seeking it. The sudden buzzing of a drone ruined the moment. I gave the freaks looking at us the middle finger. The drone didn’t move; they didn’t seem to care.
Victoria rushed at me and kicked, aiming at the lower parts of my body. I jumped up and tried to kick her from the side, but my body suddenly refused to obey. When I landed, I froze in place. I barely managed to block her kicks and blows that rained down on me from all sides. I got hit in the jaw and was thrown back. As I fell, it dawned on me that I had taken an oath not to harm her.
She squinted at me.
I squinted back through the spots that had filled my vision.
“A thug like you can’t hit a girl? Is it against your moral code, or what?”
“Are you kidding me? The oath prevents me from kicking your ass. Any way around that? Maybe you could loosen the reins a little?”