Perzey is bleeding from a dozen wounds already. Her best speed is not enough to let her match one DokkAlfar, let alone three.
The DokkAlfar leader is already on his feet, slogging toward the river bank. Even though the water resistance is slowing him down, he does not appear to be wounded in the least.
“PERZEY! FLEE! RUN AWAY!” My words are in English.
Perzey looks at me. I cannot even begin to sort out the mix of emotions that flashes through her eyes.
“NOW! RUN! THE RIVER!”
Perzey throws, her short swords at two of the DokkAlfar and spins toward the river. With two steps, she reaches the edge of the water and dives.
Backpedaling, I pull a weapon out of one of my rings, the heavy black sword. With the DokkAlfar already closing in, it would take too long to fumble with my scabbarded blades, but this one was already naked. The massive weight of the strange blade in my hand somehow feels reassuring.
“Archers! Shoot the woman!” The DokkAlfar uses the DokkAlfar language again.
Before I can shout a warning, arrows begin to pierce the surface of the water. Perzey still has not surfaced. So, even if I had shouted, she might not have heard me.
The nearest DokkAlfar are already closing in. They are watching me carefully, but there is no hesitation in their steps.
I shoot the DokkAlfar leader the bird and step into the woods. Interestingly, the connotations of the gesture are the same in Taereun as on Earth.
“Run that human trash down and kill it.” The DokkAlfar leader's calm words reach my ears, as I run through the woods.
Even if the DokkAlfar have my levels of speed and strength, they do not possess the same level of skills. Shadow Fist is a martial art the exists in a realm of it own, and as a result, my ability to move through the thick undergrowth is unparalleled compared with the DokkAlfar. It only takes a few minutes for the sounds of pursuit to be lost.
*Perzey? Can you hear me, Perzey?* There is no response, but the spell maintaining the party chat rooms only has a range of a few miles. Of course, that is assuming that Perzey is still alive and in possession of her party charm. I do not remember seeing the charm around her neck. If a caster had used one of variants of the party spell the charm would not be necessary, but for us, without both having our party charms, we will not be able to use the party chat rooms at all.
I pause and listen carefully. After a minute or so, I still cannot hear any sounds of pursuit.
Even using my ki to try and keep my wounds from bleeding, both the gash in my arm and the slice in my back are still bleeding. Blood loss is going to soon become a problem. Taking one of the trash weapons out of a storage ring, I jam it into the cleft formed by a low branch splitting off of a smaller tree. I also take a blanket and tear a strip off of it, before putting it back into its storage ring.
I lack Jinmu's affinity for fire, but that does not mean I cannot produce it. Using ki to manipulate mana, I produce a strong flame and keep forcing more ki and mana into it. As the flame bathes upper third of the sword's blade, it heats until it is glowing red.
Fuck me. I do not want to do this. I hate fire. I still have nightmares about being burned alive. My breathing is heavy and a bit erratic, as I break off a piece of a tree branch and bite down on it.
Wrapping the blanket strip around my hand, I press the hilt of the sword into the cleft. Growling like an animal, I lay the gash in the back of my upper arm against the red hot metal.
The stench of my own burning flesh fills my nostrils. I remember this stench and this pain. Not for a single moment have I ever truly forgotten.
One thousand one. One thousand two. One thousand three . . . One thousand ten. I take my arm off the slightly cooled metal.
Again, I heat the metal, until is glowing with heat. Taking up the hilt in my blanket wrapped hand, I breath deeply and rapidly. This is going to fucking hurt like a mother fucker. I absolutely do not want to fucking do this.
I do not need to see. I can feel exactly where the wound is. Raising the sword over my head, I angle it precisely and slap it against the bleeding slice in my back. The ten count seems to take forever, as my stomach churns with the desire to vomit.
The instant I hit ten, I tear the sword from my cauterized flesh. Flipping end over end, the sword buries itself in the bole of one of the larger trees. That sword can stay there. Even with the heat of the red hot blade, the trees are too wet to catch on fire.
Taking out my clothing, armor and weapons, I arm and equip myself again. The pressure and weight of my clothing and armor on the cauterized wounds is still extremely painful, but even if being naked does not bother me much, it is rather uncomfortable fighting with DokkAlfar for my life, with my dick swinging in the breeze.
Changing my direction of travel to the south-east, I head back toward the river. The DokkAlfar would not be able to swim the river fully armored, but they could easily store their gear and swim or use spells to cross. Just because I did not see any of them use magic, it does not mean there were no casters among them.
*Perzey?* Periodically, I try to call her using the party chat, but there is still no response.
Right now, Perzey's mind is so broken that she would probably try to fight rather than run, if I am not there to order her to run. If I do not find her soon, she will probably be killed.
Why am I concerned with her survival? She is just a crazy bitch that I fucked. She cannot decide which she wants to do more, fuck me or kill me. I did not like her, from the moment I met her. I owe her nothing. I could just walk away. So, why am I going after her? Maybe, I just do not want to see that incredible body destroyed. Just remembering it gets my blood flowing to the head I do not need to be doing the thinking.
As I walk, I organize the endless quiver. Endless quiver is really a misnomer, it does not magically create arrows. It simply has a very large capacity. The lower quality quivers can still store better than a hundred-thousand arrows. Mine seems to be very high quality, more than a million at a quick guess, and six bow storage pouches. It is no wonder the frog seemed pissed. If this was the only endless quiver he had other than Sigurd's, I hit the jackpot.
I neither see nor hear any of the DokkAlfar, as I return to the trail. Staying motionless in the undergrowth, I listen for any hint of sound that would indicate where any of them might be. After a few minutes, I have still heard nothing.
Crossing the trail, I look for any tracks between the woods and the water. There are a few from booted feet, probably armor booted, but none from bare feet. Perzey was still naked, when she dove into the river, so it is unlikely she passed this point on this side of the river.
I do not know if this trick is going to work, but I have no choice but to try it. Well, I have a choice, but I am going to try this anyway.
Charging down the river bank, I sprint onto the river's surface. My feet are sinking ankle deep into the water, it is harder to stay buoyant on water than mud. Keeping my ki flowing is not difficult. The hard part is not putting to much downward pressure into my steps, while running flat out. If I lose control in the middle of the river, I will sink. I do not have even close to enough strength to swim with the weight of my weapons and gear.
Something is wrong. I do not know if it a sound, or a scent or something else entirely, but something I notice subconsciously triggers a warning. I start randomly staggering my forward progress into angular dashes of irregular lengths. The arrows that zip into the water all around me confirm my premonition. With still more than a third of the river to cross, I randomize my movements and progress even more.
By the time the riverbank is only a few hundred feet ahead, multiple arrows have torn through my billowing cloak, but I still have not been hit. Seventy feet to the bank, an arrow bounces off my mail over my floating ribs. The mix of tantalum and tungsten in my armor is stronger than any armor I have encountered that is not an Item of Power.
Fifty feet, with an explosive burst of inertial force, I launch myself toward the shore. Water fount
ains into the air behind me, and I hug my knees tightly to my chest. With my body curled into a tight ball, I hit the ground rolling. As the roll brings the balls of my feet into contact with the ground, I push off with my legs, propelling myself to the side at an angle. Grabbing a tree trunk to halt my momentum, I flop onto my belly behind it.
Looking back along my trail, more than a dozen arrows are embedded in the ground. A group of five DokkAlfar arches are standing at the edge of the woods, on the opposite shore. They have arrows nocked and drawn, but they are not firing. The tips or the arrows are slowly moving back and forth. It is possible that they cannot see me in my current position. As I slither back farther into the brush and rise to a crouch, they still do not fire.
I am more than a little surprised that I can see them so clearly. The distance across the river is over 400 hundred yards, and I can still still distinguish the arrow heads, even if they are blurry at that distance. I do not remember my vision being so clear, during the trip from the Four Bones Goblin Lair to Bogwater.
Taking out Stone Feather Death, I nock an arrow and take aim. Slowly exhaling, at a speed that will take almost thirty seconds to completely exhale, I let the bowstring slip off my fingertips. The arrow steaks through the air in a bit of an arc. Even though my arrows do not break the sound barrier like Corialos', they are still travelling well over 500mph.
My target's head jerks slightly upward, and he dives to the side. It is too late avoid being hit, bit it was probably enough to save his life.
“AARRRRRR!”
Blood sprays out from his back in a cone shape, as the arrow punches completely through his shoulder. I was aiming for the center of his chest near the throat, but that will still put him out of commission. Even with a healer, he would not be shooting a bow for several days at the minimum.
I love DokkAlfar, they are so predictable in certain circumstances. The other four dive into the woods behind themselves, while leaving the one I shot to fend for himself. Having been knocked down by the impact of my arrow, he struggles to roll over and start belly crawling toward safety.
“AAAAARRRRRRR!”
My second arrow punches through the back of his knee at a very shallow angle. Even if he lives, he should be crippled, though strong enough healing magic could fix that too.
“Help me!” He is using the DokkAlfar tongue.
There is no sign of his friends, and no one comes out to help him. With only one working arm and one working leg, he is barely able to move forward any longer.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”
My third arrows hit him in the ass, from the scream it probably drove all the way into his colon or intestines.
I kiss the muddy ground, as four arrows whistle through the air where I was a fraction of a second before. Staying on my belly, I slither toward the east, before rising again. I did not see where the arrows came from and do not particularly feel like playing tag with the other archers.
Using the thick brush along the river for cover, I travel along the river. Using steps from Shadow Fist, I do not disturb the brush or vines. Watching the muddy bank of the river and the grass and weeds, I do not see any sign of someone exiting the water, by the time I reach the large pool at the base of the water fall.
Except for the corpse, there is no sign of DokkAlfar near the camp. I do not think there are any of them anywhere close to the camp. Some reptiles, that resemble horned toads the size of medium dog breeds, are fighting over the corpse.
*Perzey? Where are you?*
Turning back to the west, I follow the course of the river. I again check for signs of Perzey exiting the river, but as expected, I find none. Reaching the point where I fought the DokkAlfar archers, I see the DokkAlfar leader there, with four of his soldiers. The four surviving archers are kneeling in front of him, explaining in detail what happened, but it does not sound much like the events I remember.”
“He completely disappeared, once he entered the woods. It had to be another spell from the caster that gave him the water walking.”
“Did you actually see the caster?”
The archer looks up at the DokkAlfar leader. “No, Captain. He stayed hidden on the far side of the river.”
“Then how do you know there was a caster there?”
The archer seems at a loss, simply staring for a moment. “The water walking. The way the human disappeared right before out eyes.”
“Fools! Idiots! Did you not listen to the Priest-Lord? This human is a ki adept. There is no telling what types of self-manipulation tricks he may possess. Search to the west along the river. Find the woman, if she is still alive.” The Priest-Captain's voice overflowing with contempt.
The DokkAlfar archers salute the Captain with closed fists held over their hearts, before turning to the west. Within a few dozen yards all of them have disappeared within the woods along the trail. The Captain watches them, until they are occluded from his sight, before turning to stare across the river.
So, the DokkAlfar do not yet have Perzey. Oddly, I feel a sense of relief and frown, when I realize it. I am getting completely fucked in the head, since I started fucking her. I do not understand why I am letting her get to me. Is it because she is my first fuck?
Angrily, I start moving toward the west, watching for any sign of Perzey again. I soon pass by the Shit Hole, with no indication of her fate. The Bull Rush River flows very rapidly from the base of the falls to the delta. With the amount of time that has passed, Perzey could have travelled quite a distance, if she stayed in the water. I increase my pace to a steady run, that is a bit faster than the speed of the current.
I keep calling for Perzey in the party chat, but I no longer expect any response. She either has lost the charm, is unconscious, or is dead.
At a bend in the river, a fallen tree, a very large one, extends into the river. Its branches still have a fair amount of dead leaves clinging to them, so it was probably knocked down in the last flood season. A pack of crocodiles is swarming around the trunk of the trying, while unsuccessfully making attempts to scramble up on it. I am not sure if pack is the right term to apply to crocodiles, but does it really matter? After all, they are not really crocodiles, just a reptile that bears a close resemblance to crocodiles.
The roots of the fallen tree are still hidden by the woods, and I cannot see anything on the visible part of the trunk. However, there has to be something there to attract over a dozen crocodiles, something they consider food.
As I move closer to the fallen tree, I stay inside the woods, and the crocodiles never seem to notice me. If they did spot me, they would certainly attack. While crocodiles may play at being logs in the water, when they are in this kind of feeding frenzy, they lack the intelligence to play dumb and lure me in.
Climbing onto the branch of a tree, I start moving through the canopy, instead of along the ground. I am still some fifty feet from the fallen tree, when road through the branches reaches and impasse. There is a gap where the branches of the fallen tree would have once been, but at least there is no longer anything blocking my view of the fallen tree's trunk.
Perzey is sprawled face-down on top of the trunk of the fallen tree. Still naked, her wounds have not stopped bleeding, and she is covered with drying blood. An arrow is embedded in the left side of her back. If not for the almost invisible movements of her ribs as she breathes, I would think she was dead. It is close to a miracle that she was able to somehow ascend to the top of that trunk.
A rush of anger fills me, and I draw my swords. Ki powering my legs, I leap at the nearest crocodile. As my feet touch the ground, my left hand sword cleaves into the crocodile, splitting it in twain. A shimmer of force surrounding the blade prevents any blood from clinging to it. As it starts to turn toward me, the next crocodile dies. The crocodiles are nothing but stupid if vicious animals, and they all die as soon they come withing reach of my blades.
Jumping onto the trunk, I check Perzey. A bloody froth coats her lips, and a liquid gurgling sound comes from he
r chest with every breath. The arrow has pierced her lung, but does not seem to have collapsed it. Her other wounds are not life-threatening, but some of the cuts from the DokkAlfar glaives are still deep.
While I know more about destroying bodies, human or otherwise, than almost everyone I can think of, I do not know enough about healing them. I am not sure if I can pull the arrow out without killing her. I compromise and slice off most of the shaft.
“Nnnn.” Perzey sounds like a beaten animal, as she tries to shrink away from the arrow.
“Aaaaahhhhh.” Her attempted shriek, when I pick her up, is still barely more than a quiet whimper. Even though her eyes open, she does not see anything around her, and she slumps against me, as the pain drives her deeper into unconsciousness.
Staring at her pain wracked face, with anger boiling inside of me, I think I understand. I have not stated it, but she is mine now. No matter her willingness or reluctance, Perzey belongs to me now. As long as I do not put her aside, she will be my property, until her death.
No DokkAlfar are visible across the river or back along it, but I know they are coming. They will chase me, until I exterminate them. Even if they did not hound me, I would hunt them, until every last one of them lay tortured and broken at my feet. They attempted to kill me. They attempted to destroy my property. They will suffer, before they die.
*** Swamp of the Lost (Bogwater) - Battleground of the Damned ***
Return: Day 12
Long hours have passed, since the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, and the expanse of the delta lies before me. No boat will come from Bogwater before dawn, no matter how much I signal.
Path of Transcendence 1: Ultimatum of the Nameless God Page 27