The Grey Ghost: Book Two of the Archaic Ring Series

by Reed R. Stevens

  Somebody blocked his attack? Nolan took a careful look around, sensing nothing. They must have an even higher cultivation than that blond-haired guy. Did the fact that they interfered mean that they’d come with the intention to help? The passing seconds scraped by in a tense silence within the camp, no new faces making an appearance as distant sounds of battle and slaughter were magnified by the quiet night.

  “We might not have to rely on your powder.”

  “If someone stronger can tie up their leader, then Red and those mercenaries might actually have a chance at coming out on top here. Though it all depends on whoever threw that knife.”

  “Do we still run?” She had a conflicted look in her eyes. “If we join the fight…”

  “Then we risk dying.” Nolan gave her a firm stare. “Running away is still the plan. I feel guilty too, but I didn’t create this situation. We can’t help that their sect is full of crazies and that they keep harassing us.” Seeing that she was still uncertain, he said, “Quin gave his life to protect you. How do you think he’d feel if he knew that you died so soon after his sacrifice?”

  Her expression stoned over. Nolan knew he’d chosen the wrong words as he sensed a slight fluctuation in her aura’s solidity, a telltale sign of turbulence within one’s inner essence channels.

  The area just outside of the camp’s south side was awash in chaos, where only a handful of the twenty mercenaries who’d gone out to cover everyone else’s escape remained. Most of the people who fled weren’t nearly as fast as the few disciples who’d broken off from the fight, many of them incapacitated by ruthless strikes. “Nyla, let’s get out of here.”

  Nyla didn’t allow lingering resentments to cloud her judgment and followed after him immediately. As soon as they turned to go, the blond disciple’s overpowering voice filled the ears of everyone present.

  “Braxis, subdue those two! The rest of you, take down these mercenaries!”

  The command still ringing in the air, dozens of disciples vaulted over the wall of carriages and landed within the encampment as if they’d fallen out of the blackened sky. The entire pack of smartly dressed disciples immediately pounced toward the mass of mercenaries with their strange martial skills already activated. Heavy axes and great swords sliced into several outer court disciples even as many crimson hands stabbed through the plate armour and chainmail of five unlucky men, a bloodbath ensuing amid the warm glow of idle campfires.

  The second that the fight had broken out, an elegantly composed man dressed in fine green silks had appeared in the thick of the fighting and suddenly began laying the disciples to waste. He was quickly blocked by the enemy leader, though he’d still managed to kill a good number of enemies.

  Nolan had no choice but to abandon the gunpowder he’d left in Karan’s carriage, since they wouldn’t find a better chance to escape than this.

  As he dashed out into the surrounding fields with Nyla in tow, a soothing stream of energy from the stone ring helped to calm his thoughts. He circulated his inner essence as finely and efficiently as possible, confused yet grateful that the calming function of the ring was making so many appearances as of late.

  He moved at a speed that actually coincided with his cultivation level, carefully covering his body in a light film of inner essence. A powerful aura was closing in on them, so he led their pursuer to a secluded area of the field.

  Seeing the sleek bow that Nyla had just pulled out, he took a deep breath. “Keep your distance. I’ll hold him off. If you think you have a shot, take it.”

  Nolan could actually see quite well in the darkness. He could hear every groan and feeble cry that floated up from the sprawling flowerbeds, degrading the beautiful meadows into haunted grassland.

  Their pursuer was at the eighth level of the Profound Entry stage, which meant that one well-placed strike from the guy could end Nyla’s life in an instant. Nolan suspected that the same could be said for him, though he had an inexplicable confidence that his strikes would pose an even greater threat to his opponent. How many traumatic experiences had he overcome since arriving on Venara? Fighting for his life would be frightening, but he wouldn’t have survived this long if he was incapable of adapting to the cruel ways in which this world worked.

  Whoever was following them clearly didn’t see him as a threat, for they were scarcely moving at their fastest pace. It wasn’t until Nyla pulled out the evernight bow that their speed suddenly exploded, a flickering shadow dashing through the field with inhuman agility.

  Nolan spun around and turned to face the oncoming man, a thin youth with long brown hair and an unremarkable face. He wore a blank expression, as if he were currently doing a menial task on the same level as making coffee.

  He has no way of knowing what I’m actually capable of, so I’ll put everything I’ve got into my first hit. Hopefully that’ll be enough to at least put him to sleep for a while.

  Setting his jaw, Nolan focused layer after layer of condensed inner essence down his right arm to the tip of his hand.

  Just as he was about to come within range, the young man suddenly veered to the left and took two bounding leaps toward Nyla, covering at least forty metres in just a few seconds.

  Shit!

  Nolan kicked off the ground with all his strength and cannonballed toward the thin disciple, who’d avoided a black arrow that Nyla had just shot off and closed in on her with a hunter’s swiftness. His left hand suddenly turned scarlet as he struck out toward her chest, but she avoided it at the last second and sprinted away at an incredible pace.

  The disciple didn’t have any time to be surprised by her sudden burst of speed, for Nolan smashed into his side the instant that she avoided his strike. Their heads smacked together with a loud crack that was reminiscent of the moment when a bowling ball met the pins, and then they crashed to the ground in an explosion of fluttering petals and shredded flowers. They flattened a long swathe of wild growth before they finally rolled to a stop, at which point they both leapt backward to open up some distance.

  Loud clangs began to reverberate throughout the field, signifying that the battle between the lead disciple and their unknown ally had just begun.

  “Nolan!”

  His opponent’s long hair was now a mess of frayed strands and miscellaneous plant matter, his black and scarlet robes in disarray. He seemed at a loss. The look that he gave Nolan was one of disbelief and perturbation. He opened his mouth to speak but his gaze snapped to the side and he just barely sidestepped another deadly arrow that flew unseen through the night.

  I’m paying attention! Nolan wanted to say, though he was forced into action as the disciple spun around with a flourish of his dark, scarlet robes and bounded after Nyla at a much quicker pace than before. Both of his hands were devilishly red.

  Before the disciple could cover half the distance between him and Nyla, Nolan landed a dozen metres ahead of the trajectory that he was following and sprang forth to meet him. He directed a full-powered punch toward his opponent’s angular face, which had contorted in concentration. The man barely ducked under his fist, a strong gust of whistling wind ruffling the flowers for a few metres all around them. He then gave Nolan’s ankles a sweeping kick, which caused him to fall backward in an instant.

  Despite having his feet kicked out from under him, Nolan kept his cool and used the momentum of his fall to flip back and then pushed off of the ground with his left hand, exerting enough strength to send himself flying backward over ten metres. A menacing fist of burning scarlet stabbed into the space that he’d just vacated and the disciple immediately charged after him.

  Zeroing in on Nolan with several agile movements, the young man had no choice but to come to a grating halt and dart backward in order to avoid a split-second shot from the evernight bow. An extremely dense layer of inner essence coated the black arrow as it plunged straight through his bicep at a speed that exceeded his by a significant amount. Nyla had finally used the bow’s essence fusion effect, which increased the
power of her shots tremendously. From what he could tell, it also added some sort of penetrative effect that allowed it to puncture hard surfaces.

  I could probably inflict some serious damage on their leader if I borrow her bow.

  The young man retreated as soon as the arrow went through his arm, though Nolan didn’t follow up on Nyla’s attack. Since most of his focus was on the man in front of him, he hadn’t noticed until just a moment ago that the last of those mercenaries out in the fields had either been killed or incapacitated in exchange for the lives of three weaker disciples and a broken arm for one of the inner court survivors. After hunting down dozens of fleeing civilians these three had started sprinting toward Nyla.

  “Head’s up!”

  “I know!”

  She fired another enhanced shot off, this one grazing the cheek of one of the oncoming disciples and causing his face to pale by a slight degree.

  As Nolan was calling over his shoulder, their initial opponent appeared before him and pushed out with a blood-coloured hand that seemed to give off a heated air. He barely avoided the strike but was clipped in the side by a palm thrust from the disciple’s other hand, spinning on the spot as most of his breath whooshed out of him. Fixing his stance, he threw his arms up and crossed them, taking a third strike head on and then stumbling back a few paces. Every hit that Nolan blocked left a heavy bruise on his body, a testament to his opponent’s strength.

  Fuck, my bones might be broken.

  The disciple didn’t let up and dogged him with an endless stream of furious strikes, each aimed precisely for the centre of his face. Nolan managed to keep just out of reach time and time again, all the while his heart felt as if it were trying to break free from his chest like an angry beast in a tiny cage. He gritted his teeth and jumped backward several times, now sixty metres away from the youth.

  This guy’s pretty tough, but I’m a bit stronger and faster. Holy shit, I’m stronger than someone at the eighth level of Profound Entry. He realigned his focus. The young man made up for the difference in physicality with precision, so in that case, should he bait him?

  The disciple closed the gap within a few seconds, and Nolan jumped back yet again. Most of his focus was on condensing his inner essence to a certain degree and sending it down specific channels within his body, which was much more difficult than he was used to now that he was trying to do it in a life-or-death situation. Who knew that activating martial skills during combat would be so difficult?

  He felt the cold sweat on his shirt as it clung to his back, and stared intently at the unrelenting opponent as he continued to jump out of harm’s way in an ongoing game of cat and mouse. Even though this was one of the most heart palpitating fights that he had ever been in, he couldn’t help but find a moment to wonder, what would have happened if his earlier attack had landed? What sort of damage could he dish out if he punched this guy in the face with everything he had? Would it kill him?

  Let’s find out.

  Jumping back one last time, Nolan activated the Tranquil Void Step as soon as he landed and launched himself forward so quickly that the disciple seemed to appear in front of him as if out of thin air.

  The young man’s eyes widened as Nolan’s knuckles smashed into the space between them with a ruthless thud of impact and a light crunch. His feet left the ground almost instantly as the force behind the hit sent him rocketing backwards far enough that he crashed into the wall of carriages nearly two sixty metres away. The crescendo of wood-snapping sounds on impact ensured that the young man would never get up again, or at least it seemed so.

  Almost as soon as Nolan wrote off the disciple, he sensed him stirring from within the peripherals of the camp. Holy shit, how hard is that guy’s skull? I just superman punched him with everything I’ve got and he can still move? He had been expecting something along the lines of the guy’s head exploding from excessive and concentrated force, or maybe his neck snapping under the weight of the blow.

  The second that he sensed that the young man still lived, Nolan turned around and rushed toward Nyla, who was trying her best not to get surrounded by the men who chased her like fox after a swift-footed rabbit. She’d carefully avoided the dangerous trio for almost a minute, an impressive feat considering that she faced three people with the same level of cultivation as her. That being said, she had abandoned any thoughts of a counterattack and focused all of her energy toward not allowing herself to be cornered by their pincer-like movements.

  It didn’t matter that the disciples sensed Nolan coming, for he moved so fast that the hundred metres or so that separated them was covered by a few quick jumps.

  One of the disciples hung back with the intent to hold him off.

  “Keep after the girl, I’ll—”

  Nolan’s fist broke straight through the man’s teeth and sunk wrist-deep into his head. Blood traced down his tattered sleeve as he gave his arm a violent yank, several bloody teeth falling in a spray of gore as the body slumped down onto a bed of colourful flowers. The man had died almost instantly, his jaw shattered and nose broken, the back of his throat displaced and the inside of his head a mess of torn muscle, shattered bone and brain.

  This is fucked.

  The other disciples had pounced on him the moment he’d killed their comrade, the first narrowly missing a jab at his right eye when he tilted his head to the left with a quick motion. The second stabbed at his side with a burning red hand, but he allowed the hit in order to grab the man in front of him by the neck with the intention to crush it.

  Ah, what—

  Nolan cursed his poor judgement as one or more of his ribs were broken, a shallow gash opening up on his right side, just below the chest. Coincidently, he’d just been hit in the same spot where his earlier opponent had clipped him.

  My god, that hurts! Holy f—that technique is dangerous. More energy from the ring subdued a sudden sense of panic, which cooled his head enough for him to continue on despite the pain he felt during every step.

  The young man that he’d taken out first had a cultivation two levels higher than the foes he now faced, and had withstood a full-strength punch to the dome without losing consciousness. Moments after, Nolan’s hand had nearly stabbed clean into another disciple’s head using the same amount of force. The different results led him to believe that the weaker ones would have a hard time hurting him even if they managed to get a few strikes in, but he had been naïve. If he wasn’t careful then any one of these inner court disciples could kill him with that technique.

  The moment after he took the hit, Nolan clamped his hand around the neck of the man in front of him and leapt upward to avoid a follow-up strike from the other. He drew a long arc through the cool night air, the youth struggling to break free of Nolan’s death grip. He’d jumped toward where Nyla was replenishing her energy with a spirit stone a safe distance away from the scuffle.

  He’d made sure to vault high above the ground, awkwardly angling the captive in his grasp so that he held the young man up in front of him as they continued to ascend, as if he were some sort of windbreaker. A red hand frantically pierced toward his neck but he slapped the strike aside with his free arm, but then a sturdy knee that caught him in the gut a moment later. Thankfully, it was on the lower left side of his body, and didn’t do much more than steal a slight bit of breath away.

  Clothes billowing in the wind, Nolan tightened his grip on the squirming man’s neck as he reached the apex of his jump and then hurled him downward with a heavy grunt of effort.

  The man cried out as he crashed down into the earth like a crumbling meteorite. The force of the fall suppressed any attempts of movement up until a loud yet dense thud punctuated the crippling impact. Not to mention the less conspicuous injuries, his legs, arms and neck were all broken, which signified the end of his role in today’s battle.

  Throwing that disciple had offset Nolan’s balance and caused him to spin about in an uncontrolled manner, so he relied on his spiritual sense to determine w
here he was as he plummeted toward Nyla with wind in his ears.

  He hit the ground in a blur of darkness, rolling on for a dozen metres before clawing into the dirt and anchoring himself in place amidst a cloud of kicked up plant matter. Dizzy and in terrible pain, he hauled himself onto his feet with a grimace.

  He focused inner essence around his injuries, which began to heal at a much slower pace than was necessary. I could have gone about that in so many better ways. He’d never been in a fight where he hadn’t reflected on things that he should have done after the fact. Still, he didn’t have time to think on it.

  Back in Collinsville he’d proved to himself that an average-sized kid could take down the biggest bully in school if they went about it in the right way. Thinking back, that had been his first fight. The memory served as a reminder that these guys were still capable of taking him down if they hit him in the right spot at the right time, with a certain amount of force. It also reminded him of his usual fighting style.

  With no time to reminisce, he pulled out a spirit stone of his own and turned to see that Nyla had appeared beside him. Up to their waists in beautiful wildflowers, the brilliant lights of the stones betrayed their location like beacons in the night, though it hardly mattered when their opponents were close enough to sense their every movement.

  A loud crash drew Nolan’s attention toward the encampment, where two shadows were clashing at incredible speeds amidst the wreckage of at least five carriages, their fight gradually moving away from the camp and farther east into the fields. The sound of their blades meeting was like thunder during a turbulent storm, overriding much of the commotion within the vicinity.

  “Are you okay?” Nolan panted, staring ahead of him with intense focus. He hadn’t expended much energy, but fear and adrenaline had him heaving long breaths. That, and he was hurt pretty badly.