John fell towards the snake-woman slithering down the building. He cast [Flashburst Pulse] down at her. She sensed what was happening too late. She had enough time to turn and erect an essence-shield before the attack hit her, destroying her shield, blood splattering from what would be the pelvis of a normal woman, and knocking her from the side of the building to fall towards the ground.

John, in a dive, was falling faster than the snake-woman. As she spun wildly, he caught her and then grabbed a ledge, sending them both flying through a large window, the glass of which had already been shattered out. The snake-woman began to bombard him with mental waves and a metal disk flew at him he deflected with his bracer.

Ignoring the pain that racked his body, John dove at the Gold and punched her with all the might he could summon from within himself. The mental waves stopped, and so did all the snake-woman’s movement and shifting.

John couldn’t break through the skin of even the creature’s human-like parts with his teeth, so suckled on the open wound near her pelvis. She strengthened him eleven times before expiring, leaving him topped off with vital essence.

The snake-woman’s body turned into a small pile of mush that didn’t dissipate, and the vague imprint of a mostly dissipated spirit could be seen. He put the light-green crystals she dropped in his sash, near the small bag of crystals he never put in the spatial storage ring he gave to Amber.

Going to the window, John judged that the distance down to the road below was far more manageable from his current height. He jumped down, and on landing, the pain in his feet, ankles, knees, legs, and spine told him he judged incorrectly. He had no idea where Fireblade was. He couldn’t even recollect when he lost it.

With one jump, John was back among the dark ones, this time holding a bat-man by the ankle, swinging him as a weapon into his foes. He was too spent to extend his senses out far, but the shadows of the moonlight seemed normal, and he couldn’t sense either shadow within the limited range of his senses.

Being able to kill enemies again after so long battling the two shadows he couldn’t defeat raised John’s spirits a bit. He thought one place was as good as another for his last stand and hoped to send many more dark ones to their deaths before the shadows found him again.

Sometime later, then using a large metal spear of a louvre doll as a weapon, John felt something. Very softly, Lilly said, “help,” right into his mind. Then she did it again.

Shit, thought John. The many oaths he swore weighed down heavily upon him. Part of him wanted to ignore her plea since she put them in the situation they were in. He shook off that thought. He was obligated to try and save his wife.

John jumped towards the ritual circle and felt the strangeness and saw the stretched shadows caused by the Gold shadow-creatures. The next jump brought him to a tightly packed press of dark ones surrounding the thumping ritual, and a shadow tried to stab him while he was still in the air.

Dark ones attacked the whitish-purple bubble of protection around Lilly. John was surprised it was holding out so well and wondered why the dark ones decided to attack it after ignoring it for so long.

Two sickles stabbed at him on landing, and John barely avoided being skewered. The other shadow’s attacks nearly got him right after.

Instead of clearing the dark ones from around Lilly’s circle, John was forced to focus everything he had on the shadow’s sickle attacks. His weapon was an unbalanced and awkward metal-spear – a poor weapon to block the lightning-fast sickle attacks with, and he had little room to maneuver in the massive press of bodies.

Giant bee-flies covered John from head to toe, and a sickle cut into his left shoulder and arm stump. A sickle from the other shadow cut his scalp open. He let out a furious yell of rage as a fire-bird burned into his back, and the yell was cut off prematurely as giant bee-flies clogged his throat. His ability to sense his surroundings ended as he choked and coughed. He swung his spear around madly, and dove sideways, hoping to throw the shadows off.

John knew death was just a few moments and a sickle slash away. There was no way out. He failed. In multiple ways. His wife was on her own. He would die, but he’d take as many dark ones with him as he could, hopefully killing those shadows he hated so much and couldn’t hurt.

All the essence left in him, all his concepts, and the energy too, John twisted with the energy around him and tried to force it in ways it couldn’t be forced. He would create an explosion from the external energy as he did in the Tribulation, but much, much larger. A warning from the NCS flashed in his eyes. He ignored it. He knew what he did next would be his last act, and he would put all the effort into it he could. His last act would be spectacular. His head pounded and throbbed as he pushed everything out of him with a mighty exertion and a single-minded focus.

Energy lit up the dark intersection as it sparked off John, and his essence lashed out at all around him like hungry, glowing tentacles. Many dark ones died, but the only explosions were small and from louvre dolls. His insides felt fine and undamaged. An overwhelming lethargy hit him due to completely draining his dantian, and he collapsed to the ground, staying conscious by an extreme force of will alone.

On the road, right in front of John’s face, was a shadow that shouldn’t have been there.

John tried to get back on his feet, tried to reach the shadow, but failed. He let the hate and anger he felt towards the shadows fuel him, and those emotions were enough to get him moving.

Allowing strong emotions to run rampant as he did went against all of John’s beliefs, went against everything that had been instilled into him since he was old enough to walk. A man worthy of the word controlled his emotions – a warrior worth his salt mastered them. It was a core tenant of the way of death, and necessary to end the dream as it should be ended.

At that moment, John didn’t care. He’d take whatever fuel was at hand that allowed for revenge. What was at hand, and plentiful, was hate and anger. He fell on his unmoving foe with fury, landing mighty blows on its head, only managing to painfully bash his hand against the road and send divots of pavement flying off. He stood and stomped the shadow, causing a large hole to form, but the shadow was uncaring and unharmed. He tried to feel under it, to lift it, and nothing worked.

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“Adon! We have to flee while we can! Now!” John ignored the cries. He beat on the shadow darkening the road, only injuring himself. Something weak tugged at his robe. “Please! My heart! My love! We have to go! We must flee now!”

John felt so frustrated by his impotence he nearly ignored his wife again. He let go of vengeance for the moment, extended his senses out some, grabbed his wife, and jumped onto a nearby roof free of dark ones.

“That way! See those big buildings there? Head that way. Goddamn, that was close. You okay?” John headed to the area Lilly stated but ignored her question. He used vital essence to increase his speed, and moved fast enough she couldn’t speak while being held under his arm.

When it got to the point he needed his arm, Lilly quietly got on his back when he stopped, using his empty scabbard to help hold herself. She must’ve sensed his anger, as she only spoke to help direct him.

The far-off building Lilly directed John to had no other tall buildings near it. He had to start his ascent up it close to the bottom. The stone building had large ledges he was able to easily jump to, and he ascended quickly, sensing many humans in the building. Lilly directed him through a window of the second-to-last floor before the roof, and they entered a large room with a big chair, a couch, and other furnishings.

Once Lilly was set down, she immediately took out headgear and chalk and started drawing. Watching her work had a calming effect on John, and he regained further control of his emotions. He sat down to meditate, and Lilly said, “One minute. I need you to infuse this. If I use crystals and my…you won’t know the word, but it has a really shitty conversion rate and it’s a big waste if I do it. And I have some items to help you cultivate. And heal while doing so, my dear heart.”

“My dantian is completely empty. I don’t even have energy I could convert to essence.”

Lilly looked at John. “If you had nothing left in your core you’d be passed out. How are you not unconscious then?”

“Great gods below, woman, because I’m not! Have I ever had good answers for such things? Why would I lie about this?”

Lilly lowered her eyes and turned back to her work. “You’re right. Sorry. You’ll still get a better conversion rate since your channels are cleared, so if you’d please do it still, we’ll waste much less. Just let me finish this up. Just one second, almost done.”

Lilly stood and the chalk and headgear disappeared. “Done.” Some sort of weird and bulky glove appeared in her hand. “Can I put this on you now?” John let her, and the glove grew to fit over his thumb, index, and middle finger. Some weird contraption poked out the back of the glove, and Lilly put a dark-yellow crystal of a Silver into it.

“This is probably overkill, using this crystal, but I’d rather go over than under. Just put your finger here and pull on the energy. It’ll change it to essence and fuel the ritual. Got a couple other areas to infuse under the windows and that other door. Tell me when the crystal’s out.”

John did as he was instructed, not needing a new crystal. “Nice. Easy-breezy,” said Lilly as she laid a mat covered with various runes down. “Cultivate on this and it will go faster. I plan on making bank mass producing these suckers. I have something else too.”

“Diamond Garioch had one of those mats in his room.”

“Most everyone has something like this mat. Any tiny bit of improvement you can eke out of cultivating is highly desirable. What I’m putting on your chest is a…you’ll never remember. We’ll call it a heal-bug. It looks gross but this thing is amazing. You’ll see.”

Lilly helped remove his armor and top as John asked, “What did the ritual circle do? I can’t really feel or see any difference.”

“That wasn’t a circle. It was…you don’t care, do you? It makes it much harder for anything outside to sense us. Mainly. The ones on the windows block sight in and reinforce the main one. There’s a minor noise nullification component but not anything major. It should stop those shade things from finding us. The thickness of the stone of this building will help too, and the height of it compared to other buildings around. I’ve never seen anything like those things. Okay, this goes right here where your middle core is. It pinches a little. Ready?”

“Yes.” The thing Lilly placed on John’s chest looked like a hardened and giant, freakish, malformed cockroach.

“And that’s it. It’ll help heal as you cultivate. Before you do, I’d like to apologize for this mission being so FUBAR.”

John thought he was able to figure out the meaning of FUBAR by context as he nodded his head in assent.

Lilly reached out and held John’s hand in both her own. “I’m sorry things went to complete shit. I volunteered you for this. I didn’t…no, I should’ve known. I got too big for my britches and assumed I knew more than I did. I captured the dark walker that dropped these dark ones. Well, I drew the circle that captured it.

“The WD40…that’s…people just call them the WD40. It’s some grease-spray peasants use. Their real name’s the G40. Group of forty. I think. I don’t really give a shit. They paid a shit-ton for me to do it, and I know they’re going to have me trap the others. I got greedy. I thought this would be easy-breezy and the pay...”

Lilly let go of John’s hand and put her arms around his neck and her forehead on his cheek. “Even on Tech 0 worlds the dark ones are seen more as a resource to farm than a real threat. Powerful sects trap and farm them. The dark walker my circle trapped is being farmed by the army in Rhode Island. I don’t know all that much about dark ones other than the thump ritual draws them and they’re usually much weaker than all other beings at any given tier.”

Lilly lifted her head as she giggled and smiled enough to show all her missing teeth. She then lost the smile and looked downwards. “Sorry, I’m rambling on. I messed up. I messed up big time. The thump ritual was much stronger than it was supposed to be and drew far too many far too quickly. It just kept going. It set them up perfectly to merge. They’re only supposed to be able to merge so much and I think we broke something. I nearly got you killed. Thankfully, I think we’re safe here.”

Lilly placed her forehead back on John’s cheek. “I know I had some outbursts that made me look bad before. I…I’m trying to do the best I can with the emotions and poor control that comes with a child’s body. I’m really trying to do better. Not just with emotions and jealousy. With everything. I’m not a bloodthirsty maniac. I’m not. I want to be the wife you want. The wife you deserve.

“If I make a mistake here and there like this one, please realize I’m trying to do better. I want to…no, I will do better. I just need some time and a little forgiveness for the occasional slip. I want to make you the happiest man alive. I want you to love me as much as I love you. Can you forgive me? And give me a chance to prove myself?”

After the low John just went through, even though he tried to harden his heart and keep in mind every word Lilly said was probably just part of a game to twist him up, his heart lifted upon hearing those words. That was all that he wanted. Someone to be loved by and to love back. Someone to endure life with. Someone that made life worth living. A reason to continue suffering through it.

John had that with Lilly for a long time, and the good memories drowned out the bad for him at that moment. He almost forgot what it was like to actually be loved, really loved, and not be alone. Or having friends he was only a burden to. Friends, in all honesty, he felt resentment towards since they had him do the dirty work they wanted done but wouldn’t do themselves. And being such a burden, how could he ever say no?

Even Amber and Hubaba don’t really…, John started to think as Lilly caressed his face and looked into his eyes the way she used to, making him feel extremely uncomfortable, forcing him to scoot backwards.

Clearing his throat, John said, “I forgive you. We almost died. But we didn’t. I must meditate now. Thank you for what you said. You know the feelings are returned. I’m happy to have you back with me. I’d like to see you prove your words by treating my friends well.”

Lilly smiled widely and moved away a comfortable distance. “Okay, my dear, dear heart. You make me so happy. Sit on the mat. And don’t forget to check your gains before you cultivate.”

As John heard the last part, it made him wonder why he hadn’t seen a prompt or notification or anything from the NCS, especially since it must’ve considered combat to have ended.