Chapter 22

I couldn’t be sure, but I suspected that they were members of clan Hill. Which meant that while I was gone for three days clan Hill had invaded. With the loss of so many elders it had probably been impossible for clan Ashton to defend themselves.

My eyes were drawn towards the alchemy garden. What I saw shocked me. Most of the garden had been burned down. The exception was the center of the garden where the dryad grove was located. A massive barrier had been erected around the garden center and hundreds of soldiers were manning it. In addition there were archers that were continually launching fire arrows at the dryad grove.

Apparently the battle hadn’t been one sided. There was a distinct ring of what looked like corpses around the center of the garden.Although it wasn’t near what I had expected considering there were two level nine powers in the garden. If things were this desperate I would have expected them to decimate all of clan Hill’s soldiers. Not just the ones that got too close to the dryad grove.

After thinking for a moment I realized there were only two choices before me. The first was to try to escape the clan Hill army. My strength had increased. I had fully recovered from my atrophied muscles. I also now had the power of a mid level three cultivator. And my range had increased to slightly over fifty feet.

Unfortunately escaping would still be difficult. If I was spotted, escaping from an entire army would be impossible. There were thousands of enemies I’d have to run from. The guards would almost all be level five and six cultivators. That alone would be nearly impossible to escape. If any of clan Hill’s elders decided to pursue me then it would be hopeless.

Which left my second option. I could escape to the garden. With some luck, elder Yui and his dryad family could protect me. Despite being under siege it was obvious that none of the clan Ashton soldiers or elders were venturing near the garden. I probably couldn’t get there unseen. However, maybe I’d surprise them enough that they couldn’t react in time to stop me.

I walked to the edge of the roof and looked for a likely point to transport myself to. With a thought I briefly transported myself to my universe, and then back out of my universe, and onto the roof of one of the few standing buildings.

Amazingly I got all the way to the edge of the garden without being spotted. Unfortunately at that point I couldn’t find a hiding place for my next teleportation. It was well over a hundred feet from the barrier to the edge of the center of the garden. And all the greenery between had been burned down.

With a grimace I decided to just go for it. Worst case I was immortal and would have to try again in a day. I just had to hope that none of clan Ashton’s elders were actively watching. If they were, I may not even know what killed me.

I came out of my space about twenty five feet into the no man's land between the garden center and the barrier. There were a few shouts behind me coming from the guards at the barrier. I ignored them and hurried to transport myself further.

With a bit of relief I popped back into my space and then back out just a couple dozen feet from the center of the garden. Then I heard a gurgle behind me. Turning I found myself looking eye to eye with a clan Ashton elder. Then I realized that he was wrapped up in vines. The vines constricted and a message appeared in front of me.

You have successfully found a source of death energy. 61,794 energy absorbed.

That number shocked me almost as much as the elder and the vines had. In an instant I had gained two thirds of what I’d gain from spending an entire day in the dryad grove. Short term it was amazing how much energy I could get from something dying.

“Hurry up and come inside. I’m not sure if my wife can protect you if a level eight cultivator attacks.” A familiar voice said.

With relief I turned and followed elder Yui into the center of the garden. When I got inside I was shocked to see that it wasn’t just elder Yui and the dryads inside. It looked like I wasn’t the only one that ended up taking shelter in the center of the garden.

Elder Yui noticed me looking around. “After the drake killed most of the elders there was little that could stop the other monsters. It took the clan head and the few remaining elders nearly all night to kill them all. Then the next day clan Hill showed up. When the clan head rode out to surrender to them they killed him. Then they stormed the city and started killing every member of clan Ashton. Once it became clear we couldn’t fight them off I focused on getting as many non-combatants as possible into the garden.”

“Aren’t you a level nine cultivator? Why not just kill everyone clan Hill sent?” I asked in confusion. Elder Yui may be a pacifist but I knew he didn’t have a problem with killing those that were clearly his enemies. The clan Hill elder that had just died made that obvious.

Elder Yui shook his head. “A few decades ago that may have been possible. My physical strength has waned as I reach the end of my life. I can kill level eight cultivators easily, but they can also easily kill me. My wife has retained more of her strength in her old age. However, dryads have limited mobility and the range of their magic is limited. She can protect the garden but can’t attack further than around a hundred feet from her tree.”

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I couldn’t help but feel a bit depressed as I listened to elder Yui. Everything made a great deal more sense now. However, it left us in a tough position. If anyone left the protection of the grove they would be killed. Clan Hill had us all trapped. Either they would wait until we starved to death or they would eventually succeed in burning down the grove.

“Adam? Is that you? I’m so glad you escaped.” A voice suddenly said and then a body collided with me and arms wrapped around me.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I realized that it was Emma. Part of me had been avoiding learning about her fate. I knew that chances were that she had been killed in the fighting. Although we hadn’t known each other very long I knew that her death would have hit me hard.

“I’m just as glad that you are all right. I was afraid that the gnolls or clan Hill had killed you.” I said, wrapping an arm around her.

“Where were you? It’s been three days since we were attacked.” Emma said.

For a moment I wasn’t really sure how to answer that question. Then I shrugged and decided I’d just go with the truth. “That night I managed to capture the drake inside my space.” I said.

Elder Yui interrupted before I could finish explaining. “I was wondering where it disappeared to. When it first disappeared I thought it may have been you. But I couldn’t find you anywhere during or after the fighting.”

“Yeah. The drake killed me while I was capturing it.” I said feeling a bit chagrined.

Elder Yui and Emma both just stared at me in confusion. “Apparently if I die, energy from my space is automatically used to revive me. However, it takes a bit of time.” I explained.

“So that means you are immortal?” Elder Yui asked.

I shrugged. “It’s not something I’d like to test. It’s possible there is a limit in how many times I can revive. Also I’m not sure what happens if I die from something that isn’t violent. For example a disease or old age. Plus it hurts and I lose an entire day each time. Dying sucks.”

Emma cocked her head. “You lose a day? But you have been gone for three days.”

“Well I revive inside my space. And that drake was not happy about being captured. It killed me two more times before it decided it couldn’t kill me permanently. Plus it didn’t like that each time it did the space would shrink.” I admitted.

“That’s a useful ability. With it you should be able to escape this area. Although we are going to have to make a choice about whether to release the drake or not. It’s too bad that we aren’t powerful enough to kill it.” Elder Yui said.

It was my turn to look at him in confusion. “Why do we need to release the drake?” I asked.

“So you can place the non-combatants inside your space when you escape. If there is room I hope you can also take some of my daughters. You can’t do that if the drake is inside though. It will just kill them.” Elder Yui explained.

Almost instantly I realized the source of his confusion. I had never told him that I could create multiple universes. I had been pretending that I only had a single spatial area. I hadn’t been lying since it was technically true that I only had the one universe. I had just withheld the information that I could create more universes.

“What if I just create a separate spatial area. I can then put the survivors in that area. That way I don’t have to release the drake.” I said acting like I had never thought of creating another space before.

Elder Yui frowned. “No need to pretend that you just realized you could do that. I understand the need to keep some trump cards hidden.” He said.

I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed. For a moment I had forgotten just how observant and intelligent elder Yui was. Fooling him was nearly impossible.

“How long will it take before you have enough energy to store everyone here?” Elder Yui asked.

That was a question I hadn’t given any thought about yet. I’d need a lot of room to store so many people. Plus the dryads would take up even more. Each of their trees was at least the size of the drake. And there were thirty nine of them.

“If I scrunch everyone together I can probably get away with a few thousand cubic feet of space. I don’t think that will work long term though. And even getting that much room is going to take well over a month of passive energy absorption.” I said.

Elder Yui nodded in understanding. “I doubt we will have that much time. At some point clan Hill will come up with an effective way to attack us. Even if it’s just arranging for a catapult to launch boulders at us.”

I couldn’t help but shudder at that thought. Right now the branches of the grove were doing an excellent job at stopping arrows. The dryads were then controlling the vines to throw the flaming arrows out of the grove. Some of the plants would get singed. However, the dryads could enhance plant growth enough that the flaming arrows weren’t making any progress.

A boulder would probably rip right through the foliage though. I could think of a few other options also. They could launch flammable liquids at the grove. Or a powerful enough mage would have the range to lob fireballs at the grove. There were plenty of ways they could eventually destroy the grove.

“What do we do then?” Emma asked.

“We need a sacrifice to gain enough death energy.” Elder Yui said before I could think of a solution.

I shook my head. “I’m not going to let you or anyone else kill themselves. For all we know it could take clan Hill weeks to come up with a way to defeat us. They may even decide to just starve us instead of attacking us.” I said arguing against the idea of sacrificing someone.

Elder Yui grinned at my outburst. “I’m not stupid enough to kill myself. I was talking about sacrificing some of our enemies. There are tons of clan Hill soldiers and elders that I can kill. Fighting them is a risk but not as much as waiting here for them to come up with a way to burn down the grove.” He stated.

After a moment I couldn’t help but grin back at the elder. “What are we waiting for then?”