“I-” Kiva muttered.

“Ah, tough crowd,” Wimbleton said, moving back towards Trenton and crouching low, the mirth suddenly gone from his usual cheery expression. His deathly eyes glazed across Trenton’s body, inspecting every little detail, every little contour. “Alright, now that that’s dealt with, let’s have a look. You’ve got an abnormal healing property, no?”

Trenton’s head lolled to the side.

“Uh-uh. I want you to try something for me. Your body automatically heals when you sleep, but it’s also done it while you’re awake, meaning there’s a separate condition being subconsciously fulfilled whenever your need is greatest. If you can figure out what this condition is and rend control from your body, you theoretically should be able to control how you heal,” Wimbleton said, gazing intently into Trenton’s eyes, looking for some sign of confirmation, a sign Trenton couldn’t give.

“You can’t control how your body heals. Autonomous functions are beyond human control for a good reason,” Kiva interjected.

“That’s the textbook answer, but also incorrect. Or rather, a lie. Era is a brilliant man, almost too brilliant. In truth, there is no autonomous function within the body that cannot be controlled manually. Only there’s one problem with that. Were someone without proper knowledge to figure out how to control, say, the contractions of their vessels, they’ll likely die a very quick death--blood loss from tearing their veins apart. Era knew this, and many other things, so some of the information you’ll find in public textbooks and papers is purposefully misleading to avoid people experimenting on their own and dying agonizing deaths.”

“Manipulating public information? Sounds like a dictator,” Karfice mused.

“He does in good faith, but I’m not here to argue whether it’s right or wrong. Morality is a fickle thing, and something beyond my interest at this current moment. My point is that you can’t always trust conventional knowledge,” Wimbleton said.

“But…fine, suppose it’s possible. How would he do it?” Kiva said, pushing down her screeching reservations.

“That depends. For a regular human, you could approximate the process to fully infusing your presence into the sections of your body you want to control in an effort to truly feel how you function. Once you learn how your body works, how it feels, you should be able to take control from it. It’s more complicated than that, obviously, but I’ve neither the time nor patience for a lecture none of you needs to hear because that’s how a regular human would approach it. Trenton, however, is a much different story. For now, feel around a little bit, explore, and we can go from there,” Wimbleton stood to his full height, stretching as he rose. “I’ll save the rest of this conversation for more comfortable surroundings.”

“Hold on,” Kiva grabbed the hem of Wimbleton’s cloak as he turned, gently tugging at it to get him to stop. “Walibeld said you had the ability to heal Leo. Is that true?” She asked, watery eyes glancing back and forth between the many injured boys.

Wimbleton sighed, rubbing his creased brow, “I was hoping to save this for later. The honest answer is that it depends. He’ll need to undergo a very nasty and delicate procedure. I am, of course, capable of performing this procedure, and there isn’t the slightest doubt in my mind that I could do so without mistake; however, there’s a problem. Leo needs to be removed from his stasis for me to be able to operate on him, which means he’ll be subject to dying, and given the state he’s in, it’s very likely he’ll die before we have a chance to do anything. The only way to avoid this is to pump him full of healing while I work, manually stabilize him until he can be naturally stabilized. But if we tried it here, with just you as his support, he’d die for certain. Luckily, he still has a few hours left in stasis. Any longer and it would’ve started to falter.”

“I…see,” Kiva said, shedding one quick tear and standing, resolute.

“It’s not a no,” Karfice reasoned.

“It’s not a yes,” Kiva said.

“We’re not exactly in the business of things being easy.”

“...yeah, guess not.”

“Regardless, none of that matters if we tarry here much longer. Follow me, stay close, and keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times,” Wimbleton said, turning on his heel and marching off towards a narrow tunnel slanting slightly down. How much deeper did this thing go?

“I’m sorry, I know it must be tough,” Jarce said, awkwardly patting her on the shoulder as best he could.

Kiva wiped at her face, drying it with her sleeve, “Don’t worry about it. We’ve got work to do.”

He looked at her for a moment, worry carving deep lines into his face, before loosening slightly, “Yeah, work to do.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Kiva stooped low, grabbing Trenton’s and Leo’s bodies, using whatever vines and plants she had to give them soft beds to nestle within. Karfice, meanwhile, took Garrote, haphazardly lobbing him over his shoulder. Admittedly, she was a little worried about Karfice being too rough with him, but the boy was resilient. He’d probably be fine. And if he got to wake up tomorrow, then he’d have plenty of time to complain while they were resting in comfy cotton beds.

They followed behind Wimbleton, squeezing single file through the small passageway, climbing when they reached impassable cliffs, leaping when they came across chasms, until they were once again granted some breathing room. It wasn’t a lot, the jagged chunks sticking out towards them pressing in some 10 feet to either side, but it was enough to allow them to travel in one small clump instead of fourteen.

This tunnel, much like the prior room, was also filled with various holes, these ones even larger than the last. From the ceiling, a steady trickle of a strange liquid dripped, splashing against the ground in little puddles pitted into the stone. Most of the ground was incredibly slippery, a slick slime coagulated over centuries coating the surface. It made it difficult to walk with a steady rhythm, and even more difficult to follow behind Wimbleton who walked straight ahead without a care, arms swinging front to back like a child on their way to the park. Kiva slid precariously down a long ramp leading even further downward, landing unevenly on her feet and almost tipping over. With the extra burden of the two boys, she had a much harder time keeping balance, but now was not the time for complaining, not after what everyone else had gone through.

The ground rumbled.

“Alright kiddos! I’m going to ask you to please stay close, stay calm, and no matter what, just keep walking forwards. Pay no mind to what may or may not be happening around you. Hell, close your eyes if you want, I don’t really care. Just don’t veer off course,” Wimbleton said, pulling out his sword once again.

For the first time, Kiva noticed that he held it a bit oddly in his hand, a calmer, more relaxed grip that one would typically expect of a well trained swordsman. It looked more like he was holding a wine glass on his way back to his beachside resort than a steel blade he’d just used moments ago to carve the living tissue out of the assailing mole force. It was still dripping with blood, even, leaving a small trail of blood behind as he continued forward, holding the sword level at his side.

In an instant, just like they had the two battles prior, the moles broke through the earth, propelling themselves through the air from every possible direction, trying to overwhelm them with sheer numbers. And this time, they were even larger, great beasts that couldn’t even fully get out of their holes before they were upon their little group.

Wimbleton raised his blade, flashing a charming smile over his shoulder, “Remember, no moving.”

Kiva couldn’t make out the movements of his arm, nor the slices of his blade, but it didn’t matter. She could see the effect, the gasallian grooves cleanly carved into the moles bodies, dicing them into dozens of thick chunks which fell heavy to the ground, their organs forming neat little piles on the sides of the cavern. The wind whipped at her skin, threatening to slice thin lashes into her skin from the sheer force of the boy's strikes, the movement of his arm throwing the world around them into a tizzy. Just as quickly as they poked their heads out of the walls, the ground, the ceiling, the moles fell, some of them barely even recognizable with how finely they were diced, Wimbleton’s strikes cutting them down before they even had a chance to attack. Somehow, someway, he was managing to defend every single angle with just that little longsword of his, without ever breaking stride, and without ever misfiring.

The cuts practically wound in between them with how impossibly precise they were, landing true to their targets and nothing but, tearing up the ground as they calmly made their way forward. How Wimbleton was able to strike things so far away with, as far as Kiva could tell, absolutely nothing, astonished her, struck a mystical chord within her mind she didn’t even think possible. It was like his blade extended with every strike, holding the exact length he needed, before retracting again back to its base form. Was it an artifact? No, it couldn’t have been. She would’ve sensed at least some magic from it. But all she got was the typical resonance of common steel, not even high grade steel at that. It was hardly better than any old rusted blade you’d find sitting in a garbage heap on the side of the road.

Of course, Trenton, Leo, and Garrote actually had an idea as to what this could be, a strike splitting the air far beyond the blade, as it was something they saw some time ago. When Yuleye had broken them out of prison, he’d used an identical technique, splitting apart the wall far ahead of them to clear their way, keeping stride much the way Wimbleton did now. Unfortunately, not a one of them was in a position to talk, leaving Kiva alone to speculate as she did her best to keep herself composed and moving, avoiding any sudden, jerky movements.

Suddenly, the tunnel opened again into a massive cavern, this one even larger than the last, with ripe green foliage adorning the entire surroundings: wreaths of mosses which hung from stone banisters like garland, vines woven into tight knots holding the corpses of various mutilated dwarves tied around natural stone pillars, a handful of dull, gray leaved trees stretching far up towards the cavern ceiling, just barely scraping it’s top with their leaves. Cutting through the center was a rushing stream of water, its source impossible to see. At the far end, there was a massive, roughly carved stone throne, with a great, fat mole the size of several buildings loafing atop it, many colossal moles “bowing” to it filling the rest of the large cavern. It looked like the gathering of a great army, their king the most imposing of them all.

At their entrance, the entire coalition turned, the last of their brethren guarding the hallway in falling quickly to Wimbleton’s blade. Wimbleton hopped up a short ledge to level himself with them as several in the first line of moles splayed their claws apart, listing their bodies forward to dive into the ground.

“Hey pal. Sorry to tell you, but I’ve gotta evict you. Time’s are tough and you’re simply not covering your dues anymore. Hands are tied,” Wimbleton said as he stilled his wild arm, bringing the blade across his chest to his left.

In two perfectly synchronized moves, each one so close to the other in proximity that it was almost indistinguishable to the untrained eye, Wimbleton threw his arm right, carving one gargantuan line through the entire congregation of moles in front of them, effectively cleaving their army in twain. And in the same motion, he brought his blade high above his head, slamming it downwards to create one more equally devastating strike which turned the mole king into two perfect mole twins, each slightly more bloody than the original. Before the great creature even had a chance to move, it fell to the ground in two pieces, the entire army of moles collapsing to the ground in a pit of their own filth. Hundreds of moles, all gone in an instant, the walls and ceiling still perfectly intact.