Rain’s voice caught in his gullet as he watched, for what felt like a long time, a streak of blood flash across his eyes. A pain so unbearable he felt like he would puke out his whole internal organs smeared his body, although its origin hadn’t been one he had been expecting.

Nun Cathleen danced a few steps backward with an incredulous look on her face as though she had no idea of what she had just done, but Rain could see it deep within her eyes, she was enjoying this.

There was a loud gasp from the children behind him as he fell to the ground and placed his palm over J’s stomach, trying his best to hold back the rest of her blood from gushing out as her chest rose and fell slowly.

“Hmmm… You’re quite the spectacle, handsome boy,” Nun Cathleen spoke, but this time her words had some sort of anger inducing drug in them, one catered solely to spike the rage in Rain. He wondered if she knew that and had tuned her voice that way, or she was oblivious. “A beast sacrificing its life for yours? Now that’s something I didn’t expect to witness. Maybe it really is worth bonding with them. They’d make good shields.”

Rain glared at the nun, his breathing a lot more noisy than he would have expected them to be.

J wasn’t going to lose her life here. The cut was deep but somewhat shallow, and there was his blood. He just needed the right cover to make use of its ability. Regardless, for the first time, a deep well had been dug within him, one overflowing with a desire to kill. He wanted to rip that incredulous look from her face forever.

“Awww… Don’t look at me like that,” she clicked her tongue with a little jerk of her head backward. “What were you expecting? That you’d just get to leave without suffering any casualties, after all you’ve done? That’s quite selfish of you, don’t you think?” Rain said nothing. Nun Cathleen’s face blanked in response, her grip tightening on the shadow knife she held. “Well, I guess that’s enough chit chatting.”

Leaving one hand of his on J’s wound, Rain scooped up his knife and was about to repeat his previous defensive action of swiping his weapon in advance to Nun Cathleen’s attack, when Ella flashed into his view. She took a solid stance before him while grabbing hold of the shield and spear that had popped out of her shadow.

“Wh-What are you doing?” Rain asked, surprise evident on his face while Nun Cathleen tilted her head.

Ella’s black cloak billowed as she kept her gaze forward. “I-I’ll hold her back. Take Sean and go.” Her voice was quivering. No one needed to tell Rain, the girl was afraid, and would probably die if she fought the nun.

He was not the only one.

“El, get back here!” Ray shouted. “Are you out of your mind? She’ll kill you!” Silence took over his voice for a moment. “She’ll kill all of us…”

“Then all the more reason to fight,” Ella proclaimed. “Since we’re going to die either way.”

It was all too much for the children, that was why Rain couldn’t blame them for freezing in their steps. The world they had known all their life had crumbled, and now the people who had rescued them from traversing the ruins all by themselves had turned out to be different than they’d expected; what’s more, one of those people was threatening to kill them now. This was the sort of thing that required a few days to process.

But… they did not have such a luxury. And because they didn’t, Rain decided to give them that luxury.

Using Ella as a cover, he discreetly cut his palm and let his blood flow into J’s mouth. In an instant her wound healed and her breathing was reinvigorated. Then familiar but unexpected words appeared before his view, their bodies shaded with a blue and purple hue.

[Side Character Rain Leclair’s cognizance of the mentally mutated beast, J, has been heightened]...

Rain’s eyebrows furrowed at the sight of the words, but only for an instant.

J purred as she regained what strength she had lost a few seconds ago, and each wave out of her mouth resonated at a more deeper level with Rain than he’d felt before. It was like he could understand her intentions more clearly now, even far more than how it had been with Alice.

“Stay,” he whispered as he wiped the blood on his palm over J’s fur where her wound had once been. “Do not move an inch until I give the signal.”

Whether Nun Cathleen already knew of what had happened to J due to her Perception, Rain wasn’t sure, but he had no time to be concerned with such. Therefore, he just focused on what he could do to make sure the children survived.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Bold of you, Ella,” Nun Cathleen said, and Rain took that moment to steal a glance at Sean from over his shoulder. The boy met his gaze and approached him. “But quite stupid as well. Don’t be too arrogant for your own good, that’s not how I trained you to survive.”

“I don’t want to survive in such a way.”

“By sacrificing others to live?” Nun Cathleen scoffed. “What better way is there to survive?”

“Even if I run away as you try to kill the others, you’ll still come after me at the end of the day. Then, I’ll die with too much guilt. I don’t want to live or die that way,” Ella argued. “I’ll fight. You always said ‘humans are the hardest beings to defeat since our Attributes weren't all there was to victory’, then maybe I have a chance of coming out on top.”

Nun Cathleen burst out into a hearty laughter. “You really are bright, child. Alright. Let’s see how well your statements bode for you.” She was about to attack when Klein joined Ella in her stance. “Oh, you as well, Klein, darling. Shouldn’t you be smarter than this?”

Her words had barely escaped her lips totally when her face squeezed, the ecstasy on it switching into one of repulsive bewilderment at the appearance of the rest of the children taking their stances as well.

Rain had called Sean to let him in on what the plan he had cooked up entailed, but he had been nothing more than three words in when the little boy had told him while holding his arm, “You’re not going at it alone.”

It was weird. They were the words of a child, but they gave him so much hope that his face loosened. And now he could see why. The cloaks of nine children swaying in the wind before him.

They didn’t need the time to process betrayal; after all, they were no longer mere kids. They knew danger when they saw one, and they knew what to do to survive. He was the one who needed to grow up.

“Hmm… A nice view,” Nun Cathleen jested, but her voice did not have much of the mocking tone it had prior to now.

“You know, I desperately wanted to believe that it was a lie,” Ray said. “You saved us, trained us, and fed us, after all. But… I am not so stupid that I can’t see what you really are. And, there’s no way I’m letting you kill El.”

Nun Cathleen smiled. “Little Ray’s all grown up now, I see.”

“We’re no longer in the nave, sucker. Now can it and come at us.”

Nun Cathleen scowled. “As you wish.”

She had only taken a step forward when the children dashed at her, each one possessing varying weaponry that was well attuned with their build and fighting style. They did not want to give her the upper hand.

The nun had trained them, so she was well aware of their teamwork—heck, even though Rain had only watched their battle with the Chimera bear, he was well aware of it. And, of course, the kids didn’t disappoint.

Each one made up for the lapses of the other.

Mei Mei was a tad clumsy in the heat of battle, so she retreated to the rear and pointed out Nun Cathleen’s movements to the rest. Whenever she was threatened, Klein would come to her rescue, Ella in tow.

Rain realized at the sight that Klein’s Attributes weren’t too far off from that of the nun’s. He was a child, but he was quite strong.

That was why she didn’t move then…

Sean tugged on his sleeve, dragging his attention away from the battle. J had sat up despite his instruction, but he didn’t mind. He had told her to ‘stay’ because of the nun, but it did not look like the crazy woman had the time to notice anything at the moment.

“I have a Benefactor,” the boy said, prompting Rain to jerk backward at the abrupt revelation. He’d already considered the possibility, but it still came as a shock. “Sorry, I wanted to tell you earlier, but Alice… She…”

Rain put his hand on the boy’s head. “It’s fine.” He had not told Sean anything about Alice staying back to sacrifice herself, but the boy wasn’t dumb, so it was obvious that he would have long realized what was going on by now.

“The Golden Points is for that,” Sean continued. “I’m not sure how it works, but I can help. My Benefactor calls himself the King of Wands, and his Privilege is Ruler. It says it’ll show me the best sequence of actions to take to defeat my opponents every ten seconds. And, also, I can share the view with a person.”

Rain blinked, unable to say anything at first. “You talked to your Benefactor?” Since he’d likened them to higher beings, he did not put away that possibility.

Sean shook his head. “No. The Plexus showed me what I needed to know, I guess. Oh. It can only last for a minute for each Golden Point usage.”

Rain pursed his lips. “So you have ten minutes.” He turned his attention back to the children and how weared out they were beginning to look in less than a minute. They’d barely done much damage to Nun Cathleen herself, since their heavy hitter was quite busy protecting Mei Mei, and of course they were not without injuries. “Let’s do it in one. Those points are too precious to be wasted in a single battle.”

“Alright.” Sean nodded, beatific.

“And what are the drawbacks?” Abruptly, Rain asked, suspecting that no power of such caliber came free, especially since they were offered by the shitty beings who he suspected had turned earth into the ruins it was.

Sean answered, almost hesitant, “Once I share the visuals with you, I’m going to go blind.”