Chapter 51

Devastation

Frank didn’t know what to expect when he exited the temporary shelter, he suddenly found himself transported to. But he knew for a fact that he was not ready for the densely packed layer of highly concentrated earth energy that was before him. Let alone the way it seemed to mix both positively and negatively charged particles of energy in a swirling pattern.

Looking into the pattern, it was clear that the energy was slowly moving in a rotational pattern. Almost as if the energy was both being summoned and forced to move.

Seeing the movement, Frank was able to then quickly look and see that there were odd symbols and formations on the side of doorway that clearly seemed to move and pulse with an odd form of energy. Looking at the formations, it was clear that they were intricate and far more advanced than anything Frank himself had witnessed.

For a moment he thought about trying to touch the odd looking formations, but the slightly intense burning sensation he felt when just getting his hand close to the formations was enough for him to think better of that thought. In his mind, images of him reaching out and trying to touch a burning hot stove came to mind.

Then pausing for a moment, Frank realized that somehow the formation itself had forced those childhood images to come forth within his mind. Not that his mind made the association on its own, but that the images of him reaching out and burning his hands multiple times as a child while touching something clearly hot were forced to the front of his mind.

Pausing, he stared at the formations and wondered if there was some form of mental compulsion in those formation? There almost had to be.

Looking at the formation, and the surrounding area, it was clear that the formation wasn’t actually hot. As there were no signs of heat, also just being here in the doorway, there should be some residual heat washing over him from the intensely hot runes he saw. Yet, there was nothing, if anything the passageway was cold and damp, the way one would expect a subterranean exit to be.

Mentally Frank wanted to rebel, to fight through the mental impulses and actually touch the formations just to see what they did. But then held off.

There was a chance that his touching the formations would actually trigger something stronger than being burned. Not that being burned was too much of a true deterrent for a cultivator, as his body had long ago been strengthened to resist such heats. At least he knew he could resist the heats that were being warned about in his childhood memories.

No, there might be something deeper to these warnings, and for that alone Frank decided to avoid touching the formation.

Also, Frank had a sneaking suspicion that if he continued following the training regimen provided to him, he might just understand these different formations, and be able to deduce why they forced childhood memories of him burning himself to come to the forefront of his mind.

With the clear interest of the new ancient formation removed as a point of interest, at least for the moment. That forced Frank to go back to the part of this process that stopped him. Namely the swirling interlocked pattern of negatively and positively charged earth energy that had apparently served as a protective barrier over the one and only exit of the room he was in.

While he had remembered hearing climbing sounds all around, thinking back he could not recall any coming from the door. Now that he saw what essentially protected him, he understood why there were no skittering sounds that covered the door.

From just one look, it was clear that this was yet another test. One meant to prove that Frank had both completed the initial training of this area, and likely to help him get past the fact that earth energy of either polarity would not affect him.

Seeing the swirling mass, Frank paused and then holding up both hands began pulling the two different spirals of energy. The negatively charged component went in his left hand, while his right hand pulled in the positively charged particles.

Grinding.

An intense sensation not unlike sand being forced through his body was soon felt. But these sensations quickly gave way to the more pleasant feeling of cultivation, particularly after the two different energy types cycled once around his body, until they both lined up with his primary node and began entering their prescribed channels.

From there, Frank felt an immediate surge in energy, as the new earth energy seemingly grinded its way through his newly established nodes and connection channels, before ultimately elongating them and then fusing with the few holes that were created by the new pressure. This led to a slightly more robust channel than he had been able to create initially, and one that didn’t seem to have issues with earth energy.

Feeling the earth energy enter his new and personally made meridian channels, Frank couldn’t help but be reminded of when he first began cultivating. Then he remembered the way earth energy burned upon entering his body, and how it took a lot of time to seemingly get rid of that sensation.

Now he felt slightly similar, but his new understanding of cultivation, and the way his new self-made cultivation channels seemed to be able to adapt to the new element with minimal strain was a welcome relief.

Seeing the final barrier for what it was, a forceful push into the realm of earth cultivation, Frank couldn’t help but feel the ancients knew what they were doing.

Before this point, Frank would have been content to think about being able to cultivate earth energy, but deep down, he knew he wouldn’t want to cultivate it. Just as the memories of his hands being burned came to mind when he tried to reach out and touch the different formations surrounding the doorframe, Frank would have remembered the initial burning sensations to his far weaker natural meridians from when he first tried to cultivate earth energy. That memory alone would have been enough for him to avoid delving too deeply into the world of earth cultivation.

Yet, this final doorway being made of an equal quantity of both polarities of earth energy made it so he had to force his mind past any final mental hang-ups about the new element, if he wanted to leave. And after having spent as long as he had in the seemingly sterile room, Frank wanted to leave.

As he began to cultivate away the energy that had been made into a semi-permeable door, Frank began to see the signs of devastation that the mass exodus of the insectoid monsters left in their wake.

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Giant pot marks appeared to cover the ground everywhere.

The image before him made Frank remember seeing old images of the moon in his textbooks. He remembered looking at the images and seeing that giant pot marks covered the entire surface of the moon.

In this case, the image before Frank was similar, in that there was not a spot on the ground that was not trampled, indented, or otherwise marred by the passing of an army of cultivating insectoids.

The entire thing almost seemed to be too much.

Finally, after a long moment, the amount of energy entering Frank’s body began to slow down slightly, then finally the stream was entirely cut off, as Frank had taken in all of the ambient energy.

With that process complete, Frank paused as he mentally tried to prepare himself for what would happen next.

Looking at everything, Frank had no clue how long he had been gone. He had spent enough time to cultivate, establishing an entire new node network in his body, along with reaching at least one tier higher in his core cultivation, and like body cultivation phase.

Just moving, Frank felt lighter.

He was hungry, as it was clear that he had not eaten in quite some time. Though his SERE training had taught him to be resilient, and to be able to withstand simple things like lack of food for days. Remembering how hungry he had been on the days leading up to his descent, this level of hunger he now felt was nothing.

Also, Frank was aware that he often cultivated and advanced quickly. Most of this was due to the strains that he often found himself under during his cultivation processes to this point. The level of strain he was often under made it so he had to constantly push himself for the fastest solution, rather than the most optimal. Pausing for a moment, Frank realized that this was the first time that he had been given time to fully cultivate the way he wanted to. Or at least the way he thought he wanted to.

While it was clear that he had been guided to find one specific answer, he had still been given time to both see it in real life, try it out on the pillars that lined the underground, and then implement the same details on his own body.

Taking one last look back at the sterilized room behind him, Frank couldn’t help but realize that the ancients who created such an intense and intricate training program, clearly knew what they were doing.

Then realizing he now had to see what exactly happened while he was in isolation, he moved forward.

As he moved, his body felt lighter, his muscles and movements while stiff were not as tired as he would have imagined. His body felt like he had been sitting in one position for a few hours, which was why he hoped that he still had time to help out.

Swoop.

Only once Frank was a good dozen or so paces away from the makeshift shelter did he hear the sounds of the door closing behind him.

Turning back he looked at the place where he had just come from and was amazed to see that there in the side of a dirt hill was a smooth dark wall of what appeared to be obsidian. Even the area where the door had once resided now just appeared to be a smooth black surface that was flush with everything else.

A quick orientation showed that Frank was likely on the far eastern edge of the area. That if he followed the path west taken by the insectoids he would be able to fine the SERE base, or likely what remained of the base.

The more he moved west, towards the SERE training camp, the more signs of devastation he saw.

While the field that housed the seven training pillar had been wide open terrain, the area surrounding the pillars had been a dense jungle.

Now though, now there was a clear path that had been torn through tree line far ahead. That for some reason the monsters decided to herd themselves into a funnel that could then be focused on by the monsters.

“Groan.”

The weak sound of someone groaning in pain could be heard.

Hearing the sound, Frank looked around and saw signs of an area where a fight occurred. Clear scorch marks covered the ground, while bodies of mutilated and burnt insectoid monsters lined one exit tunnel.

Somehow, or for some reason, the streams of insectoid monsters either didn’t see the clear battle that took place, or didn’t care about their brethren being burned alive by an enemy.

Moving quickly, Frank found himself quickly going through the pile of burnt monster parts.

Then with strength that Frank didn’t know he possessed, he found himself easily grabbing and tossing the giant carcasses way from the pile as he began using his energy sight to look for life.

There at the bottom of the pile was the faintest of life signatures, but it was one that he could still make out.

Having a clear objective in place, Frank began to let his Combat Medic training take over. While he had only a few days of actual training, most of which came from his time here at SERE camp, he still knew the vital components to perform.

“Stay with me, help is here.” Frank said, speaking out the fact that safety was coming.

More groans.

It was clear that what, or whoever was down there was barely responsive.

Still Frank found himself quickly moving through the pile of corpses, until he found the charred remains of the survivor.

Once he found the target, Frank reached out and once he had direct contact with the target, he began pumping in waves of healing energy.

As he worked, Frank could feel the reserves of his body that had been otherwise full a moment ago, now seemed to slowly drain. But the rate that he felt drain from his body was less than what he was used to. While the damage sustained was intense, Frank also felt his body naturally providing earth energy at points to help replace mass that his life energy would normally just have to force the body to over produce.

The whole sensation was odd, and his body and mind seemed to do this exchange naturally. If he had to put rough figures on what was being used, Frank would say it was close to a 70 – 30 split. Seventy for healing and the final thirty for earth energy.

How his mind came to those numbers, or how his mind seemed to know that he could implement earth energy to help form mass within the body was beyond him.

Yet, he could fundamentally understand the process, for blood was made up of many different components, including iron, potassium, salts, and other elements of the world. Elements that Frank now felt he had a tentative grasp of. While he was not a master of any of these, he was aware enough of earth energy that by directing the intended energy to the spot, the energy along with the body and guidance from the healing energy being given were enough to cause the earth energy to build helpful parts of the cell that could easily be repurposed and made into blood, organs, and muscle tissue.

Within minutes, the badly burnt and battered body began to grow and reform.

Looking at the body, it was clearly a female from the training, one of the two who managed to make it to this final round. Though it was odd, as the energy flowing within the female was clearly not fire. In fact, Frank thought she might be an earth-oriented fighter. At least that would explain why the earth element from his body was so readily accepted by this patient.

Still, Frank couldn’t understand how this soldier was so badly burned, if they were an earthen body protection and possibly earth at a distance attacker as well.

“What? What happened?” The female soldier finally asked.

“I was hoping you could tell me.” Frank replied, as he began helping the patient sit upright.

Shiver.

Gooseflesh began to appear on the patient’s exposed skin. Only now did Frank realize just how much of the female soldier’s uniform had been burned away, and how much tender skin had recently been repaired.

Seeing her in this state, Frank did the only thing he could think of. He took off his uniform top and draped it over the shoulders of the now recovering soldier.

Despite Frank being shorter than the female, his shoulders were wide enough that the jacket itself easily covered and insulated the warrior.

At first, the female just held the jacket tight as her body clearly tried to retain as much body heat as possible. Then after a moment she slowly and gingerly moved her arms through the long sleeves and proceeded to button the top in place.

With that done, Frank helped the patient to her feet, before asking.

“Do you know if there were any others?”

At that, a sneer crossed the female’s otherwise pretty features.

“Yeah, the Captain and a few of his cronies survived. At least he survived long enough to burry me in a pile of burning insects.”

Hearing that Frank only nodded, realizing that she likely meant Captain Camello, the resident pretty boy and his group of cronies that came here preassembled as a team. These were the people that Frank knew to steer clear of from day one.

Realizing that he didn’t want to be dragged any further into politics, Frank just nodded. Then giving a quick scan around the area, he found no other signs of life.

“You okay to start heading back?” Frank asked.

The female soldier paused for a moment, then giving a quick glance around she too nodded her head.

“Yes.”

Then like that, the two began making their way forward. Frank held out his arm, which the female soldier took and used to support her, as they both made their way through the fields.

As they got closer to the base, more and more signs of struggle began to appear. It started with first a few insectoid bodies littering the path. From the combat markings, and clear signs of magical energy waves being utilized, the insectoids were killed, while the soldiers who had been monitoring the situation retreated.

Frank saw multiple lines of attacks that almost overlapped each other, and were clearly made by the same wind blade attacker who sent out attack waves overtop of each other.

Then as they got close to the base and its automated the defenses the signs of battle truly intensified. As bodies of monsters lay in the hundreds. Forcing Frank and his patient to take a long way around the pile of enemy insects.

Finally, they made it to the southern side of the base, swinging wide around the combat area to avoid any insects that might otherwise be lying in wait for an attack.

The two made quite the odd pair, as most of the uniform worn by the female soldier was either covered in gore, burnt away, or rendered to strips. In contrast, Frank’s uniform looked almost pristine. Other than a few minor mud stains, and the fact that his otherwise pristine jacket was being worn by the female soldier, he looked perfect.

That was why, upon their arrival, Frank was met with almost immediate contempt.

“Just where have you two been?”

Hearing the words, and seeing the haggard state that everyone was in, Frank realized that this was not going to be a happy homecoming.