Quin felt the earth rumble and quake. It seems Mang is doing his part, I’d better not screw up mine!

He Flashed straight to the place where his friends were kept, however the area was swarmed by Shriekers. He soon got to know the role of the hole in the ground which he has noticed previously: it was the living place of the Shriekers!

He kept on shooting out Bolts after Bolts, but there were just no end of them. Crap! I have to do something, I can’t just waste my time killing these small fries! Think Quin! He was racking his brain on what to do when the idea struck him. Maybe I could use something like Overcharge but instead of focusing it in one point, I’ll just explode my qi out in a circle around me! Most of these are just larvae, so even if it loses a good chunk of its attack power, it’ll still be enough.

He was not currently surrounded by the Shriekers, so to get the most use out of this, he Flashed right into the crowd and in a single second charged up the spell.

In the next moment, in a wide circle around him hundreds of Shriekers fell to the ground, trembling and spasming.

“BOOM!” the sound of the explosion resounded.

Lightning was the fastest element, and by overcharging, its speed became even more unbelievable. So much, that there was even a -- although small, but noticeable -- gap between the actual attack and its sound!

He continued on to his group, and he reached them with only two Flashes. Fortunately the soldiers were distracted by Mang, and the adult Shriekers were on the other side of the battlefield, so he had at least a couple moments of rest.

Quin quickly undid their bonds and filled the ball which Mang gave him previously with his Lightning Qi. It turned into fine powder which flew out of his hand and filled the area, waking up the members of his group.

Lin and Alinor was the first to regain their consciousness and they were looking around dumbfounded, wondering at what was currently happening.

“Hey, Leyn!” Quin shouted to her. “Wake up! Damn! It’s no time to sleep!” Although her eyes were open, they were empty and even shaking her several times did no good. Fuck! What about the others? He looked around to check them. Alinor and Lin are awake, and it seems Aline is just about to come to. Sao is in the same state as Leyn, and Dreon... Where’s he? He has just realized that Dreon was not together with their group!

He used his Qi Sense to try to find him, but it was a difficult task to do. After several moments he managed to finally find him just at the border of his Qi Sense, on the other side. Shit! Shit! I have to get him as well! He felt tension on him increasing, and his his head was about to explode, but in a situation like this, how could he have allowed himself to relax? There were lives at stake, not just his life but his friends’ as well.

He turned to Alinor and said, “I have to go to get Dreon, but you must wake up Leyn otherwise we’re all dead! When she wakes up tell her to call our Spirit Forming guardian right away! I’ve got no time to explain the situation, but the place is teeming with Shriekers, and if you see a soldier in our uniform attack them straightaway! The only person who isn’t our enemy is Mang, he’s on our side!” He basically jabbered his talk, but every moment counted.

He Flashed in the direction of Dreon, but was obstructed by two adult Shriekers. Crap, this isn’t the right time for it! He tried to move aside but they just did not let him do it. He was faster, but there were two of them and each of them had a strength of a weak Qi Culmination expert.

He studied them briefly. These are the ugliest creatures I’ve ever seen! he thought. The outline of their body was quite similar to a human one, however that is where the resemblance ended. Their whole body -- except the tip of their fingers -- was snow white and they had an entirely smooth skin. Their face contained no eyes, ears or a nose: it was only occupied by a big circular mouth, much alike the ones he saw on the Shrieker larvae before.

Another striking feature on them was the two vertical openings on the two sides of their chests. He assumed they were for breathing but he did not have much time to ponder on the details. The last thing he observed was their arms which ended in a single pointy finger. They just look like spikes, he thought.

Quin did not know what their weak point was, but he guessed their heads would be as good of a target as it could be. He released two Lightning Spears at their heads but only one hit, as the other Shrieker managed to evade it.

It reacted by giving out a terrible shriek, which shocked even Quin for a moment, and then it shot out its long tongue at him. It was a good combination attack, but even delayed by that sound, he was able to react in time and Flashed next to the creature punching its head with a Lightning Pillar.

After defeating them he took a glance back at his group before carrying on. Finally, Leyn’s awake! Now we have to persevere for only half a minute!

Just before he would have used Flash again, another adult Shrieker appeared in front of him and shot out its tongue at him. Quin evaded and was about to kill it with a Bolt, however another two Shriekers showed up on his two sides and he had to dodge their attacks instead.

He Flashed backwards and started to prepare two Lightning Spears, but he stopped suddenly, as he became petrified at what he sensed through his Qi Sense.

“NOO!” he yelled but it was too late.

Shriekers were continuously flying out of the hole in the ground, and almost the entire battlefield was covered by them. The area where Dreon lay was no exception but he thought, no, he rather hoped that they were too busy due to the chaos and would not attack him. That did not turn out to be true, and as he was fighting the three Shriekers, the ones surrounding Dreon decided to eat him alive.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

What they did, could not even be described as eating: it would be more proper to call it devouring. Quin used all of the power of his cultivation and killed his three enemies in a single moment with Lightning Spears, however that time was enough for the monsters to leave only bloody gore behind in the place of what was once a boy.

“Why?!” he cried out, tears flowing from his eyes. “Why are you doing this?!” I trained hard, I cultivated and became stronger, faster and more powerful. I can even take on experts at the Qi Culmination sub-stage, and win, but in the end it changed nothing! He continued to kill his way in his fury  to where Dreon had been. It happened again, just like last time and I couldn’t do jack shit about it! Why? Why is this happening to me? Why do I have to watch as my friends die again and again?! Damn it! Dreon wasn’t my only friend here, I have to focus! He was filled with boiling fury, and an ice-cold sensation -- death -- but he quickly realized that his other friends were there as well, and with his sheer willpower, he took control of his raging mind and emotions. As wrong as it may have sounded, the safety of his still living friends were more important than one who has already died.

Of course he has not forgotten about the revenge: he vowed that he would kill every and each one of them, and would not even let a single one live, but that had to wait.

With a deep pain in his heart he Flashed toward the others, who were having trouble fighting a pair of adult Shriekers.

He appeared in just a few moments and attacked with several Bolts, targeting both of them. One of them evaded the attack, but the other was a clear hit. Quin could not be satisfied, however. How could this be? Although the Bolts were targeted at its face, this Shrieker received only a scratch on it, nothing more.

Then, both Shriekers attacked with lightning fast speed. Quin noticed that one of them targeted Leyn, who would have no chance blocking something this quick, so Quin flashed next to her instantly.

What he felt toward her was no longer friendship, or family love like before, but betrayal. However that did not mean that he would just calmly see her die like that. He was not like those cultists, to whom the life of a human did not mean anything. It was true that he looked down on a lot of people -- especially the weak ones -- and behaved arrogantly, but he would do what he could to save someone.

He managed to push her away before the attack, but he did not have any time left to dodge and thus the tongue penetrated through his right shoulder.

“Argh!” he reflexively cried out, but his focus remained entirely on the battle. He grabbed the tongue with his left hand immediately and sent a smaller Overcharge through it. As the organ exploded he quickly called out the others, “I’ll be taking on this one, you just focus on the other!”

These Shriekers are definitely stronger than someone who has just entered the Qi Culmination sub-stage! How come? They clearly told us that all adult Shriekers are only that strong!

He started his offense with a single Lightning Spear -- he could not move his injured shoulder --, and then Flashed a couple of meters sideways, shooting out another one.

He kept on repeating this pattern for five or six times before finally the Shrieker dropped dead. It was quite fast for killing something so strong, but it was due to Quin focusing on attacking and thus was not without a cost: his whole body was covered in gashes and wounds.

He felt that there was no option, as the Spirit Forming guardian still had not arrived and the others were in dire straits as they not only had to fight the other overpowered adult Shrieker but simultaneously, more and more Shrieker swarmed them.

He started to prepare an Overcharge to end the adult Shrieker, but when his meridians were finally filled to the brim, he suddenly lost sight of it. Sensing the surroundings with his Qi Sense he noticed that the creature reappeared near to Aline and leapt at her.

Shit! I’ve to save her! There was only a couple of meters of distance between them, but not much time, so he was not sure he would be able to make it. He abandoned any kind of self-preservation and Flashed in front of Aline. He had not experienced something like this before, but his Overcharge powered up his Flash. It hurt like hell, and he felt that his body was about to be destroyed but he has not considered giving up, even for a moment.

Happiness filled his mind as he saw that he arrived in time, but then he felt as his stomach was impaled by the Shrieker’s spiky hand.

With his remaining strength he grabbed the creature and weakly said to the others, “Get away from me, quickly!” He felt that he was not able to contain his overcharged qi and the chaos in his main Core, what after being pierced through wanted to explode out.

The last thing he felt was both the Shrieker’s arm inside him and his stomach exploding. His Lightning Qi surged out wildly in every direction and then everything became black.

Author's note: This chapter and the following arc is what I've been wanting to write for quite a long time, and these events served as the base on which I started planning my entire fiction. Although there were a few chapters which were somewhat difficult to write, I really enjoyed finally being able to write them, so I'm very interested in what you'll think about them.

I've passed the 50k word mark, so I decided to place a donation bar below my chapters. Currently I'm not doing sponsored chapters and I've not decided whether I will in the future. Anyways, I also decided to extend the period during which I post chapters daily by about another week (to the 10th of September, as that'll be the end of the first month since I started posting my story).