Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 167. Victory.
Although to those watching it was nothing but the briefest of moments, to Yin and Abdain those splits of a second felt very much otherwise. Having concentrated the entire amount of his Qi into one attack, Yin was pressing on desperately in order to break through Abdain’s inner defenses. He hadn’t even used a movement technique and had instead hidden his aura in order to approach Abdain a second ago, all in order to maximize the strength of this one thrust. He had poured eight parts of his entire Qi reserves into his sword in one go, betting everything on this one attack. He didn’t hope to be able to kill Abdain with it; it wouldn’t be realistic even when his surprise attack succeeded and even when Abdain was considerably tired out. No, his goal was to exhaust the rest of Abdain’s Qi and if he was lucky enough, maybe use this opportunity to damage the man’s Qi Origin.
He wasn’t surprised that Laien wasn’t fond of this gamble in the least, but it wasn’t like they had any other choice. At present, he was the only one capable of piercing through Abdain’s defenses and forcing the man to use up a large amount of Qi all at once. Thankfully, he also had the capacity to do something that no other practitioners, not even the likes of Laien, could do. To be precise, he was one of the oddities who was capable of quickly pouring all of his Qi into one move. His body was innately sturdy and was strongly compatible with Heavenly Lightning, so once his Heavenly Lightning Martial Realm had stabilized and his control over his Qi grew even more potent, he had become able to employ such one-time all-out attacks or defenses.
He had done the same thing back in the mountains of the Forbidden Lands in order to defend from the Guardian’s lightning. Back then, he had suffered minor internal injuries and light strains of his Qi paths. However, since he and Laien had had their bodies enhanced while they had been unconscious, he was now capable of using great amounts of Qi without suffering any kind of a backlash. Yet, the problem of actually being able to control this energy remained without a change. It was one thing to defend against a simplistic but powerful attack and another to attempt a precise attack by oneself.
After all, Yin knew all too well that if all he did was to recklessly release his lightning inside Abdain’s stomach, then he wouldn’t achieve much. The man was too powerful and his defenses were too great. While the wound left by Casimir was an unexpected boon, if he intended to get out alive after getting so close to Abdain and using up all his strength, Yin felt that he needed both quite some effort and some luck. So, he gave his best to transform the lightning inside Abdain’s body into thin strands of Qi and kept forcing them through his boulder-like defenses, threatening Abdain’s Qi Origin and forcing him to use up more strength than he would have liked to quickly grind those strands down. Surely, the damage to internal organs wasn’t that scary to a martial master of the seventh rank, but damage to Qi Origin was a nightmarish concept to any martial practitioner.
At one point, Yin’s heart filled with anxious anticipation when he was just about to push his lightning far enough to cause some real damage, but then, he felt how all the Qi he had poured into Abdain’s body fell under a pressure much greater than originally, only for all of it to be extinguished right afterward. Just like that, in the blink of an eye, he knew that he had failed. Having just used up a huge amount of Qi at once, he immediately felt a wave of exhaustion was over his whole body. The only silver lining in was that Abdain’s face was deathly pale; by the looks of it, he had been forced to go all-out in order to defend and likely didn’t have much strength left.
On the other hand, despite being in a weakened state, Abdain was quite furious. He hadn’t expected to be forced into such dire straits by a bunch of people who weren’t supposed to be his match. In truth, he had felt fear when Yin’s emerald lightning had been inching closer to his Qi Origin, but instead of admitting that, he washed the unpleasant emotion away with anger. The kid in front of him was too small, was too close and his stance was too low for a blow from a broadsword to hit him, so he kicked him lightly. Considering that he had finished turning around less than half a second ago and his feet weren’t steady on the ground yet, the kick ended up quite weak indeed. However, it still was more than enough to lift the exhausted kid off the ground and send him a few meters away.
With the position of the brat switched to a better, Abdain jumped forward and cleaved with his broadsword from up above his head, though at a cross-angle. He had seen how agile this kid was so he didn’t want to risk him dodging sideways if he swung vertically or horizontally. Yet, he frowned before his attack could be completed. Was it because of his frustration or because of how tired he had become, he noticed that the black-haired kid was probably going to make it in time before that attack completed.
“Fine, let’s see if you can block it!” Abdain thought angrily. This spear-wielding brat had deflected his blows twice, but this time he would be forced to take it head-on. He thought so most definitely, but when he saw the green-haired kid suddenly relax his body and fall down to his knees, thus allowing the spear and the following stream of water to swipe right above his head and hit his broadsword from below. He tried to put more strength into the blow to stop that weird phenomenon from appearing again, but since he couldn’t afford to add much Qi to his attack, the cleave ended up almost bouncing upwards in a weirdly smooth manner and missing the green-haired kid.
Abdain felt like cursing. That lightning thrust from a second ago forced him to use up a lot of Qi, so he had only a little bit of it left. He could risk it and stay since he could easily deal with whoever remained close around, but those two hundred-man-units of riders that were rampaging around the battlefield and the remaining subordinates of Julien’s would be too dangerous to face. He wasn’t quite satisfied with the death count, but he would need to retreat, recover and then go for the final attack. It would be troublesome since those guys would surely attempt to flee, but he could manage.
“But before I go,” he thought, an ever stronger killing intent filling his eyes. “I’ve got to take care of this one problem,” he decided silently and without any remorse, kicked the ground and lowered his stance heavily, then reached out with his open hand straight towards the head of the green-haired youth. Those strange defensive maneuvers of the black-haired kid were annoying, but there wasn’t anything he could do if he wasn’t given time to react nor an opportunity to use his spear.
Having expected the ice to come, he poured more strength into his body just as the layer started appearing all over his hand and legs and crushed it to bits before it could take form. Before his palm could reach the green-haired boy’s head, though, he was overcome with a great sensation of danger for the second time. And, this time, this threat was far stronger and more clear-pronounced than before.
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” He wanted to yell out, but he could only stop his current movement and twist his torso to the right and raise his left shoulder. He could feel the familiar aura approaching and his sense for danger was telling him where the blow was about to land, so he acted without thinking. This, as it proved, saved his life as a deep and bloody wound was cut across his cheek and shoulder by a sword of lightning.
The next second, his eyes met with the silver-haired man’s who had just arrived. Inside them, he could see grim determination much unlike the one from before. If he dared to exchange blows with him now, he was sure that this silver-haired bastard would ignore defense and go for a mutual kill. He might have accepted the odds otherwise, even with as little Qi as he had left, but he could sense one very worrying thing. It looked like after his meeting with the death reaper, Julien had broken to the sixth Realm of Heroes. As much as he wanted to finish him off for good, he had a feeling that seven out of ten times, Julien would also manage to finish him off as he was dying.
“If only those damned riders and those two kids didn’t show up!” Abdain groaned silently, unwilling to leave without finishing off any of the top-priority targets. He failed to kill Reian, he failed to kill that Prince, he didn’t manage to kill those two boys and in the first place, because of the arrival of those damned riders, Julien’s life ended up being saved! “Should I try to keep fighting anyway?” he asked himself for the last time. Any more hesitation and he would end up surrounded, so he needed to make his choice now.
With Julien’s breakthrough and those fresh men, he would be able to neither capture nor kill Arslan even if he had a week. He didn’t have much Qi left, true, but that slash of Julien’s didn’t brim with energy either when it hit him and yet, cut managed to cut through his muscles. Most likely, Julien alone would be able to stop him It wasn’t like he could hope for the people under him to deal with the remnants of Julien’s men and those Tempest Riders. The human-wave tactics would be useless, too, explicitly because those Tempest Riders were here.
“… Fuck,” he cursed, then while keeping his guard up, charged away from Julien and out of the center of the battlefield.
To those on Arslan’s side, the sight of Abdain finally retreating was so great that at the same time, it felt somewhat unrealistic. They had all given their everything and fought in order to drive Abdain away, but now that the man had actually run off, they didn’t know what to do with all their tension. Was it fine for them to rejoice, seeing as the mercenaries were utterly scattered and the ruby-golden-robed experts of Abdain’s were quickly retreating on all fronts?
“I thought you got killed.” At this weirdly quiet moment, as quiet as the relatively people-free center of an ongoing battlefield could be, Laien asked with a relieved smile on his face. “Thanks for saving us,” he added and laughed quietly, looking at Julien’s blood-drained face. Julien looked like he was about to fall over at any moment but was keeping himself standing through the sheer force of his will. Abdain might have missed it, but Laien could tell thanks to his high insights into the Aspect of Awareness and top-class aura manipulating skills. Julien had no gas in the tank left, none at all.
Hearing Laien’s words, Julien smirked. “That’s what I should be saying,” he said in a weak voice, then after confirming that Abdain had left for good, allowed himself to collapse and sat down heavily. Those water-element spiritual masters of the Tempest Riders had healed him in the nick of time. With just a few seconds longer, he would have died for good and even the tenacity of the body of a martial master of the fifth rank wouldn’t have saved him. He had been cleaved in half by Abdain’s broadsword, after all. Thus, even after those people had healed him, he had barely any strength or Qi left. Had it not been for his breakthrough, he wouldn’t have been able to move to save those two.
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“How are you alive anyway?” he asked, thinking that those two had quite a story to tell them. How did they escape the pursuit of those experts, how did they survived the Forbidden Lands and how did they manage to bring those elite Tempest Riders over in such a short period of time? He really wanted to learn all of that, but first, he needed to have a good and filling meal. To recover his strength there would be nothing better than that, followed by a period of meditation.
“It’s a long story,” Laien replied with a smile, then crouched beside Yin and looked at the shattered and uneven rocky ground that was all around them. He wondered if it would be fine to use some spiritual energy for that and in the end, assumed that it would be okay. As such, he created quite some water and pressed the area nearby down, causing the rocks to crouch loudly. He then allowed the water to dissipate and took out a few thick pieces of fur from his interspatial ring, placing them on the newly-created more-or-less flat ground.
Without saying anything, he grabbed Yin under his shoulder and moved him over to the furs. He exchanged a smile with Yin and sat down too, all under the rather flabbergasted gaze of Julien’s. As much as Julien was of the same mind that they should all rest urgently, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to take out furs and sit down when just a few hundred meters away, the ground was littered with thousands of corpses. He had planned to rest here for a bit and then move away to a more comfortable place after collecting the corpses of their comrades and of all those kids who had gotten killed by the mercenaries, but those two went beyond his expectations in more than one way.
“Laien! Yin!” The young and thrilled voice of Arslan’s caused the three of them to turn their heads and look. At the moment, Arslan was running towards them as fast as he could and least to be said, he appeared to be overjoyed. It was rather worrying that he had left his escort behind to tend to their wounds, but it wasn’t like any enemies remained in the area, so was fine, probably.
Seeing Arslan dash towards them without slowing down, Laien reached out with his hand and encouraged the five-year-old to jump at him. Yin’s body was still rather strained from that all-out-attack, so having a little bullet jump at him wouldn’t be the most pleasant experience possible. Fortunately, Arslan didn’t think twice and jumped into his arms and hugged him tightly.
“I knew you guys were alive!” Arslan said excitedly. He had confirmed with Sirius before running over that Reian would be fine and that the Prince who got hit by Abdain was okay too, so he enjoyed the reunion with his friends without feeling too guilty. “I really knew it, you know? I felt that you weren’t dead, you wouldn’t die so easily!” he added, though he kept fidgeting the whole time he was speaking as he wasn’t sure if he wanted to keep hugging Laien or if he wanted to look at his face.
“You just had that feeling?” Laien asked and patted Arslan on his head, finally making the boy back off a little bit and look him in the eye.
“Yeah,” Arslan replied with a slight nod. He thought that perhaps Laien wouldn’t believe him, just like all the adults around him, but Laien simply said ‘I see’ and didn’t argue the fact. Of course, he was smart enough to know that sometimes adults would merely agree with him without meaning it just to make him happy, but right now the way Laien looked at him reminded him of the way his father would look at him. He had had the feeling that Laien’s eyes were extremely similar to his father’s from the very beginning, but now, even the atmosphere around Laien turned alike.
As happy as he was to once again see Laien, he fell quiet, hugged his friend silently and stayed like that, without saying anything or moving much at all. He wondered if his father’s battle was going well, though he also felt his stomach tighten every time he remembered that his father wouldn’t live much longer. He was also feeling responsible for all those subordinates of Julien’s who had died to protect him and for all those people who had gotten involved in this battle against their will. Those Euleanian nobles fought so hard too… but out of the six thousand kids that were around him just half an hour ago, and even just two minutes ago, not even one thousand remained.
Before that, Jasmine had been killed by Abdain too… and so many of his allies and friends had gotten extremely close to sharing the same fate today. All this fighting, all this conflict… he’d had enough of it. He had given his best to act strong just like he should as Mustafa’s son, but now that some of that stress left his shoulders, he couldn’t help it and started crying quietly. He didn’t want everyone to hear him, so he kept quiet and hid his face in Laien’s shirt all the while hugging him tightly. He knew that it wasn’t time for him to be crying, but just for a little bit, he needed to be a child just for a little bit else he would go crazy from all those suffocating emotions.
“Hah,” Laien sighed slightly. “Didn’t something similar happen before?” he mused with a smile and meanwhile, continued to tousle Arslan’s hair with one hand while hugging him with the other. He wasn’t surprised that Arslan couldn’t bear with all that was happening anymore. Himself, he would have had trouble coping with such events had it been him from before he had set on this long journey to the north-western end of the continent, to the Eclipse Academy. “We’ve really gotta rest just a little and change places,” he thought while looking around. This truly wasn’t a place he would like to be at for longer than necessary, considering all the blood and death that surrounded them.
“Twenty minutes,” Julien stated what was on Laien’s mind after joining him and the other two on the furs. “We’ll rest and reorganize within twenty minutes, then move to a different open area in order to rest for four or five hours. The faster I can recover to the peak, the safer will we be,” he explained in a calm tone, his words further confirming Laien and Yin’s suspicions. Their original plan had been broken apart by Abdain’s unexpected advancement, but now that Julien had also gone up a rank, the two would once again be equally matched. Thus, they didn’t need to be in a hurry to flee.
“As for those people,” Julien brought up, his eyes moving towards the two he had recognized to be the First Prince of the Bolan Kingdom and the First Princess of the Yali Kingdom. The former of the two had just regained consciousness and was being tended to by the Princess and one of his subordinates with a water-element spiritual affinity, so on that part, they were fine. “I would love to learn how did you make those two royals come over personally and just with a few elites. Was the main force of the Holy Union too far…? Or rather, were they preoccupied with something else since so few border guards came along?” he wondered aloud, causing Laien and Yin to smile wryly and exchange a glance. They hadn’t said anything yet, but Julien already had a fair grasp of the situation.
“Look,” Yin said a few seconds later, making Laien turn his head towards the same direction. The two of them smiled and in particular, Laien breathed with relief. Be it the three former Valius Family guards, Dinne, Rishe, and Ethane, the scantly-clothed and sometimes foul-mouthed Liza, the former courier Ruan, the… rather unique narcissist Jin or the ex-Shadow Gahar, the whole seven of their original guards were alive. All of them carried wounds of varying degree that were yet to be healed due to the lack of the presence of the necessary water and light element practitioners, but none of those injuries appeared to be life-threatening. In fact, not one of them was wounded all that heavily.
“You brats are alive after all, eh?” Liza called out from a few dozen meters away with the usual smirk present on her face. “As you can see we’ve somehow alive too, mainly thanks to this bastard,” she said as they were walking closer and gave the black-robed Gahar a mixed look. She still didn’t like this silent man at all, but had it not been for him picking off the stronger enemies around them and stirring up chaos the entire time, those mercenaries would have had easily overrun them.
“So,” she added and met Laien’s gaze directly. “Don’t think you’ll be getting off paying us for the job so easily. We ain’t kicking the bucket yet,” she said jokingly, though both she and Laien knew that there was a fair dose of seriousness in what she said. Indeed, she expected to be paid handsomely for the kind of a crazy endeavor she had agreed to get herself into.
“Sure,” Laien responded with a cheeky smile. “Once we arrive at the Eclipse Academy, okay? So until then, do your best not to get killed and be of use,” he said half-seriously and for a moment, fought a battle of glaring with Liza, only for Ruan to let out a sigh when the two of them started laughing.
To this day, Ruan wasn’t sure if the relationship between Laien and Liza was a good or a bad one. Considering those two, they truly hadn’t been getting along early on given the kind of a first-impression they had made on each other, but as the time went it slowly got better. Especially recently after Liza stopped trying to awkwardly ‘befriend’ Laien for further monetary benefits, the two of them started getting along like a pair of stray cats. They weren’t particularly attached to each other, but they liked to sometimes be in the other’s company, mainly to bicker in a weird way.
“Oh, they’re all coming now,” Laien said merrily, though also a little helplessly. He wasn’t as exhausted as Yin, but he would rather rest and recover too. Instead, however, it looked like he was about to get himself into a talk with everyone around. Albert, Sarah, Johan, Jacob, and Rakar were finally moving over along with Reian, Sirius and Kasha. In addition to them, Casimir and Anna were also coming over and even the six Cherubim from nearby and a portion of the experts from around the battlefield were congregating with their little fur-covered area as a center.
“Such a hassle,” Laien complained, then smiled when he heard Arslan chuckle. Arslan seemed to have calmed down as he hugged him more tightly for a little bit before letting go and sitting near him. He could see that Arslan’s face was still rather flushed, but the look in the boy’s eyes was surprisingly clear and refreshing at this moment.
“What is the plan?” Casimir asked immediately after he approached the middle of the gathering. He wasn’t feeling too well, but there was no way that he could rest without knowing the entire picture. He would be too restless if he didn’t know that the entire situation was under control as the worst thing they could do was to make some stupid mistake now that they had gotten through the hardest and riskiest part of their ordeal. Relaxing after a victory was something he knew not to do.
Yet surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly for some, Casimir’s question was followed by a period of silence. Theoretically speaking, Arslan was the nominal leader of this group, but he was too young for everyone to constantly reach out to him for every decision. The next obvious person in charge would be Julien, but the silver-haired man wasn’t in a rush to reply and instead, he kept looking at Laien. As far as he was concerned, since it was Laien and Yin who had brought those people here, they were better suited to leading the conversation with them. He didn’t feel like getting himself involved.
As flattering as the responsibility and attention were, Laien needed to suppress a heavy sigh. “We rest here for twenty minutes, then move to some other open space and rest for around five hours,” he repeated what Julien said a moment ago. Casimir appeared to fall into deep thought for a second or two, a slight frown appearing on his forehead, but he nodded after the consideration. Apparently, he had nothing against the idea of quickly recovering their strength before moving on.
“Anna, could you?” Casimir looked at the long-haired beauty, who in turn smiled at him and after gently kissing him on the cheek, moved to organize their men. They needed to take care of the wounded, of the corpses and of the spoils of war. More importantly, they needed to send out their own scouts while coordinating with the White Guard intelligence squads in the vicinity. As unlikely as an ambush of any kind was under the present circumstances, neither Anna nor Casimir intended to leave their fates up to the chance.