CHAPTER 60: ARRIVAL OF THE SURVIVORS' CONVOY (5)

Waking up from sleep, ramie immediately looked at the clock hanged at the wall across the room.

'Hmm… it's only been several hours since the bear attacked…'

On his bed, he saw shreds of bones littered around. Looking at his shoulder that hasn't even been bandaged, Ramie could see that the process of healing had already begun, as his shoulders' condition looked better than when he saw it before losing consciousness. Also, pieces of broken bones could be seen protruding from his shoulder. Some of these bones were half emerged, while other shreds were almost completely emerged, and were on the verge of falling off.

'Is my body excreting these bones?'

Ramie started thinking that his body's healing abilities were much more terrifying that he though them to be, which naturally made him overjoyed. The last time, his body had grown an entire arm, but at the time, his arm still had a base that was attached to his shoulder. But now… his entire arm was gone, with no leftovers. So, he couldn't help to wonder if it was possible for his body to build an entire arm from the zero point.

Getting up, and going to the kitchen, he saw a large pot containing the usual meat stew awaiting him. Maybe due to his severe injury, but Ramie was so hungry that he devoured the entire content, which was thrice the usual portion he eats, just to alleviate his hunger.

Soon, the rest brought him up to speed on what happens after he lost conscious.

The compound leader had woken up shortly after he lost conscious, and apparently, his left arm was damaged beyond recovery.

His left arm bones were shattered into small bits, and scattered, penetrating through his arm's flesh, ruining it beyond recovery.

This wasn't strange, considering that he received a full force attack from a beast strong enough to obliterate the gate barrier with a single charge. Actually, him walking out with only a lost arm was quite good enough.

That bears' strength was pretty abnormal, even for a tier-2 beast.

The water female magician and the compound's son survived the slaughter, which was a large stroke of luck for them and the compound.

As for the warriors, all of the deaths and injuries were among the newly advanced 20 warrior.

The delight of their families in the early morning turned to weeping in noon time.

10 of them were dead, 6 injured with a variety of wound that ranged from crippling wounds to superficial ones.

One of the newly advanced warriors couldn't handle the pressure and went full psychotic. Apparently, the trauma of the massive beast chasing, smashing and eating people was too much for his mentality to deal with.

Another warrior ran away during the battle with the beast, and he has yet to return. Actually, this warriors' fleeing the compound was understandable, considering that his brother, who was also a warrior, had died in the nightly battle with the flying beasts, leaving no one else for him to care about inside the compound.

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Considering the situation outside, it was safe to assume that if he doesn't come back by the night time, then he's most likely a lost cause.

Considering these losses, the compound's leader expression became as dark as charcoal. Worst, unlike the night battle from yesterday, the compound gained nothing from this confrontation. No life energy cores, no magic core… only losses.

As for the compound entrance… they no longer wanted to make another barrier from wood. Instead, they tried a different approach to seal off the entrance this time.

The warriors demolished few uninhabited houses, and brought the bricks, the wreckage, and stacked it up to three meter tall bile that completely sealed the entrance off, without any possibility to open it. Also, the reinforced it with the two flipped over trucks.

This way, the new barrier would offer much more resistant, and definitely won't be demolished by a beasts' charge.

As for the truck and the trunk that is used to bring the hunt and water, these trucks were now parked outside the compound.

The warriors piled up the remaining bricks and wreckage of the demolished housed into an L-shaped pocket structure outside the compound wall, and parked the trucks inside. Of course, this new structure had a sturdy, thick wooden door to prevent anything from sneaking into the trucks.

This way, the compound was now completely sealed off, with no way for vehicles to move in or out of the compound. Thus, it now became safer.

For the hunted beast, the warriors built a small platform, using ropes and wood to carry the hunt from above the wall. As for the water, it would be pumped using a series of pipes, from beneath the wall.

Although this kind of effort would normally require days or even weeks to carry out, however, with the warriors around, the task was pulled off in mere hours.

Actually, although this battle was completely tragic for the compound inhabitants, but for Ramie's group, this tragic event actually introduced a good chance for them!

Prior to last night's battle and today's, no one was willing to join them, now however… Lance told ramie that today, they were approached by more than a dozen people, secretly of course. They wanted to join their group, and leave with compound with them when the time comes.

The reason for this change of attitude was ironically the exact same reason that prevented the people from taking this step in the first place – Ramie!

Before, and due to ramie's 'special condition,' no one wanted to even consider joining their team, not unless they cast ramie out first. Now however, he was exactly the reason why they wanted in…

This change was partially due to his performance in last night's battle, and majorly because of his contribution in today's confrontation.

Before, it was known that he has a 'special' grade artifact, which meant that some of the spells that he can unlock were bound to be very powerful ones, but his 'condition,' was still too frightening to look pass…

But now that he started showing some capabilities, his reputation immediately soared. As for the matter of his 'condition,' it was pushed to the back.

This development confirmed the idea that these were not normal times, and strength was the thing that matters the most here.

Anyway, this development was good news to them. As, the more that joins them in their trip to the capital, the better their chances of surviving becomes.

…

The night descended, bringing about blood-chilling atmosphere. The night before, the compound fell under attack by a flock of flying beasts. And today at morning, another beast attacked, making these 12 hours the bloodiest period the compound had ever experienced.

So, as the night came, no one felt safe, expecting another tragedy to befall them yet again.

Luckily, these fears proved wrong, as the night went by uneventfully.

The next morning, another problem arose.

It was the hunting problem!

So far, it was always the compound leader that hunts the buffalo beasts with his javelin throwing skills. But after the battle yesterday, his left arm was cut off by the compound's doctor, as it was way beyond saving.

This meant that for at least few more days, they'd have to hunt the buffalo beast themselves. Which gave arise to another problem – no one else in the compound had the ability to throw javelin, and kill the buffaloes at a distant.

Through experience, they knew that to kill one of these beasts, which always move in large hordes… one had to deliver the killing blow without being perceived by the horde. Otherwise, the entire hunting team would face their retaliation, something that they weren't sure they can survive without the presence of the leader with them.

So, the problem was that none of the warriors had the throwing skill, and among the magicians, none of them too had any spell that can kill at such distance.

Luckily, they weren't completely out of options, as in the end, it fell at the azure gazelle king.

Using his lightening ball innate ability, he'd attack the horde and kill one or two of them, then, escapes using his speed that was luckily higher than the buffalo beasts.

This way, the food problem was solved. And ramie's group started getting one or two cores every single day.

After few days, the compound leader finally recovered. And he returned to running things in the compound. Although he had lost an arm, but given that he was right handed in the first place, he was still able to resume his job of killing the buffalo beasts.

Naturally, the way he treats Ramie's group completely changed. And even though he resumed on using the javelins to hunt the buffalo's, instead of keeping all the cores for the compound, he started giving their group cores of one hunting trip from every three.

As such, they started getting paid for their stay in the compound.

The following days didn't exactly go by without incidents, as many other beasts attacked the compound. However, luckily, no attack on a noticeable scale happened again. The azure gazelle king was more than enough to deal with these attacking beasts, and deter others.

Just like that, days went by on this pace… until one day…

…