Wordlessly, Zachary offered a hand. Katherine took it without hesitation. He pulled her up and the two of them joined Jean-Pierre.
The other youth had already dispatched the unfortunate survivor. He stood over the corpse, an extra supply bag hanging over his shoulder. His expression was as calm as the cloudless sky.
“Come on!” He urged.
He then took off towards another survivor who was howling in pain some distance away. He quickly silenced their screams and dug his hand through their clothes.
Zachary headed in another direction towards the body of the one who had been split into two. Katherine followed close behind. He avoided looking at the bloody mess and picked up the supply bag which was underneath one half. Katherine stuck her tongue out in disgust but didn’t make a sound.
The three of them searched a few more bodies before their looting spree was cut short. The green elephant had satisfied its rage and was coming back from the edge of the forest. It crashed through the underbrush and headed into the deep jungle.
Zachary dodged this powerful beast a second time but they soon had to contend with additional survivors, drawn here by the sounds of battle. With dozens of people converging from all directions, they quickly left the scene, following the wide trail left by the green elephant for some distance.
With him in the lead, the group eventually found a place to rest deep in the jungle. It was up in branches of a thick tree, away from the paths of large beasts. It was also unlikely that they would run into any other humans soon.
They examined their spoils. Of the five supply bags they obtained, the one hundred summoning cards were the most important. The extra ration packs didn’t hurt either. They had also taken a few spears so they would have more effective weapons than just short-range knives.
Zachary stared at the extra thirty-four summoning cards that joined his limited stash. It was the spoils from five dead prisoners and they had shared them equally. He glanced at Katherine and then Jean-Pierre.
Aside from two that had died immediately from the elephant’s attacks, Jean-Pierre had killed the other three while they were writhing on the ground or bleeding out. Zachary was fine with that but he probably would have given it a few moments of extra thought. Instead, Jean-Pierre had killed them without blinking.
“Brother, they weren’t going to survive anyway, not with those wounds. I gave them a quick and merciful death.” Jean-Pierre said, misunderstanding Zachary’s stare, “Also, those people were from the Blood Church. I found the mark when I searched their bodies. They all had that symbol on their heart.”
“Really?”
Zachary felt an instinctive wave of dread at the mention of the Blood Church. It was something instilled in him and all children through the republic’s standard education for summoners. They were outlawed by almost all nations in the Old World. Any member of the church would instantly receive a death sentence if they were caught.
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“If the Blood Church is here… then the beast cults?” He asked slowly.
Jean-Pierre nodded, “They are among the prisoners too.”
“Shit…”
The Blood Church and the beast cults, they were the two most notorious groups of summoners in the world. They had believers all over the Old World and the new. They were so notorious because of their beliefs as their way of summoning directly conflicted with what was accepted by most people.
Since humans were also Ensouled, the Blood Church believed that there was nothing special about humans as a species. Aside from high intelligence and the ability to summon, the Blood Church treated humans like any Ensouled. A high rank summoner was comparable to a powerful wild Ensouled in terms of the amount of Eternum they possessed.
Ordinary summoners killed wild Ensouled to improve their summons. Blood Church summoners felt it was the same to kill other summoners to improve their summons. As a result of this belief, they were the cause of many horrible incidents throughout history, from assassinations to man-made disasters to bloody wars. Zachary didn’t know if they deserved all the blame but their way of doing things was certainly unacceptable.
Beast cults were somewhat different. There were many cults and they fought amongst each other as much as with others. They were more secretive and less understood by the general population. From what he learned in class, all beast cults believed that humans were inherently weak. Instead of believing in humanity and human destiny to explore and conquer the world, they worshipped powerful Ensouled.
Instead of the summoner being the master of their summons, a beast cult summoner was subservient to their Ensouled. Zachary couldn’t understand why anyone would find that an attractive proposition so he never thought too much about it. But these people also wouldn’t bat an eye to killing summoners at the behest of their Ensouled masters.
“Yeah… the Blood Church and the beast cults. If we meet any of them, it's better to run because you can’t reason with those people. Otherwise, it's best to quickly kill them.” Jean-Pierre said.
Zachary understood the reasoning but he didn’t feel good about it. The situation was more complicated than he expected. He was fine with a few criminal gangs. He was even prepared to handle mass murderers. But these two groups went against the accepted way of summoning.
He looked up at the sky and sighed. It was too tiring to worry about these things. It was mid-afternoon and he hadn’t eaten in roughly a whole day. He fished out a ration brick and took a bite. It consisted of cornmeal held together by lard. It didn’t taste good but it would at least fill his stomach.
He needed energy if he wanted to capture his first summon. The other survivors, even if they were the evilest people imaginable, didn’t matter right now. Wild Ensouled were the most pressing challenge and he had to get started on them quickly.
“We should focus on capturing weaker Ensouled. That green elephant was at the adept rank at least. We have to be careful and pick the right target.” He said.
He would have preferred to move alone but these two people clung to him like barnacles. He didn’t have it in him to chase them away, at least not Katherine. But thankfully, they were both competent enough.
“Good, I was thinking of the same thing,” Jean-Pierre said cheerfully.
Zachary looked towards Katherine to see if she had opinions. She simply nodded and flashed him a smile.
His stomach fluttered slightly, in an uncomfortable way. It made him think about the past and how he had arrived at his current situation. It was all because of that woman. It was because he loved her too much, so much that he was willing to kill for her.
He rubbed his forehead as his soul throbbed with pain.
None of that mattered anymore. He had already made peace with it during the trial and his time in prison. He didn’t know whether he would live or die tomorrow. He could only tackle the things right in front of him.