didn't proofread this one, so let me know if there's any mistakes or plotholes!
CHAPTER 7 --- RUN!
When Ren woke up, he could still feel the burning feeling of the wound on his stomach. As he gathered his thoughts, he remembered the events of the previous day, him escaping, him regaining his freedom, him killing the elder!
“Ha…haha…hahaha….HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!”
He started laughing crazily while standing up, letting out all the pent up feelings until now, tears flooding his face. As he looked through his2 remaining pairs of clothes for the less bloody ones, he quickly collected himself, regaining control over his emotions. Now that he had done it for so long, it had become a habit to push them down. He couldn’t allow himself to feel anything in there, or he would’ve broken down, and now, he didn’t know how to stop doing so.
As he got dressed and walked out of the bushes, he couldn’t help himself, and went to look at the elder’s corpse one more time. As soon as he arrived though, his face paled! The elder’s head was gone, the sword also no longer stabbed through him! Looking around, the dead assassin had disappeared as well.
This made him wary of his surroundings, and he decided he had to get away from there, just in case whoever came by got the idea to come back. He started running away, warily looking around him, feeling like someone could jump at him at any moment!
After running for a while, he came across a small lake. Looking into it, it was the first time in his life he had seen such clear water. He had seen lakes before, but most of them were just dark swaths of water, but this was completely different. He could see the fish swimming in the water, and only the deeper part was filled with darkness. The lake was beautiful, and he decided to quickly wash himself, as he was still covered with blood.
At this time, in the place where Ren had killed the elder, the loud sounds af a serious scolding were resounding.
“You idiot! What were you even trained for? Not even checking your surroundings? Not even examining the traces of the fight? What do you have to say for yourself Reeno?”
A white-haired man in black robes was yelling at one of the assassins. The man had removed his mask, and under it was the face of a young adolescent. He had black hair and purple eyes, and looked to be about 16-17 years old.
The kid’s face turned ugly. Usually he would be treated with respect and could act as haughty as wanted, but now he was on a mission with his uncle, he was treated like the rest, and was having a difficult time. The death of the commander who had taught him everything he knew didn’t help either!
“I—I, I’m sorry uncl—“
He started saying.
“COMMANDER!”
The man roared, and Reeno quickly corrected himself.
“I’m sorry, commander, I saw my mentor had died and lost composure, I should have checked the surroundings.”
He finished, gritting his teeth and pushing back his anger. Of course, it could clearly be seen on his face. Seeing this, the commander couldn’t help but sigh. He understood the boy’s reaction, but the boy was of the clan’s main line, and was expected to handle himself, but he was too used to being treated as if he was always right and it was starting to show.
It had started with simple thinks like lazing about while others set up camp, then just doing nothing, and after a while he even started gambling with the men. Gambling was not a problem in itself, but not paying up by using your noble status when you lost was. A lot of men were dissatisfied with him.
And now he had actually missed the fact that his mentor was not the one who killed the Blackblood elder. Worse even, from the tracks they found, the person had been sleeping here when he passed by! Not only that, they had found clothes suggesting it was just a kid, along with a bracelet gor battle-slaves!
“How could you miss a mere battle-slave? How could you not even see that the man’s corpse was looted? You can’t lose your wits like this on a mission Reeno, it could cost you your life! Now go and catch that kid, we can’t leave him here.”
The commander yelled for the Nth time, while inwardly he had another thought.
‘hehe, the kid is bound to be interesting, if he dared attack that elder, and succeeded at that!’
Meanwhile, Ren had just noticed that he missed his bracelet. He had been so used to wearing it that it felt really strange now that it was gone. Although it was like he could still feel it on his arm from time to time. It gave him the strange sensation of actually still being there, while also giving the feeling that something was missing.
He knew the feeling, it was like the feeling when you had worn a watch for years, and then you forgot it somewhere. You would have the feeling it was still on you, until you noticed it was gone, then the feeling of it missing would constantly nag at you.
Of course he was rather glad it was gone, but had to wonder why it would suddenly fall off. What he didn’t know was that the bracelet was bound to the elder, and with the elder’s death, it had become unbound and naturally opened, falling on the ground not long after, while he was still dizzy from blood-loss.
When he was finally clean enough, he put on his wet clothes (he had washed them too) and quickly left the area. He kept on running, until he came across a small shallow river. He decided to do something he had often seen in movies: walk in the river to leave no tracks.
After walking upstream for a while, he crossed the river and ran into the forest again. Of course he had no idea where he was going, but he was hurt, afraid of getting caught and in a world unknown to him, so he just kept running, not knowing what else to do.
Unlike most people in his situation, Ren was actually quite calm, thanks to the events in the sect. As such, running so long became quite boring, so he started moving irregularly, turning here, turning there, even running for a while, then running back and going in another direction.
In the worst case it was for nothing, in the best it would mislead people if they were following him. He continued running for quite a while, and evening was about to come, when suddenly, he heard a zooming noise.
He turned around, or tried anyway, but before he could an arrow pierced his leg, making him fall to the ground. He didn’t cry out in pain though, it would show pain, and he wouldn’t give that satisfaction to whoever shot him.
“Hah! I finally got you, you annoying brat!!”
Someone yelled out.
“Never thought tracking a little kid would ever take so long! Do you know how angry the commander will be with me? This is all your fault!”
It was one of the assassins, and before Ren could even say anything or take his sword, the man already lifted him in the air by the throat, clearly intent on hurting him.
“Enough, Reeno, I told you to bring him back, not to beat him up! You can’t exactly blame him for your failures!”
Another voice sounded out. Reeno immediately dropped Ren to the ground, saluting the newly arrived person.
“commander! I have found the boy, as ordered.”
The man just glaced at him, then looked at Ren with a smile on his face.
“I can see that, good job tracking him. though he certainly didn’t make it easy for you! Haha kid, what’s your name? you’re quite something, being able to hide your tracks that well at your age, even making Reeno make a few mistakes! Hahaha”
Reeno’s face turned sour as he heard the elder’s remark, shooting quite the vicious look at Ren. He would make sure to remember the difficulty the kid put him through!
“Who are you? Why did you hunt me down? “
Ren asked warily, not answering the man’s question.
“YOU! You better answer! That’s the commander you’re talking to!”
Reeno yelled before the commander could answer.
“Not my commander”
Ren simply said, but he kept looking at the elder, leaning back and acting as if he was putting his hand next to him, while actually grasping hold of his sword, just in case. There wasn’t much he could do, but that was not going to stop him from trying if needed, he wouldn’t just die doing nothing.
“HAHAHA! I like you kid! Not many would speak like that in his situation.”
The commander started roaring with laughter, surprising both Ren and Reeno.
“I am Lothar, commander of the 5th unit of the Daefeli clan. We hunted you down for various reasons, like the fact that you’re on the border between normal foest and Qi-beast territory, also to thank you for killing that Blackblood elder. That and because we’ll be taking you to the city.”
Hearing this Ren frowned, he didn’t want to end up as someone’s prisoner again! He quickly got up and pulled out his sword. He would attack that Reeno, and then run. He was pretty sure he was no match for the commander, but if he managed to wound the subordinate, maybe he could stall him long enough.
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But before Ren could even lift his blade, Reeno had already appeared next to him, kicked his sword out of his hand, and knocked him out. All in the blink of an eye!
This was the difference between fighting a cultivator and fighting a normal person. Ren had no chance whatsoever! Reeno had long since reached the Origin realm, being of the main line of his clan, he had enjoyed quite the upbringing!
When Ren woke back up, he was lying on the ground in a tent. When he looked around, he saw a few black clothes next to him, probably for him to wear, although they were a bit big. He looked himself over and had to admit that his clothes were more like bloodied rags. They had been less than decent to begin with, and with running and fighting, they were filled with cuts, dirt and blood.
Ren quickly changed in the clothes, black pants and shirt. The only good thing about getting knocked out so often was that he could now quickly react to unknown situations. As soon as he got up he looked for a weapon, at the same time he assessed his options. It wasn’t sure the people here wanted to hurt him, but they did take away his stuff. Everything he had taken from the elder was gone! Even his book was gone…
“Hey boy, you going to come out or what?”
Someone suddenly yelled from outside. Ren immediately froze, not sure if it was about him.
“yes, you, you brat, what are you waiting for?”
The man continued. Ren could now recognize the voice as the commander from before, Lothar. He quickly left the tent, and saw that he was in a large camp. A lot of tents were all around him, and in front of him was a campfire. He could see 2 other campfires in the distance on either side of him, and could hear a lot of people talking and laughing.
It was currently early evening, and the atmosphere was quite relaxed. The first thing Ren did was looking for the commander, and he quickly found him. he also took the iopportunity to look for a way to escape, but he could see that he was in the middle of the encampment, and they probably put guards around, so he was stuck. For now.
As Ren approached the campfire, Lothar motioned for him to sit down. Looking the boy over, he was amazed to see his eyes, he had already noticed the white hair, but it wasn’t that strange, but he had been too far away to see his eyes.
“So, what’s your name?” Lothar asked after staring for a while.
“Ren”
Then his expression became serious as he pulled out the different things they found on Ren, along with the bracelet.
“So tell me, how did you get all this? Did you really manage to kill that Blackblood elder without a cultivation?”
Seeing the bracelet, Ren immediately became wary, but still answered the questions. If they wanted to help him, it was best he cooperated, and if he wanted to get away, he needed to gain their trust anyway.
“I have a cultivation but the elder said something about a unique body. I took most of the stuff from the elder. The book is what they gave me to cultivate. I don’t really know much more. They never let me out before.”
Ren explained, hoping he would learn a bit about this world. Lothar gave the kid a pitying look, sighing at his misfortune. Living life in a sect like that really was misfortunate.
“Haaaaahh, well that explains a lot. But a unique body huh, that’s great! You can keep the book, the rest we’ll be keeping. We lost a commander to that elder, so they’re our spoils of war. Don’t worry, we’ll be taking you to the city of daewa, one of the cities ruled by our Daefeli clan. Once there I’ll make sure you’ll get in a good martial academy, it won’t be a problem if you really have a unique body…”
Lothar decided to believe the child for now, as it was the only way he could believe the child killing that elder. They had found proof that the elder’s cultivation had been wasted in a forbidden technique, and a young cultivator could have the miraculous luck of managing to kill him, but a normal human? Even miracles had their limits!
As Ren sat next to the fire with the commander and his troops, they passed him some food before sending him back to his tent. It was late and they would have to leave early in the morning.
After entering back in his tent and eating, he lied down. As he started thinking about everything, Ren decided to stay with the commander and his troop. If they really had bad intentions, he wouldn’t get far. That and he was in a world he didn’t know… where could he run to? It also helped that the man was the first one to be nice to him since he got here. Except for An’gra of course.
The next day they left the forest, and Ren was put in a carriage with some other soldiers. He was happy he wasn’t put in some cell, and the men were happy with the distraction.
“Hey kid, why’d you get to come with us?”
“I heard he actually killed an elder!”
“What? Really? How? He still stinks of milk!”
“Haha, if that kid killed an elder, I killed the patriarch!”
As they were talking about him while interrupting each other like the rowdy bunch they were, one of them kicked against Ren’s feet.
“Hey kid, welcome to our company! Hope you don’t mind these other idiots!”
“Hey! You’re the biggest idiot of us all Kody!”
“Yeah, don’t give the kid a bad impression of us!”
The man had dark-grey hair and orange eyes, which was a real shock to Ren! His eyes seemed to glow strangely. But looking around, there were a few other strange eyes in the bunch. No other strange colors mind you, but strange eyes. One of them had a square iris, and another had slit eyes like a lizard would.
“Hehe, as I was saying, don’t mind US idiots! So, I’m Kody as you’ve heard, who are you? And more importantly, did you really kill that elder?
He asked, while asking his last question while sneakily looking around in an exaggerated manner. Ren had to laugh seeing him act so freely, and the atmosphere in the carriage was quite fun. He had spent so long in such a depressing environment, that the rowdy bunch was as entertaining as a circus!
“Haha, I’m Ren, nice to meet you, and yeah, but he was half-dead anyway” Ren said, he wasn’t going to deny he had killed the elder, he was elated to have done so.
As they travelled on, Ren got to know the men in the carriage a bit better. Their names were Kody, Elsa, Rag’rod, Na’zo, Matos, Serena and Ranic. They were not actual part of the forces this time, but adventurers Lothar had personally trained. They had joined for this raid to do Lothar a favor. The man had specially come back from retirement once they found traces of the Blackblood sect, as he had some history with them. And not the good kind.
They did not say what exactly happened, but from the way they said it, Ren could deduce it was personal, probably someone close to him who got killed.
He also used the opportunity to ask questions about the world he was in and learned a lot, though not as much as he had wanted. He was in the kingdom of Be’as, in the province of the Daefeli clan, Whitefur province. They were the province with most access to the see, and this gave them a great economy. Next to them were 2 other provinces, the Redbird province in the east and the Iceheart province west.
The biggest enemy to the Daefeli clan was the Aves clan, rulers of the redburd province. The Aves clan had long since wanted the territory with easy access to the sea, and regularly attacked the Daefeli clan. The situation had devolved into a true cold war. Any member of either clan would kill the other on sight. This bloodfued had gone on for countless years.
The biggest ally to the Daefeli clan was the Ursidae clan, though they mainly remained neutral in their fued. They were however their ally in all trade-related manners, and helped each other’s economy bloom.
The other province bordering them was to the south. This was the main province, known as the Braveheart province. Its capital was Throne, because the ruler was the ruler of all provinces. Every 3 years, the younger generations of all clans would fight with each other to win the throne, the clan that won would then hold Throne and the Braveheart province.
The current holders of the throne are the Alethin and Ophidia clans, two clans that hold one province. There were 9 provinces in the kingdom, but he didn’t know the names of the others yet. Nor did he know of any other kingdoms.
He did know that the city they were headed was the capital, Blado city.