Author's note: A small warning - I have yet to proof read this (it's 2:33 in the morning here so it ain't going to happen until tomorrow) so if your picky wait a day before you read this.
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As Raven was inspecting the movement technique more closely, the bandits body shuddered as the last breaths of life were about to leave him. Not lingering any further, Raven quickly transferred the inscription to her own soul prism, Just as the wordsVoid Tracker filled her mind, the bandit's originally orange soul prism faded in to a dull grey hue before shattering - the man had died.
'That was close...' Raven let go of the breath she hadn't noticed she was holding. 'I should have gone for the Void Tracker from the beginning. It would have been a pity to miss it!'
A satisfied smile filled Raven's face. The Void Tracker Divine Skill fitted her quite well. It was a level five Skill with three stages of mastery. The first stage would let her nullify any noise made by the movement of anyone within her range - that range would depend on her cultivation, but at the time her limit should be at roughly 10 meters. The second stage would nullify the wind resistance for anyone within the same range, instantly giving a speed boost that would increase exponentially as the original seed rose. At low speeds it would at most make it harder to detect the movement, but at higher speeds this effect would be enormous. Finally, in the third stage the Void Tracker would hide the activation of any agility related Divine Skill, also this was applicable to others if mastered.
'This is quite a refined Divine Skill, it is of little use in itself but combined with other Skills it will have great benefits! It seems to draw very little spirit essence so once I've mastered the second stage, my Shadow Walk will become many time more deadly, perhaps comparable to a level four skill!'
Raven drew a deep breath and lied down on the ground between the two male bodies. She was just about to close her eyes to rest for a bit when she suddenly heard faint running in the distance and felt the presence of 10-15 people, perhaps four hundred away.
"The bandits are returning!" She spoke in a whisper and glanced over at the chest on the ground a few meters away and then at the still unconscious Hog. 'Sorry Heron.'
Ignoring both the chest and the dead bandit, Raven forced herself to stand and then hoisted Hog over her shoulders with a classical fireman's lift.
'I'm glad it wasn't Twig who ran after the bandit...'
Her soul prism was frantically working on absorbing new spirit essence for her to use, but she was still a bit short if she wanted to activate any Divine Skills, so she had no other choice but to run away relying on her old skills.
She rushed downwards and into the forest, making sure to stay to the side of the approaching bandits. Once the bandits were less than a hundred meters away from Raven and her unconscious load, she crouched down behind a large tree and steadied her breath. With a free hand she covered Hog's mouth, to lessen the noise of his breathing as well. Then she waited.
The bandits were not running at full speed so it took a couple of minutes for them to pass them by and run an additional one hundred meters up the mountain side. Raven stood once more and continued her decent; soon, the bandits would come across the body of their comrade and Raven wanted to put some distance between her and them before that happened.
Surely enough, before even three more minutes had passed, Raven could hear the shocked yelps of the bandits that had passed earlier. Raven had feared that they might start search the area for the man's killer, but the bandit's were either to shocked to act at the moment or they figured that whoever was strong enough to kill that man also was strong enough to kill them, either way they stayed put for a moment and then continued further up the mountain.
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It took Raven nearly two hours to carry Hog back to the campsite and be the time she reached it, her legs had gone numb from the pain. She didn't bother hiding her strength as she walked out from the tree line and approached the stream by the camp.
The air was filled with smoke and the smell of burning flesh. Judging by the amount of people she sensed within the camp and the bandits that had passed her in the forest, there had been sixteen casualties, twelve bandits and four mercenaries. Raven didn't bother calling out to anyone and simply let Hog slip down from her back next to the stream before she waded out into the stream and let the cool water wash over her burnt caffs.
The water made the burns hurt even more but Raven made no outward sign of it. With I'iwi's dagger, she tore through her pants right above the knees and carefully pealed of the burnt tatters that had merged with her wounds. The burns were the worst around her Limiters, that had been heated up but the flames, and she briefly considered taking them of but opted against it in the end.
"Oi! Shouldn't you guys be a bit more vigilant? The bandits didn't leave that long ago..." Raven called out as she washed her burns - the fact that no one had noticed her return yet was indeed quite disappointing.
Raven's call did the trick, within seconds over ten men came running, with Twig and Heron in the lead.
"Raven!" Heron shouted with relief; "You are okay!"
Raven lifted an eyebrow and glanced down at her legs. 'I wouldn't class third degree burns on a kid as being okay...' But before she could say anything Twig noticed Hog on the ground.
"Hog!" He dove down next to the man. "What happened?"
"The bandit that fled was a low Champion."
As Raven's words the entire group of ten gasped.
"A low Champion? That is not possible!" Heron exclaimed. It was clear he didn't believe Raven's claim.
"Wait until Hog wakes and he can tell you himself." Raven got out of the stream, revealing her burnt lower legs in the process.
"Holy...! How can you even walk with those burns?" Just as last time, Twig was first to react to Raven's injuries.
Raven shrugged.
"Get Dove and Martial!" Twig ordered and one of the younger mercenaries ran of to a the largest tent only to return seconds later, followed by two other mercenaries - one dress in Hog's white robes, one in Twig's red.
Dove, the white one, imminently bent down and got to work on Hog's wounds; a warm light engulfed them both as very pure spirit essence flowed from Dove to Hog. Slowly, the bleeding seized and the burns lighted.
'Healing Divine Skills' thought Raven.
At the same time, Martial motioned for Raven to sit down. Raven considered the offer for a second before she obediently sat down, but before Martial's hand reached her, Raven activated her Limiters to bring down her cultivation to the low Novice level and shielded her soul prism with her spirit essence. If a healer cared to look, they would learn the cultivation level and soul strength of their patients. The fact that she was a spiritualist couldn't be hidden much longer but some secrets still had to be kept.
Martial's hands started to glow with the same warm light as Dove's and when his hand touched her legs a pleasantly soothing feeling spread within her. Quickly Raven's red and blistered skin started to pale and heal, even the areas were her skin had been charred black lightened noticeably. It only took a couple of minutes for the heavily burnt legs go from red and charred to merely a couple of shades pinker than usual. By then, Martial's forehead was damp and he stopped his treatment.
"Try flexing your feet." He urged.
'So he didn't check, huh?' Raven thought to herself before complied to his demand and moved her feet. A sudden flash of pleased surprise crossed her face. 'There is barely any pain at all!'
Martial noticed her reaction. "Impressive right? Healing burns is relatively easy - you should be back to normal by tomorrow."
Raven smiled but then narrowed her eyes and glared at Martial. "Hey, if you guys had healers, why didn't you heal my face or Ardea's hand?"
Martial blinked in surprise and then started laughing. "Haha, well healing is usually an expensive extra service - see it as a bonus for bringing Old Hog back."
Hoatzin snorted. "Stingy people. Who lets a woman walk around injured for weeks when they could do something about it?"
"Bandits?" Offered Raven sarcastically in a soft voice.
"Huh?" Martial asked.
"Nothing." Raven shrugged, but both her and Hoatzin laughed on the inside.
Martial paused a moment and then winked at Raven. "Besides, the woman deserved it."
It was Raven's turn to blink in surprise.
"How is Hog?" Martial didn't wait for a reply and instead asked of Hog's condition.
Dove's forehead was a lot more damp then Martial's had been when he looked up from his work. "He will live but it will take a while before he comes to." he looked at Heron and Twig. "We shouldn't move him until he wakes up."
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"How long should that take?" Heron asked.
"At most a day."
Heron frowned. "What if the bandits come back?"
"They won't be back." Raven chipped in.
Everyone looked at her questioningly.
"Their strongest and half of the rest died today, but they got the loot they were after - why come back?"
Only now did Heron realize that even though Hog was back, the chest the bandit had stolen was not. Heron's knees went soft under him and he sank down to the ground with a defeated look on his face. Most of his earning had been in that chest. It was a hard blow for his business.
"Raven, won't you tell us what happened?" Twig asked.
"The low Champion bandit and Hog fought, but Hog managed to kill the bandit, and I then helped him back."
Silence.
There was a lot in Raven's statement that gave the men around her found unreasonable. Ignoring the fact that the bandits having a low Spirit Champion among their ranks - that didn't fight but did the hit-and-run - was a preposterous notion in itself, if it was true, there should be no way for Hog to win; the difference between the Adept realm and the Champion realm was just too big. Secondly, if Raven was telling the truth, then the little boy in front of them - that seemed no older than seven - had subsequently carried the wounded Hog back to the campsite, with third degree burns his legs. Raven shouldn't have the strength to lift Hog at all!
Seeing the men's looks of disbelief Raven sighed and held up her hand. The men gasped in shock as a globe of pure spirit essence flowed out of her hand and hovered in her palm.
"You... you're a spiritualist!?" Twig staggered backwards.
Raven rolled her eyes and pointed to her Limiters. "How did you think I escaped in the first place, with these shackles on, without being a spiritualist?"
"Ah..." Twig hesitated. It was indeed impressive for a bandit slave to have fled despite having Limiters on. Everyone had assumed that the Limiters were the kind that only functioned as weights and trackers, as they still did.
"So the bandits that you were sold to didn't know that you were a spiritualist and gave you normal Limiters, then you used tour spirit essence to block the tracking and ran away..." Heron was mumbling this absentmindedly to himself but everyone had heard him. Realizing his his mistake, his face snapped up to Raven's. "Ah, I'm sorry I didn't mean..."
Raven shook her head. "I'm not an idiot. I guessed you had figured out my past..." she paused; "...but how did you know my parents had sold me?"
Heron smiled apologetically. "You seemed more wronged then depressed when I talked about your parents so I figures they weren't dead as you had said."
"Oh," Raven sat quietly for a while before she added; "by the way, I wasn't a spiritualist when they sold me - I awakened just a few months ago."
"Makes sense," Twig nodded, but then furrowed his brows; "but that only explains how you could manage carry Hog back here. I still can't see how Hog could possibly defeat a low Spirit Champion..."
Raven smiled a half smile. "I'm good at distractions."
The men blinked at her in surprise and wanted her to explain more in detail, but Raven refused. "Ask Hog when he wakes up" was all she would say. She wished to reveal as little about her abilities as possible, so she would wait until Hog's version of the events were out; that way she wouldn't tell anyone more than necessary.
Eventually they stopped asking and instead got to work at setting up a shelter around Hog, so he would be kept warm until he woke up. Raven walked around the campsite to assess the damage and at the same time she strained her ears to listen to the conversations around her.
"A spiritualist at seven! How is that even possible?"
"He must have been through hell with those bandits, or else how could he gain enough spirit connections?"
"Doesn't this make him qualified to apply to Sky Academy?"
"Are you kidding? He would be called a genius among geniuses even there!"
Not surprisingly, most talk centered around Raven and her being a spiritualist. Somehow, her revelation had caused the mood in camp to lighten slightly. Even those who were injured and currently being treated by Dove and Martial seemed a bit distracted from their pains.
Mayeri was currently sleeping, the shook of seeing so many people die had been a bit too much for her so Dove had sedated her, but Ardea looked at Raven with a new light. She walked over to stand next to Raven whom was currently observing the funeral pier for the dead bandits - the dead mercenaries would get their own pier later that night.
"I'm really sorry about hitting you before." Her voice was soft but attentive. "I realize now that not only were you actually protecting Mayeri, you also didn't strike back at me even though you could have done so easily... I'm sorry."
Even if Ardea had protected her on the occasion of the second attack, she hadn't actually apologized. As a mother, even though she felt she had overreacted in her actions, she still blamed Raven for not keeping Mayeri within line of sight from the campsite. She hadn't truly forgiven Raven until now.
"It's okay. You didn't know." Raven shrugged and walked away.
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Later that night, a second funeral pier had been built, and the four dead mercenaries had been cleaned and placed on top. Amazingly, Hog had just moments ago regained his consciousness and was seated with the rest of the group around the pier - he had yet to speak of the battle in the mountain woods since he awoke just in time to partake in the funeral. Only Mayeri was missing as her soul had not yet stabilized after the day's events.
Twig stood next to the pier holding a burning torch.
"We honor our fellow soldiers who have fallen in battle." He bellowed.
"We honor them." the mercenaries chanted back in low voices.
"May their next journey be victorious!" Twig continued.
"Be victorious." the chant rang out once more.
"And embrace us when we join you!"
"We will join you."
As the mercenaries chanted the last line, twig lowered the torch to the pier and used his own spirit essence to stimulate the fire; it only took seconds for the entire pier to be ablaze with burning flames.
The group sat in silence as the watched they flames consume the dead. The flames stretched high into the night sky, as if licking the stars. No doubt this fire could be seen from kilometers away, but they didn't care. Sending of their dead with respect was to these mercenaries a lot more important than avoiding more attacks.
Raven couldn't help but feel that is was a bit foolish - why risk the living for the the sake of the dead - but at the same time she understood that the people around her needed to vent their feelings. They had not had her training, they were still normal.
Staring into the flames Raven couldn't help but think back on that blonde little girl she had shared a bed with for a while back at the Camp, in her old life. The girl's life had ended unceremoniously, and her body had been treated just as unceremoniously after her death - it had just been tossed in the mass grave not far from the Camp. Years later, when Raven had become the queen of assassins and had gained more freedom in picking her missions, Raven had chosen a mission in the little blonde girls home land. She had on a whim, spent some time trying to locate the girl's parents' graves. Once she found it, she had stared at it for hours simply walking away without a word.
'I should have done this then... but, I wasn't strong enough to dare.'
Slowly Raven opened her mouth and started singing. Her voice was soft and deep as she sang words in a langue this world had never heard before - it was not Raven's original langue but rather the native tongue of the bleak little girl. Raven let her spirit essence meld with her voice and as the foreign words echoed out into the night their meanings were nonetheless clear - Raven's song was not one for your ears but for your soul.
The people around the fire slightly lifted their heads to glance at the young boy sitting of to the side. The flames made the already red eyes of the youth seem like smoldering embers that stared distantly into the fire. His voice was like an angel but the melody was eerie, and held a mellow undertone. As they them selves looked back into the flames, they seemed to see a story unfolding within the flames; it was a story about a young girl that had been transformed into a songbird by a evil stepmother and then been torn away from her love.
Raven had chosen to use her spirit essence mostly out of courtesy for her dead friend, but as she sang she could feel her soul linking with the words, binding them to it. When raven reached the chorus, a bright white light suddenly surged from within the depths of Raven's soul. The pure spirit essence, that Raven couldn't control, merged with her own spirit essence and before she knew it her deep alto voice was joined by a bright soprano voice, singing in tandem with her.