Snarling, growling, low rumbles and hissing came from the center of the lake, the lizard men communicated with each other deciding on the next course of action.

The smaller of their kind had trouble with movement, while a large majority had received injuries that would impede motion.

Currently both sides entered a staring contest, the lizard men couldn't fight effectively for prolonged periods of time due to overheating bodies because of their lack of temperature regulation.

Followed by the rapid cooling of their bodies because of the cold that caused their skin to be frail and brittle, it was a downhill fight for them.

This gave the kids and children the opportunity to attack, if they knew of this weakness of the lizards that is.

As they did not, they simply waited in shallower water licking their wounds.

The lizard men took this opportunity to recover the bodies of several of their opponents aswell as their own.

They couldn't digest the meat nor the bones this was becoming clear to them, but they could still drink the blood.

It wasn't an effective long term solution for them but it was a good temporary solution to recover their wounds.

Bleeding torse's, lost limbs, arrow ridden bodies, the lizard men were in bad shape, with the drinking of the blood these wounds sealed shut leaving a red blister covering the wounds.

With a rumble one of the large lizard men sank deeper into the water.

Below a near invisible pipe pushed the water below the barrier inside, the force of the water created an invisible water jet repelling anything that neared.

The lizard men attempted to expand the hole digging with it's claws as the water jet repelled it.

Unlike the attempts made by the children or those outside the barrier, the invisible floor broke apart with relative ease.

The mallet above glimmering with the luster of gold pulsed once.

As if the lizard men had been struck in the back of the head, its eyes rolled as its body floated to the surface.

Snarls, hissing and low rumbling spread among the group of lizard men.

They couldn't escape this situation, they must fight until no one is left or they will die.

They were outnumbered, had lost the upper hand and couldn't properly put up a fight given their current worsening situation, how exactly were they expected to eliminate over fifty opponents?

Huitaca and her two followers pushed deeper into the lake trying to bait out a few of the lizard men.

"Why haven't they attacked us? They just keep moving away from us" one of the boys walked cautiously, surveying the water for any movement.

"Maybe they want us to go even deeper in the water?" Huitaca could only think of this option, to bait them into a more favourable environment would be the ideal for any fighting force.

"We're not going further then this right? I can swim but I have no confidence in fighting them head on like this" the other boy strategically placed himself behind Huitaca and the other boy.

"NO, we are simply going to get closer to the other group from here. We'd have to be stupid to enter deeper then this" Huitaca lead them ever so slowly to the southern groups.

Nand and his remaining ally approached the amazonian girls.

"I... I am Nand of the tahiantinsuyu (Land of four quarters), I and my companion seek aid, will you help us?" Not knowing how to ask for assistance he just said what was necessary.

The amazonians paused for only a brief moment.

"Can you understand him?"

"No"

"He is probably asking for help in this case no?"

"Can we help him?"

"He seems relatively uninjured, the other one on the other hand..."

"Just give them something to patch his wounds with, we can't get distracted by this"

With that one of the girls looked through a small satchel she carried picking out several items.

Nand watched the girl approach with hopeful eyes, would she lead him into the group, push him away, or simply come to inspect them.

With a raised hand the girl presented the items she took out of her satchel, she did not approach within striking distance out of caution.

Nand seeing this as a good outcome lowered his weapon "Thank you for the assistance!" he said while nodding.

He took only one step forward, letting his club-sword drop into the lakes invisible floor.

With this both parties felt reassurance, the girl took a couple of steps closer just enough to hand over the medicine then backed away.

Nand took the medicine and hurriedly tended to his wounded ally.

It was not that Nand really needed to take this medicine from the amazonians, he carried his own set of healing herbs aswell but the actions he showed mattered more then the results of this interaction.

'With this we can at least start a form of trust in each other to a degree, it will be a debt to be repaid in a sense' Nand did not expect an outwright welcoming party, although he did day-dream for a second about it.

"You think we can trust him?"

"Does he have any other options?"

"A warrior should know when a debt needs to be repaid"

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Maybe, but not everyone has sense"

"For now we can keep a watchful eye on them, if they need help we can provide it should we be able too"

With that a loose alliance was formed.

Bran Ai half watched the interactions between the eastern and southern group, he couldn't hear or understand what was said but he could more or less figure our what had happened.

'So they are friends now? Or trying to be... What about us, everyone is all over the place with few having activated their... I don't know what these things are'

Bran Ai had not succeeded in activating his weapon, he didn't insert Qi to be exact.

The spell placed by elder Qez was what allowed for the bone dagger now blade to be wielded without Qi.

One only needed to think of the correct activation method for it to trigger the spell. In this case anything along the line's of [Grow, expand, bigger, smaller, shrink, ect] would activate the hidden spell.

It may sound simple in principal but was rather tricky to actually do, especially at the speed elder Qez did. One could call this bone dagger an enchanted or cursed weapon depending on the outcome of the spell.

The water splashed below, a large amount of water pushed its way between the children knocking a few over.

"Watch out!"

"Why did you grab onto me?! Just fall on your own"

"No!"

"The water keeps getting higher, what if it goes above our head?"

"I guess we float?"

"Float?"

"Yeah like them" the kid pointed in the direction of the now missing bodies.

"Huh? Were did they go?"

"..."

Swinging his new weapon Bran Ai was pleased, hearing the sounds of the bone blade tearing the air made him feel powerful.

Would he be able to pierce the flesh of his attackers? Probably not, he had a terrible stance, lacked a firm grip, and his movement was impeded by the water, at best he could deliver a few scratches on his foe before being taken down.

'Good, this should do. I can't do anything about the water but I should at least be able to protect myself' Bran Ai couldn't swim, he couldn't float, he had never seen such large amounts of water before.

The concept of swimming was not exactly something he knew off, would he sink to the bottom? Well he didn't know.

Right now he stood upright with no problem, earlier his entire body went under the water but just standing on his knees would keep his head above the water.

As for the other kids they were in similar situations, what was swimmig?

A few of them tested the waters by simply half sitting down waiting to be pushed arround by the water but that wasn't swimming.

Some half floated, they used one leg to sorta stand on while they splashed around.

Currently the water only reached their stomach, the water rising about an inch every minute with the occasional burst of water raising the water three inches.

Swimming wasn't necessary just yet but they all felt a change was coming.

"I got it!" A girl yelled.

"Careful don't let it slip away!"

To the side the girl with the string successfully latched onto the floating skeletal hand, she dragged it back into the waiting hands of the other girl.

"Thanks!" grabbing the skeletal hand happily out of the water she rejoiced.

"My names Wilsoondi by the way, what's yours?" Taking the string back the girl introduced herself.

Re-united with her skeletsl hand the other girl happily replied "I am Xalli, again thanks for the help!"

As they happily conversed with one another the rest started to fall silent.

What should they do now?

The elder couldn't hear them or maybe was ignoring them, they couldn't be sure.

So what could they do now?

A couple of figures closed the distance between the children and themselves, it was Huitaca and her companions.

The kids watched the newly arrived trio like they had just found someone to dump all their troubles on.

"Who are you?" Xalli whom was nearest to the trio asked.

Huitaca put a warm smile on her face, "I am Huitaca, I am here to help"

'Well more like use you for my own benefit but let's not say that out loud'

Xalli looked at Huitaca and thought 'I can use her, she's big, a bigger target, a bigger meal then me'.

"I see... Then how are yo-" a palm was shoved in Xalli's face.

"Help us please! We we're attacked by some things that look like us! I was so scared" Wilsoondi shoved her way into the center of attention.

The other children looked puzzled.

"Who's she?"

"Are they going to attack us aswell?"

"I forgot about that! Those things can change how they look?"

"Is she one of them?"

"How about we test them?"

"How?"

Coming up with an idea on the spot a boy strolled up to the trio.

"How do we know you are not one of them!?" Pointing deeper into the lake.

"!?...Ah you mean a lizard men?" Huitaca asked.

"A wizard men? I mean yes! Prove you aren't one of them!"

"How do I prove that?"

"Open your eyes! Open them wide" using his fingers he spread his eye lids.

"What? Ok" Huitaca copied his actions.

"You guys too!" The boy pointed at the other two.

With a half smile they agreed.

Checking closely the boy saw no signs of yellow irises in each of their eyes.

"Mmm, ok. I will trust you for now"

With that the rest of the children felt a little reassured.

"Now that you see we are like you, how about helping me out?"

'Helping you? I thought they were here to help us?' Xalli caught on to this quickly.

"How?" The boy said.

"Come with me over there" she pointed in the amazonian girls direction.

"Huh? How can we help with that? You mean for us to go over there?"

"Yes, I want for all of us to go there" Huitaca had failed in her initial plan with her own group, now she could only count on others.

The kids may be young but thst didn't mean they were stupid either.

She treated them kindly because it was what was needed, but she had also seen what the weapons the kids carry could do.

'Scary things they carry, are they brujos in training?'

Visibility into the lakes water was worsening by the minute, unknown creatures attacked them earlier wearing the skin of what used to be part of their group and now an unknown group visits them, the children huddled together for the first time to think.

"Can we trust them?"

"I don't know"

"What else can we do?"

"Why does she want us to go over there tho?"

"Maybe because they shot me?" A boy with an arrow in his arm begrudgingly said.

"..."

"They did help is though, I think you were just unlucky"

"It still hurts"

"Let's just go, I don't want to be alone here"

"We are here!"

"Yeah and look what happened!"

"Fine, fine, then what do we do?"

"Let's go, water here water there but at least there are more big kids there we can rely on"

With the discussion being settled the boy that checked the newcomers became a defacto representative for the children.

"We will go with you"

Elder Qez who was watching all of this from outside was bewildered.

'Do the children not notice they can understand each other? Not one among them seems to realize this simple fact?'

Looking in the direction of the western group he analyzed them one by one.

'The only one among them that has any cultivation is the old one, but he is only at the 9th layer of Qi gathering. Has the common tongue been passed down in secret in the outside world till this day? When he screamed ealier it wasn't in the common tounge, or maybe it's just those three that know it?'

In general sects had disappeared from earth over 400 years ago during a great upheaval, it wasn't exactly an evacuation as much as it was a disaster.

The world that was once under the control of various sects suddenly lost all of those sects in one fell swoop, leaving a power vacuum to be filled.

Every cultivator whether they were in a sect, clan, rouge cultivator or held even an ounce of Qi disappeared overnight taking all the knowledge of the cultivation world with them.

The only sect left untouched by this upheaval was the final edge sect, being the furthest away from all the major cultivation centers it had narrowly avoided disappearing with the rest.

This was both a blessing and curse for them.

They like all sects had received the messege about the golden stars, they started to plan for the worst just like everyone else, they communicated and planned together as a single united cultivation world.

But when the time came for them to leave the planet just like the rest, they had been left behind.

It did not matter if their sect members were visiting other sects at the time, it did not matter where in the world they resided, only the members of the final edge sect had been left behind.

As one of those sect members who witnessed the disappearance personally said 'Not a single piece of paper, not a single jade, not a single technique could be found outside of the final edge sect, their bodies turned to dust in the blink of an eye'.

All history involving cultivation was simply deleted.

Over time people may re-discover Qi cultivation like the old men and woman here, but what about language? You can't re-discover what doesn't exist.

'Did they find a secret hidden from the world like the golden city? Or did they re-invent the common tongue? No, maybe someone in the sect spread the language again? But who would do that?' elder Qez could not be sure.

While people could be born with spiritual roots even to this very day, they weren't born with knowledge.

At least not in most cases.