The conclusion of the battle left everyone in various states of living, but they weren’t exactly safe. Even if the Twin Soul Sect didn’t come back, Foulmarsh had its own dangers. It had not been a significant threat to them when they were all in good health- and while they had Swordmaster Rahayu present- but Chikere was completely catatonic and Rahayu was gone. Ascended.

Looking at the bodies littered around them, it had to be said they had been lucky. Even if their own abilities were significant, Rahayu’s extreme confidence had proven to be correct- but it could just as easily resulted in him being cut down along with the rest of them. At least, it felt like that.

Velvet was the one least injured of all of them, as she had been concealed except for the moment she was striking. Stray blows that had managed to impact her and a few well-timed counterattacks had left her energy drained but her body relatively intact. After helping stitch Chikere’s neck back together she moved on to looting the bodies of the dead. All of the undamaged weapons and armor had significant value, though the way some of them were tied to the Twin Soul Sect was a bit unfortunate. Even the severed pieces of the oversized sword would be usable as materials for another weapon.

Anton got half of a bow, as the string he’d severed wasn’t repairable. Whether he would get a replacement string or sell the bowshaft to find a whole piece was not yet decided. Either way, they had quite a few things to go through.

The most valuable prize was clutched against Chikere’s chest, the bare sword of Swordmaster Vianne having been covered by Velvet carefully sliding the sheath onto it as much as she could. None of them were quite certain if she could even move, and whether or not she was a danger to them with a subconscious attack to protect her swords… her body likely couldn’t handle it.

Hoyt was patching himself together, using large quantities of pilfered medicines. Only legendarily rare medicines were useful in the midst of combat, but his wounds were at least held closed and blood replenishing pills swallowed to begin their work. He had been the vanguard against the majority of the Essence Collection cultivators, and had taken the brunt of the damage. If Timothy had been around things likely would have been different, but Hoyt didn’t specialize in defense, even if he was quite tough.

“Can’t believe we survived that,” Hoyt commented. “And I thought… well, I expected an ascension to have more flare to it. There was a huge ceremony with sacrifices in Black Soul Valley, and they almost didn’t succeed until they killed the peak Life Transformation leader of the Flying Blood Cult. I heard it was quite something.”

“That’s not that different from what happened here,” Velvet pointed out. “The deaths here weren’t intentional sacrifices, but the death of Swordmaster Vianne coincided with Rahayu’s ascension. It… might be a coincidence. But it might not.”

“Nothing I learned from Everheart indicated that the death of another cultivator was required to ascend,” Anton pointed out. “But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t make things easier. A great release of power…” Though he hadn’t been looking directly at the sword strike to remember it, he had felt the wave of ascension energy. It was only there for a moment, before quickly fading from the world. It seemed that it was unable to be sustained for long without a source. But as the only time he’d experienced such energy except through usage of Fleeting Youth, Anton thought his understanding improved. He’d have to wait to see, however. First they had to get out of Foulmarsh.

The role of carrying Chikere fell to Hoyt, since Anton would be needed to fend off foes from a distance and Velvet couldn’t conceal herself while carrying someone else, which would weaken her ability to get the first- and often only- strike in combat.

They packed up their camp and began to move, as they still had some hours of daylight to make use of. The current frozen state of Foulmarsh made it somewhat more convenient to move, since they at least had solid surfaces to walk on- even if it was slippery, smelly, and far too cold. A few denizens of the area set their sights on the traveling cultivators, but they were easily fended off by Anton, who was able to either deter them with his early shots or simply kill them from a distance. There might have been a few who died unnecessarily, as he didn’t want to get close enough to everything to determine if it was truly going to attack… but Foulmarsh was a dangerous place where things were constantly dying, so he didn’t expect to change the overall ecosystem alone.

Shortly before night fell it switched over to unpleasantly hot once more, the ice rapidly melting and almost beginning to steam. The cultivators were all exhausted, even if they managed to recover some of their expended natural energy during the march. They bedded down in shifts, leaving one of the three conscious members on watch.

In the morning, Anton and Hoyt found themselves feeling ill. It had been over a decade since Anton fell sick from anything that wasn’t injected venom, but he felt the beginnings of a fever. Hoyt was somewhat better than he was, but Chikere was both sweating and shaking violently as if she had the chills. Even Body Tempering cultivators were largely immune to mundane sicknesses, but the stresses on their bodies- combined with what Anton imagined was an abnormal combination of potential diseases in Foulmarsh- resulted in them falling ill.

The vast majority of their medicines- and those they had taken from the Twin Soul Sect- were intended for treating injuries and recovering from them. They had a few designed to counter poisons, but even those only worked against the most common types. Nobody had the knowledge to treat what they were coming down with, except the basics. Rest and nutrition were paramount. The first was… extremely difficult to get in Foulmarsh. Even if they could sleep uninterrupted, swelteringly hot weather or temperatures far below freezing didn’t provide for proper rest. Especially for Chikere who seemed to have not recovered her reserves of energy at all, and likely couldn’t have made much use of them while unconscious regardless.

“We’ll need to move faster, I think,” Anton said. “If these fevers worsen, we will gradually become less able to act. We can make it out of the area in just a few days if we have to. And if we recover quickly… at least we won’t be smelling this place for longer than necessary.”

Neither of the other two disagreed with him, though Hoyt would have it the hardest as he was carrying Chikere. Though a single person- and a dozen or so swords- wasn’t actually that much additional weight. If those swords could have been placed in a storage bag it would have made Hoyt’s job easier because of how they banged against him as he walked, but the weight itself wasn’t that bad. In normal circumstances. Anton could tell he wasn’t going to complain about it, but it added onto the effort of moving quickly.

Anton himself felt dizzy, but that didn’t stop him from doing his best to focus on the area ahead of them, specifically scanning for turtles. Just one would do, but if he was going to get one it would be the biggest he could find. The sunlight made his head hurt as he focused on the horizon, but he eventually spotted it.

Truthfully he didn’t need anything that big, but the creature also wasn’t one of the monstrosities that would cause them trouble in their current state. Anton had been doing his best to steer them clear around them, with occasional input from Velvet who was constantly scouting ahead of the group and returning.

Anton almost could have sworn his target looked him dead in the eye as he took aim, but it was also possible it was his imagination. Either way, a few hours later he was cooking up a large pot of turtle soup. While preparing the dish he thought there was something familiar about the creature’s shell, but couldn’t quite place what.

“It seems the creatures here aren’t afraid of fire,” Anton commented.

“I noticed as well,” Velvet said. “They’re moving in.”

“It’s a bit late to stop now,” Anton shrugged, which stretched some of his wounds unpleasantly. “They already have the scent of it. We’ll have to fend them off.”

The things to which they were referring were approaching bands of snakes and alligators, along with a number of mammals apparently attracted to the smell of turtle soup. Racoons weren’t predatory animals, normally, but at their size and with cultivations that matched Spirit Building they could be whatever they wanted. The long skinny minks were known to be more aggressive but generally kept their hunting to smaller prey. But when a few of them could rise up on their hind legs to be as tall as a human, perhaps everything seemed small to them.

Anton started with a few warning shots, but barely deterred any of the approaching beasts. Even when he began to get serious, he couldn’t always kill his target in a single shot, given he was trying to conserve himself for tens or hundreds of enemies. And his aim was a little off.

Hoyt stepped up, and while he could only cover a portion of the directions approaching the camp, he widened his area of influence by creating walls of fire that funneled anything that wanted to approach towards him- or a long way around. An alligator tried to sneak under the wall of fire by dipping into the water, but it quickly found its durable hide didn’t withstand boiling water nearly as well as it did the normal nearly boiling alternative.

Anton’s target soon became approaching avians, as there were birds large enough to potentially lift the massive pot of food he had cooking. He wouldn’t mind sharing whatever was leftover, but the local beasts were clearly hungry. Though some of them were more cautious, staying back from the fight as it gathered momentum. Anton saw some of them pick off injured animals, and was glad that at least they weren’t the only targets. Just the newest and least familiar. He did have to admit they weren’t as intimidating as normal in their still-exhausted states.

The infighting among the various creatures only added to the chaos, but at least Velvet seemed quite comfortable moving among them, picking off some weakened beasts while also wounding others. Nearly even battles with a stronger but injured combatant tied them up longer, and when something died others inevitably began to fight over it or begin to drag it away.

The battles continued at various levels of intensity over the course of several hours, and Anton was wondering if it was worth the effort. But when the soup was finished and he tasted it, he decided it was worth it. While most of the ingredients were improvised by scavenging various root vegetables and random dried things in their rations, it was made excellent by the main ingredient. He carefully ate some himself before feeding it to Chikere, giving her only very small chunks of meat and carefully coaxing it down her throat so she didn’t actually try to swallow and tear at her stitched neck.

Then he took over a majority of the fighting and deterring so Hoyt and Velvet could eat. By the time they were done, all of the beasts were either dead or busy consuming others. It was unlikely such wild behavior was common, but the presence of humans might have thrown things off. Foulmarsh was still teeming with life regardless, including a number of flying insects that seemed to want nothing more than to eat or drink the humans alive. Perhaps their current sickness had come from one of them, but much effort was spent on them regardless.

As he digested the meal, Anton wondered if the expenditure of energy actually outweighed their gains, but he decided it had. Even if his vision was still blurring and his wounds aching, Chikere at least was looking a bit better. But the rest of the trip it might be best to make do with rations.