Stanis sat with his hands tucked around his knees on the field. Next to him lay his sword, and further away sat/lay the others. His limbs felt so weak, sucked dry of every ounce of energy, and yet his body felt so strong, so…

He gave up trying to describe the feeling. Whatever it was, it felt better than the sense of pain he had been drowning in for the last few minutes. Soon after the nameless instructor had poured the mana water down his throat, Stanis had felt it getting to work. It had felt like molten steel coursing through his veins, eating away at his blood and flesh. And the worst of it was the fact he had been fully conscious throughout…

“Gharrh pur et---“

Stanis heard the instructor say something loudly. His head twitched before turning around to face the instructor. The man was standing tall and straight without any semblance of emotion on his face, almost as if he hadn’t just driven a few people through torture. Almost.

Stanis shook his head and focused his mind, finally making sense of the instructor’s words.

“Get up. It’s time to go,”

Stanis wanted to protest, and almost did so, but stopped himself after thinking twice. He got to his feet and stretched his body. It felt foreign as the flexibility he had before was no longer. His body was stiff and his bones cracked every time he moved.

When he had drunk Yils’s mana water, he had never felt like this. This made him think that whatever had just been forced down his throat hadn’t been mana water. But this was a thought for a different time, especially when he had more immediate problems to address.

He picked up his sword and slid it into its scabbard. He then walked over to Jen, who was watching the sky as if she was high and had just noticed something for the first time.

“Give it back,” he said. He had wanted to make his voice sound low and sharp but it instead came out flat. In fact, with his eyes and shoulder drooped, his back bent and his head cast down, the image he gave off was anything but threatening. The only piece of luck he had on his side was the fact that Jen was just as energyless as him, in fact, everyone around him was the exact same.

Jen looked up, her piercing blue eyes strangely soft.

“No,”

“Wh—“

“It’s mine now. It suits me better anyway,”

These were the highest number of words Jen had said to Stanis ever. And they weren’t words he enjoyed.

“Fuck you, you fucking bitch. I fucking made that!”

Was it not for the fact that he knew how powerful she was, he would have made a move: a violent one. But he did know her power and, in fact, usually feared it. But not now; she had stolen his trump card.

“No,” she repeated. Before he could respond, she was already walking away towards the instructor. Stanis gritted his teeth and followed.

****

They were soon in the house, and then in the basement. A few minutes later, the other group came out of the teleporter.

It was an understatement to call them a sorry sight. They were closer to death than anything else, blood covering their clothes and armour. Strangely enough, Stanis almost swore that Pete was sober as he stepped out. Of course, this was as far from the truth as could be, a fact that attested itself due to Pete’s abilities and his alcoholism, but the sombre aura he gave off wasn’t normal.

But while the other group was panting and shaking, Stanis own group wasn’t much of a comforting sight either. Four of them were listless without emotion, thought or care, only Stanis showing anger towards Jen.

“That’s all of you. Now come on, you guys go in now,” the instructor said. Stanis didn’t even have time to say a single word to Pete before he was thrown into the teleporter, back to the jungle.

The group’s listlessness lasted a few seconds but quickly wore off as they began to adapt to their environment. This wasn’t somewhere where they could act relaxed; even if they had to suck up energy from where there was none, it was still better than the alternative.

There was a bit of confusion even after the listlessness had gone away as the members looked at each other to see who would take lead. Going by strength, it would only make sense if Jen took control. But considering her expression, it was clear she had no plan nor desire to do such. Eventually, Keiko stepped forward and took control.

“Alright guys, let’s just find the teleporter and escape. No wasting time, please,” she said, especially looking at Jen who was once again looking at the sky.

“Jen, what do you need for your zombies?” she asked.

“Just a corpse,” Jen replied, finally paying attention.

“Ok. We’ll kill some quickly, and then use the zombies to drive through the hordes. Stanis and Berry, you two are the best armoured so you two go to the front and try to soak the damage. The rest of us will just focus on damage, is that cool?”

“Yep!” Berry answered.

Stanis, meanwhile, was thinking of ways to get his dagger back. It was not only his trump card but also his best creation to date. It was one thing for him to give it to Jen, since she clearly had greater darkness control than him, but it was whole another matter for the rotten bitch to steal it from him.

His mind ran through several scenarios. Taking it back by force was a no-go; Jen was their driving force here: without her, they would struggle to make it to the teleporter. Also, he doubted he could fairly outpower her.

But who said it had to be fair? The dagger was now hanging off Jen’s waist; all he had to do was take it while she was distracted. What right did she have to fight back after that? While he might be weaker than her, he was still no less brave.

“Stanis?” Keiko asked once again with a concerned tone. She wasn’t, per say, concerned about him but instead of him fucking up the plan.

“Yeah,” he responded, shaking himself back to reality.

“Alright then, let’s go,” she said.

They headed west of the clearing, the direction the teleporter had been in last time. Very quickly, they were ambushed by false-humans, who were slowly taken care off.

But after the initial fight, the time taken for each fight reduced as Jen’s zombies became a driving force.

After about 2 hours of exploring, the group stumbled upon the teleporter. Around it was a full horde of naked false-humans.

Jen’s zombies moved swiftly, running forwards to stop the frontline. Stanis and Berry followed, the two of them taking on the few who made it through.

Whilst he fought, Stanis could tell that he was stronger than he was before. His body had warmed up from the initial crustiness and was now far better than he remembered it being. The ordeal they had gone through was clearly helping as none of his group looked as bad as the other group had. Sure, they were covered in shed blood but for the most part the blood wasn’t theirs. The only major injury they had been dealt since the start was Keiko been ambushed by a sneaky false-human. It had attacked her wildly and had dealt quite a bit of damage to her leg.

Stanis had thought of offering to heal it, but had eventually thought better. He needed to conserve his mana, and more importantly, Keiko was a mage-type who didn’t focus much on mobility or movement skills. This made the slight awkwardness to her gait fine.

It was when more than half of the naked ones had died that Stanis heard the war-horn again from behind them, towards Jen’s end. The jungle had fared the same as last time so far and thus Stanis knew that the horn was the clothed false-humans’ signal. He sidestepped the naked one he was fighting and kicked it back, before running towards Jen.

She couldn’t send her zombies back to fight the clothed ones as there were still a good number of naked ones left. This meant it was up to him and Berry to act as the backline’s frontline.

Just as Stanis slipped past Jen, he sidestepped her and twisted his body. His hands went dangerously low and plucked the dagger off her waist, before stepping on the gas and sprinting away.

He clashed with the first clothed one and injected his mana into the sword. He was pushed back, almost thrown into the air, when he spun around and used his dagger to stab the clothed false-human. The darkness very quickly spread through it and it stumbled back, finding no support behind it, and thus collapsed.

Stanis grinned but the deranged thing didn’t last long as he felt a tightness in his chest. He felt an awful premonition follow but found his legs stuck to the ground. He looked down and saw the ground was dark and murky, almost like a large puddle of darkness. He looked back and saw a man-sized spinning star floating towards him. The last thing he felt was a chilling coldness, akin to the touch of a frozen stone’s, before he felt no longer.

His breath struggled out of his clutches, his chest lying perfectly still. The opaque puddle he slept in grew until it absorbed him…