Finishing the fight he continued on. Alright, I should stop soon and take a break for about an hour or so.

After finding a good spot to rest on a high cliff, he set up his campsite and started preparing his meal. He was no professional cook, but each of them had to learn the basics of it at school and having lightning for his element made a few things easier.

In the middle of his lunch he noticed movements below him, between the trees. What’s that? He stood up looking at it attentively. Those are people, and in the uniform of our city! I have to go and ask them for help!

He merged with lightning and started to use Flash as much as he could; he did not want to lose the group out of his sight. He descended the the mountain he was on in less than a minute and started looking for the soldiers. Though he could not see them, he found their track, which he then followed right away. Damn, this is exhausting! I only hope that I’ll catch up to them before I ran out. He stopped previously to take a break because he had only a fourth of his energy reserves left, but now while chasing after them, he has used up nearly all of it.

Yes! I did it! He has finally reached the soldiers.

“Hey!” he shouted and the group stopped, turning back to him. “You’re soldiers from Ade Lai, aren’t you? Could help me, please?” he asked panting.

The soldiers looked at each other and then one of them asked a man at the front of the group, “Hey boss, we’ve got another one, what should we do?”

“You know drill,” he answered.

“Hey, kid, don’t worry and come here,” the soldier who asked the boss before said to Quin.

Quin nodded and started to walk toward the group.

“Dreon?” Quin asked as he noticed someone on the shoulder of one of the soldiers, wearing the same clothes he last saw on Dreon. However in the next instant his instincts warned him just in time to realize that the man behind him was about to hit him on the head with the hilt of his sword.

Being surrounded by them, his only option was to jump upwards with a Flash. Shit! What’s happening?! What? Why are the others here as well? After taking a brief glance from above, he caught sight of his group, in the same state as Dreon: each of them lying unconsciously on the shoulders of one of the soldiers. However in the next moment another thing shocked him just as much. Shriekers? Why are here a lot of adult Shriekers? Though he has not seen one yet, from the descriptions he was able to identify them. Fuck! I have to do something, but what can I do? I don’t have any energy left, maybe I can cast a Flash or two, but then what? I can’t fight them either, even at full strength I wouldn’t dare to! Why? Why’s this happening?! He knew he was wasting precious time, but he was entirely out of ideas. His heart was beating so fast that he felt that it could explode in any moment and his whole body started to tremble in fear, afraid at what would happen.

Just as he was about to completely freak out, he realized what he was doing and managed to calm himself down. Fuck it! I won’t go down like that, at least I’ll take out their boss! Although he wasted some time with his thinking and the others were already powering up their spells, he thought that he could still cast a spell.

The man was only about five meters away from him, showing his back to Quin. That’s what you get for not being careful in battle and for underestimating me, you fucker! He mustered all energy of his body -- even damaging his organs in the process -- and released it with a concentrated Overcharge aimed at the man’s head. He happily noted that his attack hit, furthermore the boss has been quite unfortunate, as he reacted at the last moment but that only resulted in him turning his head, straight into the attack. Afterwards, due to emptying his reserves entirely, Quin fainted.

He felt a warm sensation filling his body. Maybe it’s the sun? No, it’s more like when I drink something warm, he wondered what it could be. He enjoyed this feeling for a few moments before remembering what had happened. He jerked awake, but before he was able to do anything at all, he felt as he was instantly encased in something, making him unable to move.

“Hey, stop it!” an unknown voice said.

As his eyes adjusted, he realized that he knew to whom the voice belonged. Mang!

“Why are you here?” Quin asked. “You... You’re with them, aren’t you?!” He merged with his element and tried to get free.

“I’ve already told you to stop!” he replied angrily. “Do you think I’d bring you and gave you three pieces of my medicinal pills that heals the body and restores your energy if I had hostile intentions? What’s more just look around, we’re alone.”

He wanted to spit out all kinds of accusations, like Mang just planned to poison him or other nonsense like that, but he knew the seriousness of the situation and could not let his emotions to get the better of him. He did not like Mang, no it was more than that: every time he remembered the tournament, all he felt towards him was hate, for humiliating him so much back then, but even though appearances could be deceiving he did not think of him as someone evil, or who would betray his country.

I don’t want to trust him, but what could I do alone? I’m strong and fast, that is true, however what can my strength do against a whole group of cultivators in the Qi Culmination? And my speed? Should I just pack all of the others onto my back and run? Impossible!

“Alright, tell me what’s happening?” Quin asked.

“Hmm, you bore it better than I would have thought,” he said with a laugh. “Knowing how stubborn you are, I thought I would have to convince you for hours, but I guess that’s not the case fortunately.”

“No need for useless chatter, get to the point!” Quin demanded.

“Don’t worry, a couple of minutes won’t cause any harm.” He sighed. “We’re kidnapping kids to the Shriekers,” he said calmly.

“What? Why would somebody do that?!” He asked completely shocked.

“Well, long story short, for sacrifice. The Shriekers needs souls to feed on and guess who have them?” Mang asked.

“Humans...” Quin was utterly disgusted.

“That’s right, and it’s the easiest to catch younger ones,” Mang explained. “Furthermore just think about it, they are in the Wilderness on their Coming of Age ceremony, do you think they would suspect something if some of them disappeared?”

“But why would any human contribute to this? We’re living in a relatively peaceful era, even with our neighbors, and there are no power struggles in our country,” Quin said.

“Haha, the world is not so simple as you might think!” Mang told him laughing. “A relatively peaceful world isn’t a perfectly peaceful one and just because you don’t see something or aren’t aware of it, that doesn’t mean it’s proof for its nonexistence!

“But back to the topic, have you heard about cults? It’s the gathering place of crazy people who’ll do anything for their so called greater good. They’ll gladly die or even offer their own children for sacrifice to further their cause. They’ve been hiding underground -- though not literally -- for ages, believing that one day their Great God will send them a messiah, who’ll bring about a New Age.

They’ve found their messiah in the Shrieker’s Sovereign, who according to them will purge the human world from its filth and sin, but they obviously need souls for that. Of course they tend to leave out the fact that all they do -- except for preaching -- is kidnapping fellow humans to sacrifice them, and to top it off, whenever the country is facing a great calamity or something like that, what do they do? Help the others to solve the problem? No, for that they’d have to do actually something. Instead they don’t do jack shit and only pray to their Great God.”

Quin was lost in thoughts for a bit. Even if he believed only half of this information, it was still a lot to take in. A secret society in their own lands? People who followed some kind of Great God by killing other humans, even youngsters?

“Is this true? Are you serious?” Quin asked.

“Yep.”

“Then why are you with them? From what you’ve said I don’t think you’re an avid believer,” Quin said.

“No, I am not one of them. Have you heard about infiltration?” Mang asked.