Adam hesitated for just a moment before forcing his horde to march onward! There was no way to tell when he would be able to encounter another rift close enough for him to reach in time. Adam was also counting on the fact that he could slip through enemy hordes to get to the rift. While his own horde was distracting everyone be attacking the large horde, Adam hoped to make it to the rift in time.

As Adam approached the giant horde, some of the commanders started to shout out at him: “What is your purpose for approaching? Leave now or die!”

One of the commanders said to the other: “Is this guy for real? Who would march such a small horde to attack us?”

“I don't know, but he is just marching lambs to slaughter. I am perfectly fine with that.” The other commander said with an evil grin.

Adam ignored their words and lead his horde directly to the large horde. The commanders looked on with disdain as they sent orders to their own ghouls to attack Adam's horde. The commanders were protecting the rift so no one else besides their leader could use it. Then this pitiful little whelp of a commander and horde decided to attack them to try and take the rift? With their overwhelming numbers, the commanders felt certain that Adam's horde would quickly collapse. However, it did not go as they thought. With the many pieces of commander's armor placed on various ghouls in his horde, Adam's ghouls intimidated the ghouls of the larger horde! They were more organized as well, so the fight was actually progressing very slowly. In fact, Adam's ghouls were killing more than they were loosing! The commanders felt some unease when they noticed this and started paying more attention to what was going on. It was too late, however, as Adam had already sneaked into their own horde!

Adam was carefully and swiftly making his way through the ghoul horde. He kept his distance from the other commanders and would soon be at the center of the horde, where the rift was. Adam worried: “I hope my luck isn't so bad that the rift will collapse as soon as I get there!”

There was an empty space in the center of the horde where the rift was. It appeared that the commanders ordered the ghouls to stay a certain distance away so that they didn't mindlessly walk through the rift on accident and cause it to close faster. There were three commanders standing in this empty space, however. They seemed to be watching over and guarding the rift. In the very center of the space, there was an amount of distorted air, almost like there was a heat wave there. This was how rifts appeared to be if you looked at them with your eyes, instead of Adam's elemental sight. Adam felt that the commanders were far enough apart that he would be able to run up to the rift fast enough, before the commanders tried to fight him. Adam also noticed that the rift was slowly, but visibly destabilizing. Adam didn't know at what exact point the rift would start to collapse, so he decided to move immediately. Using the wind formation to give himself a small burst of speed, Adam's silhouette suddenly ran out from the horde of ghouls as he ran through the space between two of the commanders. The commanders did not truly think there would be anyone to guard against, so they were quite surprised when Adam showed up. In their split moment of shock, the commanders did not move, which allowed Adam to move close to the rift! Just as Adam was finally going to reach the rift, there was a sudden and large distortion! Out from the rift appeared a rather domineering commander who had an arrogant look about him. Behind him were two more commanders who were gleefully giving each other an evil smile. These two commanders each were restraining someone! One was a girl who was no more than thirteen years of age. The other was a young man close to Adam's own age. The two were fearfully trying to struggle before the death essence from the plane started to attack their bodies. This group had appeared right in front of Adam! Adam had to stop running in his tracks, or he would run headlong into the arrogant ghoul. As Adam came to a stop, the arrogant ghoul noticed Adam and gave a disdainful look. He pointed at Adam saying: “Who is this whelp? Kill him!”

The three commanders who were guarding the rift were already moving to block Adam's escape. Adam noticed that the rift had started to collapse. There were perhaps thirty seconds to a minute at most before the the rift would collapse. Adam was left with a decision; does he move forward with all his strength to reach the rift by himself, or try to save the young man and girl and bring them through the rift with him? If he tried to save the young man and girl, it was unknown how long that would take and the rift might collapse before he managed to get to them!

Adam did not hesitate, he stretched his finger out to the arrogant commander in front of him and used his soul technique! The thread quickly reached out to the commander's soul. Just as the commander gave Adam an odd look, wondering why Adam was pointing at him, he felt an odd sensation in his mind! Shock filled the commander's face as Adam suddenly yanked his finger back and the commander fell where he stood! The three commanders trying to block Adam's escape and the two holding the boy and girl all looked on with gaping mouths. Each held the same thought: “What just happened!?”

Adam did not stop there and immediately began to use the soul technique on the two commanders holding the young man and girl. In the span of less than ten seconds, Adam had killed three commanders by only pointing at them! Adam ran forward as fast as he could to the young man and girl. Adam reached out to the girl first. He had no time to worry for her safety as he swung the girl by her arm and quite literally threw her through the rift! Adam then swiftly arrived by the young man's side and grabbed hold of him as Adam prepared to make a mad dash for the rift. Adam saw the girl go through the rift, creating a large distortion. But before Adam could even move, the rift then collapsed! Adam simply stared at the now empty air, dumbstruck. He had just missed his ticket home! The young man had started to convulse, bringing Adam out of his stupor. Adam gently laid the young man on the ground and did the only merciful thing he could do. Adam drew out his sword and stabbed the young man's heart, giving him as swift and painless of a death as Adam could.

Behind Adam, the other three ghouls had also come out of their own stupor from watching Adam kill their leader. One of them stammered: “H-he killed Private Dullard! Captain Jira will surely come to question us and then kill us for being useless!”

The other two had also realized the severity of the issue. “Maybe if we can kill that commander, Jira will let us off!”

The commanders had nothing left to loose, they could only try to attack and kill Adam in hopes of saving their own hide. Still, they figured that with just the three of them, there was no way they could take Adam down with his mysterious ability to outright kill by pointing his finger. They bellowed out to the other commanders: “Private Dullard was just assassinated! Help us kill the assassin or Captain Jira will kill us all!”

Adam hadn't been paying much attention to the three commanders. After sending the young man's soul off, he had other thoughts in his mind. “Should I have just gone through the rift myself? Will I ever get back- No! I will get back home and I will not compromise any part of myself to do so! I made the right decision to try and save those two. I only wish I could have had the time to throw the young man through the rift too!”

After that small moment of self doubt, Adam's determination prevailed. He would make it back home and he was not going to take a shortcut that would make other people suffer in his stead. Adam then heard the three commanders shouting about Captain Jira and asking for the others to come and help them deal with him. A sour look appeared on Adam's face. It seemed that the arrogant ghoul was actually ranked! Not only that, he curried favor with some one that seemed to have fairly high rank too! Adam mumbled: “It seems I have become at odds with the spirit army...”

Moving his mind away from the far away threat of Captain Jira, Adam concentrated on what was close at hand. There were seven other commanders besides these three and Adam would have a hard time dealing with any of them. Adam no longer had the protection of a ghoul horde to block the sight of the commanders, he could only fight them head on and the only way to do so was to heavily rely on the soul technique! Adam had already used it three times in a row and he was already starting to feel mentally tired from it. The death essence in his body would also drastically increase, but it would seem that he would have no choice.

Adam pulled his sword free as the three commanders started to retreat after ordering their ghouls to attack Adam. They hoped to hold Adam up until the other commanders came to to help deal with him. As the three retreated, Adam pointed his finger at them and they became scared witless. One of the commanders even started waving his sword behind him, not knowing whether it would help or not. It was this particular commander that Adam decided to target first. The thread of death essence stretched out to the commander, but then something startling happened! Adam did not think that the sword the commander was waving behind him would do anything, but it did! Adam quickly realized what was going on. The sword was spiritually enhanced and was full of concentrated death essence. Even if both the sword and the thread were made of death essence, the sword was wildly flailing around and if it touched the thread Adam was casting out, it would actually effect it! This was the first time Adam had even encountered such as situation. Adam immediately changed his target to one of the other commanders and quickly succeed in pulling that commanders soul out. However, the commanders had noticed when Adam moved his finger from pointing at the commander waving his sword around to the one that fell just a second ago. Hope sprang up as they thought that waving the sword around did indeed somehow work! Adam realized his situation was getting worse as these commanders just figured out a way to counter Adam's soul technique! However... they could only wave the sword around so far. Adam pointed at the commanders again and they confidently started waving their swords around in hopes of stopping whatever it was that Adam was doing. Instead of directly sending the thread of death essence at the commanders, Adam actually sent the thread way over their heads before making it snake around to their backs! The commander Adam had originally pointed at earlier suddenly fell down dead, as Adam gave a yank with his finger. Fear once again overcame the last of the three commanders as he continued to flee back to the horde. However, it was too late! Adam had already cast out a thread to this commander too and pulled his soul out before he could reach the safety of the horde!

Adam was already feeling exhausted from using the soul technique six times in a row, yet there were still seven commanders to kill! Adam tried to shake the exhaustion off as he sent threads of death essence out the ghouls around him. All the ghouls in the central area had pretty much been under the control of the six commanders Adam had already killed. Now that they were leaderless, they were the perfect material for Adam to use to build up a small defense before the other commanders arrived. With the another horde to cover Adam's movements, he might be able to kill the other seven commanders in the manner he normally would by sneaking up to them. Otherwise, Adam feared he would collapse before he killed the rest of the commanders, if he had to keep using the soul technique.

The seven commanders finally appeared in the area just twenty seconds later. It was enough time for Adam to prepare a meager defense with the ghouls around him. The seven commanders stared on in shock at the scene before them. They could see the bodies of the three commanders that tried to retreat and knew that Private Dullard was already dead, in addition to the two commanders that served by Dullard's side. Just what kind of strength did this assassin have to kill these six commanders in such a short amount of time? Not only that, he had already begun to take control of many of the ghouls that were now leaderless.

On of the commanders said: “Was that small horde just a distraction!? This assassin must be a ranked commander, there is no way we will be able to kill him! Should we run away?”

Another commander retorted: “Are you an idiot? Captain Jira will come looking for us to get some answers. When he finds out we let an assassin in our midst and simply ran from him, Captain Jira will kill us on the spot! We have to fight the assassin and hope we get lucky!”

Just as this commander finished talking, he suddenly keeled over dead! The other seven stared dumbstruck. Adam could hear what they were saying and hoped by using his soul technique to kill one of them in this way would scare them witless. It worked!

The faces of the commanders all turned an even more deathly pale than normal. With shocked and scared expressions they quickly looked between the horde Adam had erected as a defense around himself and the commander he had just killed with the soul technique. They could only force out a few garbled words: “He... How... This can't...”

Immediately, one commander ignored the threat of Captain Jira coming in the future and started to run. He was then followed by another commander before the rest suddenly bolted too! They feared that the assassin that killed Private Dullard and the others was as strong, or even stronger than, Captain Jira. Rather than seeking death now, they decided to live a little longer by running and hoping that Captain Jira takes his sweet time in finding them.

Adam barely held himself together as he watched the commanders flee. He really did not think that this seventh soul technique would put him on the brink of collapsing, but he was just about to. He watched to make sure the commanders were truly running away before he ordered the horde of ghouls to protect him no matter what! Just after Adam gave this command, he fell face forward as he passed out.

An unknown amount of time later, Adam started to groan as he propped himself up from the ashen sand. He felt thoroughly exhausted. Adam felt tired all the way into his bones, he hadn't felt this way since he first started training with the sword. Adam slowly took in the surroundings around him. He was still surrounded by his horde of ghouls and it didn't seem like there were any attacks while he was out cold. Adam examined the condition of his body and became dismayed. Due to using the soul technique seven times in a row, the death essence in his body had rapidly advanced. It was equivalent to a few years of time if the death essence had progressed on its own! The corrupted death essence reached up to his left shoulder and right hip and even a little beyond! Adam controlled his breathing and began to use the wind formation to try and push some of the death essence out. After a few hours, Adam was able to push the death essence back a little over five centimeters before it would not recede anymore. Adam then stiffly got up. Adam had to leave this area before this Captain Jira appeared. Adam had wanted to leave as soon as he woke up, but Adam feared that if he waited to long to push the death essence out of his body he would not even be able to push it back as far as he had.

Adam fished the spirit compass out to get a bearing on which direction he should head. When Adam looked at the spirit compass, he became terrified! There was another large horde nearby! While it could be the horde of the six commanders that fled, it was Adam's deepest fear that this was Captain Jira! Adam exclaimed to himself: “Just how long have I been out!?”

Adam immediately started to march his horde in the opposite direction, trying to get away as fast as he could. For the next few hours, Adam marched his horde at top speed while constantly glancing at the spirit compass. It seemed his fears were coming true! The large horde on the compass was coming closer and closer! Adam didn't know how they were moving faster than he was, but they were definitely going to catch up to him! Adam started to run a bunch of scenarios through his mind. He was trying to figure out any way out of his current predicament, as well as coming up with some plans if he was forced to fight. Eventually, Adam stopped marching his horde to get some rest. The horde following them was going to catch up to him one way or the other, so he thought it was best to get some rest before they confronted one another.

An hour later, Adam could already hear the clamor of the giant Horde headed in his direction. This horde... Adam could not see the end of! There were too many commanders for Adam to keep an accurate count and he was certain they were all incredibly strong! This was far worse than Adam had even imagined. A shocking figure lead the horde at the front. The shape resembled a man, but it was a full three meters tall! This hulk of a man was covered in large profane looking black armor and even had horns sprouting from his head! In addition, death essence swirled around the man almost as if the man was in control of it! Two words came to Adam's mind: “Demonic beast!”

Adam didn't quite understand, since humans who were corrupted became ghouls or commanders. What was this man with horns? Adam had never heard of a commander like this. The man shouted in a booming voice: “You must be the whelp that killed Dullard. Are you prepared for your death!?”

Adam knew that this man be Captain Jira! Even though Adam was frightened by Jira and his horde, he decided to try the first plan in his mind; to see if he could scare them! Adam tried to make his voice loud and to be heard even in the other horde, but it was like a whisper compared to the booming voice before: “I was out traveling for fun and your Private Dullard attacked me when I wanted to use the rift! If I was with my true horde, your own would seem like an ant! If you truly try to kill me over this, you will find yourself hunted just like you have tried to hunt me!”

Captain Jira simply laughed: “Hahaha! You think you can scare me like you did those six weaklings who fled? In your dreams! I think that you used up all your strength to kill off Dullard and his followers. That's why you only started to move recently! I think you still haven't recovered that mysterious strength used to kill a commander instantly! Even if you did, you over looked something vital. Dullard became a commander by being corrupted by my own blood, he is like a son to me! So guess what, I am going to come over to you and I will tear you apart with my own two hands!”

Captain Jira started running full tilt towards Adam's horde! The rest of Jira's horde stayed behind, but that didn't really give Adam a lot of relief. Jira could probably be considered an army by himself! Adam ordered his ghouls to attack Jira while he prepared to use the soul technique. Adam was still fairly exhausted from using the soul technique seven times and didn't know if he would collapse again after using the technique once or twice, but Adam knew there was no way he could defeat Jira in close quarters. The ghouls were like paper to Jira as he blew right through them. Any ghoul that got in his way was thrown back with a great force as many of the bones in their bodies broke, as well as their vital organs, were crushed! Jira did not even give the ghouls a glance as he gazed at Adam with hatred in his eyes. Adam was quite frightened by all this, but still managed to cast his soul technique out. However, the swirling death essence around Jira acted as a defense against this! It was just like when the commander had been wildly waving his sword and blocked Adam's technique. This time however, Jira's defense did not have an exposed side! Adam felt a wave of exhaustion from using the soul technique, even though it didn't work.

Distracted by the sudden exhaustion, Adam suddenly realized that Jira was only a meter from him as Jira brought his giant hands up to smash down on Adam! Jira had an evil grin on his face as he had seen the exhausted and horrified face Adam gave when he realized the soul technique would not work. Jira didn't know what it was that Adam was trying to do, but knew that it was not working. Jira had complete confidence in his assertion that Adam could not use the technique. As Jira brought his hands down, Adam barely managed to use the wind formation to instantly speed himself up and dodge the attack! As he was dodging, Adam noticed that Jira had been pouring all the death essence swirling around him into his fists, this actually opened up a gap that Adam could exploit with the soul technique! However, before Adam could try to use the technique again, the death essence Jira had poured into his fists exploded into the ground! The resulting shock threw Adam backwards onto the sand! Adam didn't have time to get up before Jira was before him again with raised fists! Time seemed to slow down for Adam in this extreme life or death moment. Adam cast out the soul technique as fast as he could while he aimed at a gap in Jira's defense. The thread quickly found its way around Jira's true soul! However, Adam suddenly started to hear the incessant chatter that meant the spirit that had been following Adam was back! Adam desperately thought: “Not now!”

Adam had yet to pull Jira's soul out and those giant fists were still crashing down. If the spirit interrupted now, Adam was sure he would die! As Adam resisted from passing out due to the incessant chatter, he prepared to yank out Jira's soul! Suddenly, though, Adam felt as though a cool thread entered his mind and coiled around him. Adam became deathly startled as he realized that the spirit was casting the soul technique on Adam! Adam could only shout in his mind: “WHAT THE HELL IS THIS SPIRIT DOING!?”

Even as Adam yanked on Jira's soul, the spirit yanked on Adam's own! Adam suddenly found himself victim of a tug of war. However, with the way it was, Adam's soul was still going to be easily pulled out as he was only holding onto Jira's soul and not his own! Adam quickly sent out the threads of death essence that he would normally use to control ghouls to pass through his body and his very own soul! It was almost like he was trying to sow his soul into his own body! Adam had to tenaciously pull at Jira's soul as well as hold his own soul down. If he failed on either of these fronts, Adam would surely die!

Adam was feeling a lot of pain from being pulled in all these direction. With his concentration on the various threads of death essence, he could no longer tell what was really going on. The only thing he could do was to struggle as he tried to survive. Adam felt an oppressive pain, followed by one of the three sides suddenly becoming loose! Adam continued to pull on both his soul and Jira's soul with all his might, disregarding any of what just happened. Finally another side came loose as Adam's soul was pulled in the last direction.

At this point, Adam couldn't even think. Even still, he tenaciously clung to his soul in his effort to survive and finally get home. He pulled all the colorful bits of his soul that represented various types of spirit essence and made up the part of his soul that he wished to protect from being corrupted by death essence. He held all this close as if to shelter it. These colorful bits of spirit essence made sounds that Adam could hear, forming a light lilting song that sounded as if it was played by a flute. This song represented Adam. Next to Adam, he could hear a dark and gruff song that was unfamiliar to Adam. There was also that dissonant and eerie song of control and death that tried to pervade through everything. Only these three songs existed in Adam's current world. Adam's own song was weaker than the other two and all he could do was to huddle with his soul and keep it from being effected by the two other songs.