The guards jumped up, shock on their faces. One, a young woman with a short pigtail, immediately began channeling into her gauntlet. Solera rose to his feet as well, his eyes narrowed. Were the hyenas wild animals or spirits? If they were monsters, were they wild monsters, or was this an orchestrated attack by summoners?

“Get moving! Now!” One of the guards barked at the prisoners. Their group was unceremoniously herded onto the mountain trail which held the other prisoners. As Solera hurried forward alongside Lem, he could hear the baying of the hyenas growing louder.

A young man near a bit further ahead of Solera tripped on a rock and fell. He was kicked by the leading guard. “Hurry the fuck up! Do you want to die?”

The young man got up, wordlessly shaking his head.

“Yeah, well, me neither!” The guard shouted. “Get your ass moving!”

The hyena cries were right above them now, where the mountain flattened out and became a mesa, accompanied by shouts, screams, and the sounds of what Solera supposed were gauntlets discharging. Solera ascended up the mountain face, his eyes dark. How would he, or any of the prisoners, be able to fight off a pack of hyenas, be they monsters or animals, with no weapons?

Weren’t they just going to be used as meat shields for the Tornado Sect channelers?

Solera’s fears were confirmed when he found himself at a flat ridge in the mountain where the others had gathered. There were three large groups of white-robed channelers to Solera’s left forming a wedge formation against the oncoming hyena horde to his right, each group split into two rows, one standing, one kneeling. The kneeling row was shooting out a continuous flamestream to screen away the hyenas, whereas the standing row shot out a variety of projectiles, among them flying darts and wind blades.

This would’ve been great if the prisoners were arranged in haphazard rows diagonally forwards to the white-robed channelers. Rather than charge through the inferno of death to the channelers, the hyenas were lunging at the blue-robed figures!

Upon seeing Solera’s group appear at the edge of the ridge, a stream of hyenas broke off from the main group. The guard who had kicked the youth raised his gauntlet up, blasting out a rapid series of projectiles at the nearest hyena. The blurs shot into one of the beasts and splattered into liquid which began to dissolve the hyena’s fur into sludge.

With a pained yelp, the hyena frantically shook itself in a mad effort to flick off the deadly liquid. A drop landed on Solera’s robe, burning straight through to his leg.

He didn’t pay any attention to it, though, because a hyena was leaping straight at Lem. Solera delivered a savage frontal kick towards the hyena’s body, but it had still latched its jaw around Lem’s arm. Lem screamed, shaking his arm and the hyena around.

Before he even knew what he was doing, Solera’s hands had clamped around the hyena’s neck, squeezing it up against the head to force the jaw to loosen. With some effort, he wrenched the kicking, struggling hyena off Lem and fell onto his butt. Its claws scratched at his robes, tearing long strips off of him and leaving cuts of varied depth all along his abdomen.

“AHHhh!” With his hands firmly gripping the squirming beast’s head and neck, Solera rolled over and pressed the thing’s face into the ground as hard as he could. He got to his knees, lifting the snapping, spitting hyena up above his head and smashed its head across the stony ground. Its whole body trembled, but Solera didn’t stop. With one hand holding down the neck, his fist chopped down on its skull.

Bam!

The bottom of his fist went numb from the impact. Cursing in his heart, Solera lifted the dazed hyena back into the air and brought it down again. This time, he heard a crunching sound emanating from the monster’s skull.

Solera knelt there, his heart thumping furiously. The hyena lay limply on the ground, its body caked with blood and dust. His forearms were crisscrossed with long, bloody scratches from the hyena’s claws. Lem was next to him, cradling his ragged arm. Hyenas were everywhere, and the formations had utterly broken down into a chaotic melee. Solera could see Rasmurnov, a helmet on, standing calmly with five channelers surrounding him and blasting out crackling red bursts of light. Flames were everywhere. The trees and grass on the mountain slope were burning, and rocks were tumbling down from higher up.

A rock lay amongst scree at his feet. Solera picked it up as he got back on his feet, his eyes slowly swept across the battlefield. The fight with the savage hyenas was still raging. On the far side of the ridge, next to the mountain slope, a group of channelers were scything through the hyenas, leaving only charred corpses behind them. Even though these bodies were those of wolves, Solera still felt cold sweat on his back. The faces of Merlot and Savi swam back up into his mind. The burning fires, the charred smells, it all reminded him too much of Fortress Hickory.

Blue robes. So many blue robes on the ground, They were tattered and torn, bloody and dirty. Screaming in pain or utterly silent. Men and women, old and young, nobody was spared from the savagery.

There was only one thing that kept Solera from being one of those blue robes.

Solera’s boot smashed into a snapping hyena, crushing its head into the mud. The moment his foot thudded against ground, his rock crushed a gaping hole in the hyena’s neck. The stone’s impact left deep cuts in Solera’s hands.

He wasn’t stronger than others. He wasn’t more experienced than others. The only difference between him and everyone else was that his technique, his balance, his very mentality had been sharpened for all his life to the point where everything was automatic. No hesitation. No wasting time. What Solera had, above everything else, in a fight, was his decisiveness.

A hyena lunged at him. His hands were above his head, both tightly gripping the rock. He swung it down like a hammer onto the hyena’s skull, twisting aside as he did. The hyena fell on the ground next to him. His boot pressed the hyena’s neck to the ground, and the rock descended again.

He had realized it when he reached out to help Lem. Be decisive. It was what had saved him from death by sword at Fortress Hickory, by rock at the Genbu battle, and by claw at the final siege. He had to be decisive. The more decisive he was, the more hyenas he could slay. The more hyenas he could slay, the less his fellow prisoners would die.

He had to be decisive.

“Lem, get behind everyone else.” Solera snarled. His hands were bloody from using the rock. His leg was screaming from the acid. Cuts were all across his forearms, his back, his torso. But at this moment, he was decisive.

Another hyena was dragging a dead body backwards, but let go as it saw Solera approach. Its beady eyes coldly sized him up like a cat would a mouse, a deep purr emanating from the depths of its throat.

It turned and fled.

Solera blinked. Everywhere, the hyenas were scampering back, leaving behind a ridge strewn with nearly a hundred striped corpses and a fair amount of motionless blue robes. What was going on? Had the hyenas decided to cut their losses and retreat?

“Bandit summoners.” Rasmurnov was using power to amplify his voice. “Do you understand who you are attacking right now?”

Solera looked up the mountain walls to its summit. Standing at the very top of this particular mountain, nearly five hundred meters above them, were three cloaked figures wearing featureless black masks.

One of them, a man with a deep voice, laughed. “We know exactly what we are doing.”

The figures backed away from the edge, which abruptly exploded into a shower of rock. They rolled down the mountain directly towards them, triggering more landslides as they descended.

“All of you, take cover.” Rasmurnov snarled, but Solera was already running. He jumped over the ridge and began running down the mountain face, his face pale. These bandits were creating an avalanche to crush them all!

Solera dropped under a rocky protrusion into the mountain trail below as the entire mountain trembled. Pebbles bounced onto the trail before continuing their roll down the mountain. Half a second later, a giant boulder rolled off the protrusion and flew into the air above Solera.

Solera looked down grimly. If that boulder had hit him, there would have been nothing left!

As the rocks thundered past, cracks spread along the protrusion which had shielded Solera. Cursing inside, he began crawling on all fours along the mountainside to a place with more cover. Pebbles pelted the top of his back, but larger rocks would still go over him. He hoped.

A howl sounded out from nearby, causing Solera to freeze up. The hyenas… the hyenas had not been running away! They had run here to kill off the survivors! Solera’s blood ran cold as he thought this. These bandits were just as ruthless as the Airborne of the United Duchies, if not more.

A hyena bounded out from around the bend in the trail. Its paws skidded across the floor as it saw Solera and changed direction to charge straight towards him.

Solera had dropped his rock at some point. Against the first hyena which was devoting all its attention to him, he had no choice but to use the verdant power in his Lake and overpower.

All his senses became sharper, clearer. Like a finely made blade. His mind, previously panicked and frantic, calmed down. Power surged out of his channels, burning his cultivation. His body was a vast forest burning itself into cinders. Yet his mind was a calm lake, its waters lapping gently at the shore. It was in total control of all of him.

The hyena dodged his swipe. Nimble and vicious, as it should be. A hyena with its attention undivided was fearsome indeed. But it was no match for him when he overpowered.

It went for Solera’s legs, so Solera pivoted his foot around and sent his other leg straight into the hyena’s body. It floated through the air and slammed into the mountain walls. Solera’s hand moved leisurely, yet it was touching the hyena before it could recover itself.

What was this change? The last time he had overpowered, it was on the ground against a tiger. Time had not slowed, nor had he calmed down at all. Was this the effects of a few days of a circulation mantra?

Perhaps. But more likely, it was because Solera had learned something. Learned that he had to be decisive. That he needed to clear his mind of all things extraneous and focus on what was right in front of him.

That as long as he did so, he was in control.

He was not faster than before, nor stronger than before. But his mentality had changed. And that meant everything changed.

His boot slammed into the hyena’s ribs and made a disgusting crunching sound. This hyena was no longer a monster. It was just an ant which would do his bidding. His heel lifted up into the air, then came down again. The hyena’s eyeballs bulged, then went blank. He had crushed its heart.

Too easy.

The sounds of the avalanche returned to the fore of his mind as he powered down, along with the smell of blood and the sight of death. When he had overpowered, he had heard, smelled, and seen far better than he did usually. But at the same time, his mind was focused on other things.

His reverie had shattered. The moment had ended. His channels screamed from the exertion of intentionally leaking out so much power. His Lake was empty of verdant power. He was exhausted, more than he ever had been before.

Jakovich walked out from around the bend, huge gashes in his leg and torso. He and Solera looked at each other for a moment.

Jakovich’s gauntlet began to glow.

Solera overpowered again. This time, the world did not slow. But the hyena was in his left hand, his feet were charging straight at Jakovich. They were fifteen meters from each other, not far, but not close at all.

Jakovich’s eyes were burning, just like Solera’s body. Burning with hatred. It had to be this way, Solera thought grimly. He had humiliated the kid too much. And kids will be kids. Ten meters.

Jakovich lifted his gauntlet up at Solera. It was ready to fire. Solera stared at the bottom of Jakovich’s palm, where the power was being gathered. Where whatever Jakovich was shooting would discharge. Eight meters.

Solera lifted the hyena up as a flash of light shot out from Jakovich’s gauntlet. The corpse thumped into his arm as it blocked the projectile Jakovich had shot, sending a liquid spraying all over his legs which caused the previous burning sensation to intensify and propagate. Seven meters.

Solera lobbed the hyena at Jakovich as he charged. Five meters.

Jakovich flinched and jumped aside as the hyena flew forward, fearful of getting into contact with the copious acid on its body. Two meters.

Solera tackled him to the ground. His elbow carved upwards into Jakovich’s jawbone and landed with a crunching sound. At the same time he crawled forward atop Jakovich’s body, the elbow retracted, only to raise into the air and come down again on Jakovich’s chest. Solera’s other hand formed into a claw which descended onto his face.

After a moment, he wrenched his fingers out of Jakovich’s eyes. His vision was dimming. His legs were burning. But Solera could not rest now. With heavy, pained pants, he got onto his knees and lifted Jakovich’s robe up to clean the acid off his legs. What used to be his flesh sloughed off as he wiped, leaving behind a multitude of shallow holes several millimeters deep. Crumble acid. Chip had used something similar back at Fortress Hickory, Solera thought faintly in the back of his mind. And he had only been hit by the splash. If he got hit by the full burst, his corpse would quickly have ceased to exist.

Solera looked down at Jakovich’s face. The kid was dead, his eyes destroyed, with scratch marks all over his cheeks and nose. Solera took several deep breaths.

He had to be decisive.

His palm smashed down at Jakovich’s nose. It came back up, and smashed down again. And again, and again, and again. His entire hand was bleeding from the cuts received by the rock, yet now it was doused in so much blood that the cuts could no longer be seen.

Jakovich’s face finally caved in. Solera looked at it emptily. He had seen similar things far too many times to feel anything now.

He rolled Jakovich’s body to the middle of the trail, lifting his head up for an instant to check for any large boulders heading his way. There were none. Taking another deep breath, Solera flung the body down the side of the mountain, where he could see it rolling and tumbling like a broken rag doll for several seconds before he turned away and crawled back to the mountain face.

He lay there, leaning against the wall, his face blank and his eyes dim. The sounds of the avalanche were fading away, no longer as loud as before. They sounded like raindrops hitting the branches outside the window of his room back at the Grove.

He really wanted to sleep.

Link to chapter 45

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