Chapter 15: Aftermath

“Argh! I ... kill them I’LL ... Argh! Kill them!”

Inside a crater of over two kilometers in diameter, the formerly cloaked woman struggled in pain and ashen countenance on three limbs, as the left side of her torso was messed.

Caught off guard by the last mist attack, her clothes were mostly obliterated, leaving her half naked, bleeding nonstop and, now at the aftermath, striving to better her posture.

“Darvaj- Argh! Darvajka, help me, DARVAJKA!” Her communication device apparently broke in the fight. Mist energy amplifying her voice and rage suppressing the pain, she yelled and let loose a wave of flames that rose to the night sky.

“Where? Argh! Where, dammit, is it?!” Her vision was blurry. With her one working hand she searched her left hand and on the ground, to no avail. “Where is my ring?!” Although she could not find it, she was nonetheless relieved that she never loosened the grip on her scythe after being blown away.

“Cattelin!” A voice descended from above the crater, belonged to a cloaked humanoid figure.

“Darvajka, argh! Help me, I lost my ring!” Cattelin, the formerly cloaked woman, groaned.

“Tsk!” Darvajka, her counterpart, clucked his tongue. He removes the hood of his cloak off of his head, revealing a bald, bluish head with gills at his neck, slanted eyes and razor sharp teeth. “Wait”.

In a blink of an eye, Darvajka reached Cattelin’s side. With one arm supporting her, in the other he already hold and brought to her mouth a small pill.

“Let the pill’s medicinal properties do their job. I’ll bandage your injuries”. He said, forcing himself to stay calm.

After couple of minutes of rest, where the pill miraculously mended eighty percent of Cattelin’s internal injuries, she finally gathered enough energy to regain her sensibility and clean motor control on her body.

“I’ll give you my second pill to completely heal the damage in the left side of your body in twenty hours. By then, nothing from the first pill would remain in your system”. Darvajka said. Covering her with a cloak he retrieved from his spatial ring and helping her up.

“I know”. Cattelin murmured, no longer being a whimsy woman.

Gauging her condition, physically and mentally, and surveying the surrounding, Darvajka said in a cold tone. “What happened? I told you not to take risks until I return. How did you end up like this? And where is your ring?!”

Recalling all that happened, the shame of being struck so viciously by a weakling and now being berated by Darvajka, Cattelin’s temper heated up again. “I ... I ... I was careless”. She had to confess due to the importance of their task, and so she recited the chain of events.

Listening quietly until she finished speaking, Darvajka frowned, though it was hard to notice with him being hairless. “We must locate your ring. If you dropped it at the scene of the battle then the situation still might be salvageable. But if they picked it up...”

“I can go! Let’s head there this instant! And, Darvajka, I gave you time to break through the Martial Mortal realm in the midst of the task, you owe me! No matter what, that sly Musclehead and cowardly cat, you must find them for me”. She said, grinding her teeth in resentment. “I’ll butcher the both of them!”

...

First thing he experienced was at the instant of opening his eyes and staring at the earthly ceiling above his head, that is, a mind splitting headache.

His second odd experience was in his mouth, on his taste buds, a rusty flavor that was all too familiar, blood.

Moving was intolerable, but he could not stay laying, either. So he forced himself up, thereupon becoming aware of all the bandages wrapped around his body and the imbalance of missing his right arm up to the shoulder.

“You are awake!” A slight echo of a concerned voice traveled to Zax’s ears. A tall woman, apparently about his height, with an oval face, long red hair and green cat eyes rushed to his side.

“Shouva”, Zax recognized by the voice and the feline features on the human face, despite it being his first time seeing it.

Placing a hand on his back for him to lean on, in case he will lose the strength to stay up, was the most that Shouva felt herself capable of doing without letting shame resurface. Zax, to save her and her father, took upon him to safeguard their retreat against an opponent that now left him severely injured and even disabled.

Zax sensed the gloomy atmosphere, but his mind has yet become clear. Unlike Shouva, his injuries and lack of a right arm were nothing more than a temporary inconvenience. He had been through worse and healed. Physically, his sole problem at the moment was the absence of unripe Blood Red Grapes to nourish his vitality for fast recovery. He could tell that under the bandages his open wounds were patched and smeared with medicinal something, however that “something” did not seem to be of use to his needs.

By relying on his own healing abilities, for anything other than his right arm he will need a night or two of rest. To fully restore his arm ... less than two weeks, maybe, would suffice. But if he will proceed with the trials’ assignment and further exhaust himself ... a month, if he is lucky.

“Where are Fengar and Vouvik?” Zax asked.

He was not in the mood for reassuring Shouva that he is alright and that she should not blame herself. That much she will understand on her own, now that he exposed his true strength and there was one less secret to tell.

“Oh, that’s right! I’ll go tell them that you are up”. Shouva hastily said. She slowly released her hold of Zax’s back and went back up the torch lighted cavern that they were stationed in.

Moment later...

“Zax...” Fengar arrived with a complicated look on his face.

“Fortunately. I was afraid that our medicament would not affect your physique”. Vouvik followed after in his human form that shared resemblance to his daughter’s, although masculine. He was still taller than Zax by about a head and had two protrusions on his forehead.

“It wouldn’t”. Zax said straightforwardly. “Not much, at least, but thanks anyway”. There was no point in keeping pretense if the two could help him find a consumable source of vitality, like the unripe Blood Red Grapes, or something close enough.

Both grimaced, seemingly in anger and grief.

“Don’t, Zax, you mustn’t thank us”. Fengar said, discarding the “Greenhorn” label he used to call him with. He felt sufficient shame already. “If it weren’t for the risk you took, we will all probably have died. The opponent you fought ... she wasn’t a mere cultivator. As we assumed in Sifon tribe, the five powers are involved with the sudden murders and she was an agent of the Golden Desert Fort”.