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Chapter Twenty-Six: War's End Part One
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2024-10-29 19:42:56Only two hours before dawn, I made a stealthy run through the empty street. At random times, I stopped to check if no one was tailing me. If that wasn’t enough, I leaped from one building to another before finally reaching the trolley station in the northern part of the Eastern District, still operating through the night as dozens of people came and went. At the ticket booth, all of my friends had gathered. It seemed that I was the last to arrive.
“Sam, it’s good that you came.” Katie was the first to notice me. “We can get out….” She and everyone gawked at something on my back.
Behind me, nine crates tied together in the shape of a bed frame with thick ropes as slings. I was carrying it like a backpack. It took me until midnight and eighty-nine chaffs to build this. I brought my entire belongings now that we were moving out of this city. Most of them were gifts from guilds that wanted to recruit me.
“It isn’t heavy, right?” Katie asked.
“A bit, but I
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After we went down the slopes, we were about to enter the town when five horsemen appeared before us. One of them came forward. He had the look of a sheriff from the Old West; his right chest had a gold shield badge engraved with a weighing scale. He must be a Libra member. “Greetings, Sheriff Earp,” Zeki said. “Mr. Zeki, howdy,” he greeted with a Texas accent. He then turned his piercing, steely eyes to us. “Where y’all headed?” “Rockflower,” Zeki answered. “I’ll be tagging along with their quest. Coupled with my guild’s business, you see.” “That’s a shame,” the sheriff explained, “all the roads to the north are still infested with dang outlaws. My advice is for y’all to wait until you gather up three caravans before departing.” “Much obliged, sheriff,” Zeki thanked. “Much obliged.” Once the Libra members departed, Wilt asked, “Are we going to wait for three caravans to gather like the sheriff said?”
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“It’s good to see you again, Sam.” Marseille smiled. I never thought we would meet each other for the second time. My friends had told me Marseille did attempt to help me back in the incident with the Jormungands. Although she tried, I was relieved that she was willing to help, even though we only knew each other for one night. “I hope you’re okay after that pee on the pants incident,” she said. Much to my embarrassment, I was glowing in red until my bones turned jelly that I slumped on my chair. “That was a fruit punch spilled on his pants, by the way,” Alex clarified. “Oh, I forgot Sam did say that. It happened so fast when he smashed through the main doors. You’re lucky the Boston Tea Party got door braves to fix them.” Now that Marseille mentioned it, my memory of that night came back to me. I did crash through the thick double doors to get away. “So, you two know each other?” Wilt said to Marseille and Raja. “Inde
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Unmoved and unsure of what the Jormungands would do to us. When the tracker took one step forward, Brock grabbed a nearby trashcan and threw it at his face, knocking him out on the ground. “Brock, what have you done?” Katie snapped as everyone’s jaws dropped from what just happened. “I-I, I panicked.” One of the Wolf Reigns snapped after a moment of dumbstruck, “What’ve you done to our lieutenant?” “Hey, isn’t that Commander Raja?” The Wolf Reign’s gazes fell on the former Jormungand commander. They were flabbergasted as to why he was with us. “It’s them, Commander.” Wilt pointed at them. “They’d been following us ever since we joined you.” Our leader took a bold move to confuse the Wolf Reigns further with a tall tale. “That’s impossible! There’s no way you joined the Jormungands!” “Didn’t you fight each other on that last par-tay?” Suddenly, three Wolf Reign members fell on the ground with arrows on their bac
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The three of us slowly and achingly rose on our feet. Ten armed braves approached us with nasty smiles. “We got ourselves a fine catch.” The voice came from a guy with a black tooth. “Isn’t that right, Captain?” A towering guy came forward with a rope in his hand. He was the one who lassoed us. What was worse, he was none other than Madhur the Maelstrom himself. “It’s that big blue guy,” Brock exclaimed, referring to Madhur’s Asura form. No wonder we didn’t find him in town. That meant they were all from the Jormungand Guild. I snapped the rope that bound us with ease while glaring at Madhur with my rage-filled gaze, though he was given me a stone face in return. “Never expected we would run-in with the Raid Breaker Party,” Blacktooth said. “We were waiting for a deserter in case he flees to Sweet Haven.” It must be their former Commander Raja that he was talking about. “But you, folks, would do just fine,” he cackled. “This is gonna be a bonu
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“Hmm, this is good.” I took another bite of a deathstalker meat. Earlier, several deathstalkers managed to get out before the mine shut, only to be killed by Green Bits’ arrows and rocks I threw. The Green Bits roasted one for today’s lunch while the rest were cut and preserved for our next meal. We were all in a clearing, eating beside the closed exit. This place was large enough for Brock to play his football match if it weren’t for the scattered tree stumps and ponds that got in the way. “Are you sure you don’t want some?” Miranda glanced at Brock, Katie, Marseille, her companions, and the Green Bit recruits. They were munching a different meal that didn’t have more than four legs. “Nah, we’re good.” Katie was grossed out at the giant scorpion roasting over the fire pit. “You sure?” Miranda had been coaxing them to try except for Raja and Li. “They were actually good. Tastes like chicken.” “Almost every meat we caught tasted like chicken,”
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Once our visions became clear to see the dark, we saw the thing that was dragging him. It was a leafless tree, smaller than the common ones here. However, its branches were alive, hundreds of them; vine-like, slithering, coiling on its own like snakes. I didn’t know what that thing was, but Brock was definitely in danger. I was about to leap to save him when dozens of them were coming at us. Plucking a thick branch off from a nearby tree to fashion myself a club, I swatted the vines away before any of them could touch us both. “Katie, stay back.” “What about you?” “Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I can handle this.” Reluctantly, Katie paced backward about eight steps and watched as six large vines were about to flank me. I lunged forward and rolled before they slammed into each other. Back to my feet, I twirled around, and with one downward swing of my club, the vines were smashed like smooshed pasta. The monstrous tree emitted a screeching s
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