Blood Queen Reborn

Chapter 105: Arrival

The dalki had its grip around Amy’s head, tear drops falling from her face.

"No— I don’t— I don’t want to die—" She sobbed.

Her hand reached out to Pierogi, as they were helpless to stop the dalki’s grip tightening.

"Please—! We were— We were supposed to reach the top—!" Amy wailed, before her skull was crushed, blood and bone splattering everywhere.

Pierogi’s throat clenched seeing their close friend, Amy Yellop, killed right in front of them, and then screamed.

"DIE YOU GREEN FREAK—!"

Pierogi’s clones charged, but the dalki, using Amy’s corpse as a makeshift weapon, smashed it into the 3 Pierogi’s. Two of them poofed away, while the third real Pierogi crashed onto the ground.

Jerry picked up the shield once more, and ran up to the dalki, repeatedly slamming it onto the dalki’s back, but the dalki simply backhanded the boy’s head, causing it to rip clean off. Too fast for the naked eye to process in time.

Pierogi forced their body to make another clone, desperate to push past their natural limit. Just as another was made, the dalki just threw a fist through its head, killing it immediately.

Pierogi fell to the floor in pain. Their consciousness was in that clone, and they felt it die. Still, they continued to make more clones, wildly crawling away.

In an effort to survive, Pierogi was constantly forcing their body to make more clones, but the dalki slowly walked up to the doppelgangers, stomping on them. As Pierogi kept making clones too fast, each one became more and more damaged than the last. After killing them off, one by one, all that was left was the last real one.

He picked Pierogi up by the head, their sobbing mess of a face caused the dalki to open his wide mouth into a smile, revealing spiked teeth.

"Well... even though you guys weren’t strong enough to bring out my second spike, it was fun playing with you."

With that, the dalki crushed their head, before shifting their corpse under his arm. Now that the ’threats’ were dealt with, the dalki looked around the camp freely.

"Hmm, they put up a fight. That whip one especially, but there was a 4th member... Where did he go?"

The dalki casually walked over the corpses, and casually left the ravine, taking his sweet time.

—

After a few hours of travel, Quinn, Fex and Peter had all finally arrived at the old well.

The abandoned well had a giant machine at the center of it that was meant to be used to bore a deep hole underground. In the past, it was most likely used to draw water from below, but now, it was rusted, and missing many of its crucial pieces.

Surrounding it were two old small buildings, similarly just as old. They were each only a single room large. One of the buildings was half destroyed, only having two of its walls left, while the other was a bit less destroyed as it still held 4 walls and a roof. As the group entered the less destroyed building, they saw that there were old wooden bed frames all in different states of disrepair.

They collectively agreed to take a break, and sat down their things on one of the less ruined bed frames. Since Quinn and Peter were both human, and didn’t have the same stat boosting gear that Layla and Erin had, they got more tired from carrying their gear.

"Quinn... Can you hand me a water...?" Peter slowly panted, his eyes closed.

Peter was on the floor laying against the wall, so Quin grabbed another water bottle from his backpack, and handed it over to him. Similarly, Quinn took out his own water, and sat down on one of the wooden bed frames.

While the other two boys were re-hydrating, Fex began looking outside one of the windows, trying to see if he could spot Erin and Layla.

"Hmm, I don’t see them. Think they might’ve headed back by now?" Fex commented.

"I don’t know, it’s hard to say," Quinn replied after taking in a huge gulp.

Fex crossed his arms, and slid down the wall, "Man, if only we could just... message them or something."

"What about the communicators?" Peter said, holding up his watch.

"Yeah, uh, don’t you think I would’ve tried that?" Fex shot back, "Besides that was one of the first things that teacher guy told us wouldn’t work. I mean, you’d think you’d remember something so simple."

"I think he gets it, Fex," Quinn interrupted, "Let’s just rest up, then search for them later."

"Fine," Fex sighed, then got on one of the only other unbroken wooden bed frames, and prepared to lay down for a map.

While they were planning on searching for them in a bit, Peter did bring up a good point of messaging them. Even though their communicators didn’t work off planet, Quinn and Erin had a chat system.

{Quinn} Are you willing to tell me where you have gone now?

{Quinn} ...

{Quinn} Look, I know that you’re with Layla.

{Quinn} If you need our help, then just know we’re at the old well you mentioned before.

If Erin was going to continue to give Quinn the silent treatment, then he realized she needed a reason other than to talk to him. It was a simple guess that she would at least do so for Layla.

{Erin} You’re at the well? Good. Stay there.

{Erin} I’ll be there soon.

Quinn quietly groaned, but got himself in a more relaxed position. He still didn’t know where Erin was, but she was at least willing to reunite with them, and that gave him enough reason to take a break, at least for a little while. He took off his outer coat, and rolled it up into a pillow before laying down.

’When she comes back, I’m going to have a serious conversation with her,’ Quinn thought, before closing his eyes.

—

In the middle of the desert, Erin and Layla were on their way to the well. Erin had her shadow roof above her head, and a bag full of crystals on her back. Despite only having enough MC to reach the old well, Erin seemed a little pleased with herself, or so Layla believed. It wasn’t enough for her to smile, but enough for the air around her to be calm.

This had also meant that Erin was power walking through the desert, which Layla was finding hard to keep up with.

"Hey, slow down!" Layla called out, "You’re too fast for me!"

"Come on, we’re not too far off," Erin replied, turning her head as she did.

However, when she looked behind her, Erin saw a plume of smoke in the distance. Layla turned her head to follow what Erin was seeing, and thought the smoke was strange. freёwebnoѵel.com

’Huh, why is there smoke in the desert? There aren’t a lot of things to catch on fire here,’ Layla thought, ’Maybe it was an ability? Or that one girl’s whip.’

Despite seeing the strange smoke, Erin continued walking towards the well. Layla was about to do the same thing when she suddenly saw something dark blue and long spinning in the air.

"What is that?" Layla wondered out loud.

"It’s probably someone’s ability," Erin replied, "Now come on, let’s get moving."

The strange object was quite small appearing in the distance, but Layla could tell it was coming their way.

’I’ll just use my ability to catch it,’ Layla thought, then held her hands out to concentrate.

Seeing as it only going to take a moment to do, Layla stood her ground, focusing on the strange object. She had used up a good portion of her MC that day, but she still had enough to use her ability to try to catch it in the air.

When she did, the object began to slow down, no longer spinning at high speeds. However, as she brought it closer, only a few meters away from their location, Layla recognized what it was.

"That’s... It’s an arm—" Layla’s voice shivered, dropping it midair.

"Someone likely lost it in a fight with a beast," Erin dryly commented, before continuing her walk.

"Erin, this is serious! If a beast did that, then we have to get out of here!" Layla frantically said, "I don’t think we would have the MC, or even the gear to take on something that strong."

"The highest tier beast here is intermediate. We can handle it," Erin shot back.

Layla was about to retort when another object had come flying in their direction, and they both heard a thud sound not too far from where they were.

Slowly, they both turned their heads towards the severed leg, a small pool of red blood forming at the end.

"Erin— Look— We’ve been through a lot together but—" Layla stammered, pushing her roommate, still staring at the limb, "We have to go!"

Despite Layla practically shoving her, Erin was surprisingly still, except for the fact that she was shivering.

"Erin? What’s—?" Layla was about to ask when her eyes wandered up from the leg, onto a figure in the distance.

Layla couldn’t see the figure clearly, but she could tell from its silhouette that it had a tail swaying behind it, and it was very tall, far taller than her, or even Erin.

"Is that...?" Layla hesitantly asked, squinting her eyes.

Erin’s whole body shook, letting go of the bag of beast crystals. It fell to the floor with a thud, and she clutched her arms tightly, as if it was cold despite the desert heat.

"M—mommy... save me..." Erin whispered, tears welling up in her eyes.