Free Web NovelChapter 29: Fighting Together (3)
In school, he was surrounded by countless classmates. They trained together, won competitions together. But once, he refused a dirty job secretly given by Cass, because the job involved a child’s life. He didn’t obey and even caused trouble. Since then, the relationship between Cass and him completely broke down. The friends around him soon left for various reasons.
When he was at the North outpost, even though the environment was bad, he was happier than in the alpha academy. Soon, he had a group of close friends again. But for a cruel reason, those people were gone quickly, all dying in front of him.
"It doesn’t seem too bad now, does it?" Ren thought, laughing sarcastically, "At least no one is stopping me now."
No one would hold his hand anymore, call him captain, and prevent him from recklessly dying. No one would turn red with worry and disagree with him pouring revulsant on his head. Now a lone soul, he finally had the freedom to choose his death.
Ren opened the cap of the revulsant with one hand.
Just as he was about to soak himself in the liquid, something cold slithered up, wrapped around his arm, crawled over his wrist, and plopped onto his hand.
The familiar touch startled Ren, making half his body feel numb.
The little tendril on his hand didn’t look as wet and full as usual. It seemed tired, panting hard. It used its tiny, moist sucker to pinch Ren’s skin.
A mental message passed through his skin.
"Drop it," the tendril said in a grumpy voice.
Ren was not used to being told what to do in such a dangerous situation. He was a lone wolf, doing what he wanted when it mattered.
The tired little tendril lifted its body impatiently and hit Ren’s strong hand. It didn’t really hurt, the mental projection of beta wasn’t very strong physically. Yet, for some reason, Ren felt as if a whip mark had been left there, a burning feeling spread out quickly and clearly. His hand, which was steady enough to handle heavy weapons, was strangely loosened by the impact. The small bottle fell from his hand, opened, and fell from the sky.
The liquid spilled in the air, its power useless unless spread on a living thing.
As Ren watched the falling liquid, he turned around in confusion. Behind him, at the back of the blimp, Kestrel had found a ladder somewhere and had just climbed up from a broken hole, panting hard. The wind was strong on top of the blimp. She struggled to hold on to a handle there, peeking her head out.
"You come back," she said.
"Come back."
"Hurry."
"Don’t be shy."
"Listen."
"I’m tired."
"Let me give you a rub."
Several voices communicated with Ren’s mind at the same time.
In the middle of it were some confused sounds.
On the huge orca tail, several unidentified tendrils had somehow climbed up. The tired tendrils hung on the smooth whale tail, as if trying to get some energy from their favorite toy.
So, the orca, Ren’s psychic incarnation, started to shyly turn its head and wag its tail to follow the blimp, ignoring its master’s will.
Ren started to wonder if he was going crazy. He felt that maybe he had already turned into a mutant, living in a world of mental chaos without knowing it. Otherwise, there were no explanation for this sense of uncontrollable...happiness deep down inside him.
This was a battlefield, however; the danger wouldn’t go away just because of an emotional change. freēwēbηovel.c૦m
The first group of approaching mutant heads had turned their mouths into long spear-like things. They weren’t acting on their own anymore. Instead, they lined up in the air in a well-organized way, charging down one after another, helping each other, determined to stab the lone man and orca that were on the ship’s tail.
It was as if someone was controlling the dark mutant horde, letting them know that once they took down this new powerful force, the remaining soldiers on the blimp would be easy to handle.
Ren took his short dagger from his belt. The blade slid across his hand smoothly, and a line of red appeared, trailing in the wind. His own blood stained silver blade, causing a weird laughing sound to come from the dagger’s handle. The blood-soaked blade shifted and finally turned into a longer, oddly red sword.
Ren held up his sword, took a deep breath, and lunged at the crowd of mutant heads. As he jumped into the air, he felt like he’d seen the moon.
The dull, yellow background of the sky faded for a moment as a silver, silent, and mysterious moon appeared, hanging quietly in the night sky. Then, the cold moonlight spilled, lighting up all the creatures below.
Ren realized he was seeing someone’s psychic landscape, but he had no idea who had unleashed such a huge mental power.
"Something’s strange about this battle." Ren found that his sword was moving a lot faster. But then, he realized it wasn’t the sword that had sped up, the monsters’ movements had slowed down.
Ren landed back on the whale, his sword ready. A large group of mutant heads was cut into pieces, falling like rain. Kestrel’s tendrils quickly pulled themselves back from the shadows, weakly coming back with Ren to the huge body of the orca.
"Speed up, Little Fish."
"I’m about to fall apart."
"I need a rest."
"Move over, let me rest a bit, need to recharge."
"Could it be her? Is she helping me? Yes, she’s behind me, watching everything, controlling everything, fighting next to me," A lot of thoughts ran through Ren’s mind. He felt like he was on his own turf. The wind in the sky, the mysterious moon, the tendrils hiding in the shadows, and the person standing behind him, silently watching him, all fighting with him.
He was supposed to be alone, but he felt like he was back in the old days, with buddies around him, teammates behind him.
When he first saw Kestrel in the chaotic blimp, her face pale with sweat and blood, Ren felt a sharp pain.
"No matter what, I’m here now, I have to save her," he thought.
Kestrel, however, keep asking him back and wanted to fight with him.
Ren stood on the orca, feeling the presence of the person behind him without having to look back. She was quiet, calm, standing firmly next to him.
A warmth started in Ren’s heart, warming up a part that had gone completely cold. Just a few days ago, they were fighting a bloody fight in his psychic land scape. He never thought that she would stand next to him, and they would work so well together.
Ren got ready to fight again. The afterglow of his red sword crossed in the air. The huge orca followed closely, front and back. Large parts of black cloud broke apart, falling like rain. freeweɓnovel.cøm
Kestrel hung onto the back of the ship, watching Ren and the whale in the middle of the mutants. They were getting close to the portal, and the mutants were getting more and more frantic, charging forward in waves. But Kestrel felt different now, no longer feeling the annoying feeling of held back energy she had before.
The battle was full of danger, like walking without shoes on a knife’s edge. Kestrel knew that any tiny slip-up could mean Ren’s violent death right in front of her. Then, all of them, her and her classmates, would be eaten by the monsters, swallowed up on the final stretch of road leading to the exit.
"But we make a good team, as long as we don’t mess up, we won’t have to die," Kestrel thought. The thrill of danger woke up her numb heart. Working with such a strong alpha, she was growing fast, eagerly absorbing battle know-how like a sponge.
Fighting was thrilling and made her blood race.
Their teamwork was flawless and getting better all the time.
Working with someone this strong let Kestrel’s psychic power come out smoothly and freely. She found she was slowly learning how to control the whole battlefield, using less psychic power.
Kestrel found that the alpha in front of him had a powerful body and incredible fighting skills. Most importantly, he could keep up with every little shift in her mental state. It was like they were swimming in the sea together, not needing words, each feeling the other’s small thoughts through the waves. He could feel and act with powerful skill, as if he could read her mind.
Ren turned his head towards her. Kestrel gestured at him, pointing down, a tactical signal she had seen in Ren’s memory. Ren and his soldiers used this gesture on the battlefield for communication, she learned it secretly and now used it in this battlefield, just like his soldier.
Ren laughed out loud, jumping off the back of the orca.
The mutants had a leader, and Kestrel’s gesture told him it was hiding directly below. Without hesitation, Ren jumped down from the back of the whale, a blood-red long sword quickly crossed the air.
The orange-red sunlight covered his strong body, his wild laugh hanging in the sunset. An endless line of monsters flew from the phantom in the sky, pouncing on the hot flesh they wanted.
Nobody noticed that, at this moment, there was a particularly big mutant, with half its head destroyed, hiding far below the black clouds where the monsters gathered.
It was the mutant with the face of a middle-aged man who had tried to ambush Kestrel several times and failed. Right now, that monster was hiding in the safest spot below, the only eye left on its puffed-up face spinning, full of hatred.
It felt hungry, its damaged body making it even hungrier. The hunger was so bad that in its foggy mind, there was always a strong desire and pain. It wanted to rip those humans apart, get inside them, drain the hot blood from their bodies to ease its never-ending pain.
It sent all its simple-minded buddies, wave after wave, to charge forward.
Just then, a long sword, dripping with blood, dropped from the sky. Using the force of the fall, the sword drove straight into the monster’s skull. Ren held the sword with both hands, mixing it into the smashed brain beneath his feet. The blade glowed red, cutting the sturdy creature to pieces.
The mutant’s busted eye fell down. As the world turned upside down, it stared at the gloomy sky.
Weirdly, it didn’t feel any more pain. Looking at the ghostly city in the sky, the tiny, twinkling lights felt strangely familiar. It almost felt like home.
...
After the giant mutant fell to pieces, other mutants lost their leader and scattered. Even though some still chased the blimp, they lacked teamwork and weren’t a threat anymore.
Ren held the sword that had split the giant skull, falling backwards. After the exciting battle, his heart pounded in his chest, and his cold blood started to warm again, almost making him want to laugh out loud.
As he fell, he spotted a small head poking out of the blimp’s tail. He smiled at the person, who was also looking at him from above.
"What a great person she is. How cool it would be if I could always be the one standing by her side," thought Ren.
Just then, a orca swooped down from the sky, catching Ren as he fell. The feeling of weightlessness disappeared as Ren landed on the whale’s back, his floating heart settling back down. Ren closed his eyes for a second, forcing a sarcastic smile. He thought to himself bitterly, "She saved your life and helped you. Are you seriously thinking of dragging her into you life of hell?"
The orange-red sun hung in the sky, and the leftovers from the battle floated everywhere, like pieces of an exciting dream. The whale carried Ren upwards, towards the real world. He watched Kestrel’s fair and bright face as he quickly hid his fired-up battle spirit, his racing heart, and his mixed-up feelings of shyness and wanting deep inside himself, not willing to show even a trace of them.
