< “May the odds be with me.” >

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{ Monday, January 1st, 1800. Planet Spirit. }

As the day breaks, close to the entrance of a fort that belongs to The Sunset Empire Ruins, an uncommon sight arises as the body of an injured young man lies on the cold infused ground.

The broken fort is to the east, a forest not far to the north and in the other directions plains for as far as one can see. This place that once represented the border of a grand capital, a place of prosperity and wealth, is now the border of a high-level danger zone, as the now broken Arrays that protected this region wreak havoc.

Although many conflicts occurred here due to the concentrated wealth of the Empire, it has been a long time since everything of higher value has been sucked dry from this place. By this point, this outside zone is generally very peaceful since no powerhouse wants to deal with the scar left on those lands, and only the poor or those seeking experience end up venturing around on this chaotic ruins searching for some leftovers and dreaming about obtaining some fateful lucky encounter.

In this historical memento zone, where an unconditional truce is in effect between all the powerhouses, seeing a conflict rise is not a sight one sees that often.

However, the young man in the ground clad in an elegant dark purple overcoat, clearly a level of luxury and details representing some powerhouse signature, sustains damage due to conflict with assassins. Determining such a conclusion from his bloodied state alone is hard, but anyone with a sharp insight would be able to identify that all his wounds are near places one seeks to end someone’s life.

Even though this is likely a case of an attempted assassination, crouching down at the victim’s side is a very old man dressed in plain dark gray clothes.

His puffy pants and long sleeve shirt, almost reaching his knees, gives off a screaming vibe of being a poor commoner. This person that looks too old to be in such a place, even when considered it’s a relatively safe zone, keeps poking all over the young man’s body while maintaining a stern face.

The morning cold breeze is making the forest leaves sing, but the morbid silence from the city ruins weights down upon everyone present.

However, the sound of the poking disturbs the eminent death atmosphere. From the head to the young man’s chest, his arms, and his legs. The poking continues for a dozen minutes. While the young man’s expression keeps changing from anger to pain to comfort, in a cycle that seems to have no end, the old man grows increasingly more pale and tired, as his deceased like face became even more unsightly.

[pop… pop… crack… snap… pop…] With an exquisite rhythm, the melody from the poking almost seem to be welcoming the sun.

“Old geezer, what the fuck are you doing?!” However, yelling is the first thing the young man do as he regains consciousness.

As he stops the poking, the old man’s expression changes into a weird looking smile, showing his slightly yellow teeth, or at least the ones that aren’t missing.

Despite the all sunny smile, because of how dark the area below his eyes is, how aged he looks and how pale his face and hands are, the elder doesn’t look at least one bit friendly.

He seems more like a man with a foot inside his grave, resulting in a horrifying scene.

“Meddling with something I shouldn’t, little boy.” Says the old man while keeping his smile like his life depends on it.

While the young man was preparing to continue yelling, his memories, from before passing out, come to his mind. He instantly grows pale, eating back his half-out words of annoyance towards this old man’s improper behavior. His shocked face soon turns into an angered expression but is then substituted with one of fear and hurry.

As he jumps to his feet, the young man pushes the old man to the ground without hesitation. He then runs towards the forest with everything he has left while keeping his distance from the broken long walls that connect the ruined fort and goes all the way around the city perimeter. Within such a hurry, he does not even take notice of his bloodied state anymore or the weird situation he came to when he woke up.

The young man’s speed was quite fast, that when the old man finally turned his head in the runaway direction, he couldn’t even see the guy anymore.

Laying back down, the old man groans.

“Mah old bones… Fucking hurts you piece of shit! Even using your inner energy for the push, such heartless bastard.”

Taking a deep breath, the old man unhappily thinks, ‘Should have let him die. He not only spared me no money or treasure but even treated me like some old perverted thief. Come on! Such an ungrateful bastard. I’m dying, sure, but no need to make it be today!’

While keeping cursing the young man’s attitude in his mind, having his weird smile gone, the old man with much effort gets up and slowly walks towards the fort ruins seeking a shadow to lay down. As he knew, that with his condition, he will in no way be getting anywhere else any time soon.

His worry about dying, due to the cold plains and the heat of the summer sun, gradually eats away the priority on his line of thinking. He gives up the cursing and focuses on getting somewhere with a cover and a floor, as that may define if he will live until tomorrow or not.

The sun slowly rising in the sky is by no way forgiving, so getting to shade before passing out is a must.

‘Ah, the flooring… Oh, heavenly place come here to papa Higgs!’

Ben Higgs is his name, but he may not get to use it again if he can’t find a way to deal with his crumbling old body.

‘Will I become a barbecue? Burned from both the cold from this ground and the heat from the sun!’

The cold plains are as dangerous as taking in the sun for a whole day.

The chilled energy that the ground emits is so unnatural, and even while not instantly lethal, exposition to such cold for many hours causes damage to accumulate to the point of no return.

‘A burn from some cold ground. Another from sun exposure. All kind burns! Hot and cold! All things balanced as everything should be.’

Ben stops taking notes of his surroundings and focuses on his legs. He slowly walks towards some unfounded hope. That, maybe, laying on the fort floor is better, and that every minute counts.

‘My mental bias on believing things will be balanced. Ugh! Why is such prejudice, from my time on Earth, still rooted inside my mind? I wanted to believe in the beautiful romanticism tho, but life is too […] fuck!’

‘Such a bad legacy. I will probably mostly burn first, and at night the burn and everything else will freeze, only partially melting the next day. Everything will be a cold mess, slowing even my body decomposition. No clean half/half or balance. Only a miserable cold death.’

‘To even consider that nature will accommodate some preconceptions is so naive, even if any magic is involved. I should have engraved it in my mind already that with the magic present, nature is even more unforgiving.’

‘This may be it tho, maybe I have lived enough, and fate has some chills to give to me. haha.’

His body didn’t want to answer his calls. He was maintaining his brain occupied, so he wouldn’t blackout. He was using the little skill he has to move his body around artificially. Playing puppet with his own body, he forcedly moves it away from the most imminent danger.

‘oh death, death, death, my old friend, will you win this time around?’

When Ben was getting closer to the main archway entrance, his eyes were already unfocused, and his walking became unnatural. In his blurry vision, a dirty and old cracked floor never looked for comfortable. ‘At least it’s not so unnaturally cold.’

However, at around two meters away, Ben senses get a shock. His blurred vision slightly focuses as he looks down at his chest. A black sword is going through where his heart should be. All his senses sharpen. He can smell the burning caused by the hot blade and can sense his system invaded by some foreign energy and substance.

All those changes are caused by the presence behind him, that he, by now, can faintly sense.

Ben feels his internals organs being attacked, but before he could plan anything similar to a counterattack the presence was already gone.

‘The blade… Why?!’ Even if he was ready now, he ended without a target. The culprit showed no hesitation to retreat after the attack connected.

Left alone again, Ben Higgs is now bleeding and with a small hole in his chest. The weakness in his old body comes back crushing all his efforts, as his tensed body got nowhere to vent. His short-fused instinct to fight fades away, and, as he falls back to the ground, he could only regret not having slept in today.

—

As the day breaks, close to the entrance of a fort that belongs to The Sunset Empire Ruins, an uncommon sigh arises as the body of an injured old man lies on the cold infused ground.

—

In the inner part of the ruins, a 40 years old looking man also clothed in a dark purple style receives a piece of news.

“Elder, we found a dying man close to the entrance of the northwest fort.”

The one passing the news is in his 20, clad in white with light purple accents. He seems worried and tired, as he gives the message in a hurried tone.

“Was it done by our disciple or the assassins?” is the first thing the Elder asked.

“Attacked from the back, the body shows poisoning symptoms. We also found signals that another injured person was close by, but another body was not found. The one on sight is working on finding trails, as we suspect the second traces are from the Young Master, and the old man probably got involved somehow and was silenced by the pursuing party.”

The man gives a full report of what they found and what they’re working on now. His students are everywhere, trying to find traces of their fellow high ranked disciple. They have been doing so since 1 hour ago when they got here from a nearby city. However, being the only group to respond to the emergency call thus far places too much responsibility on their shoulders. Their group is too young and weak to be effective.

Unfortunately, this is the first trace they found. Generally, with an Elder present, they would be able to go directly to the disciple, and their only job would be to fight to the death if need be. However, the aura of the guy they’re trying to find seems to be suppressed by something.

With the need to divide and search, the danger of such operation ended rising by so many levels. However, they can’t avoid this issue, finding this inner disciple is their top priority right now.

‘Fuck… Randomly searching while having enemies in your toes is too difficult!’

Many of them died already, either due to this place dangers or due to meeting with the enemies while alone.

‘This hope… if we can find him, we may be able to hold on and avoid obliteration since we have the Elder here.’ The new information comes like a sudden light in a dark tunnel, making the young teacher finally able to feel hope again.

After pondering about the news, the Elder then decides: “If the assassins went to the outskirt area, Lil’ Matt must be out there too. Show me the way.”

“Are we adjusting our trajectory if we find a trail?” After starting moving, the teacher still asks.

“Can your subordinates wake the man up?”

The teacher shakes his heads and answers with a powerless tone.

“No. The injured is not only very close to dying but also very old. No one in our group has the aptitude to wake him up from such critical condition.”

“So I must go there and retrieve the information. If our enemy wants to silence that man, he must know something of value.” The Elder says, understanding that only him from their side will be able to do this job.

Besides, verifying the traces is also crucial. By doing so, they could confirm if the young man they’re searching for is still running. He still being able to move increases the chances of them finding him alive by multiple factors. It may be harder for this group to locate a moving person, but this implicates that the enemy, a group even smaller, is having an even harsher time.

It’s also only a question of time until their reinforcements arrive, while the enemy forces will stay the same, by then, no need to talk about finding a disciple they can even move on to hunting the assassins too.

—

When the Elder finally got to the mentioned place, another two disciples had already joined the one who found the clues. One of them was even trying to stabilize the injured man’s condition. The Elder went direct to the traces supposedly left by a second person.

‘They didn’t even spend any time cleaning up. They’re running out of time. Having courage is one thing, but the possibility of having to deal with the consequences without succeeding must be driving them crazy.’

“The traces are confirmed. Matt was here!” the Elder informs the three disciples after using the young man spirit stone signature to get resonance.

The Elder doesn’t waste time and goes directly to the injured old man, and says, “I will wake him up. Move aside”.

The disciple reports: “The body is falling apart. I couldn’t do much more than supply it with some medicinal QI. It wasn’t that effective either, and I could not come up with any way to save him.”

“Who said anything about saving? I will temporally wake him up and get the information needed. Finding Matt is our priority.”

Without further ado, he goes directly to the wounded, he crouches down in one of his knees and puts one of his hands on the old man’s chest.

Initiating his technique, the Elder’s energy invades the unconscious person without mercy. The old man’s heart starts beating fast, as the blood left on his body begins to travel at inhuman speeds. The hyperactivity causes the wound closure to accelerate, but blood is now leaking out from his cavities as the old man begins to sweat tremendously.

The Elder uses his abilities to keep the unconscious man’s oral cavities open. He then begins to stimulate the old man’s senses, finally waking the Ben.

‘Ah, the bastard companion!’

He immediately recognized the similarities in their clothing. Then, he soon goes into a state of shock due to the ‘treatment’ the kneaded baldy is applying to his body.

‘So fucking ingenious, but so fucking evil… amazing!’

The Elder was ready to begin to extract all the information he could, no matter what means he needed to employ. But before even asking anything, the injured already begins to talk with much struggle.

“Clean Bastard… Forest… Dark blade… Blue sky… Metal poison… Third step.”

Even while uttering the few words, the old man’s body kept crumbling down. His veins start to pop as he begins to bleed from his skin pores.

He became a total mess.

His tensed nerves start to emit cracking sounds. Despite still not dying, he immediately falls into unconsciousness again after uttering only a few words, leaving the Elder with a deep frown.

‘Demoniac? Not accurate. Such a weird one. His body wasn’t compatible.’ The Elder frowns as he begins to observe the body in the ground.

“At least we got…” but before completing his thought, a big smile appears on his face. He then yells.

“I got a signal from Matt! Send the order that everyone must collapse towards the position I’m going! Let’s move now!” He yells as he receives a signal from the stone on his hands.

As he begins to move, the Elder sends strength to his juniors. Even while surprised, they still respond quickly, immediately following, but their movement many times faster than they could ever achieve alone.

Even after leaving, the Elder frown didn’t disappear. His shock only increased due to sensing while leaving that the body on the group began to emit again the same aura it did as he applied his technique. This aura type is unique, and death should be the only conclusion waiting for someone on the receiving end, but somehow that man survived and even began emitting it again.

‘But that thing… One, the body reacted strongly and weirdly. Two, he didn’t immediately die after the technique breaking. And now somehow it started emitting a similar aura by itself! How can that heart still beat? He should be dead. What a monster.’

“After securing the first disciple safety, send a few of your students to retrieve that body,” he orders as the others caught up to him.

‘Unfortunately, experimenting on it will have to wait. If this disciple wasn’t the successor, I would already have changed my priorities. Such bad luck, I’m losing the best time to study it.’

—

While movement could be seen all around the ruins, as the searching group was mobilized. Back at the entrance of that fort, Ben Higgs’s condition begins to change again.

His hyperactive body begins to slow and cool down, as the aura he began emitting earlier weaken. The inhumane bleeding stops, his heart slows down, and his veins start to repair itself.

After a few minutes, the once uncontrollable beating is nowhere to be seen, as his heartbeats have become few and far in-between. Not long after, most wouldn’t even notice him lying down on the ground if they closed their eyes. His existence is as silent as a useless rock, lacking both the aura of life and death.

—

Note:

Map: Planet Spirit