Chapter 10: The girl

Death was an ugly thing, and very painful. It took time too. Riven lay there in a crumpled heap, bleeding from dozens of places, but it was his neck that gushed the most.

It wasn’t a clean cut. It was rough, and he was still able to breathe some air, which made it slower, and he was punished for it by feeling every pain.

But eventually, his eyes clouded with darkness, and he felt numb.

“Finally, I’m dying…” His thoughts trailed off, and he knew no more.

But just like before, he saw darkness and coldness, and something was dragging him through it until light shattered the darkness, and he sucked in a ragged breath, his hand clutching his throat in reflex.

Riven shuddered and hunched his back. The night was silent, and the cold breeze reminded him of his experience. His voice came out in a croak. “I don’t like it.”

Dying was unpleasant.

But then his eyes hardened. “But I will always do what I must.”

With that, he stood up and checked his surroundings. The monster’s body was still there, and so was his dead body and the girl who looked as if she would take her last breath with every breath she was taking.

He ignored her and crouched before his body, studying it. The body was swollen and almost unrecognizable because it was rotting, and the smell was unbearable.

Unlike before, Riven studied it well. He even spread his perception as far as it would go over it and detected an aura surrounding the body. The aura felt cold and twisted. “Death aura?”

He reached out his hand hesitantly, then spread it over the body. He didn’t know how to cultivate aura, so he just willed it to himself, and surprisingly, the energy leaped into him, going through his body and straight into his Sigil located in his heart.

For an aura practitioner to truly grow, they needed two important things: aura and monster energy. For aura, they could take in any type into their Sigil, but it would be like eating insects off the ground.

They needed aura linked to their Sigil.

And the same went for monster energies too.

So when Riven took in the aura, he couldn’t help the giddiness that filled him. The aura he absorbed instantly refreshed him as it settled into his Sigil. He turned to the monster’s body and did the same thing, absorbing the aura around it.

Then he took a deep breath. “Before anything else, I have to hide my body. And find something to eat. Seems coming back to life will be collecting its debt in massive amounts of food.”

His stomach growled, but he ignored it. Still crouching beside the body, he considered his options. One of the reasons he couldn’t deal with the body earlier was because he did not have something to dig with, and the same problem was still present.

But before anything else, he reached out his hand to the cold body and began the process of extracting its almost ruined clothes. It was disgusting work, but it was something he had to do. He wore it and couldn’t believe he was wearing something so stinky.

Only then did he remove his resurrecting stone and put it around his neck. Then he stood, gripped the body, and threw it up into the trees, but it slid right back down.

His idea was to hide the body in one of the tree branches, and after two more tries, he finally succeeded.

It was after all this that he sighed and reached for his sword. He began to hack into the monster’s flesh, cutting thin strips of red meat. Then, with his stomach growling, he wolfed it down.

It wasn’t something he usually did, but he had no choice.

Only after that did he turn to the woman. He crouched beside her and seriously thought about what he needed to do. “I can’t let her die, not after I wasted one of my valuable resurrections for what she caused. I need to know more about the outside world, and more importantly, I need to learn more about Sigil.

“I will try my best to heal her, and if she shows any hint of hostility, then I will kill her before she’s fully recovered.”

With his mind made up, he flipped her over.

She was breathing faintly, but it was still there. He removed his hand from her side, and his face turned heavy at what he saw. He could see her intestine from the gaping wound.

Riven shook his head as he muttered, “The natural regeneration of an aura practitioner must be what’s keeping her alive, but none of it can heal her. There’s no water nearby, and I know next to nothing about healing. But really, what was she looking for in this place so close to the villages?”

A thought came to his mind then. “The second passive ability of giving something the Undying effects… maybe it could help with healing? At least that would keep her alive longer, and I can think of what to do.”

He spread his hand above the wound and narrowed his eyes in concentration. “Is there a secret word I have to say or what?”

Just like he had willed the energy from the dead earlier, he willed his Sigil to send out its effects. To his surprise, a faint purple and green light glowed faintly in his hand and seeped into the wound, disappearing into the flesh.

Riven watched in anticipation, but nothing happened. He sighed as his body swayed. Giving out his energy like that had taken a lot from him, and he was already feeling hungry again.

He shook his head, went to the monster, and began to cut more thin chunks, stuffing them into his mouth. It tasted of blood and something else he couldn’t put his finger on.

Finally, he removed his shirt, cut meat into it, then went to the girl and tried to lift her… only to scoop her up easily. She was not as heavy as he thought.

He looked around to confirm that he didn’t have anything personal that could be traced to him. Then he turned and walked deeper into the forest.

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