Chapter 14: I think I just found the end

“Ahhh, finally you bastard!” Damon cursed, getting on his knees.

After they got themselves, the three found another hideout to heal up, and refill their tanks, which was quite easy since almost every shelter they found in this deadland was empty.

Save for the occasional times they found an undead inhabiting it which had happen quite a few times in the past two weeks. And in which case they had to fight it, or escape.

Not long after, the three ate their rations for the day which were a few strips of jerky, then settled down to recuperate.

“We have only one day worth of food left now.” Damon broke the silence after a little while.

“Are you sure we aren’t heading deeper into the Ashen Deadlands?! he threw a skeptical glance at the dark haired woman.

“How am I supposed to know? I only suggested this direction in random.” Ms present shrugged cluelessly. “But then again, we’ve been running into quite a few creatures more than usual these past few days so maybe you’re right.” she added.

It was true, they had been running into more and more undeads these past few days. The ape they just finished with, was the fourth one they encountered today.

And that was with Damon’s reflections steering clear of the dangerous areas.

Damon sighed.

“We better hope, that’s not the case, otherwise…” he didn’t complete the sentence, but the two women got the message.

“Ohohoho, little brother.” Ms present chuckled. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re jinxing us!”

Damon shook his head.

“I have no energy for your shenanigans.” It had taken him an hour to fully heal, but the healing had spent most of his stamina in the process.

“Fine, but I’m curious though, where did you get your sword technique?” Ms present poised a sudden question.

Damon stiffened.

“Why the sudden curiosity?” he raised a brow.

’Did she figure it out?’ he thought grimly.

“It seemed like a high rank sword technique.” she replied. ’Something someone as common as you’re claiming to be shouldn’t have access to.’ she added inwardly.

She had been watching Damon ever since they met a little over two weeks ago.

It had been a bit harder to notice at first, but after staying together for less than three days, she figured he wasn’t as common as he was claiming to be.

Especially the way he was constantly trying to suppress his highborn accent but woefully failing, the way he walked with elegance, and not to mention the way he ate his food with even better manners than her.

By this time it was obvious enough that he was either a highborn, or at least something close to that.

“It’s none of your business now is it?” Damon tilted his head.

“Besides, I could say the same about your sword technique!” He could tell her sword technique was a high rank, even though he had only seen her used a dagger in place of a sword.

Her sword technique was the type that focused on mobility, striking hard and fast without giving the opponent a chance to counter.

“Ohoho, someone has been analysing this big sister.” the dark haired woman chuckled.

“Please.” Damon scoffed. ’More like an annoying headache.’ he added inwardly.

Ms present was beautiful, no scratch that, she was stunningly beautiful. Damon could have sworn he hadn’t seen any woman more beautiful than her in his past life. Not even those models posted on exclusive magazines.

In fact not only her, even Mira was gorgeous. How was he able to keep his calm when he was with two stunning women for the past two weeks you ask?

Well it was easy since one hated his guts and would glare at him any chance she got. And the other one was hell bent on annoying the fuck out of him.

Not to mention their lives were constantly in danger, so he didn’t have any luxury to care about how pretty they were.

He shook those thoughts away and summoned his status screen, it had been long since he’d taken a look at it.

’Status.’

====Status====

Name: Damon Darkfell

Race: Human

Age: 18

Title : Third prince of the Darkfell empire.

Rank : Eta-

Strength : Eta-

Agility : Eta

Stamina : Eta-

Aether capacity : Eta

Luck : Delta-

Charm : Alpha

Techniques: Aether reinforcement (Expert), Darkfell royal sword style (Expert), Mirage steps (Expert).

Unique physique : Nexus prism physique (Omega rank.)

– initial ability: One of many [Create reflections of yourself to confuse foes. The strength of your reflection depends on the amount of Aether spent. You can seamlessly swap places with any of your reflections.]

In the past two weeks, he had managed to increase his level of mastery on two of his techniques. Both Aether reinforcement and mirage steps, had gone from advanced mastery, to expert mastery. Of course part of the reason his mastery increased this fast, was because he was constantly utilizing them in combat.

He waved away the status screen, but then his eyes suddenly widened.

“Why are you staring dead into the air?” Ms present waved her hand before his face. At some point, she noticed Damon’s eyes had unnaturally widened, and it didn’t look like he was staring at his status screen.

“Uh, little brother, you look like you’ve just seen a ghost.” she further shook Damon’s shoulder when he still didn’t respond,

“Smack!” Her hand slapped the back of his head which did it’s job of bringing him back .

“Holy shit!” Damon blurted. “I think I just found the end of this god forsaken place.”

—————

About a quarter of an hour earlier, Damon’s reflection noticed that the grey fog was gradually thininng in a certain direction, so he decided to go in that direction.

As he went on, the fog became even thinner, if he could only see up to seven meters before, he could now see up to twelve. And not to mention, the environment around him was gradually changing.

An involuntary smile carved itself on Damon’s face. Deep down he began to hope, that maybe, just maybe he could finally get out of this hell.

Suddenly, his steps faltered.

“Is that… what I think it is?!” his eyes widened.

Up in the far distance, he could see a wide patch of greenery.

His eyes almost leaked a tear when he saw the scene. He almost had the urge to run there with all his speed.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the patch of green he saw was at a lower angle, and where he stood was some sort of mountain top.

But the worse part was that, the fog that had thinned on his way here, was denser down the slope of the mountain.

“Fuck this shit!” he cursed and began descending the mountain. The slope of the mountain wasn’t that steep, it was angled at about nine or ten degrees, so it was about a normal hiking trail a normal human could walk, much less an aetherial.

Soon, the fog once again slowly got denser, but unlike before, Damon could see at least up to ten meters.

He kept descending for the next five minutes, until the slope began to even out.

But then, Damon suddenly had a feeling of foreboding. He threw a quick glance all around him but saw nothing.

But a few steps further, Damon saw the source of the feeling.

“What in hell?!” a chill ran down Damon’s spine. “One, two, eight, seventeen, twenty, twenty–… oh shit!” Damon cursed.

Before him stood more undead than he could count, and the bizarre thing was that they were all humanoids. Damon and the other two had met a lot of undeads in the past two weeks, some were from human, some were that of animal corpses, and some were simply shapeless.

’Shit, how come so many of these bastards are gathered here? I have to get out of here before I get noticed’ he thought grimly.

But just as Damon took a step back, “Crack!” An audible snap sounded through the air. He had stepped on a twig.

As if in sync, all the undeads instantly snapped their head in his direction.

“Seven hells!” Damon cursed. He didn’t even try to run, he knew it was futile, besides he was a reflection, and was near exhausting the aether bounding him to reality.

“Hnnnnnnghhh—Mraaauughhh—Grrraaahhh!” The undeads roared in unison and bolted at him.

But, ’Why do they look so slow?’ he thought in confusion. From his perspective, the undeads looked to be moving in a somewhat slow motion. ’Are they not as strong as the other undead?’

’If that’s the case then…’ he mentally smirked.

’It’s time to go out with a blast.’

But Damon’s smirk soon turned to shock, because when he tried to move, it seemed he was moving even slower than the undeads. They soon reached him, and he didn’t even last three seconds.

Back with Damon’s main body before miss present smacked him.

’What the hell was that?!’ he thought bewildered. ’They were slow in my perspective, but why was I also slow?’

’Or maybe it was just a trick of the mind, and we were moving at normal spe…. wait, the mind!’ his eyes widened uncontrollably.

’Could it perhaps be that my mind was faster, but my body wasn’t able to keep up?’ he pondered. ’It would make sense since my mind is one, but my reflection only has ten percent of my stats.’

’Yes, yes that must be ….’ at that moment Damon was thinking,

“Smack!” Ms present slapped the back of his head jolting him back to reality.

“Holy shit!” Damon blurted. “I think I just found the end of this god forsaken place.”

********

A/N: What do you guys think about the fight scenes in the last Chapter? I’m not really great at writing fight scenes, but I’m trying to improve.

If you like my story, support it with power stones, and leave a review. I’m open to suggestions.

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