“You idiot,” Jodie muttered as Hector’s weight settled into her arms. He’d pushed himself too hard, and for what? She glanced back at the creature. Its limp black body hung over the side of the egg, with its white head barely hanging on. The thing had been unreal.

  Those black, eyeless dogs from the festival—a dog being the closest thing to them—were nothing like this. She pulled Hector closer to her chest, his white hair sagging off to the side, slick with sweat. His chest rose and fell in a soft rhythm. He was breathing, and it was steady. A smile tugged on her lips.

  That had been far too close. She hadn’t even had time to intervene before the fireball. She shook her head. There was no point thinking about it. It had already happened. She stood with a grunt, turning her head towards the cavernous room’s door; to the prison they’d found Sasha in.

  What am I going to tell Kamble? How do I explain any of this to him and her family?

  Jodie set her jaw and walked toward the door, stepping around the small fissures that now littered the room as Hector’s gentle breath stroked her cheek. The charred flesh on his back pressed against her skin, cracked and wet. He’d need a healer, especially for the wound on his arm.

  As she closed in on the door, she spared a glance behind her. The creature sagged in its egg with tentacles crumpled around the base of the altar on which the egg sat. The thing could control mana. So was it a mana beast? But if so, why could it talk and what were these Farmhands doing with it?

  The look on Hammond’s face surfaced and disgust welled up in her chest. He—either directly or indirectly—had been responsible for Sasha’s death. He was a disgusting man who deserved the worst. But did he deserve death? Jodie bit her lip; how could she say?

  She stepped through the door, manoeuvring Hector’s head out of the way, as her sandals scrunched onto loose rocks. Towards the middle of the room, Lincoln sat slumped against a cell, with a boy talking to him from the other side of it. Lincoln had ground her gears today, to say the least. He’d been as selfish and blind as always, not even thinking how his actions would affect others.

  But what could she expect? It was a wonder he was still in the dojo. At the back of the room, Nyx stood by the door that led into the hallway, Harry lying at her feet, his chest rising slowly. Jodie’s brow tightened in a frown. Why hadn’t they left? They’d already abandoned them in that room, so why not continue all the way?

  Lincoln glanced up at her as she got closer, his eyes moving to Hector. Jodie didn’t spare him a glance and instead focused on Nyx, who pushed off a cell and walked towards her. The girl was a secretive one, to say the least. She could fight well, and trailed Emela like a dog, giving into all her demands for no apparent reason.

  “Is he alright?” Lincoln asked, struggling to get to his feet and gripping the cell. The boy in the cell, hair matted and dirty, glanced up at her, his eyes begging to be free. A pang of guilt welled up in her. She’d run off to get revenge and left him in here. Not even considering letting him go before charging in.

  She ignored Lincoln, stopping as Nyx got close, then placing Hector on the stone floor, careful not to be too rough. Jodie then moved her hand to his pocket, searching for the key he’d had. A cold sensation brushed across her hand and she pulled out the key, raising it to Nyx.

  “Free him,” she said, pushing the key towards the black-haired girl, its surface glinting in the torchlight. Nyx took it. Jodie then braced her hands on her knees and pushed off, coming to her feet. “I’m going to go back in there and have a look around.”

  “Why?” Nyx tapped the key in the middle of her palm, her eyes running up and down Jodie. “Is the creature not dead?”

  Jodie turned her head toward Nyx. That was strange. The girl rarely showed interest in anything. For the entire night, it had seemed as if this was more of a nuisance for her than anything else. “It’s dead,” Jodie said, scratching at the dried blood on her forearm, Hector’s blood. “But I want to know what these guys were doing here.”

  Nyx shrugged, stepping past her and around Lincoln, who’d plopped back down to get to the cell. The boy inside scuttled back, a smell similar to an unwashed homeless person leaking off of him. Jodie resisted crinkling her nose. It wasn’t his fault he stunk.

  He must have been down here for a while. The smell alone is evidence of that. I doubt he even got to use a bathroom.

  Her eyes moved to the back of a cell, where a small lumpy pill sat shrouded in darkness. Yeah, that seemed about right. She clenched her fist as part of her hoped there were some more Farmhands around for her to pummel. How could they treat people like this and walk around unpunished? They were doing this to humans, for heaven’s sake.

  As the cell opened, tepid and weak, the boy crawled forward. He glanced at Lincoln and the idiot nodded, again. Taking that as a vote of confidence, the dishevelled boy slowly got to his feet—Nyx stepped to the side—and walked out of the cell. “Thank you,” he mumbled, his voice scratchy and dry.

  “How long have you been in there?” Jodie asked, stepping towards the boy and raising a hand. He shrank back and her hand paused before she lowered it. Her mistake, she’d been a bit too hasty.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  The boy’s gaze flickered to Lincoln as he wrung his hands together, his dried cracked lips parting slightly. He’d need some water. She turned her head back to the room she’d fought the creature in. A quick look would do. They didn’t need to stay here too long.

  “I don’t know how long I’ve been down here,” the boy said. He swallowed hard, letting out a shaky breath. Jodie took a step back, turning her head to the side.

  The boy frowned.

  She meant no offence, but he couldn’t smell himself. The boy lowered his head. “All I know is that when someone left, they didn’t come back alive.”

  Nyx crossed her arms, her gaze lingering on the boy, picking him apart. “You weren’t sacrificed before all the others. Why?”

  The boy looked at Lincoln again. Did they know each other? Lincoln nodded at him and the boy let out a breath. They either knew each other or Lincoln had quite the effect on the child. Jodie narrowed her eyes at him; Lincoln was hardly as charismatic as he thought, and yet, this fool fell for him.

  That. Or one person actually being kind to him after so long has broken his brain. Poor idiot, we have to make sure he gets home safely as soon as we are out of here.

  Water dripped from somewhere further in. Was there a leak in the cell? Each drop was a reminder of the time they were wasting questioning this kid. “I think it’s—”

  “You guys can continue talking to him,” Jodie said. Her gaze moved to Hector. His chest rose and fell in a peaceful rhythm. He’d be in a lot of pain when he woke up, but nothing life-threatening.

  And if this place had the resources he’d been so stupidly eager to find, then he might be able to afford a healer, or at the very least some herbal mulch for his burns. “I’m going back into that room to see what might have been left behind.” Jodie turned and walked away, her sandals beating against the stone.

  “I’m coming too.” Behind her, Lincoln groaned to his feet and hobbled forward. “It was my idea, and I want to see it through to the end.”

  Jodie rolled her eyes. He said that as if it took some kind of determination to collect the rewards after others had already done the work. Nyx raised a brow at her and Jodie shook her head. It didn’t matter in the end. It’s not like stopping him would achieve much. “Just don’t waste time. We need to get Hector and your friend out of here.”

  “He’s not my friend. I just met him today,” Lincoln said, hobbling up behind her, as she stepped through the wooden doorway into the… ritual room. The Farmhands were kind of like a cult, and what that egg was doing to Harry was not normal.

  “He seemed to trust you quite a bit for someone who he’d just met.” Jodie stepped over a small fissure and threw a pointed look at Lincoln.

  The boy’s eyes moved around as he seemed to take in the room. No surprise, really—he’d spent the majority of the time on his back, and when things actually got serious, he fled with Nyx. The room had gotten a lot worse since then.

  “How did you guys kill that thing?” He jerked his chin towards the egg and kept one hand on his side as he stepped over a particularly large fissure. The little torchlight that remained flickered across his face, shadows playing over his cheeks.

  As he drew up to the slab that once held Harry, images of the fight played out before her. Hector’s speed, the lighting that jumped off his body. She ran her hands across the slab’s surface, brushing against the cracked stone as she walked. When the fight had gotten worse, that feeling came back, that focus.

  It was as if the mana in her body knew what she wanted, no, needed. She stopped at the egg, dusting her hands off. The stink of sulphur leaked off the creature’s corpse as a warm, humid air came off its body. The battle intent, as that Phoenix Company man had called it, was amazing.

  Even the mana in her was still slightly empowered. While she likely wouldn’t be as strong as she was in that state, her speed and dexterity had improved. She could probably go toe to toe with someone in Gravity Forging Three and come out unscratched—provided they weren’t a super genius.

  I wonder how Dale’s strength is these days. The journeyman rank with the Phoenix Barrage kick is no joke. The inter-dojo tournament is sure to be interesting.

  “So, how did you do it?” Lincoln asked, frowning as he tilted his head at the creature and poked at it with a finger. “It must have been pretty tough.”

  Shaking her head, Jodie circled the egg. “Hector and I worked together, and I landed the final blow.” She stopped, her brows creasing as she brought a hand to her lip. On the floor, sitting in the middle of a formation, was a small circle of pills—about five to six.

  Lincoln raised a brow as he came around the other side of the egg. “You killed it, that’s—” He paused and slowly dropped to his knee with a thud, his sandals scraping stone. “I think these might be pills,” he said, picking up one of the black marbles with a swirling red interior.

  Not only are they pills, you idiot. These are… those sick freaks. This is what they used people for.

  From the top of the altar on which the egg sat, all the way to its base was a network of redlines. These lines connected directly to the formation, and it wasn’t hard to figure out what the formation did—you didn’t have to be an array master to do that.

  Jodie’s foot snapped forward, and she slammed her foot down onto the pills with a crack and a squelch. Lincoln stumbled back and fell on his butt, his eyes wide, looking at her as if she’d gone mad. The black liquid inside the pill leaked from beneath her sandals, seeping into the crack in the stone as waves of red moved through it.

  Her hand then snapped forward, smashing into the egg with a crunch, and more of the obsidian shell fell away, slamming onto the floor with a crack. Jodie’s breath flared out of her nose as she recited Kamble’s calming technique.

  What does the day bring? Hope. What does the future see? The past. Where do all paths lead? To Victory. And victory belongs to the excellent.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Lincoln yelled, scrambling to his feet. “Do you know how much we could have sold those for?” Torchlight crackled off to the side as his grip on the last pill tightened.

  “Sold?” Jodie muttered, her gaze drifting to Lincoln’s face. Say nothing for what the pills did to people—that was bad enough. But could this idiot not see how they were made? What in the Great Lake was wrong with him?

  Lincoln stepped closer. “Do you know how much money you’ve just wasted? That could have helped Hector.” His hot, garlic-choked breath brushed against her face as spit flew from his mouth. He must have lost his mind after all the beatings he’d taken, forgetting who she was.

  “Lincoln, step back, now. Or Hector and Harry won’t be the only ones we have to carry out of here.” She said with an edge in her voice, levelling her gaze at him. He sized up with an audible gulp and shuffled back slowly. “Now, let’s make one thing clear. You nor anyone else is going to sell these pills ever again.”

  .