Conflicts

Kace stood up after 2 hours signaling that it was time to go as he went over to me and threw my still unconscious body over his shoulder once again before letting Volk take the lead as the other sergeant knew the way back to the outpost better as this was his camp.

Volk had mostly recovered from his mana expenditure but not completely, he wouldn't be able to use wind mana for at least half a day as his reserves were low from sending the message to headquarters. He led the group to the east and found a well-used game trail that the group had originally followed to get to this area in the first place.

Kace took up the rear guard position, as an earth mana user, he was uniquely suited to defensive positions like this so he couldn't complain, if an ambush happened he could best defend the kids with earthen walls and the like as well as being supernaturally "thick-skinned" when his mana was activated.

My bunkmates all stayed closer to Kace as that is who they knew while the other group stayed closer to Volk in a clear separation, the training having pit groups against each other had made all the trainees wary against people not from their own groups.

Kace had handed me to Richard and another boy from the other group that looked like he was fit enough to help him when we all got to the game trail so that he could better defend us.

A few hours after we had left Volks camp, a group of 6 people was gathered around the dead man who had his heart ripped out of his body and his arm lopped off at our old camp. "You said the boy did this Amerela?" the leader of this hunter group of The order asked.

"Yes Sir" she responded before explaining all she had seen while fighting the earth and stone user, from the cloak of flames to the strength of the attack against the earth wall that was summoned until the boy had forced his hand inside the dead man and ripped out his heart one again leaving nothing out as she tried to recall even the smallest detail.

"Hmmm, where have the rats gone to now I wonder?" he asked before pointing at one of the trackers he had brought along to find the groups of Sparks in the forest, "Find the trail the group took and be quick about it! it was lucky we found the boy after killing 5 other groups! He must not get away or Lady Dark will have our skins!" he snapped at the man as he ran to look for signs of where the group had gone.

The two groups of trainees and sergeants traveled at a jog so were making good time and had traveled all night as it was already getting late when they left Volks camp. With Volk leading the way and every third person carrying a small torch they had made decent time getting through the forest but it was still much slower than they would have liked.

The "hunters" had found the trail shortly after looking around our camp to where my group had gone to Volks before they followed the path back to the outpost that we were on. They quickened the pace they set and also lit torches to run through the night with.

A few hours before Dawn Kace saw torches following behind them no more than 2 miles away as they climbed a rise in the land, seeing that he called out for the group to hurry, they were almost out of the forest at this point but were still exhausted, it had been a very long day for everyone and I was still dead weight on Richard and the other boy shoulders.

Hearing Kace yells out to hurry, Volk started to pick up the pace while keeping a watch on the trainees as to not outpace them. They were being hunted and it terrified the Sergeant, from how urgently Kace had called out we were definitely outnumbered and the two sergeants would have to defend the untrained Sparks "Damn why couldn't this have happened a year from now! The Sparks would be useful then" he said to himself as he focused on trying to get out of the forest and to the outpost that was nearby.

The Trainees were scared and started to panic as they saw the torches slowly gaining on them from the rear. "Sir they are getting closer!" a girl from Volks group called out terrified.

Kace Kept a close eye on the group following them and when the gap had closed to 200 meters he started to pull pillars of stone up in the path to slow down the opposing group, after that he sprinted to catch back up as he had slowed down a little.

This didn't slow the group down much but made them run been faster as if they could taste the fear coming from the group ahead, they managed to catch up to within 50 paces as soon as the groups entered the large clearing that the training Outpost was situated and up on the mountain you could see Mount Spire looming over the pass.

Kace Told the kids to keep running while he turned around and used all of the rest of his mana to raise a field of a hundred pillars at least 3 deep spaced every 2 ft away from each other. He didn't create a solid wall of earth because it would only be about 4 ft high and 20 ft long, this way the walls effectively tripled the height and the length the wall could be. After doing this Kace went to one knee in mana exhaustion as Volk had arrived at his side ready to fight to the death to give the kids a chance to escape and keep the "asset" out of unfriendly hands.

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