21 Backlash

Winter froze, a start of dread rising in his chest as he examined Blaze's body while he hugged her. 'The bones in her body are shattered! How did this happen?' he thought, checking twice to make sure he didn't get it wrong. He cursed. 'That animal, Jarak, what the hell did he do to her?!'

"The…Hyper Surge…," faintly whispered, her chest heaving laboriously. "…It's real."

Winter's eyes grew incredibly wide with bewilderment. If Blaze had told him this under different circumstances, he might've laughed at her because of the absurdity of her statement. But right now, how could she tell him that that urban legend was real?

However, knowing the extent to Jarak's abilities, he knew there was no way that he was able to reduce Blaze to such a state. Was there such thing as a martial art technique that was able to shatter all the bones in a person's body without touching it? As far as he knew, there was none…

Apart from her bones being beyond impaired, the rest of her body seemed fine. There were no visible bruises on her skin nor there were any other internal damages to her organs either. Her agonizing muscles were the only thing holding Blaze's body intact aside from the help of Winter's cryostasis abilities, which numbed the pain and preserved her body without actually frosting over.

"I…overused it to fight…fight that monster…Jarak," she gasped, finding it extremely difficult to speak as she could feel the rest of her little strength beginning to fade away. But she persisted. "There's no saving me anymore, Winter. Please…ask Jarak about the message, and…tell me…you- your explanation," she pleaded, desperate to know the truth.

Winter searched her distancing eyes, at loss. "No," he said, voice shaking. "Don't say any more, Blaze. Save your strength. Please…I beg you. Trust me, you're not done with me yet. I'll make sure you'll get treated." He clung to her, but carefully. Inside, he was storming, raging. He wanted to snap Jarak's neck in half and feed his body to the beasts, but he kept it all in, avoiding conflict with Jarak as of the moment.

He wasn't going to let the woman he cherished most die in front of him…

* * * * *

"Kingsley, what happened?" Colleen was the first to inquire after the commander emerged alone from the dungeon's entrance, her brows creased together in a frown. The group remaining dragon-slayers had been waiting for him, standing not far away from their porters and horses.

"I…" Kingsley's voice trailed off as he turned his head to avoid Colleen's pensive stare. He was having a hard time coming up with the right words to explain his short exchange with Winter just earlier, chewing on the inside of his cheeks as he ran through his thoughts, his thousand-yard stare directed into the empty space.

"Don't worry, Winter will handle everything. He will bring Blaze back to us," he briefly explained. He tried to convince them with a light expression, but anyone could tell there was something else bothering him that he was not telling them. Though, no one dared point that out.

"You guys are trusting Winter too much," Kaiser suddenly spoke up, "the others are becoming wary of us now…" He felt embarrassed, wronged that he was being suspected too, but he couldn't escape since Colleen dragged him into the center of attention. He and Colleen spared the dragon-slayers around them a quick glance, who looked at them with narrowed eyes of skepticism.

"Everyone saw him wearing those weird clothes, clothes no one has even seen in their life," Kaiser continued to remind them with his half-cowardly demeanor. "And did you forget? Those clothes were the same as the clothes the Backstabber was wearing. Put two and two together, can't you?"

Colleen glared back at the dragon-slayers, and some looked away in fright while others continued to cast their looks of uncertainty. She couldn't care less about their opinions. All she cared about was making sure Blaze came back, alive and well.

All of a sudden, the ground shook, and everyone immediately jumped on guard, weapons raised. They paled, traumatized from the horrors of what happened inside the dungeon. It wasn't going to happen again now that they've already escaped, right? But all of them knew, not all of the Earth Wyrms died, and they could appear outside the dungeon any time they wanted.

Panicked, they ran away from the epicenter of the violent tremor, leaving Kingsley the only one who couldn't. He could now stand on his own thanks to Winter magically numbing his legs, but he could barely walk properly, let alone run away with the rest.

Colleen, who remembered his current handicap, did not run away. Quickly, she pulled out an arrow from her quiver and drew her bow, standing her ground right beside Kingsley.

Kaiser ran without a thought, following everyone's split second-made decision in hysterics. But when he looked back and saw Colleen staying behind with the commander, he came to a halt. 'I- is she serious?!' he thought.

He hesitated for a moment, turning around with his hand hovering over the hilt of his sword. He swallowed, sweating bullets as fear overwhelmed the inside of his chest. But seeing how everyone else wasted no time to abandon them, he cursed and pulled his sword from its sheath. 'F*ck…f*ck it all!' This time, he knew Colleen was forcing him anywhere, but he couldn't just leave her like that.

Without realizing it, he had taken pride in the fact that for once, he was moving to protect someone other than himself. Even though his short moment with Colleen ended because of Blaze, it was enough to push him towards becoming a real man.

Kurururururuk...

Baaam!

The dungeon's entrance burst open, sending chunks of rock and debris flying in all directions, and the three held up their arms to protect their faces from the mighty explosion.

Dust clouded the open space as a faint, bulky silhouette emerged from the obliterated entrance. As the dust slowly settled all around them, clearing their vision, Jarak came into view, hefting a rough giant tail over one of his shoulders.

He cast a brief look their way and sneered before he headed off, dragging the Earth Wyrm Quindragon's body to who-knows-where with his strength alone.

With the Quindragon's entire body fully exposed above ground, the dragon-slayers who were lucky to leave the dungeon before they were able to witness the terror of battle were left aghast. No, aghast was a complete understatement to how they felt. They could not imagine how horrible the scene was at the frontmost of the formation having to fight such an enormous Earth Wyrm.

And the fact that the lioness of the Ember Tribe whole-heartedly sacrificed herself to fend off the killer of such a monstrous dragon was more than commendable. No honor could match such a brave, heroic deed!

Colleen was left stricken as she watched Jarak casually leave without much of a scratch on his body. She stammered, voice shaking, "No, why is he- how did he- Winter should have-?!"

"-Winter should have killed Jarak if he saw what that bastard did to Blaze," Kaiser finished Colleen's sentence for her. His doubt and suspicion of Winter only increased once seeing Jarak go unscathed.