78 Recovering from Catastrophe

Yun and Long Wuying couldn't see anything as the Queen was screeching in the throes of death, the pitch was so high that Yun's unprotected ears were bleeding, and neither of them could keep their eyes open. As the Queen finally stopped screeching they both managed to open their eyes, their vision blurry from the vibrational pressure, to see what appeared to be a red glow from where Yun had stabbed the chest.

Neither of them could see clearly enough to make it out.

As the glow began to fade the shaft of the spear turned black once again, but neither Yun nor Wuying were able to clear their vision and determine what happened. Yun withdrew her spear, backing up carefully, and finally groped around to find a stone to seat herself on.

Sitting there, the two of them could barely communicate due to Yun's damaged eardrums and their distorted vision. They both resigned themselves to sitting back to back so that they could at least see if some blurry movement happened in the cavern.

One hour passed, then another, and after nearly six hours they both had fallen asleep. Nothing was moving in the cavern, and they both began to recover slowly.

Six more hours passed before Yun woke up, opening her eyes to see that she had regained a small amount of visual acuity. That final scream of the Queen had really been too vicious, breaking her eardrums and shaking the fluid in their eyes so violently that their vision needed an enormous amount of time to recover. Yun began sending small threads of her now-recovered Qi into the meridians that fed the eyes to nourish the area before she closed her eyes again and rested.

After another hour passed Long Wuying also woke and performed similar actions, though his eyesight had recovered a good deal more than that of Yun due to the distance from the source of the damage. He could nearly make out finer details within a meter of his eyes, but everything beyond that was still a blurry mess.

Taking advantage of the fact he could make out detail at a near-distance, Wuying stood and began to inspect Yun's injuries, making sure nothing was untreated that desperately needed it. As he got around the stone they had been resting on his movement woke Yun back up and he frantically had to figure out a way to communicate with her before she attacked.

After a few moments of frantic thought he finally decided to just get his face close to hers before she could assault him, hoping that her vision had recovered enough to make out his appearance.

One second passed after another before Yun awkwardly cleared her throat and gently pushed Wuying's chest, as he was crouched over her on all fours.

Wuying blushed instantly before standing up and moving to the side to inspect her wounds, starting with her ears that still had traces of blood crusted on the edges.

After nearly twenty minutes of inspecting the various injuries on Yun's body, Long Wuying sighed and sat back down next to her. No single wound was extreme, likely thanks to the special robes made for her by Zhu Cai, that fanatic. Wuying had a newfound admiration for Zhu Cai's work, as the armor he had worn before would have been shredded by the blows they both took during this desperate fight.

After Wuying finished his inspection Yun finally sat up as well, then closed her eyes and used her nearly-restored spiritual strength to inspect her own body.

Ears, still damaged, but recovering and nearly healed enough to hear again, albeit poorly.

Eyes, somehow damaged, but she couldn't tell just what was wrong with them.

Head, mostly unharmed, other than the damage from the scream.

Torso, some serious bruises and a few cracked ribs, but nothing that wouldn't be healed soon enough with the help of some medicinal pills.

Arms, nearly unharmed other than a few bruises.

Legs, some deeper bruises and a few tiny fractures to her femur, which would definitely need medicinal treatment to eliminate the risk of poor healing.

Overall her body was in fairly good shape considering the battle they went through, but she was still mostly unable to communicate with Wuying and so she had to just take care of herself. She withdrew a moderately strong set of healing pills from her spatial storage and handed one to Wuying after tapping his shoulder to get his attention, then took it and focused on guiding the energy to her most important injuries.

First she focused the medicinal energy on the thighs, as those bones were extremely dangerous to have damaged, and then after sufficient energy had been directed there she took a small portion for her ribs before directing the rest to her ears and eyes.

Wuying did nearly the same, though the worst of his injuries were on his arms. He focused the medicinal energy and directed a portion of it to his eyes to speed healing of the most important areas.

For the next two days they remained in the cave, recuperating, before their senses were restored enough to consider movement safe again. Yun had spent these days collecting anything of value she could, including the corpse of the Queen, which she had to get help from Wuying to cause it to leave the ground for an instant so she could store it in her bracelet.