Chapter Thirty

The first night set the pace for the next two weeks, but it felt more like eight to everyone in Jason's party. They only flew for four hours at first, until first light. When the sky turned dark blue, a warning of sunrise, they'd find an abandoned road to land on. Even if someone had watched, they'd be gone before they even hit the ground, already safe within their pocket dimensions.

They had decided to move every other day, instead of every day in order to limit their exposure in the open areas.

During the time that they were resting, Jason would hit the dungeon to gain more levels. The difficulty went up per dungeon he defeated, but the rewards that followed would only get larger. By the third week, he had caught up to Selena's level. When they started doing dungeons together, his progress only accelerated.

After the flying dungeon, the secret skills began to trickle to a halt, what replaced them was overwhelming power. He was transported to the middle of a battlefield and had to defeat both sides. He had to overwhelm thousands of targets without a crevice to hide in to regenerate. He had gotten used to the gray world of death in those dungeons, but he continued on until he had finally reached his goal.

From then on, he and Selena were inseparable. When he went in a dungeon, she was his plus one. At first, he had to hang back and watch, healing her only when she needed it. Since she had given up on nearly a month of leveling, plus having been in the void for the last few thousand years, she had a lot to make up for.

Watching Selena, Jason realized he had a lot to learn about combat. He watched her burn hundreds in a single blow without even wasting a tenth of her mana. Whole chunks of the dungeon were burned to nothing in mere moments.

When they reached level forty five, Selena had no choice but to let Jason begin helping. Not only was it getting more difficult, but he was starting to threaten doing dungeons on his own if he was only going to be her support.

Though he got the cold shoulder for the next week, they finally came together as a team. By week eight, they had reached level fifty.

Jason looked at the city below as he hovered above the minimal cloud cover. The city lights glowed as if stars, something he had come to believe. He felt like he could touch the stars above much easier than he could go to the world below again. He didn't know if the same organization was after him still, but Selena seemed to believe it was a possibility.

During their time together, Jason had learned the name of the dark guild that had chased Selena and captured her father. She believed that Blood Pact was the organization that was chasing them now, if that were so, she didn't think they'd ever stop.

"Hey," Selena put a hand on his shoulder, pulling him from his thoughts. "We're about to land for the day, are you alright?"

"Yeah." Jason gave her a half smile. He had come to know her enough to finally be comfortable with the life he had been brought into. He couldn't really miss his grandfather, since he had only rarely seen the man, but he did miss his home, the ease of his job, and the possibility of a normal life. But with Selena at his side, it made up for a little.

Jason put a hand on Selena's, making sure she knew he was alright, before letting go of it and flying after Steve as they flew towards an open field below.

For the past few weeks, Steve had been quiet. He was a naturally quiet man, but even more so than what Jason had taken as normal. He tried to strike up conversations with the man multiple times, but Steve only said they had to keep moving.

Jason had begun to realize that Steve hadn't really let him know where they were going. With the amount they had been flying, he didn't even think they were in the United States anymore. By the size of the bluffs around them, he could only imagine them being in the Philippines.

"So, you have family around here?" Jason decided that tonight was the night to get some answers.

Steve turned to Jason with an eyebrow raised.

"I'm just wondering what we're doing here. Why did you take us so far off the beaten trail? Why have you been so distant lately?" He folded his arms and waited. "I think it's time for some answers, Trusky, or we'll be staying out today." He let the implication hang for a minute. They hadn't been spotted so far because of their flight time, but if he stayed out after sunrise and one person had a smartphone and thought they looked amusing, Blood Pact would most likely be on their way.

"There isn't a destination." Steve sighed. "This is the life as you know it. We fly by night to avoid detection, and you can have a few days of rest in your home. You can even train while you're there, so what's the point of going back?"

"So we just keep flying around for the next hundred or so years and hope for them to go away?" Jason groaned as the truth hit him.

"I doubt it, seeing as though you've barely lasted two weeks so far." Steve chuckled. "Look, I understand why you're anxious. You want to get back to your life, society and connection to what's normal." He raised his hands. "Thing is, I told you weeks ago that I tried to keep you from this kind of life, remember?"

"There's another way." Jason shook his head. He knew he was like an infant to someone like Steve, but he felt it. "We could take the fight to the Pact. Why do we have to run?"

"You realize you're talking about an organization which has been around for thousands of years, right? Do you even know how many members they have? What's there average level? Hell, what's their highest level?" Steve ran his hand through his hair. "You don't know anything about their guild, except for outdated information from thousands of years ago." He looked at Selena. "You don't think they've been sitting still since then, do you?"

"No." Jason answered for her. "I'm betting that there are agents of the guild in every major city in the world. That's what I would do if I had a major organization spanning back for so long. They would thrive mostly on information due to their high numbers of levelers."

"So you do have a brain." Steve sighed.

"That's why you've been flying us around only rural areas, and only at night when we'd be less visible, but why can't we do that closer to their home base?"

"Are you insane?"

"Hear me out." Jason held a hand up to stall Steve's objections. "If we are already staying out of sight using your methods, where is the last place they would expect to see us? I can answer that for you. They wouldn't think we are stupid enough to go back."

"And why would we go back?" It wasn't Steve, but Selena that answered.

"Because of Rukil."

"The guy you wiped the floor with?" Selena asked while Steve just shook his head.

"He was a level eight."

"And?"

"And he said he was the bottom of the totem pole. Just how long do you think he's been there? Do you think he's grown any stronger? I don't think so."

"You want to capture him? Because he needs to either be a member of your guild, or a friend in order for you to transport him to your house."

"No," Jason began, but he mentally catalogued that piece of information for later. "I want to offer him a place with us."

"So you want to make him a turncoat." Steve said, not exactly objecting this time, instead he stayed quiet.

Jason took his silence as permission to continue. "Think about it. If we could get Rukil, we would be able to properly gauge our enemies strength. He would have a mental list of their numbers, of levels and locations. He would also know the weakest links, or the others that might want out. I don't know the guy, but I can understand him after having leveled so fast."

Steve nodded as Jason laid it all out on the table. He could tell that the kid had been thinking about it for a while. He would be lying if he said that he hadn't thought up the same plan a thousand times over in his lifetime, but there hadn't been enough opportunities for him to form relationships within the Pact to make such a plan.

"There's one more reason." Jason looked at Selena. "I'm betting he knows where your father is."

Selena's eyes glazed over for a minute. He knew she was processing and could come up with many different reason he thought it might be the case, but he didn't think he needed to. She had to come to the conclusion himself.

"One of the rituals the Blood Pact practices is blood sacrifice." She said quietly. "It's a brutal ritual, one that I already told you once before." She turned cold eyes on Jason. "They kill someone, then wait until they come back just to do the same thing again. Depending on the level of the leveler, they would get a significant amount of experience."

"Do all members have to do the ritual?" Jason was sure he knew the answer.

"It's highly recommended, but they couldn't force someone to do it. If a member refuses to do it for more than a year though, they might see that member as weak. If that happens, they would exile the member."

Jason smiled. "Rukil wouldn't do it." He felt like he had just figured out their first step. If they were going to have any success, they needed the man.

"You're pretty confident for someone who only fought him. You know nothing else about the guy." Selena said what Steve had opened his mouth to say. "How do you know?"

"It's hard for me to say, but he seemed like a nice guy." Jason felt silly saying it, but when the words left his mouth, he felt their truth. "I told him to leave, and he did. If anyone else had been sent, they would probably push harder, probably make me kill them until they wore me down. Either that, or they might even call for backup instead of leaving to report." Jason looked both of his friends in the eyes. "He either isn't in the Pact anymore, or he's on his way out." He took out his phone and opened his menu. He went to the invite button and typed in Rukil's name. He was the only one listed with the name. "I'm asking for you to trust me with this. If I'm wrong, run."

"What exactly are you doing?" Steve rushed to Jason, but he wasn't fast enough to stop him from sending the request. "You really do have a death wish!" He yelled and turned from Jason. "Whatever happens next is on you, kid."

Jason nodded, before he closed his phone, he keyed in a quick message that was sure to get Rukil's attention, if not his support. In just a few short minutes, he felt his pocket vibrate. Taking it out, he found Rukil's name under 'friends' and a dot which indicated where in the world he was.

"Let's do what we were planning from the start. But I want another three weeks of rest time." He looked to Selena. "We are going to have a guest." He smiled as he disappeared, leaving two annoyed companions.