Ch 8 - New Horizons

More than a week passed, with Rin continuing to hone his gravity magic as they travelled. Gradually the terrain began to grow less barren and more hilly. Here and there, bushes and small, scraggly trees began popping up. It was clear they were nearing the edges of what used to be the Endless Forest.

Nayla was mostly silent, appearing somewhat uncomfortable in Airi's presence. Occasionally, she would feed Rin a thread of her Source Energy which helped somewhat to sustain him on the arduous trek without any food.

Airi was an enigma. Her method of speech was strange, often referring to herself in the third person, and switching between "Airi" and "this orb". Although there was clearly some vast intelligence lurking behind her dark eyes, it seemed her sense of self had not yet fully formed.

Airi's knowledge was also seemingly endless, but extremely jumbled and chaotic. On one hand, she would casually ramble on about the esoteric laws of spacetime, or the pros and cons of various rare spirit herbs, or which rare spirit beast would make the best pet. On the other, she would frequently misunderstand basic concepts and occasionally made nonsensical remarks that left Rin scratching his head.

Still, she was a cheerful and amusing presence that brightened the mood of the journey somewhat.

One evening, they happened upon the first structure that they had seen so far on this journey. It was little more than a haphazard pile of stones, seemingly intended to serve as some sort of meager barricade, stretching about five metres across and one metre high. Some distance behind it, a tiny and dilapidated wooden shack squatted sadly.

Not bothering to conceal their presence, Rin and the others approached until they were within a stone's throw. At this point, a head suddenly popped up over the stone wall.

A wide-eyed, bearded man gaped at them, rubbing his eyes several times as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"Hey! Uh, you there!" he gestured wildly toward them. "Halt! State your business! Where do you hail from?"

Rin glanced around, then hiked a thumb over his shoulder. The man stared at him, then at the wasteland stretched out beyond, then back at him several times.

"You…" he pointed at them, "came from there?" he gestured behind them.

They nodded.

"But that's the Desolate Waste! We haven't seen a human survivor out of there in over nine years!" he turned, cupping his hands while screaming towards the wooden shack. "Tao, you worthless heap of bones, get out here!"

Rin's ears pricked up at these words. [Nine years? Has so much time really passed? Just how long was I trapped in the orb?]

After several moments the door to the shack burst open and an old, dishevelled man stumbled out. As he shielded his eyes from the sunlight with one hand, the other fumbled frantically with a knife at his belt.

"Reinalt?" his words were noticeably slurred, "What's happening? Is it the fire beasts? Are we under attack?"

Unexpectedly, the old man suddenly tripped and fell flat on his face. Reinalt rubbed his forehead in exasperation and turned back to Rin.

"Ugh. Don't mind him…" he sighed, "truthfully, we are scheduled to depart back to Ravenwood City next week. We were originally part of the early response team when the great fire broke out 10 years ago. In the early days, there were a few thousand refugees that managed to escape from the outskirts, but the fire quickly engulfed everything. It raged for well over a year, but after it had finally died down monstrous beasts began to emerge so we were here to repel them. However, at this point, there hasn't been a monster sighted in over three years, so the last of us stationed here have been recalled to the city."

By now, the old man Tao had recovered and made his way over.

"Now what do we have here? One little brat and two beauties in rags and wandering out of the dead zone? Well if this isn't a sign to go home, early I don't know what is!" saying so, he laughed raucously and reached for a flask slung at his hip.

Reinalt sighed heavily. "As much as I hate to admit it Tao, you might have a point there. I suppose we should escort these refugees back to the city. But I thought I told you to stop drinking on the job!"

Tao dismissed his concerns with a wave and took a big swig from his flask, before letting out a thunderous belch.

"In any case," Reinalt continued, "You folks must be hungry and exhausted after your journey. Why don't you bed down in the cabin tonight and we can leave tomorrow morning? We haven't got much but you can take the bed, and we still have some jerky leftover from the deer we caught a few weeks back."

Reinalt pointed at Tao, "You, get on night watch! I'll see these folks inside."

Tao grumbled under his breath but didn't say anything more as he took up his position leaning lazily against the rock wall.

As Reinalt led them towards the small shack, Rin's stomach growled audibly. Rin hadn't had a single bite to eat for over a week, and for who knows how long before that.

Nayla was the only reason he was still capable of standing. She had periodically fed him a sliver of her Source Energy and it was enough to sustain him, but only barely. Rin's cultivation level was far too low to survive off Source Energy alone.

"Mister Reinalt?" Rin said.

"Virion Reinalt! But just 'Reinalt' is fine." he waved his hand dismissively.

"Reinalt, it is then!" Rin flashed a charming grin. "I am Rin Sai, this is Nayla and Airi." Rin gestured towards his companions and they nodded in greeting towards Reinalt. "Thank you for your hospitality and kindness, we are indebted to you!"

"Well met Rin, Nayla, Airi!" Reinalt grinned broadly. "It's good to finally have some company besides that old drunkard Ren Tao!"

The next morning, they rose with the dawn and departed for Ravenwood City. Ren Tao was barely conscious, having kept watch all night. Still, Rin suspected he had likely nodded off while on duty so he wasn't too far gone.

"The journey shouldn't take more than a day and a half, we should be there by tomorrow morning if we don't take too many breaks!" Reinalt eyed Ren Tao disdainfully as he spoke.

Rolling, grassy hills now covered the land. As they progressed, the trail they followed became more well-defined, with branches splitting off here and there. It was clear that this section of road was travelled far more often than the outskirts of the Desolate Waste, but they did not encounter any other people on their way.

Somewhere around mid-morning on the second day, the group crested a hill and a huge stone wall came into view in the distance ahead of them. The tips of a few tall buildings were visible as Ravenwood City sprawled outwards beyond.

As they approached closer, Rin began to feel a sense of foreboding. For some reason, his intuition told him that this situation wasn't quite right. Peering more closely at the large stone arch that served as a gate into the city, Rin could now make two lines of people who were presumably waiting to enter. There were some horse-drawn carriages, but most were on foot.

Reinalt and Tao ignored both lines, simply marching in between them as hostile glares reigned down on them from the people who had been clearly waiting some time. Rin could now see what separated the two lines, those on the right were clearly all in a miserable state. Dressed in rags, clad in chains, and escorted by soldiers, there were at least a hundred such people waiting to enter the city.

"Reinalt, who are those people?" Rin inquired.

Reinalt didn't even spare him a glance. "Criminals. There are many bandit gangs and the like roaming the hills around here so our jobs are always busy." he laughed coldly.

Rin exchanged a meaningful glance with Nayla. Meanwhile, Airi was whistling and staring off into space obliviously. As they neared the gate, six soldiers broke off and headed towards them. Five were dressed in dark blue and white, the standard uniform it seemed, while the last was dressed head to toe in pure black. On his chest, a white crest stood out prominently, adorned with a strange symbol. A raven wearing a three-pointed crown.

"Reinalt? Is that you, you old bastard?" one of them called out, "It's good to see you again!"

The youngest of the three men suddenly stepped forward. He had fair skin, short black hair and cold, piercing blue eyes. Even though he appeared to be only in his early 20s, perhaps half the age of his companions, this young man had a commanding presence about him and the other soldiers noticeably straightened up and shut their mouths as he stepped in front of them.

"Well, well, well. Now what do we have here?" the young man sneered in the direction of Rin, Nayla, and Airi. "Reinalt, Tao! You've certainly stumbled on quite the catch here! Where did you find these ones?"

Tao was scratching his head awkwardly and avoided eye contact, staring at the ground. Reinalt on the other hand smiled broadly.

"Young Master Rio Fei! We found them wandering out by the Desolate Waste, as you can see the quality is quite—" Reinalt trailed off as he noticed the young man's dark expression.

"That's Garrison Commander Fei to you, sergeant," Rio spoke coldly and tapped the white crest displayed on his chest.

Reinalt hurriedly straightened up and saluted. "My humble apologies, garrison commander! We have been deployed for quite some time and have not been aware of events in the city. I beg your forgiveness for my foolish ignorance!"

Rio Fei snorted coldly. "Seeing as you have brought me such fine wares, I will forgive your insolence on this occasion. But do not make the same mistake again!"

At this point, Rin interjected, "Forgive me Sir, but could you please enlighten us as to what you mean?"

Commander Rio's eyebrows rose in disbelief. "A mere slave dares to address me? Put them in chains!"

Rin shot another glance at Nayla, but she shook her head subtly, indicating that they would not be able to overpower the soldiers and escape this situation. Rin could only smile bitterly at his own foolishness for having been caught in this position.

For Nayla and Airi's sake, Rin did not try to resist as Reinalt seized his arm from behind and clapped his wrists into manacles. The other soldiers split up, three of them restraining Nayla while the remaining two encircled Airi.

"Want to catch this Airi again?" she shouted loudly, "not so fast!"

With that, Airi's form seemed to dissolve before their very eyes, turning to black smoke. For a moment, nothing but her taunting smirk remained before that too faded to nothing. Rin felt a subtle chill, as though a slight breeze had blown over him.

[Airi must have returned to the Orb. Good At least one of us is safe for the time being.]

The soldiers were dumbfounded and Commander Fei could only curse loudly. "Idiots! Why didn't you tell me they were cultivators? Did no one even bother to check their cultivation?"

Reinalt and Tao had turned pale and were sweating.

"T-They came out of the waste dressed in rags…" Reinalt stammered, "how could we have known? We never felt any strong presence off them and she couldn't have been more than 14 or 15!"

"Silence!" Rio snapped coldly, "I'll deal with you later."

With that, he turned his piercing gaze on Rin. Rin felt his skin crawl as if the man's eyes were staring straight into his soul.

Rio scoffed with disgust, obviously unimpressed with Rin's Lower Earth cultivation rank. He flicked his gaze towards Nayla and his expression suddenly went blank. Then he furrowed his brows and carefully studied Nayla for a moment, looking her up and down.

Rio motioned over to the gate and a soldier broke off and jogged towards them. While he wore the standard-issue uniform, Rin sensed an oppressive presence for him. It was clear that this man's strength was not insignificant.

"Alto, check this woman's cultivation for me." Rio nodded his head towards Nayla.

Appearing somewhat confused, the man did as he was asked and studied Nayla for a moment. Then, an expression of surprise came over his face and he quickly turned back to Rio.

"Garrison Commander! There is something very strange about this woman. For some reason, I am unable to sense her cultivation rank at all!" he hesitated for a moment before continuing. "It's almost as if she has no Source Energy. But that would be impossible…"

Commander Rio nodded. "Indeed. I've never seen anything like it. Is it possible that she is actually some kind of supreme master, strong enough to be capable of hiding her true cultivation from us…?" At his words, the soldiers all eyed Nayla nervously.

"What supreme master would allow themselves to fall into such a state?" Alto replied doubtfully.

[I should cut off this line of thinking as soon as possible.] Rin thought to himself.

"Seniors!" Rin interjected, bowing his head respectfully. "My elder sister was born with a rare condition, her Source Energy is so weak that it is virtually undetectable… She has never been able to cultivate a day in her life."

Rio's cold gaze once again locked on Rin. "Is that so… Then, what about the other girl? Surely you won't tell me that she is also a cripple?"

"Our little sister has always been unpredictable… Even we did not know she would suddenly disappear like that. She has always had a knack for escaping, but unfortunately, that is the extent of her ability. After all, she is merely a little girl from a poor village." Rin shrugged slightly, as much as his manacled arms would allow.

Commander Rio scrutinized Rin for a moment before dismissing him.

"Take the boy to general holding. As for the woman, have a special chamber arranged. And I want double guards posted, just in case!" he smirked coldly, "Tomorrow, I'll perform the inspection personally…"