Chapter – 90 - Captured, Beaten....and Then Saved!

The elemental whip slashed through the air, striking the naked back before looping around the bare waist. The tiny lightning waves weaving through the whip started vibrating, growing tiny, sharp barbs which pierced through the already broken skin before shooting their electrical impulses right to the core of the flesh and bones hidden beneath the outer layers.

Beibei felt her entire body stiffening, almost distorting itself as the lightning particles coursed through her veins and blood, wreaking havoc on her entire body. But her mouth had been tightly stuffed with the same dirty shirt she had been wearing before. Moreover, she no longer had any energy to even groan.

Every time her body distorted with the sudden sharp and unbearable pain, she just wanted to keel over and die. But they wouldn't even let her die easily. To think they had been patiently waiting for her just before the gates of the Main City. She could only smile bitterly inside her mind. These people must value her a lot.....or the Leader of the Mining Camp must have promised them something valuable in return. At this point she really wanted to ask them what she was worth that had been exchanged for her to be tortured but not killed!

She could feel her mind growing hazy. Her body was hanging upside down the mountain wall, and every time the whip lashed out, her body would uncontrollably fly backward and hit the sharp rocks jutting out of the wall. Some of her bones seemed to be broken, blood and sweat mixed with the grime, dust, sharp flints of rock covered her naked torso and rolled down in large drops, soaking through the slimy dark stone floors of the tunnel.

Beibei felt her eyes the heaviness weighing down her eyelids, her vision slowly turning distorted as she stared at the tiny blood puddle wavering beneath her swaying head. Her hair had come open at some point, and the tips of her dark hair dragged along the bloody puddle, making brush like strokes all around the stone floor.

"Did you really think a trash like you could run away and be safe? Hmph! You should have quietly stayed at the camp and let him enjoy you for a while. Once he was tired, you could have gone with your life."

A heavy kick landed on her stomach, and Beibei felt the last of her breath being smashed out of her lungs. Her body convulsed with pain, her mouth wanting to suck in air desperately. But the cloth stuffed in her mouth was in the way. She felt more and more dizzy, the air in her body and mind fast depleting, every limb loosening till she felt she was being detached from her physical body.

Getting through the sand storm.....followed by the bull everywhere she went.....walking up to the large and heavy sluice gates at the bottom of the cliff where the Main City stood....making her way through all the traps and pits and insect infestations of the damp tunnels leading up from the bottom of the sluice gates to the top of the cliff...

And just as she was almost at the end of the tunnels, almost within reach of the Main City gates...that's when the people attacked. Like they had been watching her all along, waiting for her to almost reach her goal before cutting through all escape routes.....just to enjoy watching her desperate state of losing all hope!

They were still hitting her, but now she could hardly feel any pain. The body had become too numb....or maybe the pain was so great that her mind was no longer able to register it. The light and shadow played around like a joke on the bloody puddle below, flashing by as her body swayed more and more, hitting the rocky wall harder and harder, as more and more blood flowed out to join the puddle.

"Stop it! She'll be dead if you keep going at it! We won't get the Myrithin Stone if we don't send her back alive to the camp! Get her down and clean her up. We'll leave before dawn tomorrow."

The group had gone into a frenzy over the fresh blood flowing out of the battered body. Even the stern attitude of their team leader took a while to penetrate their mind. The beatings slowly quietened down and the tunnel once more became silent, except for the heavy sounds of breathing.

For a long while Beibei hung upside down in air, her mind unable to think or comprehend what was happening. Only the heavy, convulsed breathing accompanied her, and it took a long while to even realize that it was her own breath. It seemed all the people had left the tunnels and she was now hanging alone. A small sigh broke through the gut twisting pain of her broken rib. She waited for a while longer, then slowly gave in to the drowsiness which accompanied the aftermath of the beatings and pain, falling into a long and dreamless unconscious state.

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The men who were resting outside the entrance of the cave sat up in confusion. They had been to tired after a rigorous exercise of beating the girl they had captured. Lured on by an excitement of bloodlust, and having had too much to drink before they actually started beating her up, now the energy of the bodies had drained off, leaving them in a drunken, mindless stupor.

So they initially didn't catch anything amiss in the surroundings. Only when the hard, rocky ground itself started to vibrate from the force of many feet did the leader of the bunch awaken, still biting back the nausea of a rising hangover. The bend around the mountain lit up like a thousand stars flickering in the dark oblivion, and streamed forward in a continuous momentum, the light growing and evolving to the brightness of the bright sunny noon sky as they approached the huddled, sleeping, messy bunch of guards.

"Halt! Who comes here! No one is allowed to cross the entrance without the Pass of the Olden Gates! How dare you disobey the edicts?! Are you trying to escape through these passages!"

By now, the huddled, sloppy mess of people, laying strewn across the entrance to the tunnels had woken up with a dizzy mind, and staggered to their feet, trying to put on a hard, alert and threatening face. But before they could even open their eyes to look around properly, their drunkenness was thrashed aside by a shrill, eerie scream as it reverberated through the tunnels. It hit the sides of the mountainous walls, bounding from side to side, till it bounced back into the open again. The scream and the rebounded scream merged, making the original shrillness vibrate like the voice of a haunted ghost screaming from the depth of hell.

And right before their eyes, the entire body of the leader started melting. Right from the tip of his head, the flesh started burning inwards, the brain forming a molten puddle as it oozed out through the fast shredding skull...and then the entire body followed.

Their bodies were shuddering uncontrollably, the fear turned to terror, which then slowly seeped through their bones and marrow. Unable to move, unable to control their own bodies and their actions.

The light coming towards them never stopped, and as the brightness drew closer, they saw the slender figure cloaked in dark green, swaying to an unknown rhythm with every step, a low hum permeated through the air around the mouth, a very low note softly floating and dispersing on the waves of the breeze around her. Her movements were light, but every step emanated a force which forcefully pushed back the guards still standing at the entrance, throwing them mercilessly at the rocky walls behind them.

Her body passed through them like a breeze, leaving behind a subtle scent. As all the people following her slowly disappeared into the tunnel, the guards behind started feeling more and more muddled. The scent entered their mind like a scent of fresh yearning, growing and growing till the yearning distorted to desire and lust and possessiveness. As the desire kept going higher and higher, leaving the realms of their conscious and unconscious control, the bodies all lunged on one another, trying to possess, trying to taste and devour, trying to make the other body merge completely into his own body, no matter what the method.

The screams and grunts and groans, sounds of pleasure and sounds of pain merged together, as blood and bones and flesh enmeshed together, the sounds vibrating in the air before dispersing into the open surroundings.

The woman, meanwhile, stared at the listless body hanging from the roof of the rocky tunnel. A narrow metal dagger appeared in her hands. The men and women behind her moved at her gesture, ripping apart the ropes binding the girl, before dragging the unconscious body to a cleaner and drier path of floor.

The woman gripped the seams of her robe to avoid dirtying them on the muddy floor, then bent down, bringing her face as close to the girl's as possible. Using the tip of her dagger she turned the face towards herself, her sharp pupils glinting under the creases of her eyebrows. Then she turned the blade outwards, and hooked the tip at the edge of the inner bodice of the girl.

It was like a short inner shirt, barely covering the chest and shoulders and a bit of the back. Even that was in tatters, the pale skin peeping through the jarred edges of the torn fabric. The hook of the blade caught onto one of the jarred edges, and she pulled it out in one stroke. The entire bodice fell apart from one shoulder, leaving her shoulder, part of the chest and entire back now naked.

But the woman couldn't care less...her eyes were glued to the faint marking only her eyes could see, almost hidden within the skin on the shoulder....a strange tattoo. She flicked a finger, and a flat piece of beaten leather paper appeared in her hand. The sharp eyes moved from the tattoo on the shoulder to the exact same marking on the leather strip.

"Find the girl and brink her back in one piece. If she is who I think she is...then a great change is going to come to this world soon. Lunaeria, be very careful. No one else needs to know of this as yet. Bring her straight to my place. Don't let anyone else see for now."

The frown on the woman's face deepened. Her Master's words still rung in her ears. But they also brought forth many questions and a strange sense of insecurity. This girl would cause the world to change? But she didn't want the world to change!.....But she couldn't go against the orders of her Master either! Tsk!

She stood up abruptly, gesturing with the blade in her hand. The women in the group moved ahead, picking up the unconscious body and wrapping it up in strips of clean cloth. Bundled up tightly in a cocoon of warm cloth, the body was then carried by one of the men in the group. The blade disappeared, as the woman turned, walking with the same leisurely, swaying of her hips, walking through the piles of flesh and mauled bodies at the entrance like taking a walk through a flower field, and disappeared in the shadows of the night. The group of people following her, too went around the bend and disappeared. The brightly lit floating lanterns following them sparkled in the surrounding once more, before dimming down and hiding behind the shadows of the night.