Land of Demons

7

“Be glad that he took that oath,” Alea whispered back. “If he’d been at the top of his game, the three of us wouldn’t have been a match for him.”

“The three of us?” Irma snorted. “I’m sure that only the best of our school’s personal disciples would’ve stood a chance against him-”

“I don’t think even they could’ve survived fighting him,” Derek added.

The best spearman of their school, a personal disciple of the rector himself, a Spirit Knight at the initial stage, would’ve been able to fight on equal terms with this monster. Maybe.

“If you’re going to talk, you’d better leave,” the old man said, sweat already streaming down his forehead.

One of the doctors standing nearby picked up a piece of cotton with a pair of tongs and dabbed at the old man’s forehead with it.

Half an hour later, Irma and Derek left, bored of standing around. Only the cub and Alea, who couldn’t pass up an opportunity to observe an experienced healer at work, stayed.

   

When Hadjar opened his eyes, his first thought was that he had somehow wound up back in the past, back when the beasts had invaded one of the pavilions of ‘The Black Gates’ sect occupied by the Moon army. He found himself on a damp mattress placed atop an uncomfortable cot, surrounded by hundreds of injured people. Some groaned, some called for their parents or lovers, and a few lucky ones were sleeping. Tossing and turning, they were clearly having nightmares about their recent battle. Hadjar understood their pain — he hadn’t been able to sleep well for about a week after his first battle. And after his fight against Sunshine Sankesh, he had twice dreamed that Sankesh had somehow managed to get the elixir of the gods.

But it wasn’t the pained moans or the smell of blood and medicine that made it difficult to stay in the hospital wing. It was the dead. They lay on the topmost bunks, right under the ceiling, and would not be removed until morning. Having to spend the night next to the dead, people who had just recently fought back to back with you, was a truly horrific prospect. That was why most soldiers didn’t like hospitals. Hadjar was no exception. And although he was in a hurry to leave, he decided to check his condition first.

Separating a part of his mind, he plunged into the World River. The state of his energy body was appalling at best, but it was better than when he’d last seen it. Both the channels and nodes no longer looked like a mess, but they still weren’t as neat as they had been. They were connected by rough, inelegant strands of energy, and here and there, one could even see blotches of foreign power on them. Several threads had been tied together and attached to the main channel as a support. The method was crude and very... martial. It was as if the healer had only done it for the sake of sending the soldier into battle again, not caring about their future.

“I’m too used to being pampered,” Hadjar said to himself.

Back when he’d been known as the Mad General, or when he’d been a traveler in the Sea of Sand, he would’ve considered such a treatment a luxury.

He had spent the past month and a half in Dahanatan, the capital of Darnassus and the heart of the martial arts world, as a disciple of its most elite martial arts School, ‘The Holy Sky’. The best cultivators were ‘forged’ there, the people who would become future pillars of Darnassus’ power and glory. Any of the School’s healers would’ve treated him ten... no, twenty times better than this! And Dora’s aunt, the best healer in Darnassus, would’ve had Hadjar back on his feet faster than he could say his own name.

“Really, I’ve become too spoiled.” Hadjar shook his head. Talking to himself often helped him think. “They saved my life. I’ll fix the rest myself.”

His energy body would eventually restore itself. In addition, the dragon meditation Technique he practiced, the ‘Path through the Clouds’, had made his energy body stronger than that of an ordinary cultivator. Not to mention the fact that both his Call and the dragon’s blood coursing through his veins had enhanced his regenerative abilities exponentially. In his current state, Hadjar had only a third of his energy. In just a few days, he would have eighty percent back. And a week later — all of it.

“Well, my fluffy little friend, do you have anything you want to tell me?”

Hadjar lifted the sleeping Azrea by the scruff of her neck. The cub didn’t even open her eyes. Once she was in the air, still sleeping, she began to flail her claws around. She grazed Hadjar’s chest and left shallow scratches on it, demanding that she be put down.

Looking down, Hadjar realized that he was still dressed in his tattered clothes. He hadn’t taken them off since leaving the Valley of Streams. He was overjoyed that he still had them, as he believed that they brought him good luck.

“Don’t think this is the end of our conversation, you sly cat.”

Azrea just yawned, showing rows of small but sharp fangs. Placing the cub back into his shirt, Hadjar threw back the blanket and mentally thanked whoever had placed crutches next to his bed. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. His muscles, devoid of energy as they were, protested as he tried to get up. Grabbing the edge of the bed to avoid falling, Hadjar propped himself up on the crutches with a grunt and hobbled toward the exit.

There were five of them — two on each side and one in the center. He left the medical wing through the central one. He’d seen and been in enough of them during his time in the military, and he would’ve loved nothing more than to never have to visit one again. Hobbling over to the door, he opened it with his shoulder, ignoring the slight pain. He went down a long corridor and came outside. Shivering in the cool northern wind, he leaned against the wall, breathing heavily.

I never thought, he said to himself as he slowly slid down the wall, that such a short journey could ever be so difficult for a true cultivator.

Sitting on the steps, he retrieved his old, worn-out pipe from his spatial ring. It had been given to him by the girl he’d never been able to love. After all, why would he want to burden a beautiful maiden with a legless cripple? It was odd, but he’d always associated this pipe with victory over the nomads... who’d been led by the Lascanians. Ironically enough, now he was lighting this same pipe while sitting beneath the Lascanian sky.