Chapter 10 #2
Alex froze at those words, heart hammering as if fearing even that utterance would bring divine ire his way.
Yet he sensed nothing but the desperate hope he now saw in ever more pairs of eyes, pausing only to shut the door before working as fast as his Quickness would allow, doing his best to free each and every one of those trembling captives.
And Lini was right there, staring at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. Because of course she had followed him. Of course she had seen everything. Yet he had no time for the questions on the tip of her tongue. They had things they needed to do and absolutely no time to waste.
“Help me free them,” he curtly said, voice rough with the pain in his heart and the fury still pounding in his blood.
Lini immediately nodded, darting through the crowd and freeing the hostages even faster than he was.
So many flinched at his touch. While countless others wrapped him in fierce hugs, crying their gratitude, begging him to take them home. That they would do anything for him, even marry him, if only he would take them home.
It was with a pained smile that he very carefully loosened their desperate mortal grips.
“Please. I’ll do my best, I promise. But I have to cut everyone else free, okay?
” His words echoed oddly in the vast domed chamber lined with watertight clay bricks that he thought might have once served as an emergency cistern, yet now the barren chamber lit only by a single flickering lamp was being used to imprison nearly seventy young captives who were guilty of nothing more than catching the wrong person’s eye.
The air filled with a growing murmur of relief, gratitude, sobs, and hope as Alex freed each and every one.
“Who is he?”
“He must be a royal soldier. The prince has come to free us!” whispered one girl wearing a fine hemp qipao.
The girl next to her shook her head. “Doubtful. He’s Ruidian. And look at his hair. I’ve never seen a shade that looked like spun gold.”
“That’s because… well, we all know who he must be. A blond-haired Ruidian boy with ancient clothes and a weapon like that coming to rescue us in our hour of need,” declared another girl who had slipped free of her gag.
The first girl snorted. “I seriously doubt that. Everyone knows that the gods abandoned us, centuries ago. If they ever existed at all. Those legends aren’t anything more than fanciful caravan tales.”
Alex let the anxious, excited commentary wash over him, the part of him not filled with desperate worry and towering outrage grateful that at least some of the girls were doing their best to soothe and comfort the girls who had broken down in terrified sobs.
Even Lini was doing her part, the shadows muffling sound that would normally echo in a cistern like this one, almost everyone sensing the desperate need for silence.
Stillness. To deny their enemies, so many enemies like rats burrowing through the rafters of an ancient home, any clue as to their sudden shift in fortune.
Alex froze for a moment, shivering before sudden insight.
Ignoring hopeful eyes widening with confusion and growing tension, he immediately spun for the door.
Refusing to overanalyze his sudden perception and understanding of the flow of sound and vibration, patterns that meshed so well with all the spiritual treasures he had studied, countered, and destroyed since first awakening with a collar around his neck and destroying an infernalist who had been so eager to enslave countless innocent souls.
However many years, or centuries, back that had been.
He had ascended divine steps and died at least once or twice since that fateful day.
Alex quickly shook away bittersweet reverie, his mind blazing with one desperate question.
After shattering so many constructs and configurations of spiritual energy channeled in ways that imperiled him, would it really be that hard to form a configuration for a cause that could save so many lives?
He gazed intently at the door, mind whirling with countless overlapping images of complex knots of Qi, shivering with ancient memories that weren’t entirely his own…
yet were utterly his own. Such that when he caressed the door with a single touch, Greater Wind Affinity served as a bridge between past brilliance and present desperation.
His eyes widened, genuinely surprised by how easy it was to tie a fresh knot of potential, needing only a tiny trickle of the flood of spiritual energy surrounding them all, enhanced by the raw desperation of so many nearby souls…
and the potency of those who had fallen to his killing blows, just minutes ago.
Congratulations! Thanks to Rank 8 Artificer and Greater Wind Affinity, you have had a profound breakthrough!
You have unlocked the secret of generating wards!
Barrier of Silence has been quantized at Rank 1 + 6 (Greater Wind Affinity) = Rank 7!
You have taken a crucial step along the Wujen’s Path!
At any other place or time, Alex would have been utterly filled with jubilation and excitement.
Now, all he felt was a terrible sense of tension, knowing that he was running out of time on so many fronts.
Yet at least now he could raise his voice, addressing the girls directly, once the last had been freed.
“Please, hero! Do you have any water?” asked one timid voice before he could say a word.
“That really is a good question, Alex,” Lini agreed, flashing a sheepish smile. “If I’m feeling parched, imagine how these girls are feeling.”
One of the nearby girls spun around, looking a suddenly flustered Lini right in the eye. “Wait! His name is Alex?”
Alex quickly spotted one of many sub basins in what had once been a massive water cistern, no doubt ensuring clean water even in times of shortfall.
It said something unfortunate about the administration, in Alex’s opinion, that this cistern had been completely abandoned when the city was currently surviving on a single fading Water core.
Still riding the rush of potency from kills made less than four minutes ago, Alex summoned a Water Shield and found it effortless to fill the nearest trough that was remarkably clean and dry, if a bit dusty, with gallons upon gallons of fresh water.
“Sure. Please. Drink your fill.”
And the looks of awe and wonder this one act earned him were even more profound than his taking out the pair of guards so ruthlessly in the first place.
“Did you see what he did?”
“Drink it. It’s fresh. Heaven’s mercy, it tastes like pure spring water!”
“No wujen can make water like this, right? Just ice that eventually turns to mist, and only those who advance to Silver can make true ice that melts, and only in limited quantities, and no one ever dares demand that they…” The girl of clearly wealthy origins gave a suddenly awkward-feeling Alex an appraising look before turning to the girl who had made such a bold proclamation earlier.
“I think perhaps you’re right, sister. Maybe a hero does walk among us, once more.”
Alex flushed at that. “It’s just water.”
This earned a bitter smile from more than one girl now gazing at him so intently.
“There’s no such thing as ‘just water,’ hero. Not when our city’s fate is hanging by a thread, sustained by a single fading beast core.”
“Don’t say it. You’ll tempt fate!” another girl hissed.
“Stop it. You know it’s true. Our dying lake tells the tale, no matter how diligently the farmers use the water that remains, or how lush or fast-growing all those crops have become, with so many cultivators now tending to our food supply.”
There were so many questions Alex wanted to ask, but now was most definitely not the time. Instead, he forced himself to focus on the immediate matter at hand.
“How were you girls transported here?”
“They kidnapped me!” one girl said. “I was taken from my home in the dead of night. Now I don’t even know if my parents are alive.”
“I was stupid enough to follow a handsome man who enticed me with promises of marriage and a dowry that would secure my parents’ approval. How foolish I now feel,” admitted another girl softly.
More than a few of the former captives broke down in tears or castigated themselves with regret.
“How could I have been so foolish as to trust any man?” one cursed, yanking her hair and smacking her face until Lini grabbed her hand and the girl broke down in tears.
“They took me right when I took a shortcut through an alley I should never have entered. I just want to go home!” another sobbed.
One young woman wearing cultivator’s robes solemnly pointed down the length of the cistern.
“That way,” she said in a husky voice, standing tall and proud, now that her bindings had been removed.
“About two hundred paces. Through a warehouse built when trade was at its peak, since abandoned for warehouses closer to the various gates.”
Several girls looked at the white-robed girl in surprise. “She remembers?”
“She’s a cultivator. Of course she remembers. Even if she was tricked as easily as the rest of us!” hissed another girl.
For some reason, those words made the young cultivator flush.
“I’m not a very good one. I’m just a student, still clearing my meridians. But my master would never forgive me for not doing all I could to facilitate my own rescue,” the suddenly shy girl whispered.
Alex dipped his head in appreciation. “Thank you. That’s exactly what I needed to know. Can you tell me if there were any guards back the way you came?”
The girl frowned thoughtfully. “I think there were a couple men at the warehouse? They said things… crude things, but with the air of people long used to their roles. I think… I think they have been bringing girls here for some time.”
Alex dipped his head. “How frequently do they…?”
“Bring new girls?” she asked with a bitter smile.
“Well… yes.”