Chapter 67
“Kyller?”
“I’m here.” I sighed with relief at hearing Zion’s voice again. I wiped a bead of sweat trickling down my temple.
“My gift still hasn’t returned. What’s happening? Did more students die?”
He was silent for a moment, as if weighing his words, and my heart raced again.
“The attacks have reached quadrant 4. They’re very close and you’re running out of time. I’ll guide you both through a faster route. There’s a drone in front of you. Follow it.”
“What happened to the students in that area?” I dreaded the answer, but I needed to know.
“Dead. Only Ethan’s heart is still beating in area three. Last time we saw him, he was lying on the shallow bank of a lake. Maybe the beasts didn’t spot him.”
“Can’t we do anything for the students in quadrant 5?”
I signaled to Adele that we should climb down and run. She shook her head, mouthing “no.”
“No. If you go there, you’ll arrive at the same time as the ghouls, but you can still help the students in quadrant 7. You can save them.”
“Did you get help?” Another bead of sweat ran down my face.
“Yes. Zafira is with me. We also brought Dominic and Natali for support. Now I need you to bring Breno to the barrier.”
I broke out in a cold sweat because my gift was still returning slowly, and I couldn’t access even a tenth of it.
“Kyller. Now. You need to get down immediately!” he shouted, startling me. “Follow the drone in front of you.”
“We need to go.” I grabbed Adele’s arm. “The ghouls are getting closer. We have to move now.”
A drone hovered in front of my eyes, catching our attention.
Adele, understanding that finding Breno was our only chance of survival, finally moved and began climbing down from the tree.
Her hands were shaking, her lips pale, but she forced herself to keep going.
I climbed down right behind her, this time a little more relieved.
I could feel a slight itch in my injured areas, which were beginning to regenerate as my gift grew stronger.
When I reached the ground, I fitted the bow, secured the quiver, and noticed that the cut on my eyebrow had healed.
“Follow the drone. We’ll guide you toward Breno.”
I took Adele’s hand and pulled her forward as I focused on enlarging my own liver.
It was a blessing to feel each fiber, ligament, and tissue expanding as my body regenerated at supernatural speed.
Behind us, the howls, once distant, were growing louder and louder, and it was terrifying to imagine how close they were.
“Are your clothes bloody?” Zion asked.
“Yes, when Adrian cut my eyebrow, blood dripped onto my jacket. Adele’s is stained too.”
“The first students attacked were the ones who were injured. You need to take off your jackets. The smell of blood seems to attract them.” Zion said as I ran.
I took off my jacket, throwing it into a toxic lake, and as soon as I exposed my body to the wind and snow, the cold bit into every nerve.
A cruel cold, like blades of ice slicing my skin.
I forced myself to run faster, wiping the snowflakes clinging to my eyelashes, because running was the only way to warm my body and stave off hypothermia.
“Do you think you can work on Breno while running?” Zion asked.
“I’ll try. Are we far?”
“You’re entering area 7. From here, it’s another thirty minutes of running to reach him.
” It was a long time, and Adele was too weak to endure all that.
The whole situation reduced our chances of success even further.
“The beasts have reached area 5. We’re sending five drones to surround your perimeter.
They’ll be a kilometer away from you, one in each direction.
If any of them go down, I’ll let you know. ”
“Okay,” I replied and continued dragging Adele along with me.
“I don’t know if I can keep this up much longer. I’m exhausted,” she said between loud, heavy breaths.
“If you stop, you die, and I’m not letting that happen. Come on, lean on me,” I said, pulling one of her arms over my shoulder to support her. She didn’t protest—she was exhausted from using so much of her gift, and still weak from dehydration.
The power kept awakening inside me, spreading from the center of my chest to all my limbs.
I felt it vibrating in my blood, furious at being silenced for so long.
While these changes scalded my body from the inside out, I dragged Adele through the forest, wondering how I’d deal with Breno when I could barely carry the Yonserian.
The whole way, Zion guided us away from the traps, but even so, the path wasn’t easy.
We had to leap over a stream and slide down an enormous embankment, where we lost control and went tumbling down, slamming into rocks.
As soon as we got up, I healed every scrape on our skin and kept going.
The aurora borealis was the only thing lighting our path, and the more the power returned, the more out of control I felt.
At some point, the headaches and déjà vu started, along with a female voice murmuring in my mind.
Now it was clear she was asking me not to fight, repeating it over and over.
Trying not to get distracted, I ignored the sensation and started breathing in an arcane pattern to calm my heart and block out the voice.
Thirty minutes later, we found a spring and stopped to drink.
It didn’t smell like iron, so we drank quickly.
I splashed the freezing water on my arm and face to wash off the blood, and Adele did the same—any trace of it would attract the monsters.
The howls sounded right behind us, and we took off running again.
From the sound, the carniceals had to be close.
My power seemed to have taken on a life of its own now, writhing inside my chest in a way that unsettled me.
Normally, healing was cold and delicate, making its way slowly upward, as if careful not to disturb me.
But what I felt was the opposite—the power was heavy, turbulent, enveloping me dangerously, resonating through my bones.
“Kyller, Breno is a hundred meters away, inside a fallen tree,” Zion announced, pulling me from my tumultuous thoughts.
I ran, scanning the area until I finally found the spot. The red light from his flask illuminated the inside of the hollow tree, and the drone landed on top of it. Breno’s feet stuck out from the trunk, and he was sprawled like a drunk tossed in a gutter.
“Breno?” I called, knocking on the wood. He didn’t respond. Feeling time slipping away, I grabbed his feet and dragged him out. He half-opened his eyes and looked at us, disoriented.
“Just five more minutes,” he grumbled groggily, closing his eyes again.
“He’s high on hallucinogens—a lot of them,” Zion warned in my mind.
“For the love of the gods. Do you want to die, Breno?” Adele kicked him in the ribs, trying to lift him by his hair.
Horrified, I interrupted her:
“Stop that, he’s intoxicated.”
I pushed her back and crouched down, placing my hand under his jacket.
“He’s going to be intoxicated and dead if he doesn’t get up,” Adele shouted, completely hysterical. “Just like us, if we stay here.”
“Wait, Adele. Stay calm, we have time to heal him. Come help me boost his liver.”
Adele crouched down with a huff and placed her trembling hands on Breno, who was drifting off again.
“Actually, you don’t have time, Kyller. Ten minutes at most—area 6 has already been taken,” Zion updated us on our dire situation.
Desperation blurred my vision, or maybe it was just physical exhaustion. Either way, I pushed harder, pouring every molecule of my determination into Breno. Within five minutes he was sweating, and finally opened his eyes, a bit more lucid.
“What’s happening?” he asked, finally realizing there were two girls hovering over him. “Did I die and wake up in paradise?”
He smiled groggily and reached for my face.
I heard Zion growling in my mind while Adele held Breno still.
Quickly, I told him everything that had happened while I worked on transforming his liver.
I explained about the chimera attack and how we needed to bring down the barrier.
With each passing minute, his eyes seemed to regain that gleam of intelligence and sharpness I knew so well.
I told him about my power returning, and that he’d need to take down the test’s containment field.
Breno blinked, trying to take it all in.
“Are you telling me I have to absorb an ancient barrier of pure power, cultivated for thousands of years?” He wiped the sweat streaming down his face, staring at me in disbelief.
“Yes. That’s exactly what we’re saying, but the good news is Zafira’s going to help you,” I said, lifting him off the ground. “It’s that or get devoured by chimeras. Now we need to run—we have to reach the barrier, and I think by the time we get there, your liver will have metabolized everything.”
I pulled Breno up and he staggered, still a bit dizzy.
Adele and I took our places at his sides and dragged him through the area, our hands locked around his waist, while I sent even more power to make his liver work overtime and regenerate despite the stress of the tripled effort.
If I stopped healing while forcing the metabolism, Breno would collapse within minutes.
His liver was working three times harder than normal, and the adrenaline in his body was pumping blood at an accelerated rate—extremely dangerous, but there was no other way.
“Kaori got through to Isaac so he could escape by following the drone. Isaac’s already found three more students—they’re all running to quadrant 9 and picking up anyone along the way,” Zion informed me.
“Where are Aish and Hiro?” I asked, panting. Running while dragging Breno wasn’t easy.
Zion went quiet for a moment, probably checking their location.
“They left the tree. Looks like they understood there was danger—they’re following the drone.”