novelraw Chapter 547: Tracked
Chapter 547: Tracked
"What is it?" Victor asked as the monks began removing the armor from the creature he remembered fighting as he took an escape pod. The monks looked at him with confused expressions. "That is right... you can’t understand me at all."
They slowly removed the pieces of armor as they unveiled the body underneath. It looked humanoid. As he watched he could see the armor looked like it latched directly onto the body. But once all of the upper body armor was removed they worked on pulling off the black mask which revealed a face with a vertical mouth and a pair of black eyes.
"What an ugly..." He mumbled as the monks quietly whispered between themselves before looking at him.
Then he watched as they pulled at the orange skin and it tore almost like it was a second layer, revealing the black skin underneath that looked like it was almost decaying and rotting. In fact, after the orange film was removed the skin seemed to quickly deflate as a smell like apples hit him.
Coming out of the creature’s head were several thick leather-like tendrils. As the creature decays these tendrils turned white and appeared to be changing into bone. All of the monks stopped what they were doing and bowed their heads or the upper body in one creature’s case and clasped their hands or other appendages. Probably praying in a way for the dead creature.
[Victor, the master wishes to see you.] Victor flinched in surprise and spun around. Eduta was standing partially in the doorway.
Victor walked out the doorway and followed Eduta. Going through the passage ways. Passing by open windows. It is currently day out right now. But it was also storming heavily, so he was able to move around during the day.
After a few minutes they arrived at the central temple. He had never actually been in here before. But it seems the large metal door was more for show since they came in a side door.
The large chamber room had an opening near the top that acted like windows. But at the back of the room was a large tree that was gnarled and twisted. Sitting in front of the tree was an old bald man with a white beard that reached to the floor. He seemed to almost be dead with how visibly starved he was.
But sitting in front of him on a lowered ground were almost a dozen others who were in a similar mediation stance. Some of them were old and clearly starving like the old man. But a few were younger and there were a few different races. Some of which he had never seen before.
"What am I doing here Eduta?" Victor asked quietly with a whisper.
[You are learning to walk.] A different voice caused him to flinch in surprise and Victor looked around before realizing that Eduta had left at some point. [Come sit, I will teach you how to meditate to access your soul.]
Victor noticed a sitting pillow on the ground and he walked forward and sat on top of it after a moment of hesitation. "Like I have not been trying already. I do not think it is possible for me. My kind might just not have this soul."
[You may be a creature of myth. But you still do have a soul.] The voice had faint laughter attached to it. Like the old man was amused or something. [But your body is so in tune with your soul that you find it difficult to differentiate. I had hoped my students would be able to learn how to teach you. But now we no longer have the privilege of time. Now. Let’s begin.]
Victor wanted to ask another question but before he could he was suddenly inside of a dark space. A void. Except there in the void was a single red moon, hanging in the air. "Where am I?"
"Your mental space." A voice responded and he looked around quickly after hearing it sound closer than before. "Or more accurately the front door. I will not go beyond this place but I will show you how to access this place and many other places like it."
"Why are you doing this?" Victor asked suddenly.
"Hmm... why indeed? Because the stars asked me? Because it is necessary? Maybe I just want to bring you up to your leaders level. Jace I believe you call him." Victor suddenly tensed up at the old man’s words.
"How do you know about Jace? I thought you were not going to access my mind?" Victor grunted out in annoyance as he took up a fighting stance and two handaxes appeared in his hands.
"I did not need to." The voice chuckled. "His existence is quite noticeable. There are not many creatures with such a powerful soul."
Victor stopped tensing up. Realizing that Jace must have known about training a soul a long time ago if he had one so powerful. "Where is he?"
"Far away for now. But it would be better for you to train and wait. Of your companions, you are the only one who is not being tracked by the imperials." The old man explained. "Now then, shall we begin?"
—-----------------------
"Cain, I made it inside." K whispered into her communication device as she accessed the control console and began looking up information. Near her, laying on the ground unconscious were a pair of guards. She was dressed in a similar uniform she had stolen from a guard to gain access to this communication facility.
"Good, now you are going to need to access-"
He was cut off by a loud blaring alarm while the lights flashed red. K frowned as she watched the screen change as a sudden image appeared.
"Ha... did you trip the alarm." Cain asked in exasperation.
K scoffed and shook her head before responding. "No I did not. It looks like an emergency transmission from a satellite farther out in the system." She explained as she looked it over. "Looks like something unregistered and probably uninvited is flying an unapproved route through space."
"What is it?" Cain asked.
"Umm... five ships shaped like cones? I do not know, but they do not look like a human design." K explained before frowning as the message disappeared. "Should I still try to access the military satellites?"
"Yes, enter the code I gave you into the main programming update and we will have access until they notice." Cain instructed.
K quickly found the update command and sent a code through. "Okay, I am heading out-"
"Not yet. Go ahead and download some information from that drive I gave you then leave." Cain instructed.
K sighed as she plugged in the drive and started downloading information. A range of information from movement routes to the location of all the military satellites. Then once she was done she stepped back. "Am I done now?"
"Yes, go ahead and get out of there. Same protocol as last time. Stay away for a day to lose any possible tail before you return." Cain instructed before suddenly static and it was disconnected.
K frowned and looked around the room before jumping up and leveraging open a vent before climbing inside. Then quietly closed it behind her. A moment later she watched as the door exploded open and a group of operatives came inside. But she did not see what happened after that as she was already slinking away through the vent.
—-----------------------
A sword cut through the air but was deflected by the sweep of her large axe. Shinobi dodged backwards as he flipped backwards. "Are you doing okay with your side?" He asked Valkyrie.
They were fighting some more bounty hunters that had come after them. Apparently the lord of the Northern Continent wanted to impress someone so he sent out a capture dead or alive notice on them. Not that they knew what they looked like.
But that did not stop them. In fact, only the best trackers and hunters were able to find them using rumors and hearsay or some other piece of tracking technology. In a way, it was actually quite impressive. Especially since their hands were tied in a way that they could not kill them unless they posed a threat to one of their lives.
"I am fine. But-" She cut herself off as her feathers sliced through a person’s limbs and he screamed in pain before collapsing. The laser gun he was using fell to the ground. "He is going to need medical attention. How about yours?" Valkyrie asked.
Shinobi jumped over another sweep of the large axe. There was a flash of metal as he did and landed. The enemy, a large scaled humanoid screamed and prepared to run forward but suddenly tipped off balance before stopping and looking at his weapon. Finding the axe had been cut at the top of the handle.
He looked back at Shinobi just as his fist connected with the scaled humanoid’s face. It collapsed into a heap while Shinobi stood over him. "All done. Should we move to the next hideout?"