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"How far are they?" Gale asked, releasing Breath of the Void to the front. Immediately, tendrils caught onto signatures that he recognized were from Blue Haven. About a hundred metres away.

"Give or take, 2-3 minutes away," Ollie replied.

Gale's eyes narrowed. That was just about right. Ideally, avoiding a fight would be the best option. Losing people this early would cause morale to go rock bottom, and that would put this whole convoy into a coffin.

"What do you think we should do?" Ollie asked.

Option 1. Go to the front and cut off the advance, but can he really do it? Bile almost dared to rise up from his throat. Since it's at the front of the convoy, he should leave it to Ollie and Rachel. People have their own roles. Trusting them was essential to the success of the mission.

Or option 2…

"Two choices. Keep moving or wait until they pass. Your call as front scout," Gale said.

He looked at the convoy, all of them with their tired, scared, vulnerable, and weak.

Every moment spent in the forest and unfortified without any surrounding walls risked an attack from a beast that could come from anywhere. And now the Blue Haven scouts were being a pain in the ass.

"Never mind on that. We're going to face them eventually regardless," Gale said, voice firm. "The convoy needs to keep moving. This is a rush to the exit, not a normal hike."

Ollie nodded with a fake smile, saying, "Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool… then I'll head back up front an-"

Sudden bursts of light and heat radiated at the front of the convoy. Both men and everyone else ducked for cover as wood splinters flew through the air. The children at the front couldn't supress their cries and shouts as the explosions that came from the front grew louder with each subsequent one, signaling Rachel wasn't holding back as much.

Gale's Breath of the Void painted him a picture. Rachel exploded the air with fire in front of her, fending off one of the three masked men surrounding her. These were most likely the ones Ollie was just talking about. Not normal. They caught up to the convoy too fast and two minutes hadn't even passed yet.

Rachel hesitated, almost landing at the temple of a scout. The scout kicked her back, causing a pained expression on her face. It was clear that she was acting out of good faith and making wild explosions to scare off the scouts at the cost of the people at the front.

Fucking hell. This might go into options 1 and 2 at the same time, which is exactly the worst scenario that he didn't even bother thinking out loud. They were sitting ducks. All that noise might attract unwanted attention.

"Go," Gale said to Ollie. "She needs backup."

Ollie jumped up to the tree and kicked off of it, landing at the front. In one quick motion, he had landed right beside Rachel. He arrived on the scene, gun drawn already. A quick burst trailed across the trees, hitting scout 1 and 2 on the thighs and scout 3 on his forearm. It was no use. The bullets and fire were ineffective against the Blue Haven scouts, simply just shrugging it all off.

The battle raged on, a dance of fire, bullets, and scouts that felt like they were Terminators. Ollie aimed for more lethal areas. This time, bullets planted themselves in the torso, missing vital organs by millimetres. Rachel made the fire on her fists bigger, probably to make herself look scarier.

Again, it didn't work. Gale's legs were tense. Should he just jump in and end this whole thing and kill the humans himself?

Before he could make a decision, a scout was blasted away from Rachel's explosion. The man hit the tree with a loud thud, then dropped to the forest floor. Another dropped, Ollie's bullet went through the man's neck, and he fell to the ground limp.

The third one was tougher. This one dodged Rachel's fireball punched from her fist. He took cover every time Ollie shot bursts at him. But Rachel was already behind him as he took cover behind a tree—she hesitated.

That was enough. A cry of pain cut through the air. Rachel stumbled back, clutching her arm as blood dripped from her hand. The scout took hold of Rachel's hand, dagger at her neck, and used her as cover against Ollie.

All of Gale's muscles screamed at him to do something. Why are you just standing around? This could've been over before it even started if he had just taken control of the situation.

It was now a stand off. He couldn't hear the scout from where he was. All he could see from the tendrils was the scout's mouth moving up and down. Ollie kept his gun on the scout the whole time.

The scout was clearly not that strong, probably even mundane. Rachel could've done a defensive manoeuvre by now, so why hasn't she?!

Something had to give, and soon. And it was at this point that Gale's tendrils caught something else at the end behind the entire convoy. Definitely not a friend. Everyone was here in the convoy.

It entered more into his tendril's territory. A beast, a rather small one, but still a beast. The choice was binary. Stay put as rear guard as he'd been tasked to or get rid of the scouts.

Decision made.

Gale took a deep breath then looked back at the survivors with their loose grips on their spears. "Stay put. Guard the back. I'll be back."

He disappeared immediately, not waiting for an answer. Break the stand off and then run back as soon as possible. The best of both worlds.

He closed the distance immediately, sabre already drawn. The memory of his first blood flashed in his mind, but so what?! This was the jungle. Kill or be killed. Human or not. Killing Marcus was never about vengeance, cruelty, or even just straight up murder. It was for Rachel, Ollie, and Annett.

And right now, the thing preventing them and anyone in the convoy from surviving was the three murders that were in front of them.

Gale burst into the clearing, landing behind the scout. His appearance caught everyone by surprise. The scout, dazed. Fatal mistake. His grip loosened for a second.

It was all the opening Gale needed. Bone sabre swung upwards, cutting off the scout's hand from its base. Rachel stumbled back as her other arm held onto her injured hand.

The scout immediately dashed away, aiming for the man in front, covering his child. However, before the scout could reach the convoy, his head was sliced off, flying away from the body.

His eyes looked down on its body as it flew through the air. A flicker of recognition showed in its eyes before life faded away from its expression.

"Nice backup!" Ollie shouted.

[Unawakened Cultist felled.]

[Prey has no Origin.]

No time to dwell. Emotions put aside for now. He needed to run back.

"Gale!" Rachel caught him by the arms. "What are you doing here? What about the rear?!"

"No time," Gale quickly said. He needed to run back, but Rachel's wounded arm caught his attention. His eyes landed on the bleeding hand of Rachel. "How's your arm?"

Rachel winced, pulling her hand away from the wound.

"It's not deep," she said. "I'll be fine."

Gale's heart beat faster as he examined the wound. That was hardly believable from the amount of blood that was dripping. It was clearly deep.

He shouldn't have hesitated. It could've been all over in the blink of an eye had he just dealt with it himself, but no. And now Rachel was injured. What if she wasn't able to defend the front because of the injury?

Suddenly, he heard a scream from the back of the convoy. Gale's heart skipped a beat. The back was completely unguarded. That's where he should've been.

He dashed back to the rear of the convoy without hesitation. The sound of screams and snarls mixed together the closer he got. And finally, the scene greeted him.

Two forest beasts, both smaller than average, poked at the defensive spear line by the survivors. One of the women lay on the ground, blood seeping across her thigh. It wasn't that serious that she'd die from it. Still, the group of women had formed a circle to defend the fallen.

All of them put up a fight against the two beasts much larger than them. Their stance stayed composed, not relenting to the swipes and assaults of the beasts.

Although it was useless, Lily at the centre had started thrusting the spear at the beasts. It bounced off the skin, but the force was enough to scratch and draw blood.

If he had not taught any of them any of his survival skills during their brief training sessions, they would've all been lunch for the beasts. Yet here they are, proving their valour against the beasts. The group wasn't in any real danger, yet somehow women would always find a reason to scream.

Gale charged forward. He activated focused Phase Touch along the edge of the blade. The closest forest beast turned at him, sizing him up.

Time slowed down. Gale engaged the beast, ducked under a swipe, and felt a rush of air. Swinging his sabre at the flank, blood sprayed everywhere as meat, bone, and arteries cleanly sliced off. It whined in pain and twisted its body forward, lunging as if offence was a better defense.

But Gale was no longer there. He had already moved away as he heard more screams behind him. Feinting left, the beast took it. He darted right immediately, sabre finding its mark again at the beast's flank, severing a line across its body from shoulder to hind leg.

The beast collapsed on the forest floor, no longer having its front and back right legs. Gale spun around, quickly scanning to find the second beast.

To his surprise, the survivors had managed to bring down the other beast. They stood around its fallen form, chests heaving, bone weapons still pointed as if expecting it to rise again.

Well damn. He didn't think that they would be able to take down a beast themselves. They fought back against the horrors of this world, fighting against life with a strong grip on their spears.

But the feeling was short lived. A survivor still laid on the ground where she had fallen. Her blood pooled below her left thigh that had been swiped at. Gale rushed to her, examining the damage. The gash looked much worse than he thought. Muscle and veins were sticking out from the opening of the wound. The group had created a makeshift rope to tighten around the wound, somewhat helping with the bleeding.

The wound was too deep for emergency patching. There was nothing clean to patch it up with and it would just cause more complications from an infection.

"It's going to be okay," Gale lied, putting pressure at the base of the thigh using his bare hands.

The survivor looked up at him, her half closed eyes and furrowed brows painting her expression of pain and fear.

"Am I… going to die?" she whispered, but the words themselves felt so loud in his head.

Gale shook his head firmly.

"No. You're not dying on me," he said, infusing his voice with as much confidence as he could, yet his voice kept fucking trembling. "Not today. Not here. You're going to survive, got that?"

He turned around and saw the other Blue Haven survivors. They watched the scene, mouths wide open.

"Bandages," he ordered. "Anything to clean and stop the bleeding."

The women followed his instructions, rummaging through the supply bags the rear of the convoy carried.

A rustle snapped Gale out of his panic. Sabre was already ready to swing at the incoming threat but relaxed slightly when he recognized Rachel's voice.

"Gale! What happened?" she asked, her own hand already bandaged.

"Forest beasts," Gale replied tersely as the blood of the survivor dripped down his fingers. "W-we took care of them, but..."

He didn't have to finish the sentence. Rachel was already moving. Dropping to the floor, she moved her hand to the opening of the wound.

"It's going to be ok," Rachel said. The air around the group warmed up, and the shiver from everyone immediately disappeared. "It'll be ok, let's calm down. You're going to be fine."

It was moments like these that reminded Gale how much he had come to trust her. He would've never thought that he would or could ever rely on anyone else other than himself.

"Give me a cloth," Rachel said.

One of the survivors handed her a dirty one. Taking it, she put it on the mouth of the injured survivor and said, "Bite as hard as you can. Got it?"

The injured survivor nodded weakly.

Then, heat rose from Rachel's hand, glowing red hot as she pressed it against the wound. The woman screamed, muffled only by the cloth. After a couple of minutes, the cauterization worked. The wound burnt closed.

Murmurs scattered along the convoy after Rachel wiped the sweat from her forehead. Then, as if on cue, Lennard's voice cut through the murmurs.

The older man pushed his way to the rear of the group where Gale and Rachel treated the injured.

"This is your fault!" Lennard shouted, his face flushed red, pointing at Gale. "If you hadn't left your post, if you had been here where you were supposed to be, this wouldn't have happened! And now look!"

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