User blog:KingMaster TOG/A warrior's path: Chapter 3 preview


 * Crunch crunch cruch*

Their footsteps were extremely quick. Huo-Lin ran on a limp almost. His legs were still damaged from the explosion, but who knows what kind of gangs or looters there could have been behind them? He had to continue running. Fushidara had to be at least almost a mile in front of him now. He had to keep running until he could regain a visual on his partner. He was the one carrying most of the supplies after all. He hoped he hadn’t ditched him.


 * Pant pant pant*

It was almost dark, Huo-lin must have been running for an hour straight now. It was almost pitch-black. You’d think that they’d be far enough from the wreckage to draw any looters to their position now. No matter, he had to continue until he regained sight of Fushidara…. Or something else. His soul tried to keep him going, trying to have him use up any of his remaining strength to keep going. He had to survive this, or what good would he be?

Of course, since Fushidara, being an infiltrator, would have little trouble running so fast and keeping it up for so long, it was in his job title. He had to be able to run fast enough to avoid getting caught when sneaking behind or from the enemy backline.


 * Crunch, pant, crunch, pant…*

He saw a dim light ahead. A small, tiny spark. It had become nearly pitch-black by the time he’d seen it. But he knew it was there… feh, he was no Shi Xue-Shan… he couldn’t move at supersonic speeds…. Oh, how he wanted to master the power of his soul… the insane amount of power that it would grant. It was said that an individual trained enough could level a mountain with a single strike…..

In fact, he’d seen men who could have caused massive landslides before. But this amount of mastery of the soul would have required years upon decades of training, and the determination that would rival gods. Did he have it…?

The spark grew to a flame, and the flame grew to a blaze. He had been daydreaming so long that he hadn’t even noticed how far he’d gone towards the flame… he could see a figure standing next to the bonfire. Was this Fushidara?


 * crunch crunch…krrrrrr!!!!*

Huo-lin slid to a halt upon the gravel road. The figure turned around.

“God, took you long enough.”

“Jeez….You think you could’ve….slowed down a bit…? *Pant…pant*….”

“I know, but jeez, you’re slow as molasses!”

“Hey, I enlisted as infantry, we don’t have an infiltrator division, you know….*pant*”

“Anyways, we are…here right now” Said Fushidara, pointing to a map.

“What time is it…? How far are we from the wreckage?”

“It’s 9:30 right now. And we’re around… I’d say 100 kilometers from the wreck?”

“50 kilometers per hour for 2 hours…Well hey…better than the last time they measured…”

“Well, I got here at least half an hour ago…so……

“gaahhhh….”

Huo lin slumped onto the ground and didn’t move for at least a couple of minutes. He was dead tired.

“Err, camp’s already set up. You should go fall asleep over there,” Said Fushidara, who pointed to a tarp shelter made out of an emergency blanket salvaged from the wreckage. “Not on the floor.”

Huo-lin gazed over at the makeshift shelter. It was sloppily thrown over a low-hanging tree-branch, crumpled up and sagging. It looked like the smallest breeze would knock it over, and on top of it all, there was no way two almost-fully-grown men were going to fit under there.

“Have they never taught you how to build a shelter properly? Or were you just not paying any sort of attention…whatsoever?” asked a somewhat-disgusted Huo-lin, observing the makeshifted “shelter”

“No they didn’t actually. We’re supposed to be able to get out of enemy lines and return to base camp. A pretty situational purpose, really.”

“That explains everything, lemme just fix this up….” Huo-lin observed what was wrong with the shelter, he looked at it for a while, before going to work on fixing the blanket to make it more stable and equal. Now all he needed was a bit of rope…

“Hey man, you got some rope on you?”

“Dammit, forgot to check for any! Did you find any?”

Huo-lin sighed in a combination of disbelief and annoyance, you think they would have taught their soldiers field survival?

“It’s in the bag.”

“I can’t find it, man!”

This was going to be a long and painful shelter repair, he could feel it

Many minutes passed. After some fidgeting and arguing, they finally had the shelter fixed. At least it wouldn’t be destroyed in the middle of the night by their own breath anymore….

Huo-lin crawled into the shelter. Exhausted mentally, physically, and spiritually. Hey, at least he’d get a better rest than last night…. ugh.

They managed to salvage two more emergency blankets. These were infused with miniscule amounts of Fire mana to keep the wearers warm as they slept. As such, they glowed ever so dimly in the pitch-blackness of night.

Fushidara crawled into the makeshift tent shortly after. It was a bit cramped but hey, it was life or death out here. The two dozed off almost immediately. The ground was still hard, but hey, it was better than that one time Huo-lin had to sleep out in the open on a bed of rocks after losing a bet.

The two fell asleep. They hoped for a good night's rest. It was something they hadn't had in what seemed like weeks. They earned it.

…….

…..

…

...*crick*