The New World -Ornia

Chapter Four -Nocturnal Guardians

“What happened?” An aged man who looked in his forties asked in a low voice. He was seating in the central seat in the Ancestral hall and a few old fogies are sitting all around him. The Ancestral hall of the Akata tribe was just like a miniature colosseum so everyone below could feel the eyes of all the old men focused on them.

At this time Trevor, the only one with the courage to speak stepped forward to explain the situation.

“Ai, we really owe that girl a huge dept. We are incapable of bearing this dept, the Akata tribe can’t afford it” The man in the central seat murmured. He wore a long robe designed with purple threads, he had a regal bearing and his inborn pride could be sensed by anyone in his presence.

“Regardless of the dept Tribal Head, the Sage was too rash this time” another man commented with a frown, although his words seemed reasonable it only caused everyone to look at his with undisguised ferociousness.

“You defame the Sage?” Trevor growled with clenched teeth.

“Get out! You are suspended from the council indefinitely” The Tribal head ordered coldly.

This time the man who spoke up felt an intense feeling of regret, he realized the gravity of his mistake only after he spoke up. At the same time, he felt really grateful to his fellow Elders for sparing his life. With his head hanging low he stood up and walked out of the hall.

“The main issue is what to do now. No one has ever walked out of the Nocturnal forest after spending a night in, and we can’t afford to lose the Sage. But at the same time, we can’t let the Hell tribe learn of the deaths of our elites or Sage’s situation”

“What about sending a Guardian and Trevor? They are the only ones who can leave without attracting attention and at the same time they have a higher chance of surviving than anyone else” Everyone turned to the man who gave this suggestion and finding out that it was the current Tribal Head’s brother they relaxed.

“Elder Malcolm is right, only a Guardian has any chance at solving this problem”

“True...”

“This is the only option…”

The other Elders in the hall expressed their agreements at the same time making the hall a little rowdy.

“Alright, Trevor, you will go with Guardian Lampard back to Nocturnal forest. I will admonish him not to charge in recklessly. Everyone else will act normal, and the rest of you who returned with Trevor should stay here and not see anyone” The Tribal Head got up after passing the order and walked away without hesitation.

In a room, deeper into the Ancestral building the Tribal Head bowed before a handsome blonde man wearing elegant metal armor with a kingly saber strapped to his waist. After explaining the situation outside the man's brows deeply furrowed.

“The Sage did the right thing. Ai, life truly is expensive, too expensive…” The made commented while walking out and his voice faded with his departure leaving the stunned Tribal Head bowing there.

No one in the tribe could understand why the Guardians respected the Sage so much, they respected her because of her concern and grand contributions to the tribe which had saved countless lives numerous times, but the respect of those super-powered Guardians was something they just couldn’t understand.

Malcolm and Trevor raced to the Nocturnal forest wearing a black cloak without exchanging any words. But just as they were about to step into the forest Malcolm reached out to pull Trevor back.

“We can’t go in” he said with a sunken expression.

“Why not? The Sage is in there”

Malcolm could only shake his head with a wry smile.

“Nocturnal Guardians are roaming around”

“Everyone already knows Nocturnal Guardians roam around the periphery at night Lord Malcolm.” Trevor said skeptically. Malcolm shot him a deep look and said through gritted teeth.

“Level 4, and many of them. There is a possibility that higher levels are with them”

Trevor could only gulp at the thought. His worry for the Sage only became more and more intense. If higher levels of these Nocturnal Guardians were out then it meant something was going on in the forest. Malcolm knew what Trevor was thinking so he tapped his shoulder to encourage him.

“She is the Sage for a reason. The good die early and the wicked live longer, but a wise and cautious person can live as long as time allows”

******

Just as Euodia thought she would die, something crazy happened. The first beast to reach her, a really dumb monkey-like beast was so happy that it decided to kick the girl first. Clearly, this beast had some level of intelligence, however, this moment proved that sometimes being stupid was better than being intelligent.

As the monkey type beast kicked Euodia she rolled for a while and fell down a cliff she didn’t know she had reached.

“Ha! Ha! Hahaha hahahaha. wu wuwu…” Euodia who was falling first began to laugh only to cry in the next moment.

“If I had seen it I would have just jumped… Oh no, I’m falling” Euodia who was just happy to have survived only now discovered this new problem and she felt helpless again.

“At least it’s better than having my corpse eaten,” she thought just as she reached the end of her fall. But the girl didn’t die like she thought she would, instead, with a splash, she fell into a lake.

Just before she lost consciousness she could hear Rebecca saying something.

‘This lake is even purer and richer than the energy at the edge of the forest. Miss ca…’ Unfortunately she couldn’t stay conscious long enough to hear all of it.

The active forest soon became silent as the beasts retreated. For some unknown reasons none of them jumped down after Euodia and the energy of the lake, Euodia fell into hid her energy signature and at the same time was absorbed by her.

As they retreated, the beasts ate the bodies of their fellows who died by Euodia’s sword. If anyone had counted they would be shocked to find that in just one night, Euodia had killed one-third of all beasts in Nocturnal forest. Despite their innate fearless nature none of these beasts were willing to die here only for the later ones to feed on both them and Euodia, it was a kind of survival instinct that stopped them from going after Euodia after she fell. Since the older smarter beasts stopped, the weaker ones had to stop too, saving the girl from death.

 By morning the entire forest had been cleaned up, even the grounds soaked with blood were either sucked by other animals or had lush plants growing on them in patches.

The Nocturnal forest was a beautiful paradise once again.

“I will never judge anything as beautiful until I learn they won’t claim my life” Euodia who was sleeping in a lake murmured to herself as she struggled to sit up.

“Eh? I fell into a did I not?”

‘Good morning Euodia, the lake you fell into was the energy of this world and the suit has absorbed it. Unfortunately, we have run out of resources so it is unable to auto-mend due to the lack of ore. And you need a protein diet to fully recover.’

Listening to Rebecca, Euodia looked at her body only to feel a strong desire to puke. Her suit was ripped almost everywhere, except her head and chest, the rest of the suit was gone, oh some was covering the lower part of her body but pants would do a better job. Aside from the missing suit, there were also missing flesh and some hanging flesh on her. Half her thighs were missing and from a little opening, she could tell that her intestines were almost all gone. She was also lacking some necessary organs.

“How am I still alive?” She asked, suppressing the urge to puke.

‘The energy from the lake was richer than the one at the spatial barrier in the same way the energy in the surroundings was to that one. The suit has absorbed all of it and is sustaining your heart and brain with it. You should find protein sources first and ores later, the medicinal essence from these plants will help with whatever nutrient deficiency you may have and the protein will regenerate new organs and muscles but it will be weaker than normal muscles until you train it”

Euodia could only sigh at her fortunate misfortune, this new energy could sustain her for a thousand years at least. The energy from the spatial barrier was only 1% compared to this new one so she couldn’t absorb 0.00001% even if she was to become a thousand times stronger.

Simply put, she was a walking energy house holding about enough energy to destroy Ornia a million times over should she choose to explode.

Without any desire to move she sat there crying for a while, she couldn’t feel the pain from her body since she was numb to pain at this point. When she calmed down she instead began to write an algorithm for Rebecca to hide her energy signature even when in use.

Suddenly a strong weakness overwhelmed her and she felt faint but it lasted only for a moment.

‘Your body has lost it’s 98% nanobots and a lot of nutrients, plus more than half-blood, almost all liquid and a lot of muscles. You only have eight hours to live’ Rebecca reported causing Euodia to roll her eyes.

“Replace missing parts of my leg with condensed energy” Euodia ordered and struggled to stand, she still felt weak but she was able to carry herself. She was feeling several emotions right now. She could see how little life valued in this world from the death of that woman’s soldiers and the countless beasts she had killed. Although she killed beasts, the number of them was way too insane.

At the same time, she felt wronged as the people she rescued didn’t even come looking for her.

“Ingrates, shameful people. I saved their lives and they just left, if not for them I wouldn’t be in this situation” she grumbled to herself as she walked around cautiously looking for something to eat.

There was no way for her to know how unreasonable she was being since she had no idea how deep in she’d gone. The truth was, very few had ever come to this place, in the millions of years it existed she was perhaps the second or third to ever reach this point among all intelligent races. The reason she was able to get here was due to a series of circumstances, not her awesomeness or skill which was not even equal to the weakest soldier in the Akatta tribe. Firsty she had a suit that had the ability to absorb and contain energy, second it could mend itself while endlessly healing her, third she could absorb medicines and ore of the earth where she stepped on, and fourthly she had Rebecca to pay attention to all her vitals and keep her alive. Unfortunately she would never learn why she was able to survive in here, if anyone of those things were missing Euodia would have died a million times over. Truly human desire was insatiable.