Chương 30: Chapter 26 - Borrowed Strength

Then a memory surfaced in Torou's mind, unbidden. The chief. It had happened some time ago, when the young Black Apes gathered together while their chief stood before them and demonstrated an illusion unlike anything Torou had seen. It wasn't a mere trick of light. It had mass. A physical body that can actually be struck.

"If any of you can defeat this," the chief had said, smiling, "I'll give you a nice reward." The youngsters attacked immediately, working together, covering one another's blind spots: one from the left, another from behind, a third trying to distract the illusion. It didn't matter. The chief's creation beat them back one by one, and he'd used only a single hand to do it. Afterward, one of the youngsters stared at the illusion still standing amid the wreckage of their attempt.

"How is that possible?" he'd asked, sounding genuinely frustrated.

"It isn't just some ghost. It's actually fighting us." Torou, sitting off to the side, had asked the only question that mattered to him.

"How did you do that, chief?" The chief's eyes had settled on him.

"Curious, aren't you?" Torou had nodded.

"All it takes is a strong imagination," the chief said, raising one finger, "a large capacity of spiritual essence" he then raised a second finger, "and the control to hold both together." Torou had listened carefully and remembered every word.

"Thank you, chief," he'd said, bowing. After that, he practiced. Every day, day and night, he imagined a body: its weight, its movements, its attacks. Then he tried to shape his spiritual essence around that image. The ability had always slipped away from him: a vague shadow, a half-formed shape, never something real. Not until now. Back in the present, Torou gritted his teeth, looked at the approaching skeletons, then at Luan. His hand tightened around the sword.

"Come on..." He forced the attempt again, pouring what remained of his spiritual essence into it. For a moment, nothing happened. Then something answered. A shape appeared beside him—a second Torou. Luan's eyes widened because the copy wasn't an afterimage; it had weight, a body, its fur shifting slightly with the wind, its hand tightening around an illusionary sword. Torou stared at it while smiling, he had finally done it, after all this time.

"I..." His breathing shook.

"I actually did it." The relief lasted less than a second. The strain immediately became obvious—Torou's face paled, sweat ran down his forehead, and the clone flickered.

"It costs too much."

"Can you keep it?" Luan asked.

"Not for long." Torou swallowed.

"But long enough." The clone suddenly lunged. A skeleton had broken away from the main group and was moving toward Luan. The copy took a step forward and intercepted it, catching the creature by the wrist and twisting until the bone snapped. The skeleton struck with its other hand; the clone ducked and slammed its shoulder into it, moving like Torou but not quite—its attacks were slower, its reactions were duller, and the edges of its body flickering with every motion.

Still, it fought: a puppet with its own limbs but none of its own intentions, every movement demanding Torou's concentration, every attack draining him further. The clone pressed toward the next skeleton, cutting, dodging, blocking, and with every blow it landed, and every blow it took, it grew thinner, hazier, less solid than the moment before, like something built from smoke rather than muscle. Even at its best, it was nowhere close to Torou himself.

The chief's version had been effortless; Torou's was barely holding together. But it was real, and for the first time, he understood the ability wasn't impossible. He simply wasn't just strong enough yet. He was still only Mortal Peak-Stage. The thought should have discouraged him, but instead, strangely, it gave him hope. There was still room to improve, and he just needed to become stronger.

Beside him, Luan was doing a different kind of math in his head, running through what little he actually had to offer this fight. What he had was a bag that held spiritual coins, and a handful of spiritual fruit. That was it—no powerful weapon, no combat attribute, no technique capable of turning the tide. But he had something. Luan tore open the bag, pulled out one of the fruits, and pressed it into Torou's hand.

"Eat it."

"Luan..."

"Now." The urgency in Luan's voice made him stop.

"Argue with me later." Torou hesitated, then ate it. The effect wasn't instant, but it was fast: warmth spread through his body, his breathing slowly evened out, the trembling in his hands began to settle, and the spiritual essence he'd nearly exhausted started climbing again. He stared at the core of the fruit in his palm, looked at Luan, then back at the fruit.

"That's..." He shook his head.

"That's not something you just hand out."

"You needed it more than me." Luan looked toward the battlefield.

"Mr. Unknown gave it to me for emergencies." Another skeleton crashed into a warrior, who barely managed to block the blow.

"Be thankful to him." Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Something that might have been a laugh escaped Torou—short, disbelieving, entirely out of place in the middle of a battlefield.

"Sure." He looked toward the fight.

"I'll thank him." The clone flickered again. Torou raised his sword and stepped forward, going back into the fight steadier than he'd left it. The fruit hadn't restored him completely, but it had given him enough—enough to keep fighting, enough to keep the clone standing. When another skeleton lunged for the gap where Luan stood pressed against the wagon wheel, Torou was already moving; his sword intercepted the attack while the clone struck from the opposite side, and the skeleton collapsed between them.

Luan stared, and then he realized something. Torou wasn't simply protecting the caravan anymore. He was protecting him. There were dozens of skeletons by now, perhaps more, and despite lacking any attributes to call their own, they hit like siege weapons. One punched through a wooden shield, then another threw a warrior several meters down the road. A third slammed into a wagon, hard enough to crack one of its wooden supports.

The caravan guards were experienced and fought well, but experience couldn't erase numbers. Slowly, the line began to buckle. Zorian saw it. He looked down the road, then behind him: the cattle panicking, the cargo wagons crowding together, the warriors tiring. One more push might break the formation entirely.

"Retreat to the second line!" his voice rang out. The warriors obeyed, retreating toward the wagons. The skeletons followed. Then... a light erupted. A surge of brilliance tore through the darkness, and for an instant the entire road turned white. Luan raised his arm to shield his eyes as heat washed over him. The skeletons stopped, then it began to burn—not slowly, not one at a time, but all at once, it was engulfed by the light itself.

The bone blackened, cracked, melted, and they crumbled one after another, like candles left too close to a flame. The warriors froze, and nobody moved. Nobody even understood what had happened. At the front line stood a mysterious figure. The person was alone and a hood covered the person's head, and the light surrounding him was so intense that nobody could make out his face. He raised one hand, and another wave of light swept across the road, melting more of the skeletons.

Then the light vanished, and the darkness returned. The mysterious person vanished instantly. Luan stared at the place where he'd stood.

"What..." Torou lowered his sword, even his clone had disappeared. Zorian looked around sharply. He'd caught sight of where the person had gone—simply merging back into the crowd—but the hood had hidden his face. His eyes then moved from one warrior to another. No one stood out. His mind raced. I wonder who that person is. Then another thought followed. But more than that—where the hell did these skeletons come from? He looked at the remains scattered across the road. And what was their goal?

Were they simply robbers? Had someone sent them? Or was something else happening? Zorian's expression darkened. There were too many questions, and no answers.... Then, without warning, the battle ended. One moment the remaining bone-things were pressing forward in that same eerie, coordinated line. The next, all at once, they stopped—joints locking, arms freezing in midair.

One skeleton stood with a foot raised, as though it had simply forgotten how to finish the step; another had its weapon halfway through a swing. Then they collapsed, all together, dozens of them folding to the ground in a single unified motion. Bones struck the road— clatter, clatter, clatter —and then silence. Real silence. For several seconds, nobody moved. The only sounds were ragged breathing and the low, uneasy shifting of the cattle.

Finally, one of the older warriors approached a pile of bones and nudged it with the toe of his boot.

"That's..." He frowned.

"That's not normal." Another warrior looked at him.

"What isn't?"

"They don't just stop." He stared down at the skull near his boot.

"They were attacking us a moment ago." No one answered. Zorian moved through the wreckage himself, counting heads before counting losses: three warriors dead, six wounded, one wagon overturned, half its cargo scattered across the road—some trampled, some broken, some simply gone beneath the chaos. He crouched beside one of the fallen skeletons and picked up its skull. Strange scratches marked the base of the neck, not random damage but a deliberate mark.

He rubbed his thumb over it, the symbol meant nothing to him as he doesn't recognize it.

"Have you seen this before?" he asked the warrior beside him.

"No."

"Anyone?" Silence. Zorian studied the mark a little longer, then broke off a small fragment of bone and slipped it into his pocket.

"Don't mention this to the others." The warrior frowned.

"Why?"

"Because I don't know what it means." Zorian stood.

"And I don't want people guessing." He looked toward the dark wilderness. Whatever had sent these things here might still be watching.

"Move the wounded onto the wagons." His voice turned firm again.

"We leave before daylight." A few warriors looked surprised.

"Now?" Zorian looked at the dead.

"We're not camping beside this." Nobody argued. The caravan began rebuilding itself.... Luan sat beside Torou afterward, both of them too tired to speak for a while, the caravan slowly reassembling around them into something capable of moving again. Broken harnesses were replaced, the overturned wagon pulled upright, the cattle calmed, the wounded treated as best the caravan could manage. Nobody spoke loudly, and it felt strange after so much noise. Eventually, Torou broke the silence.

"Thank you." Luan looked at him.

"For the fruit." He paused.

"And for not listening when I told you to stay back." Luan's ears twitched.

"I did stay behind you."

"Mostly." Torou agreed, and his expression turned serious.

"I'd have died in that fight if you hadn't." Luan didn't answer.

"I want you to know I understand that." The words caught him off guard. Luan looked down—he wasn't used to being thanked, not sincerely—and didn't know what to do with that kind of honesty, so he did what came naturally instead.

"I wonder where that army of skeletons came from." Torou leaned back against the wagon.

"Yeah."

"I never thought it was possible to make the dead fight."

"Neither did I." Luan hesitated.

"There were even large skeletons..." They fell silent again. Luan looked toward the wilderness. The darkness seemed different now. Before tonight, the forest had simply been a place filled with beasts; now he wondered what else could be hiding inside it.

"What attribute do you think the person behind it possessed?" he asked. Torou considered the question, rubbing his injured forearm.

"I don't know. There are plenty of attributes I've never even heard of." He looked toward the road.

"So I can't give you an answer." Luan nodded, and after talking over what had happened, they finally went quiet. Neither of them had an explanation. Neither had even a good theory. Only questions: Who had created the skeletons? Why had they attacked the caravan? Why had they stopped? And who was the mysterious person who had saved them? Somewhere behind them, one of the drivers began quietly totaling the losses out loud to no one in particular.

"Wagon damaged..." A pause.

"Cargo lost..." Another number.

"Wages owed to the dead..." Nobody stopped him. It was, Luan understood now, simply part of what a caravan cost: the cattle, the wheels, the food, the coin, and sometimes people. He just hadn't understood, until tonight, that the cost could come due all at once, and that surviving it wasn't the same as walking away from it clean. Far ahead, beyond the edge of the torchlight, the road continued toward the city: straight, quiet, indifferent, as if nothing had happened. As if the dead had not risen from the darkness.

As if an unknown figure had not appeared in a flash of light. And as if, somewhere beyond the road, something wasn't already waiting for them.