Chapter [B4] 19 — Push Back
Hao Gang patrolled the external border around the seventh peak. He’d been a farmer just a few months ago, in one of the many villages scattered around the seventh peak. But things had changed this winter. Hao Gang had been one of the first to feel it, the ominous feeling that had permeated things. The spirits in the forests were acting differently, uneasy, and afraid. So when a man from the new Divine Tree sect had arrived at their village, he’d been one of the first to volunteer.
Now he walked a rifle on his back, and exploding alchemical pills in his pouch, with two new recruits trailing behind him. It had been rapid, everything that had been happening and the changes being made. The people of the sect kept bringing out terrifying new inventions and handing them out to people like nothing. They built a wall securing the village. To do that, they used liquid stone like glue to piece it all together. They built roads and gates, and now others from the sect much like him all patrolled the area as well.
It always made him wonder, if this was all stuff they were willing to give out freely, then what kind of things would they have that they weren’t so open with?
The thought was terrifying, and reassuring to him. If someone had told him he’d be standing up and fighting demonic beasts just a few months ago he’d have laughed in their face.
Now? It was simply a daily fact of life for him.
Hao Gang paused, his rumination coming to an end as he felt something. The two men behind him, walking aimlessly and almost in a daze nearly bumped into his back. He would have time to chide them later, but right now... he focused towards the forest. Something was there.
“Do you hear that?” He asked, glancing behind him.
“Please don’t do that again leader,” one of the men said, wiping their eyes.
“The sun hasn’t even fully come out yet,” the other agreed, yawning.