Flow of Existence

When Ade woke up again she felt her body being dragged over the floor, she was tied up and surrounded by a bunch of quivering children.

She looked up to see a woman was the one dragging the tied up bunch of children. She was quite young, younger than her mother at least, and looked at the children with a look of pity.

Apparently she didn't enjoy dragging a bunch of children away from their homes, not like Ade cared about any of that. The woman must have tied her up and dragged her with them when she had been knocked out and mistook her for a harmless girl.

But this worked out in Ade's favor, although she had been captured and tied up, the rope wasn't exactly very strong. It was strong enough that a normal kid would never be able to break through it, but not strong enough for Ade. She probably wouldn't have been able to break through it either before her kill on the elemental beast and her proficiency training afterwards, but now she had done so she would be able to break the rope and escape.

Even though Ade used to be rash and arrogant she had learned from her earlier mistakes, she decided her best course of action now was to bide her time and wait for a good moment to escape.

It wouldn't be easy but an opportunity would surely come, she needed to escape.

If she laid down her life now and just let herself get dragged away she would survive, but she had resolved herself earlier, she was going to defend the village or go down with it.

She decided the best course of action was just to pretend to still be knocked out and let herself get dragged together with the children.

Through her half closed eyelids she observed what had come of the village, it wasn't looking very good. Buildings were burning all over the place, screams of pain could be heard from people being killed or mutilated, and kids were crying, unable to even grief their recently killed parents as they were dragged away to become slaves of their own.

Taking in the awful sight Ade had to stay calm, she didn't know how proficient the woman dragging her was at reading Flow. If she was vastly more proficient than Ade her emotions of hatred and sadness would give her away. 

But Ade could somewhat sense the amount of Flow the woman possessed, she was close to her it was easy to observe after all. Even though the capacity of her Flow pool wouldn't necessarily equate to how proficient she was, it was a good indicator. 

She could also just be that much more proficient that, even at this close range, Ade couldn't sense the capacity of her Flow pool at all. But if this was the case it really didn't matter what Ade did, she would always lose.

Ade clenched her teeth as she observed all of this while she herself was getting dragged, on her way to become a slave. She couldn't help herself from feeling hatred and sadness of her own no matter how much she tried to suppress it.

She wanted nothing more than to defend the village, but she just couldn't. She was incredibly weak.

The reason she admired Nash so much, and the reason she had fallen in love with him, had also been his fighting spirit, and his ideals.

She loved hearing the boy talk about his future goals, how he wanted to become village chief and defend the village from invaders.

Even though he didn't often talk about these goals in front of Ade he had recently opened up to her more, ever since she had started training with him and the other boy, his best friend, Kes.

She couldn't deny the feelings of jealousy she held for his best friend, Nash was always spending time with him after all. 

Even though he was seemingly inferior in talent to her, he kept on training with him. She had to admit he was a bit smart and had above average fighting talent, but he couldn't compare to the genius she and Nash held.

She even had tried talking him down on a couple occasions but she could really tell Nash didn't like his friend being attacked.

When Nash was with this friend he really seemed to brighten, but he seemed to brighten even more when he talked about his ideals, he loved the village more than anything.

Ade wondered what Nash loved more, the village or her.

A silly thought really, they had not even been together for a single day, there was no way Nash would give up all his ideals just for her. Right?

And exactly because of this she had to fight, she had to protect this village, even if it meant dying.

The dragging was starting to hurt quite a bit, but finally they had reached the periphery of the village, it wouldn't take much longer before Ade could take her chance and escape.

And when there were finally no other attackers in sight Ade made her move. She removed the ropes quickly and pounced at the woman who had been dragging her just a second before.

But the woman was quicker, she swiftly turned around and blocked Ade's sneak attack, it didn't catch her off guard at all.

The woman wore a look of pity on her face, this only served to piss off Ade more.

Because the woman had to block Ade's attack she had let go of all the children. Ade swiftly moved and destroyed the ropes bound around the rest of them.

Ade looked at the pitifully quivering children. "Get up, we need to fight, we need to protect our village. I probably can't win against her alone, but together we can beat her, we clearly outnumber her greatly."

Ade wasn't lying, she had waited for the perfect opportunity to sneak attack the woman. Even though she had hoped to take her out with this sneak attack alone, in the case that the attack failed she could free the others and fight her together, when they outnumbered her by a lot.

Ade's speech seemed to have some effect as some of the children nodded at her and seemingly got ready to fight the woman, their odds didn't seem bad. But a lot of the children still decided against fighting, they were either too scared or too young to do anything.

In reality, Ade knew these children weren't going to be of any help in the fight against the woman, they were just children after all barely being trained in Flow. They could serve as distractions at best, but Ade assumed the woman wasn't going to kill any of the children. All her behavior earlier had shown that she was partial to children, and didn't want to harm any of them.

Ade shuddered at her own thought pattern, using children as a potential sacrifice was not something she should do, and most of all it would not be something Nash would like to see happening.

Ade looked at the quivering children again. "Actually, never mind, let me handle all of it, I will fight her alone. Now get out of here and fast."

Some of the children reacted instantly and ran away to hide somewhere, while others stayed there quivering and frozen up. This annoyed Ade a little but there was nothing she could do about it right now.

She stared at the woman again. The woman had clearly given her time and not recklessly and quickly attacked her as soon as she tried freeing the children. Her look was even more pitiful than before, it seemed she really was partial to children.

"I will give you this one chance." The woman said before all the children ran out of sight, making sure they all heard it too.

"Turn yourself in again and I will spare your life, I really don't want to kill anyone as young as you. Trust me, I will not kill you, I will not let you get in harm's way until you become a slave or get sold off as long as you give up and surrender yourself here right now."

It seemed all of the children got the memo, the children that were fleeing instantly froze on the spot, they didn't want to die.

It was only natural, Ade thought, every human being wants to live, no one wants to die. But she resolved herself, she was going to defeat this woman right here and defend the village.

But suddenly she felt something pull on her sleeve, it was a boy, he couldn't be older than eight years old. Tears were forming in his eyes while he quivered.

"Please don't fight her, she is way too strong, there is no way you can beat her."

The woman sighed as she looked at the sight of the little kid pleading for the girl with icy blue eyes that was bravely standing in front of all the other kids to not fight. 

"You heard him. So? What will it be."

Ade gritted her teeth and looked at the woman who was staring at them so pitifully. "I would rather die than surrender the village, be ready to fight."

The woman let out a loud sigh as she saw Ade getting into a fighting stance. "Then so be it."

She was upon Ade before she could even react, there was nothing Ade could do. The woman was way too strong, the terrifying burst of Flow she revealed when she pounced her shocked Ade to her very core.

Ade felt herself losing consciousness before she was even aware of what was happening, her final thoughts were filled with nothing but the visage of a gray haired sweetly smiling boy.

Ade's lips shifted into a smile.

'I hope you are proud of me.'