Flow of Existence

After his fight with the one armed monster Nash had passed out, his mind was still in a stupor as he slowly gained consciousness again.

He felt he was restricted by tight shackles, Nash couldn't break through them with his current strength. His arms were bound behind his back, it was hard to exert strength. The alloy the shackles were made out of was also incredibly strong, Nash had never felt anything as strong before.

Around him voices were resounding, he dazedly began picking them up. One guy was shouting loudly, while the other one was more cool and collected.

"Should we kill the kid? I mean he killed Con after all."

"What the fuck do you mean, should we kill him after all, of course we should kill the little kid. He killed Con damnit!"

"I get what you mean, but that just makes him a more high value target. Imagine how much he could sell for as a slave. Besides, the boss told us to take as many people as possible back alive with us."

"Who cares what the boss high up says, my real boss has always been Con, I want revenge and I want it now."

Nash heard the man let out a loud snort "Con has always been your real boss you say? You just want to gain this little kid's innate element and Flow don't you? Stop lying to yourself, and me, already and just let it go, I'm not going to let this kid die here today."

"Easy for you to say, you already formed your innate element during the slaughter earlier, why can't I have the same, huh?" The other man barked out.

A jolt of pain ran through Nash's whole body, he couldn't even imagine how many villagers had died earlier, he didn't want to imagine it either.

He was too tired, simply too tired, right now to rage and resist right now. This was the pitiful state he had ended up in himself.

While they were talking about innate elements Nash suddenly remembered the fight he had just fought, and he remembered what he had pulled off at the end.

He quickly looked towards where the middle of his forehead should be while his eyes were closed, and, indeed a circle had formed there.

The circle was just the outline of a circle, it wasn't filled. Nash saw that on the bottom of the circle a bit of gray was filling his circle. He wondered what that was but couldn't think about it right now. Because the argument had reached its boiling point.

Even though his eyelids were still closed, stuck together tightly, he could sense something was about to attack him. He clearly felt aggression coming from the Flow of the man that had just been barking about how unfair it was that he hadn't formed his innate element yet, and it was coming towards him.

The other man was too slow to react, Nash could feel him panicking too. It surprised him how much better his proficiency had gotten. He wondered if these two were just newbies, incredibly inproficient at controlling their Flow, or if he had made a breakthrough of his own during his fight with the one armed monster.

He thought it was probably both, not that that mattered anymore anyways, he was going to die, just because the other man had been an incompetent fool.

'Is this really how I go out?' Nash thought.

He had killed his own father, fought against a group of raiders, and fought, and killed, one of the strongest raiders attacking the village. And now he was going to die because one small fry was too greedy and didn't have an ounce of self control?

'Absolutely unacceptable.'

Nash woke up out of his stupor, he didn't care if he was tired anymore, he wasn't going to die here.

He let out a burst of his unrestrained Flow, the pressure alone causing the aggressive man to stumble.

"What the hell." The man blurted out.

Nash tried to free himself from his chains, but alas, he was still too weak, he couldn't break through them.

Nash felt the aggressive man get back up again, apparently he hadn't bought enough time, the other man wasn't quick enough in stopping him.

Or so he had thought.

Suddenly a truly terrifying pressure descended upon them, goosebumps raised all over Nash's body.

Meanwhile the other two men instantly froze up, the pressure from this Flow was simply too much for them.

"What exactly do you think you are doing?" A pleasant voice resounded.

…

A couple minutes ago Romun made his way back to the village, when he reached the periphery he witnessed something truly interesting.

A woman was standing there, surrounded by knocked out children, and the corpse of a teenage looking girl.

Romun raised his eyebrow as he approached her. "What exactly do you think you are doing Sandra?"

Sandra snorted as she saw Romun approaching. "Nothing much, just making an example out of a stupid girl."

Romun once again looked at the dead girl that was lying on the floor, she had beautiful icy blue eyes, truly a shame for her to have died here.

But Romun knew Sandra's nature very well. "An example, is that so?"

"Yes an example, now buzz off don't you have something else to do, you are the all important boss after all." Sandra said in an annoyed voice.

Romun smiled. "Sure, I will be on my way now. Just make sure not to kill any more children, we have been tasked to bring them back, don't forget that."

He suddenly felt an immensely angry emotion coming from Sandra's Flow. "Your arm doesn't seem to be looking very good either, what happened to you? Should I completely snap it off for you?"

Romun tensed up. "Joking, joking, it was just a joke, calm down. But we did get fed quite a bit of misinformation, the old man I fought was a lot stronger than I could have imagined, he was a lot stronger than you, that's for sure." 

Sandra raised an eyebrow, she seemed to relax as she continued tying up the rest of the children.

"Stronger than me, that must have really been a problem then. Too bad you didn't die. Now let me go ahead, tie up and transport these children towards the camp."

'She is still as naive as ever.' Romun thought inwardly. But he decided not to say anything more to her. Exactly because he knew her nature, he knew what she had done here and realized that it wasn't wise for him to talk to her now. 

Instead he decided to make his way up towards where most of the captives were being held, when, suddenly, he felt a burst of Flow coming from there.

He wondered what was going on and swiftly dashed towards the scene, he arrived there at an inhuman speed.

What he saw was very interesting to him.

A gray haired boy, covered in blood and ash, was shackled up. He was presumably the one who had just produced the burst of Flow. His eyes were closed, and he desperately struggled to break the chains that were binding him.

Meanwhile an aggressive man was dashing towards the boy, he had a knife in his hand, seemingly ready to kill the boy as fast as possible. He had faltered a little because of the recent Flow burst but was already back on his feet and ready to stab the kid to death.

A couple steps behind him a man was desperately panicking, trying to prevent the kid from being stabbed to death. But he wouldn't make it in time, the man would reach the boy before he could stop him, so Romun decided to interfere.

He swiftly let out a burst of Flow. "What exactly do you think you are doing?"

…

Nash felt the terrifying pressure, he stopped trying to break free from his chains and calmed down, he was saved it seemed. At least for now. If you could even consider it being saved, this meant he was going to get sold off as a slave.

His eyelids were still stuck firmly together, he slowly opened them. His eyes slowly but surely got used to the light again. But it wasn't sunlight anymore; it was simply the smoldering and burning flames that engulfed the surroundings in the background.

He looked towards the place where his village should have been, but almost nothing was left. From his current vantage point he could observe almost the whole village, but everything really was gone. All he could see were smoldering remains, he could barely even recognize any of the buildings he had spent so much time in anymore.

There, standing in front of the burning village, stood the man who had just exerted his pressure just now. His long crimson hair made him truly seem like a demon.

Nash looked him straight in the eyes, rage burning within him.

Romun looked back at him, straight into his eyes.

He let out a satisfied grunt as he turned around and walked away.

Nash looked around him and saw the two men that had just been discussing his fate were already knocked out, unable to handle the pressure.

His sight swept over the rest of the camp, villagers were captured as slaves all over them, Nash knew quite a lot of them too. But a lot of villagers were missing.

Nash ignored the pitiful sight as he once again looked at the view of the smoldering village. He thought of all the people that had died within the raid on this village, he thought of his friends, he thought of his father, he thought of his teachers and most of all he thought of Ade and Kes, his girlfriend and his best friend.

He hoped they were both still alive, Kes was clever after all, and Ade was very strong, but his hopes were quickly dashed.

He saw a woman drag a lot of children into the camp, and with them was a corpse. It was the corpse of what had been his girlfriend, she hadn't even been his girlfriend for a single day, and now she was dead.

Life drained from Nash's eyes. His gaze swept over the region, the camp, the village, the forest. This was the last he was ever going to see from them. They had clearly lost this battle.

Something snapped within him once again, the rage within his body was almost uncontainable. He wanted, he needed to kill someone, something, here. But he couldn't break his chains; he was like a chained beast.

Suddenly Nash thought of his best friend, he couldn't spot him anywhere within the camp. Because of the bounty he was likely to still be alive, they wouldn't kill him. It was possible for him to still be alive and have escaped.

This thought was all that calmed him down, thoughts of murder and rage subsiding from his mind.

Nash desperately prayed his friend was still alive out there, as he swore revenge on the ones that had raided their Ashen village.