Synexus’ eyes tracked the five women running towards them. Their silk robes were all uniform in color and swayed in the mountain winds. All of them raised their hands to their heads as if they were in intense focus or attempting to soothe a headache.

  Suddenly Vorin fell limp onto the ground along with Kumo, Prith, and Zuls. Shell lasted a little longer before falling to her knees and leaning against Yu who barely stayed standing. Gene was on her back looking like they were in agonizing pain. They tried to yell out something at Synexus, but he couldn’t hear what the owl was saying.

  His vision started to be circled in a faded black. Loss of consciousness was slowly circling him and his head felt heavy. It fell into the dirt and through the narrow vision he saw the women continue their run straight towards them.

  Was this an attack? Some kind of mental assault? He thought.

  All his senses were muffled. His vision was almost completely black. Even his thoughts felt sluggish. With the little light left he glanced over to see Kumo’s body convulsing on the blood stained dirt. A feeling of intense rage ignited inside him like an untamed forest fire. His vision started to come back. His head felt lighter and he was able to grasp the situation a little better.

  He and his friends were in danger, and something had to be done.

  More pressure fell upon his mind like the attack was now solely focused on him. His mind screamed in protest, and everything felt fuzzy. Even though the fire started to be doused by the invisible attack, the thought of him having to act still lingered. Before he blacked out, he sent a bit of mana towards one of the Razor Hydra Plants at the edge of his Progress Garden field. It was faint and he knew that the plant might not understand, but it was all he could think of doing.

  Time passed. It could have been a second, an hour, or even an entire year, but then his vision was awoken by a primal scream of someone in intense pain. His eyes shot open to see one of the women in the silk robes hunched over on the ground. Blood ran freely from a nasty wound across his torso.

  Another scream came with more of the mental pressure releasing him from the grasp of the attack. He looked over to see three of the Razor Hydra Plants ripping into one of the women with their terrifyingly sharp teeth. Another one of the women was attempting to kill the plants but was unable to cut through their hard exterior.

  A pulse of relief fell upon him as he was completely released from the mental assault and he immediate got up to join the fight. Progress was in his hands, and he was ready to summon more plants when one of the women noticed his approach and screamed out to him.

  “Wait! We mean you no harm!”

  “You attacked me and my friends unprovoked.”

  “Unprovoked? Your fight caused destruction to our town! We thought we were under attack!”

  Synexus looked surprised and then looked down at the town. Several buildings near the base of the mountain on the sides of the lake had broken roofs and one was even completely demolished. The lake was full of floating snake corpses, and a sheen of blood could be seen polluting the clear blue water.

  “We were defending ourselves against this horde of snakes. We meant no harm to your town. You would have seen that when you came up here.”

  “We did. Still, what were we to do? You and your friends are terrifying! Stronger than any of the class chosen in our town.”

  “So, you attacked us? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Our mental skills were meant to knock you out. The girl had an unexpected reaction to the pressure of the mental command.”

  Before Synexus could say anything one of his Razor Hydras tackled the woman immediately opening up vicious looking cuts on her side. She screamed out in fear and pain. He didn’t know what to believe, but killing the women wasn’t something he wanted, so he immediately recalled all his creations into his Progress Garden.

  Most of the women had taken large amounts of damage. One was even close to bleeding to death. Synexus wrapped up the less seriously injured ones in a basically indestructible rope before having one use a mental command to wake Shell up. She woke up confused and groggy. After checking up on his friend, Synexus had her start playing the song of healing to help the women even though she slightly protested.

  Shortly after they were all stabilized and bound, the rest of his friends woke up and a lot of explanations took place. Kumo was furious and nearly blew the women off the side of the mountain back to their home.

  “This situation escalated poorly. Hopefully their town doesn’t want retribution for attacking five of their warriors.” Vorin started the meeting between their group.

  “It was all I could do. Without calling the hydra plants back, I would have fallen unconscious and if they were truly our enemies we would have been captured or worse.”

  “No, you definitely made the right decision, Synexus. I just wish they would have attempted to talk with us first. Even if they felt they couldn’t take us on, we were clearly on our last legs after that fight.”

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  “I still think we should just blow them off the mountain back down into their lake and move on. My head is killing me.”

  “Normally I’d agree with you, but I think we all need a rest after that fight. Several of my bonded took bad injuries from the venom. I’ll need to buy some specialized healing ointments and keep them out of their dimension bags for a few days for it to work.”

  “Even though I would like to keep making progress towards my home, I do believe a few days of rest is warranted. That was a lot of snakes.” Yu added while Gene helped her clean more of the guts from her feathers.

  “Alright. Sorry, Kumo, I think you’ve been outvoted. We will take these ladies back home, apologize for the poor circumstances, pay for any damage our fight may have caused, and stay for a few days. If they try anything with mental skills again, we fight our way out.”

  More nodding followed. Prith and Kumo both groaned when paying for damages was mentioned though. Both didn’t feel like it was necessary since they had basically taken out a serious threat for the town below. Synexus told them it would be fine since he could simply repair most of the damage. Cleaning the lake on the other hand would have to be a team effort.

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  Vorin walked over towards the women. He was still shaking off the effects of the mental skill, and the walk became more of a slow staggering shuffle.

  “We have decided to take you lady’s home. Is there anything we should know?”

  One of the women scoffed before turning her head away. Another of the women finally spoke up.

  “Sorry, their pride is a bit wounded. We got taken down by plants even with the element of surprise on our side.”

  “Being attacked by plants isn’t normally something we would plan for either. But again, is there anything we need to know? We don’t want this to escalate further.”

  “Bringing us back bound might raise some eyebrows and make tensions rise a bit, but we don’t have very many fighters in our town. As long as everyone stays calm and you explain what happened, I think everything will go peacefully. Luckily none of us died.”

  “Good. We’d like to help repair the damage we caused as well, so we will stay a few days. Will that be a problem?”

  “No. I’m sure the old lady will be more than happy that you will be willing to make reparations. If you unbind me and let me walk into town with you ahead of the others, it might make things go smoother.”

  “I’m not sure if that option is on the table yet. That material eats your mana as I understand. It keeps your mental skills suppressed. I’m sure you can understand why we are being cautious.”

  The woman sighed. “I do. The mental attacks are unpleasant. My name is Manda by the way. This is Soolina, Tyrney, Lillian, and Sluette.”

  Tyrney kicked her in the side instantly.

  “What?!”

  “They don’t need to know everything!”

  Vorin chuckled. “It’s okay. We don’t mean any harm to you or your people. I’m Vorin. I’ll let the others introduce themselves on the way. Let’s go.”

  One by one all the women were helped up and started walking down the path they had used to get up the mountain. There was some discussion about flying down again and trying out Synexus’ newest iteration of his flying leaf, but it was decided that the safest route was to simply walk down. With their speed it would only take a few hours.

  Arriving at the edge of the town was a bit uneventful. There were no walls or a gate. No one was keeping watch. One little girl was playing in her backyard before she glanced over and saw them. She immediately got up and ran inside the building. Vorin had the party wait outside of what he believed was the edge of the town until someone came to greet them, which ended up taking ten minutes.

  Several women behind an older lady came to meet them. Each one was wearing a silk robe with the same waterfall insignia on the back as the women who attacked them.

  The whole group stopped several feet away before the elderly woman stepped forward and it was clear she was the one in charge.

  “What is the meaning of this? Why are my girls bound?”

  “We mean you no harm! We were attacked by these women and wanted to return them home. Their mental skills are dangerous, and we wanted to ensure our safety and theirs.”

  “Then release them and we can keep talking.”

  Vorin nodded at Synexus and all the ropes simply disappeared. Of course, they had gone into his Progress Garden, but outsiders wouldn’t know that.

  The five women immediately darted away back towards their people leaving only the party facing down the crowd of women.

  “We would like to help you repair what the fight with the snakes damaged and stay for a few days to rest after our fight.”

  “There is no inn here. You should be on your way. We will repair what’s ours.”

  “You can’t spare a night or two out of the wilderness to make up for attacking us? We have several wounded.”

  “From our perspective you attacked first. We simply retaliated. Silk Lake owes you nothing. Now go.”

  When the elderly woman turned and started walking away, the entire crowd followed. Before they got too far, Kumo blurted a question out that everyone was thinking.

  “Where are all of your men?”

  The entire town of people in front of them paused and the elderly woman turned around once again.

  “That is something we do not like to talk about, and it’d be in your best interest to forget what you’ve seen here.”

  “My best interest? Is that a threat old lady? We saved your town from an incursion of vicious snakes, and you attacked my mind in thanks. Now you’re threatening me? You’re pissing me off!”

  Violent winds picked up as dark clouds started to form overhead. Lightning was sparking off of Kumo and shocked Vorin when he tried to put his hand on her shoulder to calm her down.

  “Saved our town? Those snakes lived in the mountains for decades and never once harmed one of us. You lot probably provoked them into battle as well. You should walk away little girl if you still want to have a mind of your own.”

  The wind picked up even more and the closest houses started to shutter from the sheer force. Everyone in the party was gripping their weapons while trying to calm the situation down. Kumo was just not listening through her brewing storm.

  She finally flew towards the old woman in a burst of wind that nearly toppled the rest of the party. While still midair, she sent her first condensed cloud blade towards the older woman only for it to be blocked. Not a single strand of grey hair was damaged.

  A devastating wind erupted from the collision of the cloud blade and the woman to the point that every other person standing behind the elderly lady was blown over. It sounded like thunder as the two forces clashed. Somehow that didn’t phase either of the class chosen.

  Kumo continued her trajectory and used her Tempest Surge point blank which pushed the woman back several feet, but she remained standing. More of the town’s women were blasted away from the area. Anger flared on the elderly woman’s face as she saw her people get pushed back and she started gathering an intense amount of mana. Synexus tried to yell out in warning to Kumo, but she just didn’t seem to hear anything. Her onslaught continued even to the point that it was delaying the woman’s ability to gather mana to use her skill. The woman’s face flashed with surprise as she kept getting pushed further back into the town. It quickly fell back to pure anger, however.

  She ended up launching herself towards Kumo nearly at the same speed and her fist met Kumo’s face in a terrifying clash that made the surrounding building shake. People inside screamed even though it was drowned out by the howling wind.

  Kumo flew back from the punch and made a deep trench in the ground. She wasn’t moving. The old woman didn’t let up, however, and seconds later she was unleashing dozens of psychic needles on Kumo. The younger warrior was clearly in pain but didn’t scream. She looked into the old woman’s eyes in defiance before releasing her own mana into the sky. Dark clouds finally formed completely before a lightning strike came down and struck the enraged elderly woman.

  The lightning strike barely seemed to be an inconvenience to the experience warrior, and she only stopped the psychic assault for a fraction of a second. Unfortunately, a lightning strike only needs a fraction of a second and Kumo was a living tempest. In that fraction of a second when the woman was distracted by the flashing pain, a condensed cloud blade formed into a deadly point pierced through her tough skin making a wound in her chest to start leaking blood.

  Her hand moved to the wound and her eyes fell on the blood. Confusion, surprise, and unrestrained anger mixed on the woman’s face before a huge torrent of mana flowed through her soul aimed at Kumo’s head.

  Suddenly vines dragged Kumo out of the range of the attack. More vines appeared beneath the old woman and bound her. Synexus appeared a second later modifying them to take on the properties of metal. Even with the modifications the woman nearly escaped them, and he had to summon more to hold her securely. She still lashed out with psychic attacks and was nearly growling towards Kumo who was bound in her own set of vines.

  The rest of the party was making sure no one else got involved. Only Vorin walked away and in the middle of the two warriors. He deeply sighed and shook his head before speaking.

  “Both of you need to calm down so we can figure out what happens next.”

  The elderly woman calmed down enough to speak and answered him immediately.

  “What happens next? I told you already. Your people need to leave, but now you’ll leave this one here as reparations. I’ll make a true warrior out of her after I teach her a lesson in overestimating oneself.”