Kapitel 11: Run?

Raian stood with Ascended Geralt, still catching his breath and feeling the sting from his injuries, managed a weak smile. "Thanks, Sir Geralt. I guess I got lucky."

Geralt chuckled. "Luck favors the prepared, Raian. You held your own out there. Not many at your stage could stand against two wolves of such caliber."

As the two of them tried to regroup with the rest of the cohort at pace they saw nothing and chose to follow the trails left by the warriors. While they didn't move from their battlefield keeping a short distance from the rest. Captain Gemma and others moved so they moved to them.

As Raian trudged through the biting winds of the relentless blizzard, the frigid air seemed to seep into every wound inflicted by the winter wolves. Shallow scratches adorned his body, stinging with every gust of icy wind, a constant reminder of the battle he had engaged in.

The deep bite mark on his right shoulder throbbed sharply with an intensity that seemed to amplify with each step. The cold had penetrated the wound stimulating the wound, rendering his right hand nearly useless, the inability to grip a stark limitation. Yet, amidst the biting chill, Raian pressed on alongside Geralt seeking to return to the others.

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" Aaaahhh" along the way Raian screamed atop of his lungs.

A few moments before the scream Raian were struggling as he walked.

Geralt seeing Raian struggle he summoned a bottle filled with a rich red liquid and shoved it in Raian's mouth. Feeling the liquid pour down his throat Raian felt warm, following that the cold he felt slowly vanished instead changing into a hot sensation inside his stomach.

Looking upward Raian thanked Geralt but his gratitude was met with an expectant gaze.

Tilting his head in puzzlement he raised an eyebrow. "What?"

Looking towards Raian. "Well people usually scream because of the pain, this stuff is potent and works well, but it has its drawbacks."

Before Raian could ask about the drawback, Sharp pain surged from within him, destroying his whole body from the inside out metaphorically. He couldn't even scream even if he wanted to.

After a few seconds, his wounds had healed but Raian was on the snow motionless from the pain, at least he could now scream.

After healing Raian from the deep wound and shallow cuts Geralt was about to dismiss the healing potion but Raian asked him for the potion since the cold was affecting him hard and he didn't have a healing memory.

Seeing no real downside in the exchange Geralt gladly gave the healing potion to Raian, he had more than 4 healing memories stored with him, and they were better than the one he gave to Raian.

The painful downside of the potion made it unlikely to be used in the heat of the battle and Geralt was not the type of person to hoard all the memory he got.

Getting the memory Raian summoned it to read the description.

Memory: [Potion of Cursed Vitality]

Memory Rank: Awakened.

Memory Tier: VII.

Memory Type: Utility.

Memory Description: [a titan that has basked in the poisonous rivers of Oriel it grew in strength in secrecy. As it grew Its colossal form pulsed with an eerie, toxic energy, its wounds closing instantly as a grotesque symphony of regeneration unfolded. The air becomes a suffocating fog of venom, inducing nausea and weakness. unfortunately, the cute titan met its end in the hands of a wandering transcended, if that didn't happen who knows what it could have become]

Raian stared at the shimmering runes, shocked.

He held the memory of the seventh rank, if he remembers correctly this potion was from an Awakened Titan and Geralt just gave it to him.

Thanking Geralt inside he walked alongside him as the pain from the healing potion lingered and slowly diminished.

---

Back to presence and their current predicament. The two of them were walking in ankle-deep snow amongst the plain area until they saw a row of shadows running towards them.

While Raian was summoning his weapons in preparation for a fight Geralt stopped him with a wave and raised his hand to call out seeing the shadows were their allies.

"Hey!!!, we are here."

But the cohort didn't stop moving, thanks to the end of the blizzard they could see much more than before.

Instead of stopping the shadows were still moving closer.

As the shadows turned visible Raian saw Captain Gemma and the rest of the warriors running towards them.

Getting a bad feeling from the warriors Raian summoned [Potion of Cursed Vitality] and drank a little to make sure he was ready for anything. After all a little bit of pain was worth whatever that was coming in Rain's mind.

Instead of stopping Captain Gemma ran past them only saying "Run."

Quickly Raian and Geralt followed behind the cohort. While Raian was following the warriors at the back Geralt was at the front following behind Gemma.

"What happened" he asked.

Answering Geralt's question by showing him a palm-sized rock that glowed purple Gemma answered " While we were about to kill the pack leader after chasing it down that stupid animal alerted something worse. We only realized how close it was when the ground started shaking with its steps, Luciel went to lead it in our opposite direction."

Digesting the information Geralt asked Gemma whether they should lay low and wait till the demons drop their guard, but Gemma rejected the idea smiling at Geralt.

" This is the perfect moment, while the creature creating a ruckus caused them to be alerted, the demons wouldn't be expecting us, all the evidence suggests that one of the giants in the wilderness is on the move, they will send a few awakened or maybe an ascended to scout since they are protecting the devil they can't let off any sign of a threat thus reducing their strength considerably."

Interrupting her speech the rock glowed brighter, knowing what was about to happen Gemma threw the rock up ahead.

Glowing more brightly the rock shined as a male figure manifested from the rock destroying it, above the broken pebbles of the rock ascended Luciel dropped down and immediately started running with them keeping pace with Gemma and Geralt.

"Captain it's a Fallen titan made of ice crystals, I tried leading it away, but the creature stopped after a certain distance, fearing that I may have entered the territory of another creature that scares a Fallen Titan I teleported to my placement route, i couldn't take the creature far away but I managed to make the Titan attack me in order to create a illusion of a battle."

"Good," answered Gemma as she looked back at her cohort in order to analyze the current condition of the warriors.

Catching his breath Luciel asked, " So what's the plan, Captain."

Looking back as she ran Gemma only smiled at Luciel. " Of course, we are breaching the monastery right now."

Adopting an indifferent expression Luciel kept staring at her in silence as he ran.

But feeling that Gemma had made her decision and wouldn't change it he stopped his stare looked ahead and dismissed his armor changing it with a different one that excluded a majestic aura.

"If I had known this would happen, I would have drunk more."

His comment was followed by a laugh from Geralt as the cohort of warriors directly charged toward the Heart of the Frozen land the Ancient Monastery.

At the back of the pack, Raian was running while the Ascended formed a plan keeping the same pace as the warriors. Constantly taking sips from the potion he was running at his highest speed while being in constant pain.

The pain felt like something was burning in his stomach spreading to his whole body, but Raian didn't stop running. For whatever reason Captain Gemma started running so the rest of them followed.

He wasn't going to be left behind and thanks to the potion he was in peak condition and a great amount of pain, but he wasn't going to let his chance of earning an aspect fade away just because he couldn't catch up to their running speed.

No, he was getting that aspect no matter what it takes.