We ate most of what Lius had carved out for us, smoking the remaining pieces of meat to eat on the remaining journey as jerky. After the meal, did the others decide to go back to sleep, though they were clearly having a hard time. I spent the rest of the night, thinking about the fight, while absentmindedly practicing my techniques. The fight had been incredibly short, but I still had almost died. I wondered if I was going to have a panic attack later, or if the strange excitement I was experiencing, would overshadow everything else. I had never felt so aware of everything.

  I felt in control, ever since the second wolf almost killed me. I considered that this could also just be a side effect of the drug. Especially considering that I had just begun taking a poison that would, in the end, allow me to perfectly control my body. Though, I could also control Qi better, which led me to the belief that the near death experience was more responsible for this state. I spend the rest of our time in the darkness just replaying the fight and how it had felt. We began to move again, as soon as the first bit of light entered the seemingly eternal darkness.

  I also took a new pill around the same time, since it had been around a day. This almost caused me to collapse again. It felt even more intense than before and I quickly learned that as soon as I paid any attention to my lungs, that I would have to manually breathe which in turn forced me to pay attention to my lungs and the surrounding muscles. I went through the same steps as before, checking each of my limbs out individually. Luckily, did I practice walking while paying attention beforehand, so I didn’t fall behind too much. I got the feeling halfway under control after what must have been at most an hour.

  At least I judged so, by the position of the evening sun, which shone from our right side the entire time. The biggest problem of the whole situation were the rocks I carried under my robes, since they forced me to pay attention to my chest every few steps. Because of that, did I almost walk into the carriage when it stopped. I wanted to pay attention to why we stopped. We might have run across another pack of beasts, but I felt one of the rocks slide slightly down on my stomach.

  The muscles in my stomach compressed, squishing the organs inside a bit and pushing air further up my body. My attention followed as the muscles in my torso needed to relax and I puffed my chest out slightly, to allow the lungs to move the air. I exhaled, feeling my torso muscles compress down on my ribcage, pressing the air out of my lungs.

  I snapped back to reality and looked around. We still had not moved, and I quickly noticed that we were half surrounded. We could move backwards, but that would be hard with the carriage. I also realized that the merchant was talking with whoever surrounded us. “…nothing valuable. Nobody needs to die today.” It took me a moment to understand that they were bandits, though judging by the fact that the others hadn’t beaten them yet, they must be cultivators. I began to expand my senses through the earth to feel where they were.

  There were only twenty five of them, which at least meant that we weren’t too badly outnumbered. I moved to the left side, since they were currently outnumbered, by two. I then heard a gruff voice of a man, “Who would believe that a merchant crossing these plains, so heavily armed, doesn’t carry anything of value? And even if true, I am sure you would be quite valuable.” The man sounded lecherous towards the end, but I was unsure if I simply imagined it or if he was more lustful than greedy. In the end it hardly mattered since the negotiations had broken down with that comment.

  I was unsure who attacked first from our group, but I felt the bandits start sprinting towards us, with only twenty four still moving. My focus snapped to the incoming bandits, and I tried to get ready to fight. The only problem was that my focused shifted from the incoming bandit to the muscles in my chest again. I still managed to step forward and coat my right arm in stone subconsciously. I only then noticed that the bandit rushing at me used a spear and that it was about to reach me.

  It was far too late to dodge and all I could do was mitigate the damage. So, I began to turn towards the left, trying to make something like a path for the spear with my rocks. It still hit me almost completely squarely in the chest, breaking the rocks and cutting into the flesh beneath. Still, it had been just barely enough, as the spear stopped scratching the bones on my ribcage. My first instinct was to dodge backwards, but I quickly supressed that thought, when I saw a brief spark of fire shooting towards me from the bandit.

  He was an elemental cultivator, and my body should be stronger. I continued my turning motion swinging my right arm at the midsection of the spear. The fire propagated along the spear, but I managed to break it in half before the fire reached me. I felt my muscles being sliced apart and my ribcage being scratched, as the tip of the spear was driven deeper into my, by my attack. My mind focused on the individual muscle strings being cut for a brief moment, allowing my opponent to recover.

  Still, he was almost not fast enough, as I managed to lunge forward. I felt something hot being pressed into the left side of my body, I felt my skin bubbling again. But I already knew this pain and managed to ignore it somewhat. My right fist covered in rocks crashed into his chest and I felt some bones giving in. I shot a spike out of the earth as he stumbled backwards, which pierced into the sole of his left foot and threw him completely off balance.

  I followed him, swinging my right fist at his head. I felt the skull crush below me as his skull got smashed into the hard ground. And for a brief moment did my mind relax, since I defeated my enemy. This immediately drew my attention to the open wound in my chest and the burns on the left half of my torso. Though the burns themselves didn’t seem to hinder me, they were painful. Especially now that I felt everything clearly. I tried to redirect my focus to the chest wound, which would make me bleed out soon. That seemed to get my brain working somewhat.

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  As a temporary method, did I use the rocks on my chest around the wound, to dig into my skin and flesh with tiny hooks, and then pull the wound shut. It hurt. And I almost passed out, but the blood wasn’t escaping my body anymore. I took a shaky breath and realized that my attention hadn’t been on the battlefield. For a brief moment did I think that everything was alright since nobody had attacked me.

  Sadly, this was quickly shattered, when I noticed that Lius was standing right next to me without his head attached. His sword was in the chest of another bandit, but I immediately saw the bandit with the saber who was currently running towards me. My mind immediately ignored the fact that Lius looked like he had died protecting me and instead worked on surviving.

  I jumped backwards to get on my feet again. Still the distance between me and the bandit was closing rapidly. I realized that he must be a body cultivator, or a really strong elemental one. I quickly covered both of my arms with rocks, while pulling a few more up from the ground

  He was the first to attack, due to the range with the saber. I tried to move my arm in between me and the sword, but the bandit dropped the sword lower avoiding my arm entirely. I felt the metal slice through my stomach almost disembowelling me. I moved some stones downwards from my chest, pressing the wound together to not bleed out. I felt the separated muscle ends touching again and being squished together. I felt the blood run out of the wound.

  My attention returned to my surroundings almost immediately, since my mind was screaming at me to block. I saw the saber clearly aiming at my left arm. I shot out my arm and managed to intercept the saber with my hand. The stone gauntlet shattered and the saber cut deep into my hand, but it didn’t continue downwards. I tried to use this small opportunity and went closer trying to land a punch on the man. My fist connected with the side of his body launching him backwards, but he somehow managed to ram his knee into my stomach before sliding backwards.

  I pressed the wound on my hand together with stone and tried to focus on the man, although I was slowly becoming dizzy from the blood loss. The man came rushing towards me again, before I could get my bearings and I saw the saber swing towards my neck.

  My left arm was too low to block.

  As soon as I realized that, did I began to drop my body backwards and let stones move to cover my neck. I managed to produce a thin layer of stone as the saber sliced across my neck. The cut was not too deep but still blood sprayed out of my neck, and I began to feel cold. But I didn’t feel fear or anger. Or anything for what it was worth.

  I felt what was happening to my body, as if it was not completely mine and I felt control. It was not perfect by any means, and I still did not properly understand how the muscles needed to be moved to get the desired result. But it needed to be enough. I used the stone on my neck and pressed the wound together as good as possible, without leaking too much blood.

  I did not let myself get distracted for a moment. I saw that some blood had gotten into one of his eyes and his arm was currently in a bad position, so I moved towards the bandit. I only had a single advantage over him. I was a dual cultivator.

  My knee landed on his thigh missing my target slightly due to him moving. He tried to create some distance, but I created a small earth spike which just tripped him as his foot moved backwards. He stumbled and I would not waste another window. My right fist covered in stone shot towards him and I formed the end of my fist into a small but sturdy spike.

  The spike entered his chest without too much issue and the man began gurgling. I did not take any chances though. I reformed the spike into something akin to a hook and used it to pull him closer while my left fist crashed into his right eye socket. The man went limb, most likely passing out for a moment. I ripped my right hand out of his chest and rammed the spike through his other eye, killing the bandit.

  I did not want to repeat my earlier mistake and looked around seeing if anybody else was coming to attack me. I did not see anybody immediately rushing towards me. I could feel that I would soon bleed out if I did not receive any medical attention. So, the best thing I could do was make this fight end as soon as possible.

  With this thought, did I begin to move towards the closest fight between one of the bandits and one of the guards. The bandit noticed me coming towards them and tried to disengage from the fight, as I began to circle around him. This however, caused him to not focus on the bodyguard for a moment, which resulted in his chest being shot through by a ball of air. The guard gave me a quick nod and joined another fight. I tried my best and followed the guard.

  I reached a bandit with his back turned towards me and simply kicked him into the back of his knee, which caused him to buckle over and get stabbed through the head. The fight began to look like it would turn out in our favour, and the bandit leader must have sensed something similar as he ordered a retreat. I didn’t even see the man as the bandits escaped. Instead, I fell face first into the dirt.

  I tried to use the earth beneath me to force my wounds shut, but it hardly made a difference, as I felt the blood slowly seep out of my body. I felt my body becoming cold and my consciousness fading. For a brief moment, did I wonder if I was going to die here in the dirt, not even a full month into the new life. I quickly discarded the useless thoughts and just focused on staying conscious.

  I felt my heart rate increasing as the blood pooled below me, trying to pump enough blood to my organs. I noticed that I was slowly losing control over the earth Qi which was holding me together. I felt cold, but still I felt no fear or anything else. Just a calm wait on the chance that Devi or any other healer would be fast enough to patch me up. Then my heart began to slow down again, as I approached the end.

  I felt the rock clams I had made on my wounds shatter, and for a brief moment thought that I had lost complete control over my Qi, until the blood began to stream back into my body. The blood was not entirely clean, I felt some small pieces of dirt flow into me with the blood. I tried my best to move them out of the stream of blood, which turned out to be impossible, since I was on the verge of passing out. Then after a few moments, did I feel the wound being closed properly, including the wounds I had to make to stop the blood flow.

  I felt alive again. I turned onto my back and stared at the sky. I saw the sky in all its orange and purple glory as the night began to creep in. Devi was crouching next to me, with tears streaming down his face. After somebody noticed that I was still alive, was he dragged away to heal somebody else. I continued to lie down for a few more moments, feeling my emotions returning. Though they still felt subdued. I didn’t think any further about them and began to scan my body for the dirt that had snuck in. I felt it ripping small wounds into me, and just froze it in place for now, making sure that it wouldn’t cause any blockades.

  I could ask Devi later to heal me again, after removing them. I slowly stood up after examining myself one last time and looked around the battlefield. I saw two dead guards and Lius on my side of the carriage. I went to the front and saw one more dead guard. We had lost a total of four people, from a single fight. A sudden exhaustion overcame me and I just allowed myself to sit back down staring at the sun as it escaped under the horizon.