On the Petals of a Flower, I found something that does not belong to me

45

For those who fall into the void of atrocity.

 The next day we prepared early. The atmosphere was heavy and Gusu's atmosphere made it suffocating. The humidity was hitting my nostrils and I could feel my lungs suffocating. I was anxious about today. Maybe a little excited. I couldn't understand how exactly I was feeling. But I felt my body tremble here and there, even though I knew I wasn't trembling from the weather.

 "You're almost grinding your teeth. Are you that cold?" did Des.

 I looked at her. "I'm not like you who open the windows in winter" I mocked.

 "Ha! As far as I can remember, you were opening the windows last winter."

 I grimaced and smiled slightly. "Stop it."

 That was it. I had to be happy.

 Because today was the day I would return home.

***

 We walked for a long time in the forest. We had won most of the previous. The monsters didn't leave us room for more mistakes.

 Des, even though she was chubbier than I was, walked faster than me and helped some disciple here and there when they tripped on the roots of the trees and hit their knees.

 We had started before the sun rose. After several stops for rest, we had arrived. Now the sun was just above our heads. It was noon.

 The cave was huge as I watched it emerge through the foliage of the trees. It was buried in a mountain, like the beginning of a tunnel of our time. The black gap in the middle seemed deep and endless, as if the cave had no end.

 Surprisingly, contrary to what I thought, the cave was quiet. Very quiet.

 "Shouldn't any monsters be screaming here?" I whispered behind a bush, more to myself. We were all hidden behind the foliage and were at most one to two meters away from the cave. In these one or two meters in front of the cave there were no trees at all. Which meant that if we went out, in those one or two meters, we would be defenseless and exposed.

 "Shouldn't there even be monsters around the cave?" Lan Jingyi did next to me.

 I scoffed. I didn't know that I existed now for them.

 "Or even guards," Jin Ling added.

 The disciples around me looked at me.

 I looked at them too. "What are you looking at? Do you expect me to know? I told you, maybe Des and I have nothing to do with this cave."

 My gaze fell on Des a few meters further away. She made a sign to me with her hands. 'All good?'

 I shook my head in agreement.

 A disciple came quickly and sluggishly, and hid with us.

 "Sect leaders say we will attack as soon as the Sect leader does the signal. We will move slowly to enter. Our goal is to save the Yiling Patriarch, to see if she can nullify the cave and to destroy it, together with the 'beings'. Whatever gets in our way, we kill it."

 The 'She' was me. "Just a moment," I said. "We have to find the gate for me and Des to go back, if it's in there."

 The disciple who brought the news looked at me suspiciously, as if he didn't want to have anything to do with me. "These are the orders I have. I know nothing about your gate. You are alone in this."

 I felt my eyes blur, not from myopia, I was already wearing my lenses, but from rage.

 I lowered my head and laughed sharply and slowly. They were right.

 We were alone in this from the beginning.

 All they wanted was to take advantage of us.

 I opened my mouth to say something, but my eye caught Nie Mingjue making a signal with his hands.

 The disciples passed me and slowly started to go out into the clearing, in front of the cave. I followed slowly and slowly behind them.

 Des came next to me. "Gate, we're coming" she sang.

Snap.

 I turned to the sound. A disciple, with a terrified face, was looking at us all. He had stepped on a twig.

Rumble.

 The ground shook and I could feel it all shaking. The disciples scattered right and left the cave as monsters began to emerge from there with astonishing speed.

 Right in the middle, only Des and I were left.

 "Do something!" I heard Lan Shizui tell me. I turned to him. He tore a monster with his sword. "You do not have the power to nullify the cave?"

 My eyes rolled. "Not..."

 "Not working! We have to find another way!" I heard Wen Ning say.

 At that moment, the monsters suddenly screamed and turned back. Many hid in the foliage and others stayed in place, frozen, with their awful eyes fixed and fixed on the opening of the cave.

 When they came out of the cave, we were all left like pillars of salt.

 Their steps were light, almost as if they were flying. Their height and their stature like that of a man. They had no genetic organs or nipples, same with the previous monsters, and no body hair. Their facial features were all the same, and their yellow eyes were a warmer shade than those of the monsters. Their hands were like human hands, their feet when they walked, the same. Their nails were not big, but non-existent. And their horns...

 Their horns were like those of a stag. With more 'branches'.

 I froze in my place as these seven 'beings' came out of the cave together. One was moving in front of them, as if it was their leader. When their feet hit the ground, a sudden cold air came out, worse than I had ever felt in all the years I had lived.

 You could tell by their aura. They were not people. But they were not monsters either.

 As Su Ming rightly said at that time, they were 'higher beings'.

 "What... what... are these?" cried a disciple. "Still....Even monsters are afraid of them."

 The 'being' in front of the other ones turned his head sharply and looked at him. Then he turned and looked a few feet ahead of the disciple, at me and Des who was right behind me.

 The movement unfolded before my eyes in slow motion. His hand looked like he was painting and dancing as he stood up in the air. Along with the hand, like magic, a severed horn rose that happened to fall in front of the 'being' beforehand.

 The 'being' turned his hand upwards. The horn turned towards me.

 I knew I had to move, but I felt my body was immobile. I could not take my eyes off them. They already had us in their palms.

 The 'being's' hand came down in slow motion in front of me as the horn was aimed at me.

 In the next few minutes, I could not see what had happened, as a hand grabbed me from behind and pushed me back, and a body came in front of me, receiving the horn directly at the chest.