Chapter 131
She adjusted the position of her left arm until it aligned with her chest, and there—wrapped around her wrist—a thin, glossy black watch began to emit light.
A hologram appeared, hovering just above the watch, displaying streams of data flowing rapidly in a language understood only by a handful of individuals across the timeline.
Nirma read everything in two seconds—her eye moving swiftly, scanning each line, each number, each coordinate displayed in high resolution.
Information about the dispersion of the sleeping gas released by Ashita, the level of consciousness of the now-slumbering soldiers, the breathing patterns of the Abnormal faintly detected by long-range sensors—all were neatly presented.
A red dot blinked on the mini-map at the corner of the hologram, indicating the estimated location of the creature they were hunting—not far from the center of the battlefield that had only minutes ago been alive with the chaos of death.
Nirma pressed several virtual buttons in the air, her fingers dancing across the light, and the hologram responded by enlarging the selected area, presenting a three-dimensional view of the terrain ahead—complete with land contours, temporary structures built by the troops, and the fastest possible route.
The multicolored lightning that had ravaged the Mudlands with overwhelming fury minutes ago now began to show signs of fatigue.
The red that once burned like the earth's core slowly faded into pale orange, the orange that once blazed like a sunset dimmed into weak yellow, the yellow that had once blinded the eyes turned into faint green, and so on—until the final traces of purple that had struck the southern edge now lingered only as reluctant flickers.
Nirma, walking among the sea of sleeping bodies, occasionally tilted her head upward, observing how the phenomenon she and the others had created gradually restored the sky of Heraclea Cybistra to its original color—its usual gray, as if nothing had ever happened.
She exhaled slowly, then refocused on her primary task: traversing the Mudlands, scanning every inch of ground soaked in blood and morning dew, searching for the five-headed Abnormal at the core of this chaos.
Her steps were careful, nearly silent—her feet, clad in now-inactive flying shoes, moving with precision to avoid the sleeping bodies of soldiers, whether Seljuk or Crusader—for in sleep, they were all the same, all vulnerable, all defenseless.
Meanwhile, Ashita moved in a completely different pattern—a strange dance only she could understand.
She stood in one spot, turned her head to the right, staring blankly at a row of Crusader soldiers lying sideways, then turned left, observing a pile of Seljuk bodies collapsed upon one another.
Then she stepped—three steps to the right, stopped, glanced around again.
Two steps to the left, stopped, her head slowly rotating like a searchlight.
Four steps forward, stopped, her eyes scanning every corner.
One step backward, stopped—and the cycle repeated.
Each time her head completed its motion, each time her gaze finished scanning, her hand would rise—her fingers pressing a small communication device attached to her left cheek, a thin circular unit that adhered like a second skin.
In an instant, Tegar's hologram appeared floating before her face—the man in the jarik still standing atop the hill, framed by a gray sky occasionally lit by fading remnants of lightning.
"Tegar, report," Ashita whispered, her voice barely audible even to herself.
Tegar responded swiftly, relaying the latest data from his long-range sensors—air movement, fluctuations of strange energy still detected around the Mudlands, anything that could be of use.
Ashita listened carefully for five seconds, then without a single word, she closed the hologram—her finger pressing the device again, and Tegar's image vanished, leaving only empty space.
She resumed walking, resumed scanning, resumed repeating the same ritual—again and again—until the count reached an unbelievable number.
Three hundred times she repeated the pattern.
Three hundred times she summoned Tegar through the hologram.
Three hundred times she listened to nearly identical reports, yet continued as if hearing them for the first time.
An ordinary observer might have thought her insane, might have believed the orange-haired woman had lost her mind amidst a sea of living corpses.
But Ashita knew exactly what she was doing—she was building a pattern, creating a rhythm she could rely on when the five-headed Abnormal finally appeared.
Because such a creature would not be surprised by sudden attacks—but it could be confused by consistency that suddenly changed.
Nirma, observing Ashita's behavior from afar, could only shake her head slightly—her thoughts briefly drifting to whether she had once made a mistake allowing that girl to grow into such a peculiar individual—but she quickly dismissed it and returned her focus to her senses.
She sharpened her vision, sharpened her hearing, trying to detect something unusual among the thousands of sleeping bodies.
The Abnormal's defining trait was five heads—impossible to miss if it were truly here—yet so far, she saw only ordinary ones: Crusader soldiers with blond hair and unkempt beards, Seljuk warriors with loose turbans and thick mustaches—none with more than one head, let alone five.
Perhaps the creature was hiding.
Perhaps it was using camouflage.
Perhaps it had infiltrated the body of one of the sleeping soldiers, waiting for the right moment to emerge.
Nirma kept walking, kept observing, kept waiting.
At the same time—just as Ashita was about to repeat her ritual for the 310th time—two figures shot down from the hill.
Arya and Tegar—without coordination yet moving almost in sync—decided to descend.
Arya used a device similar to Nirma's—2030-era flying shoes that activated instantly upon his jump, carrying him in a swift glide, executing a spiral maneuver before landing perfectly beside Nirma, only about three steps away.
Meanwhile, Tegar, true to his style, did not use flying shoes.
Instead, he utilized the glasses at his temple, projecting a series of holographic footholds that allowed him to leap from point to point in the air—like descending an invisible staircase—until he arrived directly behind Ashita, just as she finished pressing her cheek device to summon a hologram that would never appear, since Tegar was no longer on the hill.
Arya moved with a speed that seemed to slice through the air itself.
His hand, which had been resting at his waist, suddenly reached into a small pocket behind his vest, pulling out a single date seed—ordinary, unremarkable, like one found in any market across the Arabian lands.
To be continued…