Bzzzzz
Just before the sun was beginning to set, and Kain was on the verge of collapse, the sigils in the city had finally been restored and the translucent barrier surrounding the city flickered into being again.
At the same time, all of the spiritual creatures crazily attacking the city, seemed to have received some kind of signal undetectable to Kain and started to retreat. Unfortunately, neither of the attacking indigo-grade spiritual creatures were successfully killed by the city guard commander or Professor Night.
However, there were also no losses among Dark Moon City’s high-level combatants, those 7-stars and above.
Everyone became busy once again, but for a much more happy reason—collecting their rewards. Students and guards flocked outside of the walls and pushed their tired bodies to the limit to collect as many of the dead bodies they were responsible for producing as possible.
Thankfully, due to mental strength increasing with cultivation, for the most part they all remembered which corpses their contracts were responsible for producing. At least as long as the bodies were in tact enough to be identified.
Kain hurriedly extracted only the most valuable materials from the orange-grade spiritual creatures he’d killed on his own and coordinated with the Kairos and Soren of desired parts over their shared yellow-grade kills. For the yellow-grade cat they’d killed as a group, they decided the picking order using the old-fashioned way—a game of minotaur, golem, phoenix.
Based on the rankings after the intense “battle,” Kain was the third to choose after Kairos and Serena.
‘Why is he so damn good at this game?’ Kain had never won against Kairos at the game, nor had he ever seen him lose to any others. Now that he thought about it… he was also the one to always suggest deciding the selection using a game of minotaur, golem, phoenix!
Putting his suspicions aside for now, Kain looked at what remained. Its spiritual orb and a transparent crystal located where its heart should be had already been selected. Kain wasn’t confident that anything else left was particularly valuable, but he still selected its eyes.
Since its an undead cat spirit, and on Earth cat’s were often rumoured to be able to see strange things like ghosts, he was hoping that they would be surprisingly high in value.
Eventually the red translucent barrier surrounding the city turned into a soft blue and became practically invisible.
It had switched back from its active state that uses a lot more energy and will kill powerful wild creatures trying to enter the city and reflect any attacks made at the city, to its regular defensive state that uses less energy and allows the entry of things like sound transmissions to receive radio and tv broadcasts.
After cleaning up the battlefield and receiving a very luxurious dinner to celebrate getting through their first beast-tide, where they also took the opportunity to say goodbye to some of the guards they’d befriended over the past few days.
“Students, gather your attention.” Called out Professor Night. “The beast-tide has ended, and the immediate threat to the city has been neutralized. I would like to acknowledge the role you all played in this effort.
“Your performance during this crisis has been noted and you will be sufficiently rewarded once we return to the school. We understand that this was not a trivial task. The danger was real, and the stakes were high. Your actions helped prevent further disaster and safeguarded lives.
“However as students at one of the most prestigious colleges in the empire you are expected to be the first-line of defense for the civilians and even lay down your lives when necessary. Thankfully, there are no cowards among you and your actions did not shame Dark Moon College.
“Consider this an acknowledgment of your duty fulfilled. Remember the lessons learned here. They will be vital for future challenges. That is all.”
Everyone hesitantly clapped at the rather lukewarm speech delivered by Professor Night. However, considering her usual personality none of them were really expecting an overly emotional send off.
When dinner was over, the students did not continue back to the temporary living quarters and instead headed back to their much more comfortable dorms.
Kain took the opportunity on the journey back to call Bridge, but he did not pick up or reply to any texts. This only fuelled the anxious thoughts that Kain had been trying to push aside for the past day. He jogged forward to where Professor Night was at the front, leading the students back to campus and couldn’t help but ask.
“Excuse me Professor Night. By any chance would you be able to tell me if there were any casualties among the students? My brother was assigned to a different post than me and I’d like to know if he’s okay.”
Her expression, initially cold due to being disturbed, softened slightly after hearing that he was asking due to a sibling.
“Although I am not aware of the status of every single student that partook in the battle, I can tell you that there were no casualties among the beast-tamers and that only two students, both first-years, had lost a contract. After all, none of the other locations were as dangerous as the main gate you all were assigned to.
The events at the southern gate were completely unexpected, but the timely reinforcement of the Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, and Department Deans prevented many casualties.”
Kain breathed a sigh of relief. Although there was a chance that Bridge was one of the students who lost their contract, which would be devastating, actually losing his best friend and brother would be 1000 times worse.
As soon as Kain returned to his room he had a much-needed hot shower. After leaving the steaming bathroom the first thing he did was to check for a reply from Bridge. Unfortunately nothing.
However, he did receive replies from everyone else in their usual team of 7 –Addison, Aiden, Elias, Finn, and Leonara—confirming that they were safe and that nobody was badly injured.
Kain asked them if they had been stationed nearby any of them. But unfortunately only received negative replies. Although Aiden did share that he believed that Bridge was actually never assigned to guard the wall, and was instead responsible for transporting injured individuals from the wall to the medical tents.
Kain’s heart that was in his throat came back down, if that was true then Bridge was likely perfectly fine. He was probably never in any danger to begin with.
He also opened another notification that arrived on his phone in nervous anticipation. The assessment of his performance and the amount of school credits that he’d received.