"You okay, Queenie? Want an elixir?"
Ann, who was closest to Queenie, responded to her situation first. Ann held her up, as she had begun feeling weak, and even offered a healing elixir, but Queenie refused.
"No! I'm not okay! Fuck, we have to hurry!"
After calming herself for a second, Queenie regained her stability and forcefully pulled Ann off her. Immediately, she didn't hesitate and sprinted full speed, leaving everyone dazed for a second before they followed her.
Over the two or so days, due to the fact that they sped up their pace drastically, they nearly reached their destination. Currently, as everyone sat around a bonfire, they all had sweat dripping from their faces despite the freezing temperature.
They pretty much just ran straight here for two days in a row, with only short breaks breaking it up into pieces. Not only that, but they slept less as well, which caused everyone to become more lethargic. This was especially so for Ann who, at first slept the most, was now the one who slept the least, making her a bit cranky.
"So, care to tell us what's going on now? Or are you still too afraid to say?"
From her tone, it could be said that Ann no longer took no for an answer. They trusted Queenie, so seeing her state of mind all jumbled the way it was, they set aside their curiosity for now. However, it seemed that Ann could no longer hold it in.
Now, faced with Ann's prodding, there was only the sound of chewing and gulping. For Queenie, it seemed especially hard to squeeze the roasted wild animal they caught down her throat.
Eventually, after getting it down, she sighed a heavy breath before finally speaking.
"It's… spirit weather," she said so silently they almost couldn't hear her. Moreover, just saying those words made her go purple, as if she was going to barf her dinner right then and there; her expression also seemed to contain some recollection.
"Spirit weather?"
Ann looked towards Ran, as he had a better memory than her, to see if he had an answer. And indeed, upon hearing the words repeated to him, His expression was quite awful as well.
…
Spirit, or spiritual, weather itself was pretty self explanatory as it just meant weather enhanced by stray soul juice. But it wasn't just merely "enhanced" either, it was completely overhauled. It was always random and usually never appeared more than once a decade. Even to Ran, there was only a single instance where he encountered it.
At the time, Ran and Ann were both only about four or five-ish, and on a particular day, a giant sandstorm had hit the Holy City State. It can be said that since spirit weather is made of stray soul juice, it's composition was simply a composite of everything from rank-10 to rank-6; the city on its own would not stand a chance.
However, just as the city was about to be shredded and buried by the several dozen kilometer-wide sandstorm, Ran's father had taken action. Naturally, as the city's strongest warrior, he was qualified to stop this danger, and so he did. With the help of several specialized rune formations, he formed a metallic barrier over the entire city, sparing it from annihilation.
As for why someone like Ann didn't remember such an epic event? Well, she did say she was forgetful, let alone her age at the time. However, Queenie explained what it was, so Ran didn't have to.
And yet, even though they had been told of the severity of the matter, they still couldn't fully grasp how something can just wipe out a city just like that. This was most assuredly a sign of ignorance—meaning they couldn't comprehend just how powerful not only spirit weather, but also the latter-end of the ranking system.
Both Queenie and Ran, who had experienced such a danger, couldn't help but look to the sky. With just their current position, they could already no longer see the northern side of the Yellow mountains, as the giant clouds had completely blanketed the sky. Even their stars couldn't penetrate through the clouds, making it appear as if night came earlier and earlier.
By this point, with everyone being on an, at least similar, page, they called it a night and slept for a few hours before basically full sprinting towards the north.
If everything that had just been said were true, they would certainly not want to be caught outside some sort of shelter, like a city, while the spirit weather passed overhead. Heck, this could easily be confirmed by the fact that for the past two or so days, they had not come across a single enemy, squirrel or otherwise.
…
After another day, they could finally make out a glimpse of what appeared to be a human city through the thick foliage.
As they got closer, they were able to see the city's stone walls, which towered above the trees at about twenty meters in height. The wall itself was fairly weathered with cracks and pieces crumbling here and there. At about every five to ten feet, figures could be seen to be presumably guarding.
However the thing that caught their attention the most was a red palace in the distance that seemed to sparkle.
Upon reaching the entrance, they could see reddish-brown dirt surrounding the city's perimeter, and it seemed to extend into the city itself. But at this entrance, there was another thing that caught their interest.
At the very gate, a circle of red bricks about ten meters in diameter laid flat on the ground.
However, extending from this circle and into the city was a road of red bricks.