As rage consumed me, something started to change within me. I needed the power to hurt this foe. I didn't have that power. My ability dug deep to find something, anything it could use to give me power. Meridians! It was time to use them. My body greedily sucked qi from the environment into my meridians. My muscles expanded, and so too did my metabolic rate. My cultivation was artificially raised to qi gathering. My body wasn't ready for this yet and it was quickly taking a toll on me.
My physique responded to the sudden influx of qi. My already swollen muscles enlarged further. Fur coated my skin. My nails turned into sharp claws. I could feel the extra strain this was putting on my body. My bones were starting to crack. My lips, tongue, and throat were parched in thirst. My skin felt stretched like it was going to spit in several locations. My stomach was ravenous even though I had just filled it not long ago. It didn't matter, all of this was for one last gasp at resistance. Even if I gave it my all, I may still die. If I didn't give it everything I had, I would definitely die. There was no use worrying about the damage I was doing to my body right now.
The changes took place in a split second. I raised myself off the ground. The pressure was no longer enough to keep me down. Just then Calypso came up over the rooftops and shined her light on me. The green glow of Altalune in my eyes mixed with the red glow of Calypso. My body felt even lighter.
The man seemed shocked that I could rise. Shocked that I could stand against him at all. He very clearly had registered me as a strong mortal. I was not a threat. Now I was giving off an entirely different energy. I took advantage of his hesitation and thrust the shard of my sword straight at his jugular.
He caught my hand. Just like it was when the ox-like guard wrestled against me and couldn't move, I couldn't move my arm with this man. Was all my struggling in vain? He hurt Rosie! I was furious! I wanted him dead! Ultimately all that rage and I couldn't even scratch him.
I waited for the pain to come when the man would take the initiative to counter-attack me, but it never came. I looked closer at the situation. The shard in my hand was pressed firmly against the man's throat. He had caught my arm at the last second. A red drop flowed down the man's neck from the shard. I had hurt him? That's why he wasn't attacking yet!
My fortune didn't last long. He quickly assessed that he was not seriously hurt and could remove the shard without bleeding out. Therefore, he could attack me. As his thoughts reached this conclusion, I could see him reach his hand out towards me. I couldn't budge, my arm was locked by his other hand. He placed his fingertips on my sternum and started to press. I had seen enough cult fiction movies to know where this was going, and I wanted none of it. His fingertips began to burrow into my flesh, it was extremely painful. He intended to rip my heart out of my chest, the savage!
His fingertips were just starting to brush past my ribs. He was taking his time, wanting to see me in pain as long as possible.
He took too long.
I was still staring resolutely at the man's face when a cloth-covered fist entered my vision and landed squarely on the man's jaw. I could see his jaw dislocated before his entire body was flung away. The man's fingers were roughly pulled out of my chest as he was thrown away. Gosh darnit that stung!
I only took a brief second to register that my savior was Li Kai before turning to my primary concern. Rosie. Now that the threat was dealt with, I had to confront her fate. I turned slowly to her body which was now behind me. She was still. Sticky blood pooled around her. She had to be dead. My best friend in this world. The little fox I had adopted. I had failed her. I did the only thing I could do. I mourned.
As I sobbed and wailed, I could occasionally hear the sound of fighting behind me. I didn't care who won anymore. If Li Kai won, so what? That wouldn't bring Rosie back. If the hitman won, then I'd be joining Rosie, maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Maybe we could even reincarnate together. I don't know how much clout I had with Nathan, especially failing to even cultivate in this life, but I'd use every bit of influence I had to keep Rosie by my side. Did I deserve that though? Wasn't it me that had failed her? Without me, maybe she could've lived a long fox life. Maybe it would be better for me to beg Nathan to send her to a better life, one far from me.
I could soon hear footsteps on the gravel behind me. Someone had become the victor.
"Why are you crying child?" It was Li Kai.
How could he not know why I was crying? Rosie was right in front of me. We had the light of four moons, two of them full. Surely he wasn't that dense? I started imagining him saying she was just a fox and I could replace her. I started to get mad. I knew he had been at odds with Rosie and never liked her. It started to seem feasible that he would say something so rude. But that's not what he said or did. He grasped my shoulder to comfort me. My muscles were so sore now, that that his gesture of comfort hurt instead.
"Do you have the flask of restoration fluid?" He asked.
I automatically fumbled to get it, "Yes, but she ..."
"Look at her nose" Li Kai said.
I looked and saw her nose twitching just slightly as she inhaled and exhaled shallow breaths. Her breathing was almost imperceptible and so I had missed it. I quickly tore off the cap of the flask and put it gently to Rosie's mouth, slowly feeding it to her while rubbing the non-injured part of her throat to help her swallow. I could scarcely believe it. Earlier I had heard the mercenary say that he had failed his task. What he had actually said, and I had misheard, was that he almost failed his task. I was so sure that she should have died from that slash, that I had accidentally ignored all the little things to the contrary. I felt even more guilty now. I could've been helping her recover sooner if I had paid attention. Rosie deserved better than me.
Li Kai instructed me to splash some restoration fluid on the wound as well, and so I did. We sat and watched her wounds knit closed. Her skin was restored without scars, but she was still missing the fur in those areas, it would take time to grow back. She was also missing a chunk of her left ear. That was the one flaw of restoration pills and fluids, they couldn't recover missing body parts, they could only heal what was still there just like the body would do naturally, but at an accelerated rate and usually without scarring.
I finally took a sip of restoration fluid myself when I saw Rosie's wounds fully recover. Li Kai had been asking me to drink earlier, but I wanted to make sure Rosie didn't need anymore before I consumed any for my own needs. My body had long reverted back to normal. I was no longer a qi-gathering cultivator. It was only temporary. I was still being strengthened by both moons though. This was the first time I learned that each full moon constituted an extra 100% buff. I thought whether it was one or all, it would just be 100% flat, but now it seemed that on the rare occasion all four moons were full, I could get a 400% buff. I would be an absolute beast that night. Normally I would start thinking of shenanigans I could do under such conditions, but tonight I was in no such mood.
I paid a little bit for waiting to drink the restoration fluid, the wounds on my chest scarred when they healed. It wasn't too bad though, it kind of resembled how a circle of the five elements was depicted. That was kind of cool. But there weren't a lot of clothing choices that would allow me to display those scars.
"You over-taxed your body." Li Kai stated. I knew he was right, everything still hurt, even after drinking the restoration fluid, and not in a good way like after an intense workout. My body felt used and broken, much like my body in my previous life. I didn't miss that feeling.
"You displayed the aura of a qi gathering cultivator and strength far beyond that tonight. What you did is forbidden. You traded your life-force and potential for a momentary boost of power. I didn't even know a mortal could do that." Li Kai began to chastise me, "Fortunately, since you are not a cultivator yet, it seems you did not damage your potential, but you did drain some of your life force. Approximately 1 year of your life. This will have consequences. The most obvious of which is that you are now biologically 8 years old, so instead of having to wait until 14 to cultivate, you can safely cultivate when you turn 13. You may consider that a boon, but knowing you, you may not like what you traded for it. You lost one year of your life when you would be growing the most."
"Wait are you saying I'm going to be short?!" I screamed in horror.
Rosie was woken from her dirt nap.