Revenant Slaves Chapter 27: Chapter 26: Zain

Read chapter 27 of Revenant Slaves by Zee on NovelPedia.

Chapter 26: Zain Zain saw the hit coming, as did everyone present. The gathered crowd would see it on the broadcast 10 seconds later; he wished he could have covered Rain and the children’s eyes. But if they were going to be part of the rebellion, they would be seeing much more bloodshed than this. They had discussed in detail all the possible strategies with Ash for the upcoming fight. But no plan survived first contact. Zain had noticed the hard sidestep and rough stop Ash had pulled off; he had done many of those himself. Balancing the strength of the exosuits against the limitations of one’s body wasn’t an easy feat. He had landed a strong blow regardless. Kaeler had been taken by surprise and had suffered terribly. But not nearly enough to be knocked out of the fight. They had all cautioned Ash to only appear careless, but never actually throw caution to the wind. Zain knew the maneuver had cost Ash, but in the split second he saw Kaeler cough blood, his spear no longer a weapon but a cane instead, Ash had lunged without noticing the state of his own body. Adrenaline was a lie that fooled many. Rain had covered her mouth, and Spark was screaming Ash’s name. Bentlix, on the other hand, was already laughing hysterically. All of this had happened before Ash fell backward from the spear impaling his face. Zain instinctively took a step forward, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him from moving further. He looked back to see Maya smiling. Alarmed, he looked back towards where Ash lay. ‘Surely he didn’t?’ The skull was powerful, but it couldn’t stop a spear like that. It should have pierced his skull. And Ash should have fallen down as if he were a puppet whose strings had been cut, but he had fallen backward, with a little bit of force at that. ‘Of course!’ Maya had caught on before him. Ash had caught the spear and moved backward to help give himself space to avoid being impaled. Across the field, Kaeler was similarly stunned. He was on one knee now, the throw having taken most of his remaining strength. He didn’t try getting up and moving towards Ash. Ash, on the other hand, was still slowly getting up. The blade of the spear had cracks in it from Ash’s amplified grip. The spear fell down, the tip of its blade bloody. It seemed to fall out of the hand with which Ash had stopped it. His hand was bleeding, and so was his face. There was too much blood for it to have been a clean save. It was then that the reaction came from the gathered crowd, seeing the broadcast, as all the thousands there groaned collectively. A gasp came from a source closer to them; it was from the two people handling the camera and the broadcast. “Maya, you need to see this,” one of them said. Despite not being invited, Zain still inched closer to them to listen to what they were saying. Rain and the children were glued to the Ash and Kaeler out in the field. Zain kept his attention on Ash, too, as he struggled to get up. He was in a half-sitting position now, extending his hand in front of himself, staring at it. He wasn’t focused on Kaeler at all. Though to his benefit, the baffled Kaeler wasn’t doing much of anything either; he, too, was just staring at Ash. He had lost his weapon, and Ash had both of them. And he had just stopped a spear throw with his hands that was flying at breakneck speed. “He’s lost three fingers, and it seems one of his eyes as well. We don’t know how deep the spear was able to reach before he stopped it. Should we stop the stream?” The broadcaster said. “He’s still alive, show him moving, keep the camera zoomed out, and then focus on Kaeler. It seems like he has given up the will to fight. We shall see if Ash has enough will to claim victory.” It was bad, but the alternative would have been his death; the feat was still impressive nonetheless. ‘Sheer grit and determination, I’ve never seen a person willing to live more than him.’ Zain knew of his desperate fight with a guard back in the city; he had asked Ash how he had been