Chapter 38 - A Rescue Mission Part 5

With shaky arms and legs, I crawled over to the injured soldier Dave and covered his wounded shoulder with my bare hand to try and stop the bleeding. I shouted to Leona, "First aid kit?"

Leona loosed a couple more shots, killing a couple of the enemy pursuing before she answered, "At the back! There!" She pointed to a box an arm's length away from me.

I reached out and grabbed for it. I hastily opened the box, fumbled through the material, and retrieved some bandages.

Dave said, his voice shaky, "I'm all right. You get down, boy, or you might get shot."

I said, "I need to stop the bleeding." I then hastily unrolled the white material and wrapped it around his arm tightly. "Sorry, I don't know how to take out that bullet. You'll have to wait for Leona to do surgery on you. Also, I don't want to cause any infection."

I put some more cloths on top of the wound and pressed my hand on them to apply more pressure to stop the bleeding. Of course, all this happened while the truck was moving at full speed across the barren field, while more trucks were chasing after us, as well as glowing bullets flying all around us.

"Shit!" I heard Leona swear loudly, drawing my attention to her. "They're persistent, aren't they?"

There were three military trucks in all, pursuing us relentlessly. The one right behind us gained speed and bumped right into us, causing Leona and the other soldiers to fall back and lose their grip on their guns. Meanwhile, I, too, lost my balance and fell back. Somehow, I managed to recover, and when I was about to return my attention to Dave, to see how he was doing, I saw a man in the truck hunting us pointing a rifle directly at the unarmed and struggling Leona.

Without thinking, I swiftly took up the rifle that belonged to Dave and fumbled about looking for the trigger. I didn't have time to think that it felt strange to have a gun in my hands, as I had never held one before in my life, before I pointed it at the truck.

With my mind focused on the enemy's truck, I pulled the trigger. A bullet—orbed in the glow of black and white light—shot out from the gun and flew toward the truck. Then it hit the vehicle. Within a mere second, there was an explosion, a burst of black and white light shooting up into the sky. The truck, half shattered and on fire, veered off course and crashed into another truck, which led to more explosions and fire.

I watched, dumbfounded.

Wow! What an awesome rifle.

Leona, having seen what had happened, shifted her large green eyes to look at me, her face deadly pale in horror. She said, "Holy hell! What the fuck happened?"

Oh, Leona just used the fuck word! That meant she must have been very surprised.

The woman rushed over to me and snapped the gun from me. "No more shooting from you, young man!"

I nodded.

"Oi! Leona, what the fuck just happened?" a soldier who was driving the truck shouted to us at the back.

Leona shouted back, "Not now, Chris. And why the hell are we heading toward the center of this shit? Aren't we supposed to be heading out, as instructed?"

"Sorry, but we're being chased again," came the reply.

The other soldier, who now had his rifle in his hands, said, "Looks like we won't be getting out of this easily."

More enemy trucks were heading for us.

"Shit!" Leona swore. She rushed over and, with the rifle in her hand, started shooting again as she screamed.

We were trapped on all four corners now, and the one on our left drove straight at us, causing our driver to lose control of the vehicle. Suddenly, our truck crashed into the one on the right, veered off course, and spun around, making me feel sick and dizzy. I prayed for my life. I held one hand tightly onto the iron bar attached to the truck, while, with my other hand, I was holding on to the injured Dave. Suddenly, the truck flipped onto the side, and we all screamed our heads off.

Somehow—and honestly, I had no idea how—we survived the crash. Once we realized that, we hastily crawled out of the vehicle as the enemy approached, their vehicles came to a stop, and men armed with weapons rushed over to us.

Why the hell are they so relentlessly chasing after us, for God's sake? We had nothing of value here.

Once we were out of the collapsed truck, we realized that we were out on the open ground and completely vulnerable to attack. Suddenly, I felt a breeze from above. I raised my head and saw a majestic griffin hovering above us in the air.

The moment I saw the man on the back of the bird, I felt sick to my stomach. It was the prince, and he had a hard look on his face as he stared right at me.

Within a split second, he and his bird descended upon us. Gut instinct told me that he was after me and not the others, so I started running.

Leona shouted, "Alfie! Come back!"

I wasn't listening to her. If I could lure this man and his army away from Leona and the team, that was good enough in my mind.

The prince did chase after me, shouting at his men to seize me.

Within no time, I was surrounded, and then the prince and his mighty bird swooped down and caught me. His strong arms gripped tightly around my middle as he hurled me up and dumped me on the back of the bird.

Flying high in the sky, I commanded myself not to feel sick. The position wasn't at all comfortable, nor was it safe. Thus, I held on tightly to the bird as it flapped its wings and soared higher.

I raised my face and looked the prince in the eye. I asked, "What do you want with me?"

His face hard, the prince seized a bunch of my hair and gripped tightly, which bloody hurt. He asked darkly, "Your qi. What the fuck happened to your pure qi?"

So he couldn't sense it, eh? That meant the protective spell worked.

I said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

His grip tightened, and he jerked my head back. It was painful, and I felt tears burning in my eyes.

"Lies!" he said. "You're lying. Oh, I'll draw that pure qi out. No matter what it takes, I'll draw it out of you."