With a heavy thud, the corpse of the toad fell into the small shack at the side of their home. Loosening the rope he had carried the thing with all the way here, he took a glance at the house. To his surprise, he was actually able to avoid Mia, as she was still inside training.

  He of course didn’t want to lie, so if asked he would tell the truth, but if not he would just act like normal. He didn’t want her to needlessly worry. It was a good thing she had something she could dedicate her time to. With her training, she was occupied enough to not think too much about their unfortunate situation.

  She just had to train, and he had to make a new leather chestplate as quickly as possible. Well, and somehow hide the huge body of the toad. It was another very peculiar beast. It heavily mutated into defense as the gray, scale like material on it wasn’t actually it’s skin, it was more like an artificial armor, which he no clue how the toad made.

  Underneath was the real leathery skin of the toad. There was also its long black tongue, which was unnaturally strong, but especially its teeth took him by surprise. They were also the only component of the body where he had a rough idea of what he could use it for. Maybe make some tool out of it.

  He certainly knew they would work quite well. The two rows of teeth were not only sharp but also serrated, making them perfect to saw through flesh and bone alike. If it wasn’t for his leather armor and quick reaction, he would have been halved.

  He might just make a saw out of it, just to see how well they performed on different materials. It may be even strong enough to saw through metal. A beast using such a strange way of hunting certainly promised the future to be interesting, what other strange beast are out there?

  Quite exiting if he thought about it, even if it was dangerous. Well, danger wasn’t something strange at this point. It was more like an old friend which he just couldn’t seem to quite get away from, someone you don’t see for months but then suddenly just stumble upon each other. He couldn’t even remember what it was like to live without danger.

  ******

  The rest of the month passed quickly, and it was almost time for their third winter to begin. During the past month quite some time was spent on making another leather armor, like always improved compared to the previous variant. Over time, did not only increase his skill in handling leather, but also his knowledge in improving the armor little by little each time.

  Be it by making it more comfortable by adding some more patting at some places, or thickening the leather at others. If he had to make some adjustments, he always tried to improve on the design further. The one problem he couldn’t seem to resolve were his arms and legs.

  There was no bracer he could build, which would withstand his erupted punch, while shoes just became too uncomfortable. At least his pants weren’t a problem as the sweet spot of erupting his essence in his legs, largely stayed inside his body and thus didn’t damage his clothes.

  Since he started to make his own armor it saved his life multiple times, and with him not using his aura, he was severely lacking in defense and relying more and more on it. Of course, he was able to regenerate quickly from most wounds, but that didn’t mean that he liked the pain which came with it. Even after all this time, the pain didn’t subside in any form, he just learned how to keep moving besides being in pain.

  How to ignore it, or in some cases even use it to sharpen his senses. It gave him the ferocity to match the beasts and battle them without being hindered by his fear. After he found a reliable way of attacking and movement, he only needed some way to increase his defense.

  Well, that was a matter he had more than enough time to contemplate about in the future. For now, he wanted to help Mia in finding her own power. He didn’t know if it was possible, but he at least wanted to support her ambitions.

  Knocking on her door, there was a moment of silence before he heard a faint voice from inside. “Yes?” Opening the door, he saw Mia sitting on the floor in a mediating position, still training her control over essence, but especially aura. Clay told her to first advance on the field which she was most proficient at, before anything else.

  “Mia, I have an idea which could help you with your power, interested?” asked Clay while pointing with his thump over his shoulder to the door. Seeing Mia raise one of her brows, he just rolled his eyes. “Then follow me.”

  During the way, Mia kept silent. She learned the hard way that asking Clay a question would often result in him blabbering on without end, as he kept jumping from one topic to the next, so it was best to not say anything at all. But the moment they entered the perimeters of Churchville, it became clear where they were going.

  “Do we really have to go there?” asked Mia while stopping in her tracks, hesitating to take another step. It felt like years since she last entered her hometown, a place with a lot of happy and even more traumatic memories. The more recent tragedies always overwhelmed the good ones, so she never dwelled long in her memories of the past. It only caused further pain.

  That her memories before being rescued by Clay were hazy at best and completely black at worst also didn’t help in this matter. She just tried to live in the moment, trying to not think about past nor future.

  Stopping and turning around, Clay ensured, “Of course you don’t have to, but I think this might be the only way for you to better understand what happened to you.”

  “Can’t you just do another few of your experiments and find out on your own?” asked Mia, the worry clear in her voice.

  Scratching the back of his head, Clay explained, “I could try some tests, but to be honest I don’t know as much as you might think. Everything I know, I found out through trail and error, often with dangerous experiments which would have killed me if there wasn’t my regeneration.”

  Keeping silent, he watched as Mia struggled with herself on what to do, before her troubled expression eventually relaxed, and became confident. “Okay let’s go!”

  Nodding with a smile, they moved on, entering the poison filled city. Since he first rescued Mia the poison never stopped expanding, each day it grew a little more, and it wouldn’t be long before the whole city was consumed by it. The moment he entered, the poison swarmed him from all sides like moths to the light.

  There was no aura shield to stop them, so each breath filled his body with more poison, like a waterfall of death. From every direction, the poison gathered into a thick purple slug around his vital organs, before staying still. The poison still wasn’t hostile to him.

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  Even then the sweet smell which lingered in the air was as sickening as ever and after almost dying to it, he must have developed some trauma. It was by far the worst smell in the world. He would even prefer the smell of a sea of blood and a mountain of rotting corpses over this cloying smell.

  Ignoring it, he focused on the matter at hand. They were here for answers. What exactly was this poison? How was it able to be move even though seemingly no one controlled it? Why couldn’t Mia control her poison like her aura?

  Finding an answer to these questions would be detrimental in helping her better understand her condition and use it to her advantage instead of it being a burden. The closer they drew upon the source of the poison, the stranger and thicker the surrounding vegetation became.

  Each speck of grass – each vine growing along the crumbling houses – and each of the thick bushes mutated into having a mix of colors ranging from deep purple to bright pink, giving the area an otherworldly feel which you otherwise would only get by looking at the second moon circling the sky. Of course, Clay already saw this sight not too long ago when he came for more wood for Mia’s second mask, but it was still breathtaking.

  When they finally reached the area of, the huge poisonous oak tree looming over the surrounding area stopped Mia suddenly in her tracks. The place which she called home for the vast majority of her life was no more. Being so close to the tree took its toll and once the wooden support completely crumbled away it was nor more than a pile of ruined stones.

  With time, this pile and anything with it was absorbed by the surrounding plants, forming a small hill. At some places you were still able to make out some bits and pieces, but in just a few more months or even weeks one would never guess that this small hill filled with purple and pink vegetation was a two-story tall building.

  Shocked, she looked at the hill, while Clay kept silent. He had no words of condolence for the destruction of her home, it was inevitable the moment he understood the poison was eating at the wood. There were more than enough opportunities to tell her about this, but he chose not to.

  It may be cruel off him, but he wanted her to toughen up, even if he didn’t like it. She already lost a lot of things, and he knew she would lose more in the future from how the world was currently progressing; there laid bleak times ahead of them, he was sure of that.

  Why did he force Mia to help in butchering? Why did he demand so much during their training? Why did he take her on patrols? It was all to prepare her to live on her own, to survive this new world even without him, which was also one of the reasons why he needed to learn as much as possible. Knowledge was power, after all.

  Eventually, Mia moved wordlessly on through the bushes to the garden where the oak tree stood. Since she was last her, it grew by quite a bit, far exceeding the pace in which a tree normally grew. Not wasting more time, she went over to the tree and stretched her hand out, midway she shortly hesitated before continuing and laying her hand on the shimmering purple bark of the tree.

  Not long after, she looked over her shoulder and asked, “What exactly am I supposed to do now? You said coming here would give us answers, but how?”

  “I said it could give us answers,” corrected Clay, “but I do have an idea. Close your eyes, focus on my voice, and ignore everything else. Now concentrate on your aura, you trained hard the past few months and even if you might think there was no progress you are wrong. All of this training honed your feeling for aura, you feel each current of essence more clearly now, right?”

  Seeing her nod in response he explained, “Feel your essence, form your aura and slowly move it outwards into the tree. Start from the roots in the ground, gradually move upwards to the trunk, before ending in its rich crown of leaves. Take your time, there is no pressure.”

  Watching her, Clay took notice of her every movement and change in expression. Waiting, he eventually saw her eye twitching and brows furrowing. “What do you feel?”

  She hesitated for a moment before she described, “I can feel my aura circling the tree, it’s from top to bottom filled with essence, like a bonfire, it’s almost blinding. Like a fire, it flickers, moving without much of a flow.”

  Aura? No, that shouldn’t be possible, you need a heart to store essence and a mind to control it. The tree didn’t have either, or did it mutate? Thinking about countless possibilities Clay kept calm outwards, while directing Mia, “Very good, now try to focus on this aura, what does it feel like?”

  “Mhmm… It’s thin, compared to my own it's almost fragile. Yes, it’s like it isn’t even a whole mass but more like a swarm of embers. There is no current which it follows, but more like flickers. I feel a sense of familiarity from it, and yet I can’t control it.”

  Hearing this, Clay got lost in his thoughts. Wrecking his brain over countless theories and trying to make sense of the situation, while Mia continuing to sense the tree.

  After a while she retracted her aura and looked over at Clay who was walking in circles, one of his habits when he was thinking too hard. “Clay?” not getting a response, she shouted louder, “Clay!”

  “Yeah?” Shaking her head in frustration, she asked, “So, what do you think? What does this strange aura mean?” Seeing that he was once again straying away with his thoughts, she snapped her fingers. “Hey! Just speak what you are thinking.”

  Beginning to walk again in circles and moving his hands in irritation, Clay explained, “It's not that easy. This doesn’t make sense. Aura is still essence, and there are a few rules which it has always followed up to this point, but if what you described is true… then this tree just broke several of them. Essence is supposed to move as one flow which isn’t the case here and without a mind it shouldn’t even be able to form an aura.”

  Scratching his head, he rambled on, “It shouldn’t be possible for there to be an unstable flow like you just described. If essence moves, then as one continues flow. Of course, you can split this flow, but that doesn’t make it unstable, then you just have two individual flows at once. Such a flickering shouldn’t be possible, it always has to be a flow.”

  Kicking around in the dirt, Mia asked, “So what could be the reason?”

  “It could be literally anything,” admitted Clay in defeat, “Maybe the tree can somehow influence the poison, maybe the poison itself can move on its own, or it might just be something entirely different that we just don’t understand yet. I’m sorry Mia, I really hoped this would give us answers, but in reality it just resulted in more questions.”

  “So we aren’t closer to an answer, I still can’t control my poison, probably never will. I will just continue to produce more and more of it until it consumes me whole?” asked Mia with unfocused eyes.

  Straightened his back, Clay tried to cheer her up. “Look, I know we don’t have a solution for now, but it’s definitely not impossible, we will find something together in time.”

  “Time. How long exactly? I’m dying Clay!” stated Mia, her eyes shifting to him, tears welling up, “I'm going to die, aren't I?” At a loss for words, Clay tried to place his hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

  “Stop!” shouted Mia, while pushing his arm away, “Don’t you dare lie to me! I’m sure you noticed it. No, you must have noticed it with how carefully you take notes!”

  It didn’t take long for Clay to realize what she was hinting at, as a heavy sigh escaped his lips. Taking a step back, she said, “I know that it's getting worse. How could I not if I’m the one experiencing the symptoms?! I just hoped it would stop eventually, I ignored it, focusing on my stupid mediations in hope you would find a solution.” Taking a deep breath, she asked, “Be honest, Clay, how– how long…?”

  Coming over and kneeling on one knee, he looked her deep into the eyes. “Mia stop worrying. Yes, I noticed that the amount of heart blood you need is slowly increasing, but there is still more than enough time. I just have to hunt a little more, and I promise you that we will find a solution.”

  Tears rolling along her cheeks, she asked, “Are you sure we can do this on our own?” Taking a deep breath, he shook his head. “No, and that is why it’s time to move on.” Looking up, her eyes filled with new hope. “You mean we will look–”

  “Yes, it’s time for us to see what became of the rest of the world and find those who survived. I’m sure they will have the knowledge we need. I just hope that they are friendly to outsiders.”