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Kelsey had good reflexes and a good memory and body control to boot. She even looked a little more cut and said it was from keeping to the exercise regime every day and cultivating as much Frenzy as she could into each exercise.

“I can definitely feel it now,” she said. “The elements of pain, rage, and fear. This has opened up a whole new world for me. Like I’m sensing everything in a whole new dimension.”

I knew exactly how she felt. It was the same for me the first time I sensed Frenzy and the emotions that fueled it. Her words made me even more eager to master the [Brand of the Frenzied Flame] technique to etch the orb and share with her the full path of the Flame.

I did the next best thing and taught her some basic Berserker techniques as best I could verbally by giving her the meridian sequence for [Pain Soothes the Frenzied Flame] as well as [Indifference] and of course how to channel the rage, pain, and fear of others through [Your Fear is my Strength], [Your Pain is my Strength], and [Your Rage is my Strength].

After training we ate a quick breakfast with the rest of the community and then both went to work with Harris building the wall. I did the heavy lifting, but Kelsey kept pace digging the trenches in between. I couldn’t sense any lemonade heading her way, but by the way people were glancing at her when she tossed a stray log across the ground, I figured she had to be generating some.

“Hey,” I said. “Are you cultivating the lemonade?”

She squinted at me in confusion. “Lemonade?”

I pulled her to the side to explain the concept.

“You know how you can sense fear, pain and rage of others right?”

“Yeah.”

“And they all have different… sort of flavors?”

“Flavors?” She furrowed her brow at me skeptically. “I guess so. They do feel different.”

“Right,” I said. “So anyway, fear has a positive side, like reverence, respect or adoration. When you impress people, their fear of you can be sweet. Like lemonade.”

She looked back at me like I was crazy. “I don’t get it.”

“Well, if fear tastes like lemons, then sweet fear is like lemonade.”

“Ah…” she said, still looking somewhat confused. She glanced over at the soldiers working on the wall. “You know, I think I may have sensed something like that before, but damn, Max…” She shook her head at me. “That’s one hella retarded way to describe it.”

I laughed out loud. “Yeah maybe. I guess they don’t call me Max Chun for nothing.”

“Max Choon?”

I then had to go on to explain the difference between Chun and Chun and how it had become my nickname and by the end of the story she was rolling on the ground in stiches.

“Holy shit, Max!” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “You’re seriously the funniest guy I know. Not that I know many funny people, but damn your brain is like, out there.”

I took it as a compliment and grinned.

“Just don’t forget the lemonade.”

We got back to work, completing a good two hundred more feet of wall before clocking out for the afternoon around three. After another quick rest to fuel ourselves up, Kelsey and I headed off together into the wild in search of prey.

We started with hunting for small game to provide fresh meat for the community and I stood back like a proud big brother as Kelsey took on her first giant boar solo with her new axe. The fearlessness of her Flame was impressive, and she earned a mild goring for her efforts, taking a full-on hit from the beast with [Indifference] in order to retaliate at close range. Kelsey was so pumped with adrenaline and Frenzy she didn’t even notice she was wounded until I pointed out the blood soaking through her overalls.

She merely grinned. “More gains!”

She engaged [Pain Soothes the Frenzied Flame] as I went on my own hunt next, healing by the time we were deeper into the wild. I managed to track down a nest of giant fire ants and Kelsey and I both shared in the carnage as we ploughed through a small network of underground tunnels, slaying hundreds of the dog-sized insects.

Heading deeper into the hive, we finally unearthed the queen, an ant the size of a horse, and I dispatched it with little effort using a combination of my axe and Threja’s sword. Unfortunately, there was no core to be found but the sword still resonated once I’d killed the monster and for a brief second, I thought I heard Threja’s voice again. I asked Kelsey if she heard the same, but when she shook her head, I figured my hearing was simply playing tricks on me.

We arrived back at the bunker as heroes, with Kelsey taking credit for the night’s entrée of roasted pork. I got to work slaughtering the carcass and halfway through Kelsey nudged me and whispered excitedly that she had just cultivated a shitload of lemonade from the crowd.

I couldn’t stop laughing.

After dinner and some meditation practicing my [Iron Lightning] technique, Kelsey and I headed back to the edge of the barrier, which had expanded a couple of feet thanks to killing the ant queen. I readied myself and prepared to face the darkness again to strengthen my Flame. It went somewhat smoother this time around, with me again keeping a greater semblance of control before the Dark Frenzy choked my Flame completely.

I’xol’ukz attacked right away, swarming as I entered the darkness, but I managed to resist it somewhat more than before, enduring the damage that went straight to my soul. After rescuing me, Kelsey again noted my control seemed better and that I managed to avoid getting hit a lot more. The result was only moderate injuries from the demons and I skipped using [Mark of the Giant] to heal in order to take advantage of the permanent gains the wounds would do for my Body Hardening.

Before we headed off to bed, Kelsey begged me to try scribing the orb again but just like the night before, the only thing I managed to do was heat the metal, again running into that locked door within my mind.

“Still no good,” I said. “Guess it will take a bit more cultivating of my spirit.”

But I was beginning to wonder if there was something other than my spiritual strengthening holding me back. That locked door in my mind was something I’d never experienced before. Perhaps I would indeed need to seek guidance from someone more skilled in what all this stuff actually meant.

True insight into the spiritual realm.

We went through the same process over the next few days, starting out early with axe training and minor Berserker techniques, before transitioning to working on the wall and then hunting for cores in the afternoon before exposing myself to the Bloodmoon at night.

By day three we had finished the wall and had more time to train and hunt.

I used the extra time to focus on mastering my own Berserker techniques and abilities, concentrating on the meridian sequences for [Steel Skin] and [Steel Core] as well as trying to refine [Iron Lightning].

With the punishment I was putting my body through with the Bloodmoon exposure, I could definitely sense the progression of my Body Refinement. Fighting the mosh pit of demons each night and then healing naturally left my skin gaining whole new levels of toughness and scars. By day five I was sure I had pushed both my Body Hardening and Muscle Strengthening to Stage IX or X.

Which meant I was getting close to being able to employ [Steel Skin].

But that was the easy part.

I still wasn’t able to use [Brand of the Frenzied Flame] to scribe the orb, despite me facing that tentacled horror each night. More and more I was growing the resistance to withstand its effects, but I still wasn’t able to summon the full strength of the [Soul Shield] technique either to protect my Flame. Which meant I was still stuck on Stage IX with my Mental Capacity.

“I might need to do more than just this to achieve the next breakthrough,” I said to Kelsey as I sat with her on the edge of the crater containing Threja’s sword. We had just had yet another attempt at using [Brand of the Frenzied Flame] to scribe the orb and had come up snake eyes. “The text on the sword speaks of seeking spiritual knowledge, but maybe I’ve gained all I can from the Bloodmoon.”

“So what does that mean?” Kelsey asked, pointing up at the red ball in the sky. “There’s something more sinister than the Bloodmoon that you need to face?”

“Maybe,” I said, thinking of those Cursed Stars. But no way would I need to face that kind of danger for a breakthrough to Stage X, did I? I sighed. “I think I’m going to need to see my friend Mu Lin.”

“Who’s that?”

“She’s a scholar. Someone I can trust. We used to work together for years as handlers, but she’s moved on from all that now. She studies at the university. She might understand this spiritual stuff and how to achieve breakthrough to the next stage. She might know more about this I’xol’ukz too.”

“You mean the tentacle monster thing?”

I nodded, almost forgetting I had described it to her once when she asked what I saw when I went full berserk. “Maybe I’ve learned all I can from just seeing it. Maybe I need to learn more about what it truly is. What it wants…” I then looked up at the moon. “…where it comes from.”

Kelsey smiled. “It must be nice to have friends you turn to like that. To share all this stuff with.” She then sighed. “All I have is you.”

I laughed, making a face of mock insult. “Damn, Kelsey, what am I, dog shit?”

She burst out laughing. “You know what I mean. When you’re gone, there’s no one else I can talk to about this stuff. It’s like I have to keep it all a secret, even from my mom. She’d freak out if she knew half the stuff we got into in the wild. So I just don’t tell her, you know?”

I huffed out a laugh. “You know what’s really funny?”

“What?”

“You’re honestly the only one I can talk to about all this stuff too.”

Her eyes suddenly went wide. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” I said. “Even my sister doesn’t know I’m a Berserker. None of the people back home do. And even asking for information about I’xol’ukz will probably raise some eyebrows. Demonic stuff is all super taboo back in the city.”

“Wow,” she said. “So you really have to keep secrets just like me?”

I shrugged. “I have to keep secrets from a lot of people. Even the ones I love.”

I paused then and a sadness filled me as my thoughts suddenly turned to Fia.

She was perhaps the one I was keeping the most secrets from. Not just of my true nature as a Berserker, but my very goal of freeing the Earth and not to mention defying her clan in the process one day.

“Hey, are you okay?” Kelsey asked, looking suddenly concerned.

I looked back at her oddly. “Yeah, why?”

“I just sensed a crapload of pain come from inside you.”

I blinked, shocked. “You felt that?”

She nodded.

“Damn,” I said with a chuckle. “I guess I need to remember you’re a Berserker now too.”

“Seriously are you okay? I’ve never sensed anything like that come from you before.”

I sighed, contemplating if I should say anything or not.

It wasn’t like she could help or perhaps even understand.

But it might feel good to talk about it.

Ah, what the hell? I thought. I share everything else with Kelsey, why not this?

“So, there’s this girl I like, right? And she—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Kelsey said, waving her arm. “This isn’t going to get weird, is it? Cause I might need to call my mom.”

I gave her an eye roll. “No, it’s nothing like that. You gonna listen or what? Cause you’re seriously the only person I can tell this to.”

She sighed, folding her arms. “Go on…”

“Okay, so this girl wants me to marry her, but that means marrying into her family. Only thing is, her family killed my parents. So, I feel kinda weird about that.”

“Her family killed your parents?” Kelsey said, leaning closer with more interest. “And she wants to marry you? Still?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s really messed up.”

“Yeah,” I repeated, “but that’s not all. Her brother got my sister pregnant too, and after she had the kid, he… actually that’s a different story, that doesn’t matter. Forget about all that.”

Kelsey stared back at me with her mouth wide open, her attention completely rapt now.

“So anyway, marriage is a kind of big deal in the new world. Clans and families mean something, you know? Titles, prestige, power and all that. Plus, she’s from a royal family that also happens to be the ruling clan. So to free the Earth I’ll need to fight against her clan one day and I’m not sure she’ll be too thrilled about that. You know what I mean? So I don’t really know how to tell her.”

“Whoa, this all sounds super complicated, Max.”

“It is.”

“So what are you going to do?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. I thought about maybe asking her to leave her family, but… I couldn’t ask her to do that.”

“Why? Don’t you want to fight them all anyway?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if she would want that? I mean…they’re still her family, right? I mean, would you appreciate that as a wife?”

“How the hell would I know, Max? I don’t know anything about being married. I’m just a kid.”

I sighed again. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Either way, I got about a year to figure this all out.”

“Why a year? Is that the date of the wedding or something?”

“Nah,” I said. “That’s when I have to go fight her to the death in a duel.”

“What the actual hell, Max?!” Kelsey shouted. “What kind of crazy life do you live?”

I chuckled. “You know, hearing it said out loud, maybe it is kind of crazy. Maybe I’m overthinking everything too. There are plenty of fish in the sea, right?” I sighed. “Maybe I just need to get over the idea of marrying this girl, defeat her in the ring and just move on.”

Kelsey shook her head. “You’re pretty sledgehammer when it comes to most things, Max, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen you second guessing yourself about anything.”

“You think so?”

“I do and it points to only one thing to me.”

I huffed out a laugh. “Oh yeah, what’s that?”

She shrugged. “Sounds like you like her more than you want to admit and you’re afraid telling her that you want to fight her family will make her not want to marry you anymore.”

My mouth hung open.

Holy shit, was she right?

“My opinion,” she said. “Your family is what you make it. And as crazy as it sounds to ask her to run away with you, maybe she just might go for it if you ask her, who knows? But you definitely won’t know until you tell her the truth.”

“I guess that’s true…”

“Maybe you should just think about how you can make it work somehow instead of thinking about every way it can’t. You keep thinking negative like that and you’ll end up giving yourself optic rectitus.”

“Giving myself what?”

“It’s a medical term,” she said. “It’s when the nerves of the eyeballs get crossed with the nerves of the anus and gives the patient a shitty outlook on life.”

I paused for a second and then burst out laughing.

Kelsey then grinned at her own joke. “Sadly I can’t take credit for that one. That one is all Mom.”

“Tell your mom that was a good one.”

And maybe it was kind of true too.

Maybe I was thinking too pessimistically about my situation with Fia.

With anything else I usually just focused on the goal and said to hell with the consequences. So why not her? Maybe I was afraid of losing her just like Kelsey said and all these reasons were just damn excuses.

“Man…” I said, shaking my head as I mulled it over. “Can’t believe I’m taking relationship advice from a fourteen-year-old. And it’s pretty damn solid too.”

“Hey, I’m nearly fifteen, ahole,” Kelsey said, slugging me on the shoulder.

I smiled and was just about to thank her for the pep talk when the wail of a klaxon pierced the air.

Kelsey covered her ears, looking back towards the bunker. “That’s the general alarm!”

Before we could even get up, Captain Flores came running towards us from the bunker’s side door, fear wild in both her eyes and her soul.

“We need both of you to come now!” she shouted above the wail of the klaxon. “Demons are in the complex!”

“Did they breach the collapse?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, they’ve found some other way around it, they’re all the way up on level four!”

“Oh my god,” Kelsey said. “That’s the habitat level.”

I knew exactly what that meant. I immediately looked to Kelsey and her eyes were glistening as terror filled her soul. In that moment, she looked every bit the frightened teenager she had every right to be.

“Max,” she said almost pleadingly as uncertainty and dread caused her voice to crack. “My mom.”