Chapter 72: Shameful

"Master!"

"Mmfive more minutes, Yanael…"

Zach woke up to the sound of Yanael's voice. It sounded like she was shouting for some reason. But it also sounded like she was far away. Strange. Wasn't she supposed to be…breaking through a wall of some kind?

Zach's thoughts were like syrup, and he had trouble understanding the situation as soon as he woke up. But his mind quickly cleared.

His eyes shot open and he sat up, the numb jolt of pain helping him wake up.

Zach looked at his leg. It was still a bloody mess. No surprise there. But by the looks of it, he hadn't been out for more than a few seconds.

Zach took a deep breath and quickly tightened the rope around his thigh, steeming the flow of blood even further.

When he had done that, he glanced around.

The barrier was intact.

'That's a relief.'

The arrow rain was as endless as before.

'That's troublesome.'

Yanael had broken through the wall and created an opening to an arrow storage and shooting room large enough for them to escape.

'Great.'

Zach couldn't walk, much less run with his leg. Yanael would have to carry him. Sёarch* The Novёlƒire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

'Not so great—Wait a minute.'

Zach looked at the floor. It was a barrier. His barrier.

He could move his barriers around. Rather than fixing a barrier in place, he could set it around a target like he had done with the group while they walked through the forest.

It followed them like it was fixed around them with crossbeams. Invisible and weightless crossbeams perhaps, but still, it stayed with them without Zach needing to put extra thought into anything but the creation.

Zach put his hand against the floor.

It wasn't the same as creating a barrier that moved automatically. But he could make the floor move. It would make it harder to keep the protective dome intact. Fortunately, Yanael was in the process of destroying the entirety of one wall of arrows, which significantly lowered the pressure on Zach's barrier.

Zach concentrated on the floor and shifted the barrier along the horizontal axis. He quickly realized he had to do the same with the dome, too.

It was headache-inducing, concentrating on so many things at once. It was made even worse by the fact that he was working under such extreme blood loss that it wouldn't be surprising if it made him go into shock at any moment.

It wasn't a promising first dive into the Underworld. As soon as they stepped foot into the place, the group had gotten separated, and Zach was already about to die. The others could be even worse off.

But Zach had too many things to do, see, learn, and brag about to give up. He did his best to ignore his aching body and moved his barriers without looking up. It felt like he had moved several miles since the only things he saw were the endless arrows and the never-changing floor of spikes, both ready to pierce and skewer him as soon as his barriers broke down.

He wasn't sure how much longer he could go on.

He heard Yanael's voice far away like she was talking through a pillow. The sound of her voice and the dream of one day having pillow talk with Yanael kept Zach going until he hit solid wall that stopped his barriers.

Zach slowly looked up, most of the light gone from his eyes. He saw Yanael a step away. He tore down his barriers.

Before Zach could fall, before the arrows could strike his body, Yanael reached out and swooped Zach away from danger and into her arms. She brought him into the room behind the wall of arrow traps and into temporary safety.

Some of the arrows from the opposite wall made it into the room, but Yanael tore down the wall and arrow traps to set up a blockade that stopped any and all arrows from finding her and Zach.

Yanael put down Zach on the hard stone floor and tended to his wound in the faint light from her halo. She cleaned it up as well as she could and trimmed the strips of flesh and tissue hanging from the wound with jagged edges. She looked to see if there was anything in the wound that would spell trouble for Zach's recovery, but she couldn't see anything.

Yanael ripped off her sleeve and tied it around Zach's leg. She liked to keep her dress clean and intact. But there was no way such a trivial desire could compare to the bleeding wound on Zach's leg.

Zach was still passed out from the blood loss, and it would take a bit to recover enough to wake up. Until then, Yanael took inventory of the things that hadn't disappeared with the other two or fallen to the spiky floor of the death trap when Zach got rid of his barriers.

There wasn't much, but there were some snacks Zach could eat when he woke up.

There wasn't anything to clean Zach with or keep him warm, so Yanael raised his leg before putting Zach's head in her lap. She also held his hands for comfort and to measure his pulse.

She was doing her best and as much as she could to take care of Zach.

But there was a limit to what she could accomplish in their current situation. Zach had to get proper treatment from someone with healing capabilities or at the Academy infirmary.

Yanael looked around the room until she found a seam in one of the walls. She could probably find another room or a way forward there.

But since she couldn't leave Zach in his current state, she had to wait until he woke up. If he woke up.

Until then, she was stuck with her feelings of powerlessness and uselessness. Once again, Zach had gotten injured when she was in the same room. She should have been able to protect him.

It was shameful. Her performance wasn't satisfactory whether she looked at herself like an angel, a maid, or a familiar.

She didn't understand how Zach's eyes could still be full to the brim with trust whenever he looked at her.

Yanael stroked Zach's hair and brushed it out of the way for his eyes as she looked at his face, patient as a stone.