The glowing orb in her soul space looked as dim as ever. So, Ford began to feed her memories and emotions to the flame, letting it grow and rage within her. She then solidified it into a liquid and let it flow out of her body, holding it there and feeling it wash over her like a river of lava burning her skin. She then took that pain and turned it into more soul, and instead of letting it flow out of her, she kept it in, saving it for later.

“I got to say, since you got more soul, it’s a lot easier to see out of the dank hole you call a soul space,” Wrath said from her imaginary throne.

“Glad I could help,” Ford said sarcastically, then made her way out of the soul space.

“Do you think they’ll be okay?”

Yet another question that caught Ford off guard, “They’ll be fine. They can take care of themselves. Don’t worry.”

“I got nothing to do but worry! You never let me out!”

Ford smiled at her, “and I never will,” then left.

***

Ford opened her eyes a few hours later, ten-thirty. She stood and looked around, only seeing Ee carving yet another creature in the shade of a tree. She then made her way to the tree next to her and sat next to her.

Ee continued to whittle, ignoring Ford; after a few minutes, she said, “So, why did you send them off?”

“I’m just letting them level. They’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure it’s not because you knew that the adventurers would catch up with us today?”

Ford fell silent, “Honestly, I thought they would have found us by now.”

“Or they decided to go after your team rather than the one defenseless person.”

“Is everyone alright?” Ford asked over comms. There was no response, “Is anybody out there?!”

Ee stopped whittling for a second and said, “Maybe they’re out of range?”

“No, Farah has a five-kilometer range. She would have heard me.”

“Five kilometers isn’t that far. You’re used to the imperial system, right? That’s like three miles.”

“Yeah, how do you know the imperial system?” Ford asked. Ee looked at her sidelong, “Right, the gods told you,” Ford continued, “anyways, that’s not the point we need to find them.” Ford stood and made her way to the road as fast as possible, then the sound of galloping hooves quickly surrounded her.

The adventurers had caught up to them. Ford looked at all the men and women circling her and looked for her companions on the horses but saw no one. One of the adventurers, a tall, muscular man with plate armor and a helmet covering his face, dismounted when they stopped circling and approached her. He towered over Ford, forcing her to look up at him. “So, you must be Ford,” the man stated in a deep, guttural voice, “where’s the rest of your crew?”

Ford suppressed the urge to raise an eyebrow and asked, “You haven’t found them?”

The man smirked, “Not yet, but we will.”

Ford heard a pair of people dismount outside the circle of horses, and she knew they were looking at Ace’s tracks. “Let me take care of them,” Wrath whispered, “I can easily kill them all. If you let me go.”

‘No,’ Ford thought as she relaxed her body, preparing to fight.

“You can’t take them all on, and if you do, you’ll fail and die. Then they will track down everyone and kill all of them.”

“Sir, we found a trail!” a woman called out from the back of the circled horses.

Ford summoned her swords, ice spear, and segmented blade, yelling, “NO!” the swords went to the back of the circle where the voice had come from and swung her spear and sword upward at the muscular man in front of her. The man gracefully dodged the attack and drew his broadsword, cutting Ford’s midsection and severing her aortic artery. Ford collapsed, playing dead. The man chuckled at the futility of her actions and turned to walk away.

Ford sent her spear flying from her hand at the man and created four blood shields from her pooling blood. The spear stuck itself in the man’s plate armor, not injuring him, but it did startle him and made him stumble. She swung her legs around, flipped, and landed on her feet, directing her swords to go through the horses around her, killing them. A few of the adventurers got a sword through their legs, severing their Achilles tendon and making them scream in pain.

Ford separated her blades and began fighting the adventurers with her eleven blades and recalling her spear to her hand. She lunged at the muscular man aiming for his legs, he jumped to her left, and she swung the butt end of the spear at him. He quickly dodged again, keeping his distance, then she brought the other end of her spear up at the man. He ducked under the swipe and lunged forward using the skill long strike; his sword and speed took a large chunk of Ford’s right abdomen as it cut her flesh like butter.

Her wound instantly healed to the man’s surprise and fear, Ford had enough of this fight, and once her HP hit five-hundred forty-eight, she activated boiling blood. Her HP dropped to two-hundred seventy-four, her body felt unbearably hot, and she coughed up blood onto the ground. Before charging at the man, she spent one-hundred mana and stamina to activate her essence enforcement. He stood his ground and used a fatal slash, sending a blade of light shooting toward her. The blade broke on her enforcement, and she drew her Willful dagger throwing it at the man; he dodged again, allowing the blade to sink into another soldier behind him; two minutes thirty-five seconds until boiling blood finishes.

The man lunged at her swinging his massive sword in long, graceful arcs. Three of his cuts struck her but didn’t penetrate her enforcement. Ford recalled her dagger, and it went into the man’s back, eliciting a scream from him as the dagger traveled through him and into Ford’s waiting hand. The blood on the dagger burned off in smelly steam quickly, and she attacked the man again while he was still down. When she got close enough, he swung at her with a glowing shield made of light. The impact shattered her essence shield and knocked the air from her lungs. He threw her to the ground and then swung his broadsword at her in a downward arc. She used her blood shields to deflect the attack and then rolled away; one minute until boiling blood finishes.

The man stumbled a little as the heat began to get to him and ignored the screams of his men as Ford’s blades cut them down. Ford stood and threw her spear at the man; due to the heat, his movements were slowed, and he received a shallow cut on his left arm and was immediately frostbitten. The spear traveled on and struck another person in the back, killing them. Ford then summoned her MKI and MKII versatile launchers, morphed them into G-18s, and aimed at the armored man. He charged forward using his long strike skill, stabbing Ford through the heart. Her HP plummeted down to one, and she coughed up more blood.

“Any last words?” the man said with his sword still in her heart.

“Three,” Ford wheezed.

“Three?”

“Two…one,” Ford closed her eyes as a spray of blood and viscera shot out of the man’s armor as he turned into a boiling puddle. Ford cast blood control on the broadsword making it her weapon and pulling it out of her chest. As her heart repaired itself, the pain coursing through her body felt unbearable, and she had to fight to stay conscious.

Once her heart finished healing, her body flooded with adrenaline, and she summoned Smite, reactivated her enforcement, activated embracing pain, and jumped into action. She expended one-thousand mana per second as she swung her blade, cutting through armor and weapons like butter. Mercilessly killing people who had been injured by her swords, trapped under a horse, or people who threw down their weapons in surrender and begging for their lives as the glowing blade came down and killed them. Soon, only two people were left, both injured and both running for their lives going north. Ford raised her hand, created two spears of stone, and sent them through the backs of the two fleeing adventurers.

Ford looked at the carnage she had made and retched. “I dare say, Ms. Ford, I was surprised by your brutality,” Wrath said sarcastically in a fake southern accent.

“Shut up,” Ford said, clutching her torn clothes.

“Oh, don’t lie to me,” Wrath continued using her normal voice in a whisper, “you enjoyed every minute of that fight. I can feel it.”

“Shut up.”

“The rush of adrenaline. That thrill of holding a person’s life in your hands. The sweet bliss of knowing that you’ve won and will survive another day. It’s intoxicating.”

“SHUT UP!”

“You can’t hide from who you really are, Ford.”

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!!”

“If you want me to shut up, then tell me; why are you smiling?”

Ford touched her face and felt shocked at the realization that she was smiling. A big smile and a tear rolled down her cheek as she searched her emotions over the last few minutes of fighting. She did enjoy the fight; moreover, she enjoyed the killing. She grabbed her head and spoke weakly, “Just…please, shut up…please, be quiet.”

Wrath gave a small chuckle and mumbled, “Told you so. You did enjoy the fight.”

“Go away!” Ford yelled, tears streaming down her face. She took a couple of steps backward, tripped on a corpse of some woman she had killed, and landed on a dead horse.

“FORD!” Ee yelled. Ford looked up and saw Ee a few paces in front of her. The corpses around her sank into shadows, leaving no evidence of the fight other than the scattered floating weapons with nothing to do. Ee sat down in front of her and said, “Let me guess. You found that you enjoyed the fight a little too much. Is that right?” Ford nodded, “And you aren’t sure if that’s okay or not?” Ford nodded again. Ee nodded and said, “Let me save you some time. It’s not okay, and it never will be. But as much as you want to agree with that, you can’t. At the end of the day, it's either you or them when it comes down to it.”

Ford looked away from her and considered what Ee had said, then asked, “What if I stop thinking that it’s not okay? What would happen then?”

Ee shrugged, “I guess we’ll cross that road when we get there,” She stood and put a hand on Ford’s shoulder, “If you need to talk, I’ll listen, or even one of the others will listen. Now I do believe you have some ability and skill points to distribute.”

Ford nodded and was about to open up her Yggdras system when Max’s voice came over comms, “Hey, Ford. Did you try and get in touch with us? Sorry, we were fighting monsters and couldn’t talk. Is everything okay?”

“Hey, Ford. Did you need somethin’?” Lilly asked over comms, “We were figh’in’ monsters and couldn’ talk.”

“For fucks sake, answer comms when you hear someone using it. I thought the adventurers had gotten to you.”

“We haven’ ran into anybody else since we left,” Lilly said.

“Neither have we,” Morgan added.

Ford breathed a sigh of relief and said, “That’s good. Come back when you’re ready. I’ll have food ready for you all when you get back.”

“Heard that,” Gimble said cheerily. Ford stood and sprayed herself with the essence thrower using water, washing off all the blood and grime. Then used air essence to dry off. Once she finished, she repaired her clothes and got to work getting ready to cook. All the while looking at her over full EXP bar and the loot bag that appeared in the spot she had been sitting in moments before.