A wild breeze tore through the jungle as Joe sprinted across the forest, pushing his body to its absolute limits. His form became a blur of motion, rows of trees flashing past him in the blink of an eye as he raced toward the exit.

  Joe knew something had changed about his body.

  He had felt it when he carried the heavy supply bag with ease, when he dodged a wolf’s bite, and when he survived the shockwave that hurled him into a tree. Each of those feats should have been impossible for an ordinary human. Yet even with that knowledge, Joe was stunned by just how fast he was moving now.

  What shocked him even more was that he was sprinting faster than most cars on Earth while carrying a full grown woman over his shoulder.

  Olivia thrashed violently, struggling to free herself. Her fists slammed into Joe’s back again and again as she screamed at the top of her lungs.

  “Put me down! I have to go back for Trey!”

  Joe stayed silent for several seconds, ignoring her pleas. She did not stop.

  “Put me do—”

  “Shut up!” Joe snapped, his voice echoing through the jungle. “If you go back now, you will die! Trey gave you a chance to escape and you want to throw it away? I will not let you do that!”

  Olivia froze.

  “He is sacrificing himself so that you can live,” Joe continued, his tone hard and unwavering. “Turning back now and dying would be the same as spitting on his grave!”

  Her watery eyes widened, and she stopped resisting completely.

  “The best thing you can do now is honor his sacrifice,” Joe said grimly. “Survive, so his death is not meaningless.”

  A second later, a thunderous boom shook the jungle.

  Blinding orange light erupted behind them as flames surged skyward, turning the heavens crimson. The ground quaked violently, trees shuddered, and massive branches snapped from their crowns and crashed to the forest floor. Joe stumbled, nearly falling flat on his face, but managed to keep his balance.

  A scorching wave of heat washed over his back.

  “Dammit,” Joe muttered through clenched teeth. ‘To think the flames can reach us even from this far away. Trey… just how powerful is his Bloodline?’

  “Trey…” Olivia whispered weakly. Fresh tears welled in her eyes. “He's gone …”

  Joe thought bitterly.

  Joe pushed himself harder, burning through every remaining ounce of strength.

  Despite the scale of the explosion, Joe had no doubt the Lord of the Woods was still alive. Even Trey believed his Bloodline would not be enough to kill it, only slow it down. That meant the head start Trey bought them was precious.

  Joe refused to waste it.

  “Put me down,” Olivia said suddenly.

  “I told you already, I am not letting you turn back,” Joe replied.

  “That is not what I am planning to do,” she said calmly. “Trust me. Put me down so I can help us escape.”

  Joe hesitated, then slowly lowered her to the ground.

  Olivia smiled faintly. “Thank you.”

  She stepped in front of him, facing forward. “What you said earlier was right. The best thing we can do is survive so that the deaths of our comrades are not in vain.” She clenched her fists. “As an adventurer, I am ashamed that I let my emotions control me. My master would be disappointed to hear that an Unawakened porter kept his head while I lost mine.”

  She glanced back at Joe. “Thanks to you, I remember what matters. As an Awakened and an experienced adventurer, I will take responsibility and make sure we get out of here alive.”

  Her demeanor had completely changed. She stood straighter, calmer, more confident.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Joe was reminded that the girl before him was not ordinary. She was someone chosen by the heavens.

  Olivia lowered herself slightly. “Get on my back. I will carry you.”

  “But I—”

  “Don't argue,” she cut him off. “I may be a healer, so I am slower than someone like Trey, but I am still Awakened. You are fast, Joe. The fastest Unawakened I have ever seen. But there are limits to your speed.”

  She looked ahead, eyes burning with resolve. “Let me handle the sprinting. It may not be my specialty, but I promise I will get us to Suveny.”

  A faint smile crossed her lips. “After all, we adventurers hunt monsters for money. We can do that because we're strong.”

  A chill ran down Joe’s spine.

  He did not resist. He climbed onto Olivia’s back and wrapped his arms around her neck. Her body strained for only a moment before steadying. Despite her slender frame, she carried him as if his weight barely registered.

  The gap between those with mana and the Unchosen was vast.

  Joe had no doubt that Olivia possessed the raw physical strength to outmuscle even the most dedicated athletes from Earth. She was a monster in her own right.

  He held on tightly. In the next instant, Olivia exploded forward.

  The world blurred.

  Joe’s eyes widened as he realized something shocking. Compared to her, his speed had been nothing special at all.

  Next to Olivia, he might as well have been standing still.

  Joe clung tightly to Olivia as the healer sprinted through the woods. A surge of wind slammed into him, forcing him to wrap his arms around her throat in a desperate chokehold to keep from being torn away. The world blurred into streaks of green and brown, his eyes unable to track anything beyond the subtle shifts in direction as she wove between trees with practiced precision. Olivia did not seem affected in the slightest by Joe’s grip, her gaze locked forward on the obstacles flashing into her path.

  Joe thought, his teeth clenched as his messy dark hair whipped wildly in the rushing wind.

  A bright green aura erupted from Olivia and enveloped her body. Her speed surged again as she pushed herself harder, forcing Joe to cling on for dear life. Unaccustomed to moving at such velocity, his stomach churned violently, but he swallowed back the urge to vomit. Even someone as kind as Olivia might kill him if he did something like that. Some actions were simply unforgivable.

  Once he managed to steady himself and adjust to her pace, Joe noticed the light surrounding her was identical to the aura Trey had been wrapped in when Olivia boosted his movements against the pack of wolves. The only difference was that she was now casting the skill on herself. Joe knew she had already burned through a large portion of her mana during the fight against the Twin Tailed Wolf. She could not maintain this for long. She was forcing herself to reach the edge of the jungle before her mana ran dry.

  Guilt gnawed at him. He could do nothing to help. He was dead weight.

  When Trey had entrusted him with getting Olivia out of the woods, Joe had felt proud. Honored, even, that Trey would place the life of a party member in his hands. Now he realized the truth. The decision had been born from Olivia’s emotional turmoil and her refusal to abandon her friend, not from any faith in Joe’s ability. She was more than capable of carrying him while moving at a speed that left him utterly humbled.

  He felt no different from a toddler clinging to a parent’s back, despite Olivia being around his age. Once again, he was reminded of the helplessness of being Unawakened.

  “You don’t have to feel bad, Joe,” Olivia said suddenly, as if she had read his thoughts. “We’re already more than halfway out of Evergreen because of you. While I was acting like a child, you stayed focused and made sure we didn’t waste a single second of the time Trey bought us. If not for your quick decisions and your remarkable speed for an Unawakened, we would have no chance of escaping this forest. You’ve already done your part. Now it’s my turn. Leave everything to me.”

  Her words eased the tight knot in Joe’s chest. It mattered to know his efforts had not been in vain. He had underestimated his contribution, but the distance he had covered while Olivia broke down on his shoulder might very well decide whether they escaped the jungle before the Lord of the Woods caught up to them.

  In a way, it felt like a relay. Joe had run his half and passed the baton. Now Olivia was charging toward the finish line, determined to see it through before death claimed them both. He had played his role. All that remained was trust.

  “It’s all up to you now, Olivia.”

  She grinned and accelerated even further, bursting forward at a blistering pace. Joe tightened his grip, his heart pounding in his chest.

  ‘Please,’ he prayed silently. ‘Let us make it before that monster reaches us.’

  Ten seconds later, the edge of Evergreen came into view. Joe and Olivia smiled at the same time, but the expression vanished from her face almost instantly, replaced by raw dread.

  Before Joe could ask what was wrong, Olivia skidded to a halt and hurled herself backward. A heartbeat later, the ground ahead of them collapsed as a massive maw erupted from the earth. Rows of gleaming fangs snapped shut, missing them by an inch as Olivia landed ten meters away and slid backward across the dirt.

  The beast launched itself skyward, tearing through the canopy. Just as before, the gaping hole it left behind sealed itself shut moments before the creature crashed down with a thunderous boom. A violent shockwave exploded outward, obliterating everything within a thirty meter radius.

  Olivia shouted a hurried incantation, conjuring a horizontal rectangular shield of bright green mana. The barrier held for barely a second before cracking and shattering into shards of light, but it was enough. The weakened force only drove Olivia back ten meters before she dug in and came to a stop.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder, fear etched across her face.

  “I’m fine. Thanks to you,” Joe replied, his legs locked around her waist to keep himself from being flung away.

  Olivia turned forward as the Lord of the Woods unleashed a deafening roar. The sound tore through the forest, sending flocks of birds screaming from the treetops.

  In that moment, the truth settled over them both. They were not fast enough. The Lord of the Woods had caught up, and it had come to finish the hunt. As Joe stared at the towering beast, Olivia’s earlier words about their chances of survival echoed in his mind.

  ‘We’re dead.’