Lian walked over to the unconscious body of William and poked him hard in the face with her index finger. Seeing him not wake up, she continued poking him in the face for a few seconds jokingly.
Then, as she began to hear heavy footsteps from outside coming in, she grabbed onto the hand of William and opened up the locket, which was in the shape of a rectangular door of sorts. Once opened, it revealed a vast void that sucked both William and Lian into it, before taking itself with it somehow.
The three Readers of Absorption entered the burning room, only to find a dead Reader of Sleep and an unconscious Reader of Dreams. Confused, they looked around the place after picking the Reader of Dreams up carefully, but they failed to find the perpetrators of this event.
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Meanwhile, Lian had arrived somewhere in the woods near the field, lugging around an unconscious William. Thankfully, the flames had been put out by the transportation, so he wasn't burning anymore. However, he was still sound asleep.
The nearby area was full of bountiful nature the likes of which poets would dream about, but that wasn't important right now.
Luckily, she found a small creek nearby, so she casually tossed his body into the ice cold creek water, crashing into the surface with a large noise.
"Hehe, that's payback for throwing a cup of water on my face!" She whimsically exclaimed.
The icy cold water and the pain of slamming into the water was able to successfully wake William up, he jolted out of the water, looking around frantically like a war veteran with PTSD.
"Did you really have to toss me in a creek?" He stammered out a question after seeing the familiar face.
"Uhhhm....Totally!..But what's more important is that we're safe now!" She shyly replied.
William nodded, he had seen visions after he fell asleep, courtesy of yours truly, and had heard that Lian made a deal with some kind of entity that could wake her up?
"Who exactly did you make a deal with?" William asked seriously.
Lian's eyes widened, and she blushed slightly in nervousness.
She muttered to herself, "How does he know about that..."
Before telling him, "Just some frog."
"A....frog?"
"Yup, a frog." She replied succinctly.
"O..kay...and what did this frog ask for in return?" He stared at her dark brown eyes like he was a detective interrogating a suspect.
It seemed like she was about to say something, before something had caught her tounge, as she gagged repeatedly, her eyes bulging slightly. After a few moments, she returned to normal.
"S-sorry, one of the conditions was that I couldn't tell anyone about the price I had to pay..." She said with an air of melancholy.
Patting her on the head, William sighed. "I guess it can't be helped then, as long as you're okay, its fine."
Lian smiled calmly, before her expression turned...colder, "You sure do remind me of my older brother, but, you're not, so why'd you fight so hard to save someone you met only a few days ago?"
William stopped in his tracks, his mouth trembling slightly, "I suppose, I'm fighting for and against my memories. That's the best way I can put it." Before continuing to walk towards the sound of commotion, the valley of the end.
Lian processed what she heard ambiently, staying quiet for the most of the way back.
Internally, William was in turmoil.
'Why did I fight so hard for her...I completely forgot about the rest of my men, the caravan is still alight with hellish fires, and I still don't know what the situation is with Xiao Wei and the two...God, so stupid!" He berated himself over and over again internally.
His current objective was to check up on the battle situation with Xiao Wei, then go from there. He had been ignorant in letting only three soldiers combat around seventy or so Readers, and it was up to him to rectify that oversight.
The closer the two got to the battlefront, the louder things seemed to get, with each step worry grew under William, dragging him down like a shadow.
His steps turned into jogging, which eventually devolved into full on sprinting, to which Lian closely followed.
Finally, William reached the clearing, he made sure to hide behind a large tree to avoid obvious detection. Peering down towards the valley, he was surprised to see that there wasn't any sign of Xiao Wei, Li Jiaojie, or Fei Kangzhen anywhere. Instead, he saw the Readers, fear strucken, fighting a horde of enemies. They each had an almost alien aura to them.
Recollection!
The application of Li Jiaojie's recollection ability that he had once talked with him about, to create living beings from his memory, that although were a bit weaker, they still bore the same level of skill that the originals had, only with the issue that the abilities they possessed were limited to the one's in Li Jiaojie's memory.
One thing he noticed from afar, was that each of these memory projections were armed with some of Linen's ingenuity infused gear. Some had earrings that enhanced movement, and some had red thread whips that cut through flesh with ease.
He felt a tug at his pendant, which allowed him to sense the threads to the location of his men. They hid behind a large oak tree above the valley, directly across from where William and Lian were hiding. And since he knew they could sense him too, he decided to wait for a few seconds to see if they'd reveal themselves to him.
Luckily for him, a familiar, robust, brutish-looking man revealed peeked out from the side of the tree across the valley. It was Li Jiaojie, whose eyes immediately locked onto William's. He then sent a message through the Library system.
-Boss! What's the plan here! I'm running out of Ingenuity to stall any longer!
Seeing this, William knew what he had to do.
-Run towards the center of the field, I'll meet you there. Trust me on this one.
From across the valley, William could see Li Jiaojie nod. Before turning to prersumably Fei Kangzhen and telling him about the plan. Though, it seemed that he had a couple choice words to say.
-Boss, are you insane? We'll die before we can even make it a quarter of the way across.
William sighed.
-Alright, you two stay there, is Xiao Wei there with you?
A response came a few seconds later.
-Yes.
-Send her.
A few moments later, a small streak of shadow came bolting down the valley, as Fei Kangzhen also peeked out from the Oak tree, seeing William across from them, he had a serious, worried, fearful, and vexed expression on his face. He stared at William understandingly, before saluting. o7
William had around half of his Ingenuity remaining as of now, and that was more than enough for this portion of the battle. He leapt forward without warning and began sliding down the valley, a direct course for collision with the tiny shadow.
Suddenly, a few loud and angry voice emanated from the Shadow Soldier legion, it seemed they had noticed William's presence almost immediately after he had revealed himself, as several ranged attacks shot towards him, he smiled.
Lian looked at this performance with her mouth agape. 'I really wish I didn't understand where he comes from...', she sighed before looking towards something invisible to the naked eye.
The attacks began honing in onto William, if they all hit him head on, he would be more or less dead due to the lack of a healing factor, however, he just had to risk it.
He stared directly at the mass of writhing shadows speeding straight towards him while grinning.
The mass of rainbowish attacks were mere inches away from hitting them, however, she was still faster.
The rambunctious shadow wrapped around William's body just before they were able to make contact with the rainbow of destruction, integrating into his very skin.
'I guess it's my lucky day.'