In Nowhere

But he didn't want to give up so easily. He continued to struggle and try his hardest until he was finally able to grab the tip of the spear with the clasp of his legs.

With all his strength, he pulled out the spear and made the wyvern roar again, then quickly passed the spear to his free left hand.

"Die, you bastard!" he shouted. "Go to Hell!"

Stab! Stab!

Once, twice, and five times Mathias stabbed the wyvern in the stomach. The sixth stab accidentally hit the creature's chin as it tried to grab Mathias' spear with its jaws.

Stab!

The wyvern's blood was pouring out and with the spear embedded in its chin, it lost consciousness.

And Mathias knew there was no way he would survive the fall from that height.

Gravity took over as the wyvern no longer had the energy to flap its wings.

Both of them fell very fast.

Mathias screamed at the top of his lungs and the next moment, the wyvern was slammed hard into the side of a hill in the shape of a giant pillar. The farm boy was still lucky as his body was caught by one of the wyvern's wings.

The two of them fell again, crashed into the trees, slammed again into the cliff wall below, and finally plunged into a river located between two narrow gaps.

Slowly their bodies sank.

The river hidden among the wilderness that filled the hills had extremely clear, blue, and translucent water.

But that was only for a moment as the blood from the two bodies that continued to ooze out and was slowly carried away by the river's current, had turned the water around them reddish.

No one knew for certain whether Mathias and the wyvern were still alive or dead.

The river's not-so-fast current continued to carry the two motionless bodies downstream. And as it turned out, the end of the river ended up being a fairly high waterfall.

With nothing to stop it, the wyvern's body was the first to fall with the waterfall, followed by Mathias' body.

Splash!

Stomp!

Mathias' body slammed down on top of the wyverns before sinking into a natural pool created by the waterfall itself.

***

Mathias choked and the river water he had swallowed earlier spurted out of his mouth. Then he groaned to endure the intense pain that was tormenting his body.

He had no idea how long he had been unconscious in that strange place. All he knew was that when he woke up, he found the surroundings still bright, his body filled with pain, and his stumped right hand still dripping with blood.

He got up and sat up despite having to exert what little strength he still had. His face was so pale that even his lips looked dry and cracked.

The first thing he did was to take off his shirt which had been torn here and there, and used the rest of his shirt to tie up his severed right shoulder. At least, to stop the bleeding that was still going on.

"I don't want to die," he muttered as he tied up his right shoulder and looked around. "I don't want to die. Alie... I have to find my sister!"

Although limping, Mathias was finally able to stand up, his left leg was broken between the knee and the ankle.

"I'm not going to die here," he muttered to himself. "I will not die!"

He found the body of a wyvern floating at the edge of a pond.

That's probably the wyvern that attacked me earlier, he thought.

"Where am I?"

Mathias felt he was in a large cave mouth with a natural pool formed by a waterfall.

He scanned the area and was increasingly convinced that he was still at the top of the cliff as he could see the vast treetops below.

"Holly shit!" he muttered and turned around.

He thought that this one section was the cave tunnel itself as it looked quite dark, also with the presence of some stalactites and stalagmites in it.

After one long breath, Mathias decided to enter the not-so-wide cave tunnel.

"Oh, God... help me here!"

***

Ten days since the Demon Army's first surprise attack on the Land of Purbha, the continent had now been overrun by monstrous creatures for two-thirds of its expanse.

The warriors and soldiers of the Kingdom were only left in one-third of the area, on the West Coast. They are still holding out and continuing to try to put up a fight against the ferocious creatures.

Most of the survivors had been relocated to other kingdoms on the Dakhsina Continent in the southern hemisphere.

But, that was only for those with middle-class status.

Those from the elite and nobility were moved to the Central Continent, Svarnabhumi. Even so, there are still some nobles and elites who remain on the West Coast for one reason or another.

In the southernmost part of the West Coast.

The battle was still going on. A group of monstrous creatures from the Demon Army were trying to destroy the great wall, a barrier to the creatures' movement.

"Hold your positions!" shouted a Warlord. "Don't let those creatures over the wall!"