Aiden stepped out of an alley at the same time that Diane entered his room… He did not look back as he blended in with the crowd and left the inner city. Minutes later, he was walking out of the city.He left in the most crowded direction he could find. Many of the participants had gotten over their fears and were now leaving the city.There was a bit of a rush now, everyone wanted to be the strongest they could be before the ruin opened. No one had any idea what the ruin would be like, but they all guessed that it could only be amazing considering the way it was announced by the woman in the projection.Following the crowd brought him deep into the forest. He came across many people on the way and most of them were in teams.He avoided them as best as he could, but he found that there were no briwyns to hunt at this distance into the forest… There was also the prickling sensation he got when someone was watching him from the shadows.When this sensation persisted kilometers into the
Zipping around the forest, Aiden and Harold turned into blurred shadows of themselves and in a few seconds, they had exchanged tens of punches and blocked just as many.When they separated, one could finally see their expressions, and bizarre as it was, they were both smiling widely, looking like they were having the time of their lives. The smile on Harold's face was by far the widest because they were no different from that of a psychopath.The group of arcanas surrounding the two spread out to give them space, although they maintained a relatively close encirclement to prevent any attempts to escape.It was unknown at the time if Aiden noticed this behavior, this encirclement, or if he was even bothered by it. However, one thing was clear for that moment, he had no thoughts of staging an escape, at least not yet.Their pause was only a small thing and they took off again, slamming their fists into each other so hard that the sounds their attacks made sounded like mini explosions.T
The tree with its cracking sounds soon escalated into physical cracks up the body of the tree. Before long, it split into two halves and fell on both sides of the briwyn.The briwyn continued to stand in the same position despite the result of its attack. Beneath its front limbs, blood had collected and stained the grass. With the tree gone, you could see a shower of light particles being emitted from the tree's former location.In the same vein, a side view revealed Aiden with the tusk of the briwyn pierced right through his side, opening an entirely new wound.There were light particles emitted from the spot that had been torn open by the briwyn's tusk. Unsurprisingly, the pain from this skewering event was enough to put a bell into Aiden's head and wake him up.Another wound… This wound was unlike the first simple cut and a lot of blood came pouring out this time. You could sit and feel pity for Aiden at that moment, but that would only be something you did before you saw Aiden slo
Aiden opened his eyes to see the inside of a cave. The memory of the briwyn whose tongue he pulled out was still vivid in his mind. He remembered that he decided to settle down for a rest since he could not move. It seemed like while he was doing that, he had fallen asleep.He could hear the crackling of fire beside him, a sound that got his mind running at full speed in seconds. He managed to calm himself down shortly afterward.He thought of the position his captor most likely found him in. There was no defenseless position a person could be in that was worse than that. Since he was not dead or restrained, a discovery he made quickly, it meant that his captor was not looking to kill him… At least not yet."I know you woke up… You couldn't fully dampen the involuntary moves your body made", a voice sounded.Thinking for a quick moment while the cave fell into silence, Aiden decided to meet this person, so he sat up. Very slowly, he pulled himself to a sitting position with both his a
It was just a single step forward, but it felt like the beast teleported. It was standing in front of Aiden with arms striking down like a tree trunk falling at light speed.Aiden found that dodging was impossible when he thought of it, and the only solution he had at that moment was to block the attack.He did not expect the amount of force that poured into his arms when the blow landed. It felt as if he had been struck by an overpowered bull… The blow sent him skidding back until he was standing next to Connor. Connor had a terrified expression and looked to be frozen in place when Aiden turned to look at him."Connor… Connor… Con…", Aiden called out repeatedly, but the boy was frozen and his mind long gone.Aiden abandoned the attempt to wake Connor from his frozen state when the beast growled again and charged straight at him once more.Again, it seemed like the beast had taken just a step, but it was in front of him before he could react. This time, the attack did not come slammi
And so, they waited for hours. Connor was just getting restless. Staying in a tiny space like that for so long seemed to be getting to him. They waited a while more after Aiden calmed Connor down before they saw what they were waiting for. One after the other, the briwyns piled into the cavern.They were part of a pack because they were the same breed and moved together while having a clear leader. There were also the young ones in the pack and they stayed in the middle, shielded on all sides by the older ones.They moved through the cavern in a clear direction. Aiden and Connor watched them until they were passing beside them.They were not expecting when the pack suddenly stopped in their tracks after one of the briwyns close to the wall they were hiding made a grunt that echoed through the cavern.The leader was the only one that moved when this pause happened. The briwyn was bigger and looked sturdier than the rest. It walked up to the wall and drew in a long sniff.At that moment
The two of them did not know what to make of the environment they were standing in. It felt like they had walked through some sort of portal and the exit, the spot on the rocky wall where they just walked out of, looked like a closed door.The reason that they had stopped in their tracks when they exited the wall, the same reason that made Aiden cuss in surprise was the scenery they were looking at.There were extremely tall mountains that towered over their line of sight. Some of these mountains and landforms were blurred by an ever-present fog the further away they were.Everything looked like a mystical scene, an entirely new world to explore… Even from where they appeared, they could see the rope bridge lying not too far away.Aiden and Connor walked forward, taking in the sight in front of them. They continued walking forward until they came to a cliff with a rope bridge tied to it across a chasm."Should we cross it", Connor asked as he looked over the edge of the chasm.Aiden a
Unlike what Zarek said about the Eye of Medusa's petrification wearing off in one hour, the reality was a lot different.Most notable was the fact that Connor only woke up after an entire day.He woke up at the exact moment that Aiden found the problem with the grassland and was trying to fix the problem.He woke up to see that the grassland had been turned on its head.In his sleeping position, the first thing that appeared in his vision was the grassland in the sky. For a moment, he thought that Aiden had flipped his orientation again, but he noticed soon enough, that the ground he was lying on was grass as well.He sat up with a start, looked around, and found that what he was looking at was just as bizarre as the grassland being the sky.All around him, there were walls, every single one of them with a healthy overgrowth of light brown grass."What in the world is happening?", He asked no one in particular."Please, could you explain why everything looks like a maze right now?", H