Azar and Liam were chasing a peacock. This was no ordinary peacock but one that could use short bursts of extreme speed. They called these types of peacocks Bolters, for they could dodge even lightning.“This bird’s too damn fast!” Azar was already getting tired and bored. “It’s better that we give up.”“But I heard its meat is super tasty,” Liam wasn’t willing to give up just yet.They attacked from different directions and tried all things for hours.At dawn, they were still trying, hoping the bird would get tired and make a mistake. As they were crossing a camping site, they heard some people praising a particular youth standing in the middle. With an oval face that looked like an ostrich’s face, he was extremely slender.“Isn’t he the one who won the first round by pulling the boulder closer to him and won the round without even moving an inch?” Liam wondered.“Yeah. Yoyo Taylor. An outer disciple of the Red Roses sect,” Azar said. “He’s strong enough to become an inner disciple,
Everyone thought the second round would start in the morning, but it wasn’t announced yet, making them wonder if they have to wait another day doing nothing but sitting at the camp.Some groups began having their own little competitions to pass time. Some did arm-wrestling, some tried doing the most number of jump-ropes and what not. There were a few groups that kept talking about other groups and shared information.The key figures of top sects were obviously talked about.The matriarch of the Honeywell sect, Deborah Gittens, a sinewy woman dressed minimally, was speaking to her sect members. “We don’t want to compete with those from the great sects until the fourth round, especially those from the Red Roses sect. Their disciples this time look much stronger than we expected.“Their core disciples look even more amazing. From the information I’ve gathered, Ryu Reyes received direct tutelage from their patriarch Keeze Monn. Anarga Utsav has been taught by their Great Elder Terrel Bee!
No one participating in the Youth Games was allowed to leave the training grounds where they were allowed to camp.There was a registry at the only entrance and exit into the training grounds enclosed by tall walls. Everyone who would come in and go out needed to leave their name. If there was anyone who didn’t know how to write, like Tenzai for instance, the guards standing there would help write their name.Currently, the two guards standing there were yawning.“I didn’t even get a wink last night, and I’m already tired. But we’re supposed to do this until night falls?”“Can’t help it. With many disciples participating, our shifts got longer.”As they were talking, a blue-eyed beauty entered the scene, completely grabbing their attention. They remembered her from the last time she entered the training grounds.“Aren’t you the Water Walker?” they both stood on alert, even though they were mesmerized by her blue hair, blue eyes, tall and shapely frame for a second. “What do you want,
Because the second round wasn’t conducted the next day, everyone was busy doing their own things.While the disciples practiced and honed their skills, the masters and elders of different sects were overseeing. However, even the masters were alerted when a particular person walked past them.A long gray-haired man with a sword at his waist. His signature armor and white cape made it easy for others to recognize him.“Axton the Heartless. A member of the Yerdes family!”“The red sword on his waist was forged by God Hand Kessler, wasn’t it?”“Probably. He recently killed the patriarch of the spear-chasing sect and attended these games in his palace.”“Look at the faces of the disciples of that sect… there’s no glow in them.”“The resources of their sect will soon be absorbed into the Yerdes family, and those poor souls don’t know that they’re considered as resources, too.”More than two dozen disciples of the spear-chasing sect were following Axton. The one leading the disciples was Pal
At night.The Four Masters of Zha family were having a family meet together, which mostly included one ridiculing the other. That’s how they behaved when no outsider was watching them.Giria Zha was also with them, eating duck meat. Seeing her four fathers after a long while made her feel happy.A family of red hairs they were. Bushin with his long eyebrows, Corio with his long mustache, Dubril with his long beard, and Ashang with his long brows, mustache, and beard, there were no better looking men in her eyes. Each one had their own flair. No wonder her mother couldn’t choose one and so married all four of them.Though she didn’t know who her real father among the Four Masters was, she didn’t really care as they all treated her well. Having said that, she did like Ashang the most out of the four as he never disappointed her, not even once.Her grandfather, however, hated his four sons for marrying a single woman more than he hated watching them quarrel among each other all the time,
The camping grounds spanned almost 12,000 acres. Reaching the border of the camping grounds wasn’t the difficult part but reaching it before the blindfolds ran out was the main issue. So, everyone gave it their best to get there in time.The core disciples of most sects were among the first to arrive there, and they tried to take multiple of those to cover for their sect members, but Selly and other masters were present there and ordered them to only take one.Then came the inner disciples of different sects, with some talented outer disciples present among them. Edgar and Fabby also got there in time and took the blindfolds and hurried ahead.Gossini also got there soon after the siblings passed, but it was after she crossed the border, she encountered some trouble in the form of two disciples from random sects who saw that she was alone and wanted to take the blindfold for themselves, so that they could give them to their sect members that couldn’t get the blindfolds.“You shouldn’t
“Be on your toes,” Fabby reminded him as a warning.“I’m already on my toes,” as Edgar said, something whizzed past him and pierced his sister, making her cry out loud.A pain of a thousand mosquitoes biting her shoulder at once wouldn’t even describe the amount of pain Fabby felt right now. Her whole body froze from the sheer shock.Edgar instinctively released electricity mixed with drive and spread it to his sister through her arm. She received some shock, but it also made whatever that bit her back away.“Are you okay?” Edgar asked.“My shoulder,” she cringed in pain. “I can’t feel it. It’s gone numb.” Her shoulder was bleeding because of a small but sharp, deep wound.Edgar jolted her body with more electricity, and it helped in making the numbness go away fast. It also helped shut her shoulder wound at least temporarily.“Just what attacked you?” Edgar couldn’t even tell. “I only heard some noise briefly. A buzzing sound.”Though both of them stopped in their tracks for the time
While many disciples greatly struggled against the blood bees, the same wasn’t the case for those from the Honeywell sect who had applied to their body some sort of strange honey that repelled these bees.Thanks to that, all they had to do was follow their leader, Melita’s lead. She led them up to the half-way point before accelerating and dashing forth alone in order to get a higher rank in the second round.Those who reached the other side of the Whispering Woods faster and with the least number of wounds on their bodies would be given a better rank, after all.Meanwhile, Edgar and Fabby were fighting the blood bees together in different ways. She released mud through her skin and made it difficult for the bees to sting her. Edgar, on the other hand, depended more on his lightning ability instead of his drive as using drive for long while running was draining his energy much faster.There was always chaos around them, with others fighting the bees in every direction. They couldn’t a
Edgar woke up, only to find himself in a pool of mud. He could feel that he was being healed by fish that were swimming in the mud and were nibbling at his skin.At first sight, it might look like they were eating him, but they were actually taking away the negative energy from his body, though he was not able to feel that.Edgar tried to grab one of those fishes, but they turned into pure mud, pleasantly surprising him.He looked at Fabby who was sitting in the distance, by the cliff. “What are these fishes, sis?”“Elder Gavin made them with his drive. He said they can suck away impurities from your body and make you stronger,” Fabby explained. “He said even your drive will get smoother and faster afterward. Also, the negative effect the beast cores have on our bodies can also be reversed, or so he said.”“Such a thing is possible with drive?” Edgar was both surprised and doubtful. “These fish are biting me, but I don’t feel any pain.”“Yeah. Just stay there until all those fish are
The eagle brought the siblings to a mountain range and dropped them next to Gavin who was weaving gloves with drive.He wasn’t surprised to see the position the siblings were in.“Here,” Gavin handed the gloves to the eagle, and it put the gloves on its feet and then screeched in happiness.“Haha, you like them, huh,” Gavin smiled. “They are durable as I knit them with my drive. So, don’t lose them.”Scree~!The eagle replied in a confident voice and then began to walk around happily in its new footwear.“They look like gloves, but they should be called socks, I guess?” Gavin wondered. “Ah, well, whatever…”Gavin then looked at the siblings, out of whom only Fabby was still conscious. She was trying to sit up, and it was taking her a while.“You don’t seem to have any external injuries. You are probably tired from using too much energy,” Gavin said. He sent a bullet of energy into her forehead, which didn’t hurt her but went straight into her brain and melted into it. This suddenly ga
“Surfing Strike!’ Edgar’s foot viciously struck Ryu’s face and sent him flying high like a rotating paper fan. Any normal person would have had their head separated from their shoulders from that kick, but Ryu’s neck was flexible as well as sturdy as rubber.Ryu grabbed his head and stopped it from spinning before somersaulting and landing in the distance.“Huh?” Fabby was quite shocked by it. “Why is he not dead? Is he even human?”“His body is a bit special, you see,” Anarga smirked and then looked at Ryu. “But, hey, how could you get hit by that brat like that? You should be glad that there isn’t anyone else around, or it would have brought such shame.”Blood leaked from Ryu’s ruptured upper lip. He licked it and faintly smiled. “It’s been a while since I tasted my own blood.” His eyes turned red.“Oh, crap…” Anarga skipped backward. “You guys brought a disaster on yourself. When he goes into that frenzy mode, he’s unstoppable. Even I wouldn’t dare stand next to him because he can
Anarga squeezed Edgar’s chest down, but when Edgar saw Ryu step toward his sister, he uttered, “Thunder Knight…”The ground beneath them cracked, and the air around them crackled. The very cliff itself vibrated in resonance with Edgar’s heartbeat.Anarga lost her balance just for a second. A double-edged lightning spear appeared in Edgar’s hand, and he thrust it right through her abdomen.She thought it would leave a hole in her, but it didn’t. However, it then electrocuted her to the point her clothes were half-burnt, and she looked like a semi-roasted grizzly bear.Ryu immediately clawed through the middle section of the spear and then took Anarga and jumped a few feet away. “How could you be so careless?”Anarga fell on one of her knees. Blood leaked from both corners of her mouth, even though she tried not to leak any blood.“Does it hurt that much?” Ryu asked.She gave him a glare.“I see…” Ryu then looked at Edgar, who was rising off the ground without the use of his hands, as th
Anarga’s body went into the rock, causing cracks all around her to spread for over thirty feet.Ryu’s feet were still locked by the earthen boots that Fabby had created, but he forcefully broke through them and whipped his leg at Edgar. “Dragon Knock!”“Ngh!” Edgar raised his left arm and blocked the kick with his forearm.Ryu’s foot forced its way through Edgar’s flame drive and struck his forearm and hit a nerve, sending a jolt of shock through to Edgar’s brain. On top of that, Edgar’s forearm got dislocated near the elbow.Ryu’s kick still sent a gust of energy over into the distance, which ended up blasting away a part of the cliff, shocking Fabby and Edgar.Fabby’s heart shook at that moment because if Edgar hadn’t deflected that kick, he wouldn’t have just got his arm dislocated. It was Edgar’s hunter-like instinct of parrying the kick at the last second was what saved him from experiencing a crushing defeat.Ryu didn’t even use drive. Whether he could even use drive or not, Edg
“Is this the best you can do?” Ryu said disappointedly. “I know you can do better, bald brat.” He treated Edgar as nothing more than a kid because he was much older than him. “Why don’t you show me what you got, or I’ll kill this bald girl.”Edgar, who was bleeding profusely from the chest, felt his soul stirring madly after hearing Ryu’s words.“Don’t listen to him,” Fabby said in a low voice. “We are not their match. Fighting them will only put us at a disadvantage. And there’s no one else here to stop the fight in case things go bad. It doesn’t benefit us in any way no matter how I look at it. Moreover, you are already badly injured.”Fabby’s words made total sense, but there was one thing that she didn’t consider. Edgar just couldn’t digest let alone accept the fact that Anarga Utsav had used her wind attack and pushed Fabby off the cliff. What if Fabby died from that?Edgar utterly disliked Anarga as well as Ryu. He didn’t want them to leave with a sense of victory.“Sis,” Edgar
“AHHH!” The siblings cried out in horror, mostly because of the pure shock value. Their eyes sprang out of the sockets. They totally didn’t expect that the eagle would do such a thing.Edgar was about to use his skill, but Fabby quickly said, “No, wait.”“Huh? Wait for what?” Edgar asked her back as winds viciously whipped at their faces.“Just wait,” she replied. As both of them kept getting closer to the ground, Edgar’s heart raced fast. “Screw this. I’m-” he was saying, but then the eagle suddenly came swooping down and caught both of them when they were about 100ft close to the ground and took them away with him.Edgar and Fabby held onto its talons so they wouldn’t fall.The eagle stopped by another mountain top and acted as if everything was okay.“You think I’ll thank you for saving our asses, you shitty bird!” Fabby punched the eagle hard in the face. “I thought I was going to die! You were the cause for scaring me near to death.”Even Edgar looked angry. His heart jumped in
Coming back to the present.The eagle had no idea who Edgar was, so Fabby had to do all the work except for flying. “Where is he?”She was worried for many reasons.The eagle even flew over the colosseum grounds, and she shouted for him, “Are you there, Eddie?”“Who’s that?” some masters and disciples wondered as she wasn’t clearly visible from below. “How rude of her to be flying over this place when the competition is still going on?”“He’s not here, either,” Fabby told the eagle to keep flying.As she kept looking around, she noticed someone bathing in an open pond. Just when she looked at him, he also looked up. She remembered his face mask. This was the same guy she met in a cave not long ago.Numo was not wearing a shirt right now, and his body was pristine white. It wasn’t muscular, but it still looked athletic and toned. It was very attractive, especially because he was a tall man.“Ahem,” Fabby looked away.After the eagle flew out of his sight, Numo continued rubbing his body
Months turned to years.Even though working in the fields had become a daily habit, so did the body pains. If not feet, then legs; if not legs, then back; if not back, then something else in the body took the turn. And by the time they got home, they were pretty tired, yet they wouldn’t be able to eat what they had produced or found.They were only given a limited amount of food such as corn or grains so they could make soup and live with it. The same plain soup with no vegetables in them whatsoever waited for them every night. And they were not paid anything else for their labor, for they were forced to work for the rest of their lives. There was no contract. Nothing. They were pretty much treated like cattle, or maybe even worse, with the only difference being their ability to talk. No matter how they were treated, they still worked hard, for most of them had reasons, be it their children and families.Fabby had Edgar, and Edgar had Fabby. Everyone had someone else they were willing