Beatitudes

Episode 28.

A hoarse roar erupted in the thick forest, the pain heard within the roar was palpable.

A huge body was rolling on the ground of the forest as it crashed into the thick trees present everywhere, a few of those trees fell to the ground as it crashed with booming noises, the giant wolf on the ground was still rolling and roaring in pain as a fiery beam of light flashed over and melted through the thick fur and skull of the wolf, the head of the wolf exploded and the suffering beast was freed from the world it once knew to be home.

*sigh*

Heavy breathing followed by a relieved sigh was heard as Harry looked on with envious eyes at the perpetrator of the ruckus just caused, this had been a constant occurrence yet he couldn’t help but stare every time, he had almost let the cold blooded beasts slipped through his defense as it hissed with malice.

Anger at the cunning beast filled him as he disregarded his defense and dove past the beast and aimed for its weakness seven inches below its head with his fist. In a daze from the pain, the beast was powerless to resist and allowed Harry the chance of grabbing hold of its wide head as he smashed it ruthlessly to the ground, what followed was a series of punches and smashing against the ground.

Five minutes continued with a rough struggle from the serpent and an angry tussle from Harry, the serpent laid motionless on the ground, it was unsure whether it was dead or alive.

The perpetrator of the whole incident was staring with an odd look at Harry as he watched him physically overwhelm the serpent with zealous passion.

‘He’s strong alright’

As the battle ended and Harry paused to catch his breath, Astral spoke to Isaac with an odd tone, he didn’t expect such strength from a human, since humans were inherently weaker at the beginning, he seemed to be from another race but Astral could only feel a human aura coming from him through Isaac.

‘I guess I can’t use knowledge from another universe here, there’s something different…’

At this point, Isaac had grown used to Astral ’s rambling, at this point he would ignore anything that didn’t make any sense, since he knew he wouldn’t be given an explanation anyways.

‘Is it possible to check on his attributes Astral?’

‘Well not as is, you have to make physical contact with the target to allow the essence to flow through their pathways which would take a bit, note that the person shouldn’t resist, accidents could happen if anything goes wrong in such a situation.’

‘Hmm alright…’

At this point a clapping sound getting closer rang from behind them as they turned to face Adam, his usual expression as flat as usual. The trio had gotten used to his method of disappearing and appearing ever since he started the ‘training’ program.

Truth be told, the fact that Adam was able to finish off the three of them in probably a second or two had crossed Isaac ‘s mind a few times, the unpredictability of his movements and the sheer speed he displayed wasn’t one any of them could hope to have at the moment. But even with that Isaac had never really worried, there was always a sense of safety that he felt, never danger, around Adam, he had no way of explaining it but it was there.

“Not a bad session this time, although one of you keeps getting distracted, you managed to avert the danger. But I should tell you not to hope to be lucky next time or anytime at all. At least now if you encounter a real opponent you shouldn’t be one quickly killed off.”

Saying that he swept a gaze over the three of them, from Isaac and his flames that he managed to gain basic control of, to Harry ’s mysterious strength that seems to increase just a tiny bit after every fight, to Hiya, the girl in the group who slowly but steadily kept her pace with the others, they all had improved in some way,  it was a gradual process but it was undoubtedly slow with the issues they had ahead of them, they were going to have to get their classes before any drastic could be seen.

He hadn’t actually expected bringing someone other than Isaac along on their journey and yet he ended up with two. It was unexpected but there was nothing he could do, or wanted to do, the time on their hands was too precious to allow for extra timing around the world. If they ended up stopping on the way and finding something worth staying back for he wouldn’t stop them, but there was no way he could accompany them on a journey to find their lost home or something. Since they ended up by their sides, they were more or less acquaintances now.

After that little bit of musing which lasted only a few seconds, Adam looked them over once again as he stopped his eyes on Isaac with a faint smile,

“How it’s going, your fire and flames. You know I’m curious. You don’t seem to know your circumstances do you.”

He was referring to the fact that Isaac had no idea how he was suddenly able to bend the flames. A few days back, Isaac had awkwardly explained his circumstances to them, and as much as he tried to explain better, it was all as good as nothing. He had no idea about certain things and them he seemed to be hiding others. If Adam didn’t already know a secret or two about him, he would have been utterly curious right now and would constantly probe his every reaction for answers. With all the oddities he had shown, he was lucky he had shown them within friends, the other two he wasn’t so sure about but he had not a single worry, they were weak after all. He had watched them both closely and deduced that the both were utterly stranded; they wouldn’t have stumbled into a place like the pit if they hadn’t been. So although they seemed to be hiding a few things of their own, he wasn’t going to force it out of them.

He had forced himself to make a few comments every time their fights ended like this, other than this he never really trained or taught any pointers to them. He knew he was a crappy tutor, that he knew, and that was all he could do. He could only get them to get their classes and wait for Isaac to fully awaken, he retained his own combat sense after he had awoken so there was no way he also wouldn’t, so what better experience could there be than that…

So after the not so helpful speech which they had all grown used to, they started again on their journey, one which only the person leading was aware of the destination, leaving the three different corpses on the ground with no intent to cover it up. Adam called it a ‘Tributary offering’ to the forest spirits, after which he refused to say anymore. They acknowledged it as a bad joke but none of them bothered to care about it after that.

Walking through the forest with relative ease and speed was the three trainees and their monster magnet. At this point in their journey through the forest they had already adapted to the terrain, so they were able to move much faster than before. They easily covered about two miles of distance a day which is more than double of what they were able to in the beginning, but none of them could be bothered to gauge the enhancement as the seemingly endless walk had begun to drive them to frustration, but the two, both Harry and Hiya, had kept their mouths shut when they heard Isaac had been walking through the forest for about seven years, all thoughts of complaint was from then thwarted off with Isaac as an example by Adam.

“I think I’m going to pass out real soon if I don’t get some water…”, Harry grumbled loudly enough for the others to hear.

As he was the one who had so much strength out of the three of them, he was always the one who used the most energy. In the forest area, the best food you could find was the fruits hanging from trees which they passed once in a while, but in a forest as big as this one, such trees were reasonably scattered around and they couldn’t have a definite handle on the time they would spend before encountering them. It was their source of food and water since they rarely ate meat for the sake of saving their time, and water bodies of any size were hard to find in the forest. They also didn’t have a mode of mobile transportation for the fruits they passed on the way since they had just escaped the pit. Sometimes the thought of just trudging back to the pit would cross Harry ’s mind but whether due to dread for the pit or the ever increasing distance from the pit to where they were, he had always bitterly swallowed the idea back down.

“I think you need to conserve your strength more as you fight, you always fight your battles like a maniac so there’s no way you can control your bodily needs.”

A light of approval passed through Adam as he kept moving forward while Hiya gave a light snort, whether it was agreement with Isaac’s words or scorn for Harry ’s, they couldn’t be sure. Harry stared at the only female for a while before he looked away without a word.

Hiya had gradually began to speak and make small conversations with the group after many days of isolation in the forest with them, yet Harry still an odd feeling from her, hence their confrontations and even conversations were always awkward. So he had was a quiet mouse whenever she spoke up.

Isaac who had noticed the oddity had kept quiet about it as he had no intentions or even ideas on how to better the atmosphere around them. He kept a smile on his face as he was about to question Astral about something he had had in mind, it was then…

“Halt!!”.