Beatitudes

Battling beasts.

 The whole picture painted a captivating scene and although I hadn’t witnessed exactly how she fought, I couldn’t help but stare some more as single word escaped my lips under my breathe, “She’s…”

Astral : “…”

“Is her other racial half blessed with a divine physique or something?”

Harry on the other hand who had witnessed her fight from the start to the finish had his mouth slightly hung open as an odd look glazed over his eyes.

“I guess you could say that…”, Adam replied with not a single change of emotion, he seemed like he already expected such an occurrence as he gazed at the purple haired beauty beside the tiger.

After knowingly or unknowingly dazzling the eyes of the men watching her show, the sword in her hand disappeared back into the ring on her finger as she raised her head to stare at the three of them as she raised a brow questioningly. It would appear the show was too much for Harry and Isaac to take in at the moment, she could clearly see the expressions of shock on their faces as they stood rooted to their position.

“What are you still staring at?”

It wasn’t until Adam ’s voice boomed beside their ears were they able to come to themselves.

Passing by the tiger’s corpse, Adam made no move to assess as he moved past it, naturally Isaac who had proven himself to have little knowledge of the world at large made no move on it either, leaving Harry and the tiger slayer to claim the corpse but Hiya herself showed no interest in it thus leaving Harry shocked as he blurted out at the figures walking ahead, “Wait!  what about the tiger corpse?”

Adam paused as he turned back, addressing Harry with a raised eyebrow, “What about it?”

Thinking something was wrong, Harry hurriedly explained himself, “Aren’t we going to take the corpse or something…”

Seemingly happening to realize something, Adam continued, “Take the corpse… you mean you intend… to bring it back to the hall… and exchange for something?”

Harry paused slightly before he continued in a lower voice, “Well yeah… isn’t that how it’s done?”

Having already grasped the situation, Adam smiled faintly as he regarded Harry again, noticing his shock and unease at the casual way he was replied before he spoke up, “Harry, I admire the fact that you’re very enthusiastic about earning rewards for your actions but let me explain one thing to you, one clear thing…”

Adam paused for a bit when he heard Horace speak in his mind,

Horace: You’re going to show off again aren’t you…

Adam: It’s not showing off…

The pause lasted for almost two seconds before Adam continued, “We may be lacking quite a few things at any moment, for instance personal strength… but, money or anything relating to that word is not and won’t ever be a problem.”

Forget Harry, even the other two beside Adam perked their ears up, waiting to hear what Adam wanted to say. Hearing the confidence basically oozing out of the statement Adam made, the situation turned slightly odd.

Hiya could have sworn that if it wasn’t for the strength that Adam displayed which she was sure was just the tip of the iceberg, and the authority he radiated during the encounter with the frost reaper clan, she would have immediately labeled him as one of those ostentatious young masters of clans and sects who believed that with money, they had the world at their very finger tips.

Feeling the diffusing awkwardness, Adam held back the embarrassment he felt within and ignored Horace sarcastic ‘I told you so’ remark as he spoke again with his causal tone, “Besides, the tiger is but a tier one beast, you’d only be rewarded with bits and scraps if you take it back. What’s all the stress then for.”

In the end, the group of four continued on their journey silently as no one was about to say anything. In ten minutes, they covered a fair distance as the atmosphere in the tainted zone remained seemingly desolate.

After ten minutes of walking, another beast decided to announce its presence with a resounding roar. The group paused in their steps as they witnessed a blurred body rushing towards them. Although the region could be seen to be on the barer side of nature, with only a few trees and bushes with grasses with not much greenery, hence allowing for a longer range of visibility, the beasts that dwelled here seemed to have developed their own way of survival and ambush. The figure revealed itself to be a wolf as it leaped out of the ground, leaving a gaping hole in the ground, this particular wolf had actually been hiding within the ground, waiting patiently to jump on its prey. Sadly, though, it seemed it was going to have it rough as it was only a beast of the first tier going against the odd group that was Isaac’s… but the beast knew neither fear nor to retreat as it roared aggressively, a dark gleam of light flitting through its eyes.

Adam neither said nor did anything as he watched the wolf’s display, after a few seconds when he noticed nobody stepping out, he turned his head as he landed a foot on Harry ’s back causing the latter to stumble forward before he could regain his balance,

Harry looked back at Adam with furrowed brows as he regarded the slightly older man. Adam seeing him look back said, “What did you think we came here for… obviously it’s your turn to own the scene.”

Hearing Adam, his eyes flickered with realization albeit a tad slower than normal. He faced the beast again who had surprisingly not charged forward aggressively like the tiger before despite its increased amount of ferocity.

Harry looked on at the beast, confidence evident in his eyes. He strode forward slowly as he willed out the alloy axe. After some thinking, he let the axe drop to the ground with a thud sound as it trailed on behind him, the only thing missing from the scene was a trail of sparks left behind by the axe as it grinded against the floor.

Adam raised a brow at the scene but said nothing, while Hiya sighed under her breath as they all watched him approach the beast with expectant gazes, though nobody could be sure what they were expecting.

Finally, whether by intuition or timing on his part, he broke into a run as his body muscles bulged slightly. Increasing ferocity could be felt from his own gaze as well, as a bestial snarl emerged on his face. Surprisingly he had entered a different state from his usual self. if one looked closely, they would notice a faint red layer of light swimming across the surface of his muscles and flashing occasionally through his eyes as he ran.

With the red light, his physical attributes had risen substantially along with the rise in his body surface area, his body accelerated as he threw himself at the beast with a leap. A thought actually crossed the mind of the two entities dwelling in Adam and Isaac’s body, as well as that of their two respective hosts,

“Why does his every move resemble a certain character from the movies?”

The whole action carefully executed by Harry ended with a mighty cleaving sweep of the axe towards the wolf’s head, finally a low roar escaped Harry ’s lips as he completely immersed himself in the character he was playing.

BANG!!

The might behind the cleave was evident as the wolf who stood taller than Harry took a few steps backwards while its head vibrated vigorously. But the ensuing silent atmosphere ascertained the fact that that was not the intended ending.

Isaac stood with his mouth opened up while Adam looked on silently after which he spoke, “Well that was a tad anticlimactic…”, a smirk was present on Hiya’s visage as she took in the sight without much surprise, she murmured something out but no one seemed to have heard what she said.

The most surprised was Harry himself as he dropped to the ground right after the cleave, he subconsciously managed to stable himself as he stared unblinkingly at the wolf shaking its head vigorously. The strike obviously had an effect on the wolf seeing it was in a slight daze but that was far from what Harry had intended to do with a single cleave. A single thought was running through his mind right now, ‘What the f*ck… how can a head be so tough…’

Since he was the one who landed the attack on the wolf’s head, he was also the one who felt the whole thing properly. When the axe made contact with the wolf’s head, he could clearly feel through the axe that the wolf’s seemingly normal head was actually as hard as metal! It shocked him to no end as he felt the slight rebound from the attack reverberating through his body presently.

The attack had failed, the c****x of the scene had instead been the opposite and Isaac finally burst out into laughter as he regarded the dumbfounded expression on Harry ’s face and the dazed look in the wolf’s eye as it shook its head.

Ha ha ha ha ha…

Harry  finally realized that there were people watching, people he intended to dazzle a little with the slight understanding he had gleaned from the essence of his class. He couldn’t help but feel like entering the floor.

While all this was happening though, the laughter that pierced through the silence helped to pierce through the state of haziness the wolf was in and it reared its head up, rage visible in its black beady eyes. A split second later, it let out a devastating roar…

ROARRR!!!!#%#$

It felt immense anger at how the human had taken advantage of its moment of wariness and struck so hard, it took so much to come out of its daze, how dare it!

It took a few steps backward as it put its emotions into the roar, the air visibly trembled and distorted as the sound wave generated from the roar travelled the distance to slam into Harry .

‘What the f*ck does this wolf eat, when last did you clean your mouth’

That was the only thought that could register in Harry ’s mind before the wolf slammed its paw abruptly into the ground and borrowed the rebound force to shoot forward toward Harry , its eyes glinting with murder.

Harry  seeing the incoming grew wary as he realized the beasts out here in the tainted zone were on a whole different level to those in the Jade forest.

Adam  and the rest watching Harry  also grew silent as they watched man and wolf lunge at each other with their own roar aiming to surpass the other.

Adam looked on as he sighed before he spoke, this is going to take a while…”