Beatitudes

Episode 69.

“You might not have ever wondered why they haven’t been able to clear out all these beasts, why they still remain so many despite the countless years of effort put in against them… well the thing is, these beasts also have something like a community, not a community per say but a kind of place where they gather in groups and strengthen themselves with numbers while also preserving their lives, these said places are a kind of mountains… Basically they live in a special kind of hollowed out mountains that mysteriously boosts their strength and gives them a kind of home ground advantage, different from staying out in the open of the tainted zone.

These mountains also known as tainted mountains are basically like their breeding grounds, with no one to control them, they can live on indefinitely and grow stronger, both in numbers and strength, in these mountains. Hence the need for fighters to go in and clear these mini zones is ever present, there isn’t just a few of places, no one has been able to guess the exact numbers of places like this, it’s estimated that there’s a vast number of these places, spread haphazardly over the tainted zone. Clearing all such mountains is the major task of all fighters, the task has been acknowledged by all fighters as a mountain trial…”

“…”

Choose mountain to clear, undergo a mountain trial. That was the one and only way to escape a torture like hunting of a hopelessly large number of beasts, at least that the only suggestion Adam gave them, as Isaac wanted to believe it was a better method, he was unable to when different thoughts and questions popped up in his head, so he had to open up and ask,

“So what we have to do is literally and figuratively faceoff against a mountain… but how is it any easier, isn’t it going to be more dangerous when we encounter stronger beasts of a higher tier in the mountain?”

Adam looked at Isaac with an odd light flickering in his eyes,

“Although it’s not rare, it’s been a while since you been this thoughtful on something…”

Isaac felt his face heat up as swirls of indignation and embarrassment clashed in his eyes,

He was about to say something when Adam continued talking, not giving him a chance to say anything,

“Actually although you thought good, you’re ultimately wrong. You see, every single mountain out there is of different classes and tiers, just like a class holder’s tiers, so unless you’re a pretty unlucky person and just happen to challenge a mountain with a tier you can’t handle, you should be considerably safe, except your skills at a mountain of even the same tier as yourself is subpar, that in itself, should not be a problem for you.”

Isaac took in Adam’s words as he understanding dawned on him. Basically, these special kind of mountains were divided into tiers like that of a class holder, he didn’t need to ask anyone to know that they would be heading to a tier one beast mountain. It was going to be a new territory to explore, an unknown nonetheless, but anything was better than the idea of hunting a considerable number of beast constantly for a number of three times, and not just at his current tier but every single tier up on the way to the top, he was not exactly a lazy person but a tiresome thing like that was something no single person would willingly want to take on, most especially when there was another, apparently said to be shorter, way to solve such an issue…

The last checkpoint of the alliance, the border between the cleared areas and the true tainted zones, had a name They call it the Tainted bulwark. Directly facing off against the true fears of the tainted zone, the tainted bulwark was under a constant state of vigilance and slight oppressiveness, the ever present threat of death and destruction just a few meters outside of the boundary added to the somewhat gloomy atmosphere yet it also brought a strange kind of air, a release from the constraints of life. After all, any one life could be lost in a matter of minutes, maybe even hours.

In the true unsafe parts of the tainted zone, a single group of bloodthirsty beasts way above your level to even put up a fight, or even one of your fellow fighters ruthlessly scheming with greedy and malicious thoughts was enough to spell the death word in all its crimson bloody glory for just about anyone, whether he’s weak or even one of the strongest.

Hence why the regard for any life except one’s own was at an all-time low.

Those who could band together to share every ups and down, every favorable opportunity and every calamity, were a fairly rare sight. Most people banded together only for benefits and a greater chance at survival, personal gain was the greatest driving force for them and nothing else.

But for now, the group of four that was Isaac, Harry, Hiya and the mysterious Adam, were one of the groups who could be said to have no selfish thoughts between them, that was of course something that spoke for the current times. Isaac of course didn’t expect everything to be smooth sailing for their group as well, but with the bond they’d formed over the duration of the months they spent together, he also hoped that nothing would eventually break them up. He would hate to see that.

I looked around as we walked all through the tainted bulwark. The whole place as it was first line of defense against the tainted beasts and even the tainted zone itself, was also a point for getting a refill and restock on all depleted resources as well as any important information or announcement from the alliance in the untainted zone.

So even as countless people came in and left into the deeper parts of the tainted zone continuously, there were still quite a number of them who stayed behind. I looked on with a blank expression as most of every single person we passed by, whether male or female, reeked of a particular kind of scent, the scent of blood and killing.

These people were obviously veterans in the wild of the tainted zone, who walked the fine line of life and death and managed to triumph over the odds every single time. But although these people were able to come out of it alive, I realized that there would be others, maybe lesser or maybe even more, who failed to survive and landed in death’s tight and merciless claws.

These people were present anymore as they could no longer exist, at least not in the plane of the living. Realizing all of this as I walked on beside my group as occasional conversations were had and we also went on like the others in this place, getting refilled and repairing anything that needed it, I could vaguely figure out how different from what we had seen the deeper parts of the tainted zone would be.

I couldn’t help the slightest shiver from crawling up my body, but oddly enough, I wasn’t shivering due to fear, no, not even apprehension. I was shivering in anticipation and expectance, the tainted zone could throw all it could at me, I might be able to handle the biggest dangers right now, but eventually I would be stronger through constant relentless battles and I would be able to face it, and probably also be able to face what was to come that made me feel a slight constant throbbing of anxiousness within my heart and soul every time. My heart beat quickened slightly at the thoughts running through my mind, and I had the faintest inkling, that the future held a whole lot of craziness in bulk size for me.