Long after the scent of cooked meat and his ravenous hunger had faded he had laid there, gazing up into the stars.
Depending on where you were in the city, especially depending on how close you were to the cleansers within it, the stars were usually hardly visible to anyone on the ground. Cleansers did their best in reducing pollution, but there was a limit to what a few machines could do to all the pollution the city exuded. Exhaust from cars, pollution from factories and power plants, even places that mostly used magic would release pollution into the sky and ground around them if improperly treated, or if the corp involved was too cheap to stop it.
He’d seen stars before, but he hadn’t realized that the small pinpricks that made it through the smog was just the beginning of what the night held. Thousands upon thousands of small lights scattered the sky, each one unique, each one the same. He could spend hours just laying there, watching as the stars danced in the night sky.
But he wasn’t allowed to, because he had work to do.
Rising to his feet he brushed himself off as best as he could, taking one last look into the night sky, before he continued making his trip towards his objective.
One way or the other, he was going to make it to the mist he saw, and when he did would he allow himself to rest properly.
And only then.
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How far have they traveled?
He had tracked the pups far beyond his pack’s territory, far far beyond his pack’s territory.
It was worrying, and above all else, terrifying. He could not rely on other packmates having protected, or guided, his pups this far out, meaning they had come all this way by themselves.
He was scared, more scared than he had ever been in his life. The fear of facing a Uagua alone for the first time paled in comparison, by the mother herself, fighting for the role of Pack Leader had been less terrifying than wondering if his children were safe.
This fear was a weakness, and while weakness wasn’t allowed within the Wyld he didn’t know if he had the strength to crush it, potentially leaving his own pups to die a certain death.
He didn’t want to be strong enough to crush it, if it meant their deaths.
He’d long passed the falls, nearly cried when his pups knew well enough to stay out of the Oriaka’s territory, and nearly had a heart attack when he heard one screech so far from its territory. The only saving grace that stopped him from doing something foolish was that the tracks he had been following went the opposite way of the howl.
By the time he’d gotten to the newest tracks the sun was beginning to appear over the horizon, and he knew he didn’t have much more time left to find his pups.
For while the night was filled with horrors, the day would bring out the vast majority of the beasts within the Wyld’s to play, and he couldn’t risk some scavenger taking his pups as food. He wouldn’t allow them to die such worthless deaths.
He just had to track them down. He just had to hunt.
He could do both
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Almost there!
By the time he’d seen the sun begin to rise over the horizon he’d nearly mastered the art of traversing the forest.
The day before he’d had trouble getting around the obstacles the forest was ingrained with. Let alone the constant issue of traps and wild animals there was the obvious issue of having to get around dense foliage and the land itself. Falling into traps, tripping over foliage, and simply having difficulty moving around was something he was quickly moving past.
He’d grown used to moving throughout the forest, leaping from rock, to tree, to flatland that he could tell was ‘safe’ to land on. After several hours of traversing the land he hadn’t made a mistake yet, save for getting misdirected early on while he was attempting to get over a rather large hill that had been seemingly carved on all angles to be entirely flat… well calling it a hill would be a mischaracterization, maybe ‘small mountain’? It had only been a few miles in circumference, so going around hadn’t been that much of an issue.
If he cared he’d be concerned over what could carve such a massive piece of rock so cleanly, but he didn’t care then, and he didn’t care all that much now.
After redirecting himself from ‘flat mountain’ as he’d taken to calling it he’d continued his mad dash towards the mist. The closer and closer he had gotten to it the less he had to really care about things such as ‘directions’, as the sound of something exceedingly loud was coming from a few miles ahead of him.
His advanced hearing came in handy, he could hear extremely well, as well as somewhat control how strong his hearing was depending on the sound. When he’d first heard the sound of what he thought was crashing he’d nearly had a panic attack thinking he was going to be attacked again, before realizing that whatever it the sound was coming from was still far away.
He’d taken a few moments after that to make sure it wasn’t some enormous animal before relaunching himself towards his destination. Whatever he was moving towards was apparently loud. He wasn’t a nature specialist by any means but he’d had to guess maybe some kind of water geyser of some kind, and while the water from the geysers would be hot, it wasn’t anywhere near hot enough to threaten him. Plus, if he got thirsty enough he didn’t think the temperature of the water would matter much, even if it was rather gross to drink hot dirty water.
The sound had gradually increased as he had gotten closer, which meant that he had to focus on lowering his hearing capabilities before he went deaf, or gained the magical ability of level ten headaches. The closer he had gotten to the sound the more alive the forest around him had gotten. He’d noticed shadows slinking around trees, more critters than usual, hell even the vegetation itself had grown larger and more colorful.
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It was rather… beautiful.
Which most likely means it is water of some kind, a geyser might be hot, but water is water and of course vegetation is going to grow more around sources of water. Which means I just have to make it there and step one of my masterful ‘plan’ is done.
He’d kept leaping, running, climbing and running even more until he’d nearly run face first into the very last thing he’d expected; a massive sign.
He’d noticed it in just enough time to slam his feet into the ground, leaving a trail of dragged dirt and broken branches as he slid to a stop a mere ten meters from the post holding up the sign.
What… What the hell?
He took a moment, wondering if he was hallucinating, before approaching the sign.
What the hell does it even say? Half of this shit is rusted to hell and back.
N-ag--a Falls? Naga Falls? What did it say before? Where the fuck is this?
The almost creepily displaced sign only proved that wherever he was going was once a landmark, but it didn’t reveal much else. Even with the sign being rather large most of it was either missing pieces or so covered in rust it more resembled a brown mural than the sign it once was.
Looking around him he couldn’t see much in the way of humanity, so wherever the ‘naga falls’ was, he wasn’t close enough for the sign to really matter. It was most likely a directional sign from before, ‘one hundred miles this direction for a famous landmark’ type of deal.
Wait… ‘falls’? As in waterfalls? The massive crashing sound, the mist, it was all from a waterfall? Shit, definitely better than a geyser when it comes to drinking water, but still, if it’s big enough to justify placing a sign down this far away, it has to be a big waterfall, or a tourist attraction…
And tourist attractions, or large bodies of water, generally meant people, and since there isn’t an obvious city wall near it, those people are probably gone… meaning beasts have taken over.
Little known fact about the beasts, while many of them aren’t outright hostile to humans, preferring to run instead of fight, most of the big and bad ones almost prefer humans as targets. Some science boys thought it had to do with something to do with the way we passively gather mana in our bodies, or it could just be revenge after centuries of abuse, but either way once magic became a ‘thing’, beasts became real hunters. Picking off stranded humans, taking losses to wage what almost seemed like wars against humans attempting to put their lives back together after the war.
They were one of the main reasons cities were surrounded by massive walls, because while an Altered beast might be able to leap dozens of meters with ease, it was far more difficult to climb a flat surface with heavy machine guns pointed directly at them.
The other reason was obviously in case of invasion, but that should go without saying.
This is obviously a big issue, because where there used to be humans, there were massive quantities of beasts. Skyscrapers, apartments, homes and other buildings humans had created made nigh-perfect dwellings for any beast. They had walls, roofs, were structurally tough enough to withstand storms and sometimes natural disasters, and were generally much more cozy than some mud hole in the forest. Whether or not any of this actually mattered to the beasts was anyone’s guess, but it was the best one most people could come up with when it came to why they tended to attack and take over any cities or towns they managed to ‘clear’ of human life.
Meaning if he went towards the water, he was going towards the big boys. The kings of the jungle so to speak, and possibly more of the screamy-fuckers he had just fought before.
So, I either forsake a water source to spare myself the difficulty of fighting beasts, or I say fuck them and bust in there like a beater on a revenge kick out of some kinda movie…
He began pacing in front of the sign as he considered his options. Fight, and possibly die to a fucking Rox Mother horde, or run and possibly die of dehydration.
He won his first fight relatively easily all things considered, hell he had never even cast Ignis before then, and when he had he’d practically charred the bloody thing whole. Going in now, as he was, if he casted it from a distance he might be able to scare it off, or outright kill it, and if anything bigger or badder came he was definitely fast enough to outrun it, afterall the Rox Mother only chased him so hard because he got too close to its babies, right?
Was he even in danger? What were the chances Lilliha was watching him? What were the chances the place wasn’t entirely abandoned, or the sign was just pointing out some waterfall that people passed by all the time? Maybe it wasn’t a massive town or city that was abandoned? What if?
I really want that water, and I don’t really have any other options… So we continue towards the waterfall. Naga Falls, here I come.
Passing the sign with a slap on the side of the pole he began his sprint, picking up speed as he went until he was traversing the forest as fast as any vehicle in the city, renewed vigor in his body and mind as he finally had confirmation that his goal was entirely worthwhile.
Fight anything stupid enough to try and stop me, get water, food, set up a camp, prepare, find a way home. Master plan complete. Just gotta get there.
His speed was always improving, some parts from the fact that he was still becoming used to actually using his body and some part because he was getting used to moving in the forest, but no matter how far he pushed himself he always felt like he could be better. Running along the ground, hopping from place to place, he’d even tried jumping from tree to tree like some kinda poorly trained ninja, but in the end he always felt like he was just a few steps from realizing something obvious.
It was grating, knowing he could be better, stronger, if only he could figure out how. There were plenty of spells that he’d read about that could help; magic that improved reflexes, strength, magic that outright increased one's swiftness somehow, among other things like flight or teleportation. However unlike Ignis that basically just amounted to him pouring mana through his body while chanting a lot of the more advanced spells required actual training.
Training that Lilliha had refused to give him.
So he was stuck, running like he was training for a marathon instead of the many other things that could not only improve his abilities but make the trip a thousand times easier.
Hitting the ground hard enough to cause a dent he leapt forward again, continuing his sprint towards the ‘finish line’.
It took him going over his problem in his mind a few times to begin to formulate a reason towards why he felt so slow, until he landed from another jump over a rock that caused him to reach an epiphany over why he felt so slow.
Landing as he did before he ran a few more steps before coming to a stop, turning around to look at where he had impacted the ground. The earth was obviously abused from the way he had landed, his footprints having left small craters where he’d landed, but the fact he was landing with so much force was slowing him down. He may have become heavier after his Ascendance, but he wasn’t that heavy. The dirt wasn’t exactly wet, nor was it any more soft than anywhere else, meaning just from the fall and momentum alone he was moving fast enough and heavy enough to leave massive amounts of damage behind him as he went.
He was practically a concrete block with the capability to run as fast as a car.
The way parkour runners do it always looks so smooth, I’m practically a gorilla with the way I do this shit. No bending, no sliding, no angling myself, is that why I feel slower than I should be? Everytime I land there’s a split second where I have to stop, it might not be much to an outside observer, but to me it’s practically an eternity.
The internet was a wonderful place, and like any kid he’d spent a good amount of time on it. While he hadn’t watched many videos on the subject, he could remember a few videos of some parkour guys running on top of buildings. They always moved with every part of their bodies when they ran, when they landed they bent their bodies or rolled to soften the landing, and while he didn’t need to really worry about breaking his legs, the impact itself slowed him considerably. He lost all momentum, all fluidity and practically had to start over from a dead stop every time he had to go over something.
While this might not cause that many issues now, it was a big world - big universe that he had been thrust into, if he couldn’t even move properly what happened when someone who was actually good at this type of shit came along? Was he supposed to sit there and hold his dick while some invader douchebag pelted him with lava blasts or something?
He had to get better at moving his new body, even if that amounted to him simply learning how to bend his knees properly when he landed, or how to slide after landing without sending himself careening into the dirt. He had to get better.
Luckily, he’d found himself in the perfect training grounds. If he wanted to get better at running, moving, hunting, fighting monsters… he was in the thick of it. Practicing his movement by running down animals and moving throughout the forest as he did literally anything. Practicing his fighting as he battered any animal stupid enough to put him in its sights. Practice survival by simply surviving.
Practice, practice, practice, it was practically his life mantra by this point.
Even getting to the waterfall was just another practice he was doing, practicing his self reliance. When he couldn’t rely on anyone but himself, when he was in the thick of it, when all he had were his mind and his balls, doing everything he could to survive.
I think I might be starting to understand what Lilliha meant by ‘making me understand’ or whatever.
Turning back towards his objective he stretched his legs and arms out a bit before he returned to reaching his objective.
So.. how did it go again? Bend knees, then roll right?