The forest was changing the closer he got to the waterfall, even more so than before. While the land had become more lively before, it seemed to have also become slightly more normal. Within the depths of the forest the trees there were absolutely massive, some so tall they nearly pierced the clouds, while this close to the waterfall they had multiplied, but had become far smaller than before.
The access to water couldn’t have killed their growth, he didn’t think, but as far as he knew other than the normal natural means plants could grow the only other thing that could affect it was radiation from the bombings during the war, and mana density. He wasn’t exactly a professional at determining mana density, but his regeneration hadn’t taken a hit since he’d started moving towards the falls, and he didn’t feel ill - nor could he feel any adverse effects that radiation usually had on magic.
Even low-level Altered’s felt rather ill when they got too ‘familiar’ with radiation, so he was more than sure he’d feel it before he accumulated enough radiation to get sick, but the odd change in his surroundings was worrying. The forest could simply be ending, petering out until the land changed into something else, but the simple fact was that it was different. And quite frankly he’d begun to learn that new things generally came with new problems.
In the city, when he lost his mother and the middle class lifestyle he had grown up with, he was forced to move into the slums, where he had to deal with gangs, rogue Altered’s, and whatever other horseshit came at him on a day to day business. He had been brought into the world of criminals and, in the end, the fighting pits.
When he’d become as accustomed to that lifestyle as he could he was met with another change, his introduction to Virasuta. He had never believed in god, not really. There had been moments he’d prayed before, usually in a panic or as a joke, but meeting an actual Goddess had changed him into a true believer, his faith made even more powerful after his healing and subsequent Ascension. The new world of magic, Gods, and dealing with his mentor had brought out more power than he’d ever have expected to gain. However, just when he was beginning to get used to that he was dropped into the forest.
And the wilds were an entirely different environment than he’d ever expected to deal with. Let alone dodging bullets and wayward magic casts, here he was dodging massive mutated animals and sonic blasts. He had to struggle to find food, water, even shelter. All things he’d taken for granted before. Even if he was entirely broke, with no money to his name and no possessions to sell for food, he was confident he could have made enough cash in a few days of working temp jobs to get the basics, before doing his best to get back on his feet. But out here? He had nothing to his name but his clothing, and every time he ripped a hole in his clothes or blew parts of them away he was left with even less, he didn’t doubt that by the time the week was over he would be entirely naked.
Out here, all that mattered was survival, and while he was capable of that here, he didn’t know what problems a new landscape would bring. The waterfalls could be surrounded by beasts that made the Rox Mother look like a baby, cannibals who had survived the Invasion, fucking aliens from mars for all he knew.
He expected something dangerous ahead, anyone with half a brain cell would, but he was still nervous. The unknown was dangerous, more so because he didn’t know exactly how dangerous it was. He barely understood how strong he was, let alone any random monster he came across. The way the rox kids had nearly deafened him proved that. He had expected them to be dangerous, only to hit him with something strong enough to deafen, if not outright kill, any normal human.
What if something was stronger than it looked, while already looking strong. What if he ran across some wolf with the power to shoot fucking plasma beams, or some massive snake the size of a bus that could move faster than him? It wouldn’t be unheard of for such powerful and dangerous monsters to exist outside the walls, and he was far, far outside the reaches of civilization, meaning anything alive out here was still around because it was built for it.
The simply fact of the matter was, regardless of what the change was in his life it usually resulted in him having to fight something, whether that was poverty, other people, or giant fucking monsters.
And he was gettin’ real sick of change.
-------------------
Is that… is that a road?
Long after the tree’s had begun to shrink to far more ‘normal’ sizes, long after the land had begun to flatten out, and even longer than that since he’d seen any of the larger beasts, he found something new.
A road.
More specifically he found the remnants of a road. It hadn’t been a large one, possibly just two or so lanes large, but most of the asphalt had been chipped away, or outright grown over. It was hard telling how large the road had been before because all of the paint had been wiped away by time, while the edges of the road were almost entirely mangled.
It felt out of place, like someone had just picked up a road from somewhere and dropped it in the middle of the wilderness for shits and giggles. The roots of plants were growing over large portions of it, especially where the road was damaged, and plenty of the cracks in the road had begun to grow flowers and weeds.
I feel like I just got dropped into an alternate universe… hella’ deja-vu right now. Never thought a road would make me feel so… out of place.
But regardless of how damaged or unkept it was, it was still a road. And all roads lead to places with humans… Or places that once held humans.
With the way the road was curved it was obviously one that was heading in the direction of the waterfall, meaning that as long as he followed it he wouldn’t have any issues with keeping track of where he was, or what direction he was going. Coupled with the fact that mostly flat asphalt was easier to walk on than everything else in the forest, he really didn’t have any reason not to follow it.
Stepping onto the road he began his journey, taking the first few steps slowly as he got used to walking on solid flat ground for the first time in what felt like forever. He had gotten used to running in the forest where the dirt was soft, almost like walking on a blanket. Even the fact that he hadn’t been wearing shoes hadn’t really bothered him all that much because of the fact that short of a magically infused weapon or claw, nothing was going to pierce or slash his skin open. And while it was rather uncomfortable to walk on stones it wasn’t painful, and he’d grown accustomed to outright ignoring it by now.
Looking down he could see the tattered remains of his pants, as well as his feet where his shoes would be if they hadn’t been incinerated… wait, incinerated? Did he even have his shoes on when he came here?
The thought was stupid, but funny. Anyone would notice whether or not they were missing their shoes for even a moment, especially when outside of their home. But he’d grown so accustomed to his new body that he rarely wore his shoes anymore, especially since Lilliha had practically barred him from leaving his home for fear of him ditching his ‘studies’.
Even without running shoes he felt comfortable walking around on hard surfaces, he’d even begun to forget what it felt like to step on something sharp. Forget stepping on a nail, he was sure he could walk on broken glass from here to the next city and not feel a damn thing.
Albeit, comfort aside he wasn’t too happy about his feet being covered in mud, grass, and whatever else he’d stepped in along the way. He really didn’t want to think about whether or not he’d accidentally stepped in shit along the way here. While it might not affect him physically, it made him feel rather gross to be covered in burnt clothing and mud. He’d need a shower or bath soon whenever he got to the waterfall, probably two just for safe measure. And as for his clothing… Hopefully he could work something out.
Traveling along the road he savored the fact that he didn’t have to worry about balancing himself anymore, before picking up speed until he’d reached around the same momentum he’d had before he’d stopped, his feet letting out loud slaps along the asphalt as he ran.
I hope to god there's a clothing store down the road, maybe one of those old ‘drop boxes’ people used to dump old clothing in for charity or whatever.
Having a straight road to run down allowed him to properly appreciate his new body’s speed. He had still been able to move much faster than most people, vehicles or even Altered beasts in the forest, but being in the forest came with issues and obstacles that he had to maneuver around. If he ran into a rock or tree it wouldn’t kill him, but it wasn’t exactly pleasant, and if he ran into a pack of animals while they were traveling with their young he’d immediately be on the receiving end of an attack. While most animals wouldn’t fight something they weren’t entirely sure they could beat, especially if they were herbivores, running into a pack of animals as they escorted their young was an especially good way to start a fight.
And in all honesty he wasn’t entirely okay with the idea of ‘sport hunting’, or just going around and annihilating a bunch of deer for the simple act of existing. He wasn’t clearing the land of pests, as this wasn’t his land and as such had no reason to care about them, and he also wasn’t hunting for food, so he had no reason to attack or kill anything unless it threatened him first.
All things considered while in the forest he was most likely only moving around half as fast as he was capable of, even after he had spent a few hours trying to ‘minimize’ how much he was slowed by his turns and jumps. Albeit, a few hours isn’t exactly enough time to do much when it came to training a skill he was entirely inept in, but it had given him some ideas on how to improve.
And now he was here, on a road of all things, nice, flat, and long enough that he could properly test how fast he was without interruptions of any kind.
Running down the road allowed him to move in one straight line, picking up more and more speed as he made a mad sprint towards wherever the road ended up. He didn’t have to turn, jump, go over or avoid anything, he just had to run.
By the time he’d been running for a little over ten seconds he’d sped up to the point where it became uncomfortable to keep his eyes open while looking straight ahead, by twenty seconds he’d begun to hear the sound of the already decayed asphalt crack under his feet as he ran, and by the time he’d ran for thirty seconds it felt and sounded like a natural disaster was moving in a straight line down the road.
When he’d begun his sprint he’d been standing straight up, as if he were out for a casual jog, but by the end his entire body was on a forty five degree angle, sending the broken asphalt flying behind him as he moved with enough force to smash through solid steel.
There wasn’t any grace in his movements here, not like in the forest where he had to be careful not to run straight into a tree or trip over a root, he was just forcing his body as far as it could go.
There was a very real chance he’d be blindsided by something, or trip like a moron and smash into the road hard enough to shatter the asphalt, but none of that mattered. He’d already been practicing his skill when it came to moving, now he had a good chance to practice his power. When all you had was time and the will to do something, it was only a matter of how much time you needed to succeed. He wasn’t going to master himself before he reached the waterfall, but the simple act of pushing himself as fast as he could, feeling the wind on his face and body as he almost flew down the road, was enough of a stress test to understand at least partially what he was really capable of. And, in all honesty, it was rather fun.
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I could outrun a goddamn missile like this!
He had been moving fast in the forest, fast enough that most people would have assumed him to be a speed-based Altered - if they had managed to catch a glimpse of him as he dashed from place to place - but by now he was moving fast enough that to most people, even the Altered ones, he would be nothing but a blur, the only evidence he was ever here would be the devastation he left in his wake.
He was happy in some ways that he most likely wouldn’t be taking this road again, because he didn’t know if there was going to be very much left of it by the time he was done.
I’m like a human earthquake for Vira’s sake!
By the time he’d been running for a full minute his speed had hit its peak. He wasn’t able to push himself any faster, and for the first time since his Ascension running had actually begun to make him feel tired. Regardless of how hard he tried he couldn’t move any faster, but that didn’t mean he was going to stop. It would most likely be a bad idea to exhaust himself from just running out here, after all he could get jumped by some massive bear or something at any moment, but he wanted to see how far he could go before being forced to stop.
He ran, and ran, passing trees, wrecked cars and even at one point a billboard that had crashed down. Any other time he would have investigated them, but he was having fun pushing himself. It was exhilarating to push himself beyond anything he’d been able to accomplish before, hell it was as close to normalcy he’d had in what felt like years, just training and pushing himself as far as he could before he was forced to stop.
It almost felt like before, back when all that mattered was that if he managed to go just one step further he’d accomplish his goals. He’d get stronger, faster, better than the other fighters, get the money he needed, fix his ma’, and ride off into the damn sunset.
If he were just in a gym somewhere, he’d keep going until his lungs were burning and his legs felt like jello, until all he wanted to do was lie down and sleep, but it wasn’t up to him. Not out here.
When his lungs began to burn enough that it began to hurt, his body feeling the pain of a workout well done, that was when he’d decided to stop. Too early to feel rewarding, but early enough to be sensible given his situation.
Can’t go till I pass out, or I’ll get fucking eaten by something while I'm out, should probably just walk a few miles until I'm back to normal.
Slowing himself down to a walk he let out a few gasping breaths as he attempted to get his breathing under control. The burning in his lungs and legs passed within a few seconds, but the energy he’d spent running was a bit slow to recover. He hadn’t used any mana or anything, but it seemed pushing his body to the brink left him a bit weaker for a while. It would explain why he was in such a shitty state after his fight with the Rox Mother, the mana loss alone was bad, but overexerting himself so badly had probably fucked him up something fierce as well.
At least I know I can still work out now, it just takes a bit more effort… and causes a lot of damage in the process.
He continued walking for a few minutes, gazing around him as he took note of his surroundings. The area was almost entirely ‘normal’ by now, the tree’s weren’t ridiculously huge anymore and even the flowers he passed looked relatively similar to the ones in the city.
The fact that the nature around him was becoming more normal was good for his mood, he’d quite frankly had enough of massive animals trying to fuck with him and he hoped the nature and beasts went hand in hand, the fact he could practically hear the waterfall as clearly as if it were next to him cinched it for him.
From a distance it sounded like crashing, deep and heavy, but from this close he could easily make out the finer details that the waterfall was making, namely even louder crashing and running water from the area around it.
Judging by the sound, he was practically there. He reckoned it would take him roughly half an hour of running at full speed to make it, so roughly four or so hours of light running. Considering the fact that he originally thought he’d make the entire trip in less than a day, and was almost on his second, he was just happy the trip was almost over.
Being out of the forest, even just a little bit by walking on the road, helped a lot as well. He’d grown up around concrete and street lights, and while the natural world had brought him some wonders he’d never forget, he’d dealt with enough stress to last him the rest of his life, or at the very least the rest of the week.
He wouldn’t mind walking up to a deserted tourist town, or a barebones waterfall that was famous for one reason or another, and just camping next to it for a few days. A bath, maybe somehow catching some normal sized fish, then spending the next few days not feeling like he was trapped in a warzone.
Hell, if I'm lucky enough maybe there’s some old house or something nearby to crash in, even if it’s rotten away to shit, at least I’ll have a roof over my head…
However, knowing his luck, he was probably going to get jumped for his shoes by crackheads, somehow, and lose his non-existent shoes.
-----------------------
He had been following the road for less time than he’d expected before he stumbled upon a roadblock.
Literally.
As he had been running he’d been forced into a rather sharp turn around a corner, before nearly running face first into a wrecked vehicle.
He’d had just enough time to slam his feet into the ground, dragging asphalt alone with him as he slid towards the turned over truck, stopping only a few feet away from the overturned truck.
Holy mother of fuck, that just about came out of nowhere.
He’d figured the road he was on wasn’t all that important, probably just a side road that went between small towns or whatever, mostly because of the fact that he’d only passed a couple of cars throughout the entire trip. Most of them had been on one side or the other, so he hadn’t even needed to move all that much to get around them without issue.
The truck however was on its side, in the middle of the road.
Poor bastard must have crashed while fleeing during the invasion, or afterwards trying to get away from beats.
Walking around it he smacked the bottom in annoyance, causing it to almost tilt over onto its roof.
Oh right, strong… I almost forgot.
Shaking his head as he rounded the truck he had to stop for a moment when he saw the devastation laid beyond the truck.
Holy shit, what the hell happened here?
Down the road lay dozens, if not hundreds of cars, trucks, jeeps, and other vehicles he couldn’t recognize either because they weren’t made anymore, or because all that was left was a melted mess of metal and glass.
The carnage of vehicles went on seemingly for miles, some vehicles were in decent condition, while others were turned over on their sides or demolished in a myriad of ways. It more resembled a war scene than a road.
Why the hell are all these empty vehicles here? There were almost none all the way down the road.
Walking slowly down the middle of the road he looked around, and in, the vehicles he passed. Most of them were damaged rather badly by whatever had melted them, and most likely the people occupying them, but quite a few were in relatively good shape.
Relatively.
Shattered windows and what was most likely weather based damage in the shape of small dents, rust, and dirt covered the ‘intact’ vehicles. The melted ones however more resembled slag than actual vehicles. If it weren’t for the fact that a good portion of them were only melted on one side he would have assumed they were the leftovers of some weapon or shell from during the invasion. The melted portions of the vehicles didn’t stop at just caving in the roofs, but they had melted almost entirely into the asphalt, and the asphalt that was affected by it was sunken in, even now, by a good few inches.
What the hell could have melted the vehicles like this? The stuff is melted almost entirely to the ground, and why is it all black? Not all these vehicles are black, unless that’s just what it looks like when it’s melted down like this…
The question was, why did the black metal look familiar to him? It wasn’t melted like normal slag, it certainly wasn’t from any human weapons, as the vehicles had been here too long for them to have been hit by any of the newer tech that could have done it, and no human mages would have been able to melt it so thoroughly, at least he didn’t think they would.
What could have…
His gaze was brought to a rather large truck. Its tires had long flattened to the ground like the rest of the vehicles, but what had drawn his eyes were the massive slash marks on the side. The door itself was missing, having been seemingly torn off its hinges, but the entire side of the vehicle was covered in long, somewhat rusted slashes, like someone had used a laser cutter on it as a test.
Or someone had used some kind of sword.
The slag, the slashes, an Invader’s melter-cannon leaves almost exactly the same remains, and the slash marks almost perfectly resemble the ones left behind by the blades they used.
This wasn’t just a graveyard.
It was all that was left of refugees fleeing the invaders.
These people didn’t abandon their vehicles, they were taken.
The realization that the place he had been in had once been the subject of one of The Enemy’s attacks caused goosebumps to spread across his body.
If the enemy attacked, that would explain the overturned truck. It probably showed up, saw the attack, tried to pull a U-ey and either got knocked over or crashed in a panic…
Turning around to gaze at the toppled truck he’d long passed he could see that the roof had a few dozen small black holes
If they were fleeing, they probably brought stuff with them, right? What are the chances one of these vehicles has a pair of pants or a shirt that fits me?
He’d barely managed to rip the dented-in trunk of a car open to look for briefcases or bags before he began to feel somewhat guilty.
Should I even be rummaging through their shit? Bad enough they got slaughtered by a bunch of dickhead aliens, I doubt they’d want me pillaging their stuff too.
In the trunk of the car were a bunch of bags, but either time or something else had managed to leave everything of note within a pile of scrap cloth. Even the scraps themselves were so weak he’d barely managed to pull them from the pile before they tore or fell apart.
The only pair of clothes that were even somewhat together were a bundle of tattered clothes that were once colorful, but faded, and very obviously for a young girl.
Poor kid, I hope they managed to get away somehow, or at the very least… I hope it was quick.
Slamming the trunk down hard enough to cause it to cave in he swore under his breath before continuing on to the next vehicle.
Hopefully I can find something useful, if not I might just obtain the mystical ability of ‘depression’ from all this shit.
Traveling further into the graveyard he checked vehicle after vehicle for anything of note, bags, clothes, hell, even bodies, but all that was left after all the years out in the wilderness was melted slag, empty vehicles, and whatever shredded or destroyed contents they held.
Each vehicle contained some form of memory of its previous owner, some had pictures that were so faded or destroyed that they were hardly even recognizable as photographs, others were somehow so well preserved he almost thought they were magic in some way, until he realized that they were covered in some kind of plastic. He didn’t know what they were made out of and he wasn’t sure if he was happy or angry that he found them, but he had. Parents, children, family members, pets - all photos he had found while rummaging through the vehicles.
He’d found clothing that had been in good enough shape to wear, but they were too small for him, or were dresses. And while he would be embarrassed to be found naked out here, he’d rather be found dead than in a dress.
It took him roughly half an hour of searching before he found the first piece of clothing even worth wearing, and it was a shirt. He’d found some socks, more hats than he could count and dozens of pairs of shoes - some of which were still in good shape - but the shoes were all either too small or were too fragile to be worth wearing. A normal person would probably be able to make do with them until they found something better, but he’d most likely rip them the first time he tried to run or jump even moderately fast. Socks were also a no-go, besides the fact he’d destroy them like the shoes - what was the point of wearing socks without shoes?
He’d also failed to find any new pants, which irked him more than he’d care to admit.
He’d also discarded the hats as well, since the sun didn’t really bother him enough to worry about it getting in his eyes or giving him sunburn, as proven by the fact he was still perfectly fine after two days with barely any clothing.
Having acquired a brand new shirt, in that he found a barely passable white T-shirt that he didn’t think was going to last longer than a day, he skipped trying to loot the rest of the vehicles and began moving towards wherever they were heading. If he’d had to guess by the fact that they were all facing the general area of the waterfall and that there were so many cars with ‘travel luggage’ on them, he was pretty sure they were heading towards an evacuation center.
Evac-centers were rather common across the planet, even civilian created ones where small towns and villages - sometimes just farmers who had banded together - would gather displaced people in an attempt to hide as many of them as possible from the Invaders. Due to the fact that the bastards had ways to find them, even underground, with things like detection magic which we had only found out afterwards, most didn’t survive. If they were hiding in the way of the Warmachines they were wiped out, and even the ones that weren’t were usually still at risk from the smaller bastards taking them out.
The mass graveyard of vehicles painted a rather bleak picture of the fate of the previous owners, and the fate of the evacuation center he was most likely heading towards. That or they were attempting to flee into a city that was protected by the military, which was also a death sentence for obvious reasons.
However, by the time he’d reached the hundredth or so vehicle he’d managed to figure out what had started the line of vehicles; a checkpoint.
From the distance he was at he could barely make out sandbags and some other small stuff, but he’d have to get closer to make it out.
So, does this checkpoint lead to a city, or some bunker? A city is certain to have stuff, and would make sense with the waterfall so close. Big waterfall, tourist attraction, military bolsters it because it’s one of their largest cities, and then they get curb-stomped because they underestimated just how fucked they were. A bunker of some kind could also make sense, but if there’s this many people so far away from it there’s a good chance it was already full, and all of them died while trying to get in.
Honestly, I don't know which option is better.
City made the most sense, but a bunker was also a possibility. The bunker option also wasn’t as bad as the city would be from a threat standpoint, the city would have more beasts, but also more ways to call for a pick up with all the tech-shit around. Simply hook up some old radios or something, get power from a generator or some old stuff in one of the -unlikely- unlooted shops, then hope someone can hear him.
If they couldn’t, oh well he tried. Eventually Lilliha would pick him back up, and he had an inkling that her point was just to ‘prove’ to him that he couldn’t let his emotions override his judgment. Or that he needed to know his ‘place’ or some shit. She could have proven that by breaking a few bones or simply smacking him a few times for trying to hit her, but who knew what was really going on in that head of hers.
By the time his thoughts had begun to ramble he’d come to face the ‘checkpoint’ he’d seen before, and it was in just as bad a shape as the vehicles it blocked. It had originally been a checkpoint blocked by a rather large bus, surrounded by sandbags and what he assumed used to be some kind of mounted weapon, which had been torn apart rather efficiently.
He didn’t see any bodies, which was a blessing, but there were some discarded weapons around the checkpoint. He didn’t really see a point in taking them, even if they weren’t useless after decades out in the open, he did more damage than they did with his hands. Plus he doubted the bullets they fired could even penetrate the hide or scales of the beasts out here, let alone actually kill one.
Humanity had switched to magi-tech and flat magic a long time ago for a reason.
Moving past the fallen weapons, which had most likely fallen where their owners bodies had, he barely had to use any strength to leap over the bus, before landing on the other side and continuing his journey forward.
The other side was mostly clear of vehicles, save for a few military ones that he didn’t recognize, so he didn’t have anything to distract himself from continuing forward until he reached the end of the road, or towards the waterfall, whichever one was closest.
I’ve wasted too much time here as it is, I should probably just sprint the rest of the way there. As long as there aren’t any more distractions or issues I should be able to get there relatively quickly.
His legs tensed with strength as he leaned forward and began sprinting down the road.
Hopefully I find something useful soon, or a village that somehow survived.
He’d genuinely begun to miss human interaction, even the sound of other people outside, the noise of the city or the shows on TV helped push the thoughts of being alone away. He had entertainment and other ways to keep himself busy so he didn’t have to be constantly stuck with his own thoughts. Out here though, all he had were those thoughts.
God I miss the internet.
-----------------------
I think I am almost there.
He’d been sprinting for less than an hour before he saw something in the distance. It looked like a massive shadow, or some kind of massive tree that was blocked by mist from the waterfall.
How huge is that waterfall that it can block something so tall, better yet how big is it to create so much damn mist!?
He never stopped sprinting, even as more of the large forms appeared, even as the mist began to get easier to see through, even as he passed cars and even a few broken stores and homes.
He didn’t stop until what it was came into view.
Is that… is that an apartment building?
The building was half melted, like someone had dumped magma on top of it, and even the nonmelted parts had holes and damage covering it, but it was unmistakably an apartment building. Below the apartment building he was able to start noticing some of the smaller buildings, most likely stores and other stuff.
Guess it was a city in the end