Damien didn’t have the time to worry about Aya leaving him as a vine plant started wrapping itself around his leg. His first instinct was to burn it to a crisp, but the outcome was not in his favor. It just fed the vine more energy and it grew in size and width making it stronger.
“Right, I’m dumb. They feed off heat.”
With some effort with his sword he was able to chop it up into pieces, however he couldn’t feel relieved just yet. Once he took down that first vine, the forest began to quake as if a slumbering dragon was waking up. Everything appeared to sway to life as the trees elongated themselves out of their roots and acted like whips dancing with the wind. Suddenly Damien understood why there weren't many stories about this place, no one came back alive.
Damien wanted to activate his Dao Domain but its passive ability to generate massive amounts of heat was to his disadvantage, so he could only dodge with his natural ability. After the first waves of attacks, Damien was looking down trodden. There were bloody scratches and bruises covering his body that he couldn’t currently heal.
“I’ll just make a break for it!”
Damien couldn’t keep up with the surrounding attacks that came constantly so it left him with the only choice to run through. He felt positive about the attempt, but it only landed him into deeper trouble. The forest was alive and adept at sensing every movement in its domain so wherever Damien went, he was met with a sea of attacking plants. He was smothered in no time causing him to suffragist slowly. They tried entering through any orifice they could reach. Once they reached a point where no one should be touched, did Damien ignite with a sense of crisis.
‘Explode!’
Surrounding himself with several points of flame, Damien detonated them all at the same time. This was his natural response to the uncomfortable situation he was faced with. The method he used to get out of trouble ended up being surprisingly effective. He blew a good chunk of them away, giving him enough time to breathe and think of his new game plan.
“All I need to do is keep blowing them up! They’re surprisingly fragile.”
As the forest’s vegetation began regenerating, Damien stomped right over into the endless depths. Everywhere he went was a cacophony of explosions that cleared out patches of land. He did this mindlessly until he found himself back at the entrance of the forest. He was obviously going in circles but it did not deter him. He was actually enjoying being able to go crazy for a little bit. He went whenever he thought was right while he laughed maniacally.
Aya looked down on the situation from the sky and could only be disappointed with herself. She should have known better to think Damien was going to actually make it here by himself.
“Clearly he has no problems with the forest, but that sense of direction is going to be the end of him sooner or later.”
Seeing that it would take an estimated infinite amount of time by her calculations, she began transmitting directions straight into his ears. In a complete 180 with Aya’s help, Damien made a beeline to her current location. What followed him was a trail of destruction that devastated the landscapes. Luckily the forest covered up these blights with its own greenery in the following moments. With only a couple of hours wasted, Damien arrived before Aya with an innocent smile on his face.
“That wasn’t too bad! I made it in a good time too!”
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Damien’s excitement was peering through and he acted as if he did everything himself. However Aya knew if he let this kid run wild, he wouldn’t have arrived here for another week or so. Aya let it go so he could revel in his accomplishment for a little more. After everything was said and done, Damien and Aya began their hike up the volcano. She could’ve easily flown them to the top or the nearest entrance, but that defeated the purpose for Damien to experience this. They were like ants climbing a mountain, that’s how large Meteor Volcano is. It went beyond what Damien’s eyesight could see.
“This has to be the biggest natural phenomenon ever!”
Damien couldn’t imagine something that could reach any larger than what he was seeing and it was impossible to even try. However, Aya didn’t agree with Damien’s sentiments.
“Yes, it is certainly large, but this is not considered anything… well not anymore that is.”
“What do you mean by that? How can anything be bigger than this?”
Aya declined to answer with the shrug of her shoulders while she left Damien with his own thoughts. They found no trouble along the way with no sign of any controlled plant life. For that netter, there wasn’t any sign of life as the temperature increased to dangerous degrees. Only those built for the heat or those strong enough to ignore it were able to endure it. Damien and Aya were perfect examples of this as they made it seem like clockwork. The climb was long but not arduous. It was hours of repetitive motions until they either found an entrance or reached the top. Aya insisted on being below Damien so she could make sure he was moving the right way. Knowing him, she believed he would climb back down or sideways without even knowing it. When she watched him climb, she realized she was only half wrong. Damien was going up but not in a straight line.
Damien was all over the place like a monkey climbing a tree in circles. It was even more apparent because his energy levels kept rising the more he stayed within the area. Aya didn’t care to say anything since he was still going up instead of down. After a couple more hours, Damien made a complete stop in a random spot. He stuck his hand through the volcano’s wall like he was phasing through an object. He did it a couple more times before calling out in amazement.
“Hey! I think I found something here! I’m going to go through it!”
Aya tried warning him before he went head on into something he had no idea about, but Damien went through it before she could. She wasn’t worried about herself, however he was a different story. She waltzed right through and ended up inside in the volcano. Magma was boiling up and down at the base as visible heat vapors rose to the top. She looked around confirming what she knew it to actually be, before catching a glimpse of Damien heading straight to the bottom. Hours of climbing up was all wasted in a matter of minutes. She chased him down to the bottom to find him staring at a prayer mat floating on top of the magma. He pointed at it with an orange gleam in his eyes.
“That’s where I will train. Here, could you hold my clothes?”
Without waiting for an answer, he already began undressing, where head was left just with the shorts he wore underneath. He tipped his toes in the magma to feel it out and felt a sensation of ecstasy pass through him. While Damien was getting ready to dive in, Aya looked up into the caldera sensing something was coming. A gust of wind blew down on them, only causing Damien to get down on all fours. Damien could barely keep his head up to look at what was coming.
‘This feels like when I met Yuki’s father, but with much more intensity!’
What was a tiny speck inside the massive caldera of the volcano, came crashing down at them at breakneck speeds. It was a speck the color of the sun and it kept magnifying where it looked like the sun fell into the volcano. The closer it got the more it began to shine brightly to the point it outshined everything and blinded them. When the light scattered away, Damien looked up again to see a small animal flying in midair. Its details were still not able to be discerned, but Damien’s disappointment already showed through.
“I thought it was going to be bigger. I was scared for a moment.”
The bright animal snarled and rang out its nasally high pitched voice.
“Oh? I’m not scary enough now?”
Its aura reintesnified with much more focus on Damien. It made him lay completely flat on the ground until he cried out apologizing.
“I’m sorry, please stop it! I’m begging you!”
Damien cut out a sorry figure for himself, but he had no other choice. This creature was not holding back in the slightest and it was starting to grind his bones into dust while his organs compressed together. However, the pressure all went away when Damien begged for mercy.
“That’s more like it, young’un. You ought to be humble when you enter someone else’s home.”
Once it got everything under control, the flying creature minimized its brilliance so that it could reveal its true form. Damien was immediately stunned when he put two and two together. It was a Golden Crow no bigger than any other regular crow. Its size was small, but that didn’t take away from its glory. Its beady red eyes could lock onto anything while its claws and beak appeared to be made out of the strongest metals. The last thing Damien expected was to meet a legendary beast that rivaled the Dragon and Phoenix.