These mountains had been wiped clean by generations of Blanks before him so there wasn’t much treasure lying around anymore. Apart from the opportunity to kill a few magic beasts and test our strengths against each other, the mountain range has nothing else to offer, Jerome thought.
He came here full of vigor, ready to take on any challenge. But the reality was proving to make things more tasking than he had expected. The forest before him and the mountains ahead seemed like any other he had read about now. Very normal and very not magical. They would probably provide vast mineral resources — perhaps fossil fuel. Many magical beasts had died here, right?
Jerome had gone deeper into the mountains, away from the outskirts. He didn’t know what he’d be facing from here on out. And there were no demarcations to state the outer, middle, or inner regions of the mountain range. You only knew you were in a particular place when you get attacked — supposedly.
He rummaged through his storage bag for his map, hoping to make sense of where he was. It still awed him, the magical miracle the bag was. Never on Earth had something like this come close to fruition. Not in his time and scientists theorized that it would still be a while, maybe centuries before anything of the sort could be created.
The inside of the storage bag looked like any other normal bag. He sensed no essence powering anything in it. But the space contained in it should have been impossible; it was feather-light compared to its content.
Not just space was used to create the bag. They must have had a good understanding of gravity to be able to affect the weight of the object in the bag. And the mass of an object in space was what determined the strength of gravity it exerts on other objects, right? Since it’ll technically bend space around itself. But there was no object inside the bag that was a part of the bag that would exert any gravitational force on the objects he put inside.
This type of technology was beyond him, he admitted. He could as well call it magic. Many things in Vorthe were beyond his level of understanding. Maybe it took advancing as a sacred artist to understand such things. That should be the answer.
The days had been quiet and he loved every moment of peace. But his peace ended all too soon. As he came face-to-face with another Blank. A girl who looked to be at least two years older than him. She had on her breastplate, the carved figure of a winged serpentine creature with sharp rows of fangs. Her armor took on an eastern design with patterns and designs that curved around the armor, resembling the serpentine crest on her breastplate.
House Fei. House of the Dragon Fang, Jerome thought. He read once that they were sword artists who migrated from the Eastern continent, thousands of years ago, in search of greener pastures. Jerome called bullshit on that. Every family had its secrets.
If there was one thing he had come to learn, it was that Vorthe was a lot more complicated than it seemed on the surface. Greener pastures couldn’t be the reason a powerful clan left their homeland. They were probably running away from someone more powerful. Or to something that could give them more power.
The girl’s beautiful peach blossom eyes were unrelenting as she took a stance showing her readiness to fight him. Jerome stood sluggishly with the wind blowing his hair into his face. He hadn’t been grooming himself since his dreams began. Every part of his armor was badly damaged now — worse than it was after the manhunt — and he looked like a madman.
He’d had those dreams every night for two whole seasons. Each dream was a different life lived, many of which were full-blown nightmares, making every waking moment a time of horror and misery.
The girl drew her sword so fast it was hard for his eyes to follow. The sword cut through the air and missed him by a few hairs width as he sidestepped. He danced from side to side as he dodged her slashes and stabs.
She pressed on, showing her skill with the sword. Jerome had to evade her completely as her weapon danced in strange patterns. He had never seen anyone wield a sword like that before — not even Rihal. Well, Rihal had only ever used the bo staff in his presence. Her movements were…mesmerizing to say the least.
“You cannot best me, child. Kneel and I will spare you,” she said with an air of confidence belying her youth.
Really? Is that all you can come up with? Jerome shook his head with mock pity. “You’d need to learn more scary words to make me cower before you,” he said. His voice sounded raspy and his throat hurt. He needed water.
She attacked again, coming in hard and fast. Jerome decided to take things seriously since it seemed she was putting her all into their fight. Best not to disappoint.
Her sword spun toward him and he watched, observing her wrist as he dodged from side to side. He punched her in the shoulder pushing her back but she used the force to twist in the air and slashed at him again. Jerome easily dodged, trying to stay out of reach of her sword, but unable to get close to her lest he be impaled on it.
She flipped forward in the air but her momentum carried her backward. Her sword came diagonally at him as she was still in motion in the air. Jerome dodged, taking a step closer to her. He swiftly tapped her on the shoulder right before she landed — just to let her know that he could win the fight at any time. This got her riled up and she rushed him.
He tried to smack the sword out of her hand but with a flick of her wrist, the blade changed direction and spun in that beautiful pattern he was beginning to get comfortable seeing. He shivered lightly at the realization and shook the cobwebs off his eyes. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he ‘wanted’ to see that beautiful technique again — even though logic dictated that that would be his end.
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The sword, he realized, looking at the shiny blade with newfound respect. The Fei girl must have seen the look of wonder on his face. She gave him an arrogant smirk and twirled the blade around as their fight came to a pause.
“My sword is a special artifact that’ll take your mind and turn it to pulp,” she said. “Let’s see how long you can hold out against its power.”
Now that she said it, he could feel a slight tug on his mind by her sword. Like it was calling to him to relax. It wasn’t something one could easily sense on their own. He may never even have sensed it if she hadn’t mentioned it. Nevertheless, knowing he was slowly being pulled wasn’t enough to stop the pull on his mind.
“Now, that’s just not fair,” Jerome muttered in complaint.
The Fei girl scoffed. “Blame your masters for not preparing you better.” She went from zero to almost 40 in a split second, zooming across the space between them. Jerome had to take several steps back to dodge her fierce attacks.
She struck low with her kicks, going for his feet and ankles, but focused her sword on his upper body, wanting to wear him out as soon as possible. Jerome caught on quickly and played along. She had caught him by surprise when she zoomed across the space between them — which he had thought would take at least a full breath — and she did it without giving any hint with her body that she’d move to attack.
She was a dangerous one, this one.
Jerome danced around the clearing with her, always barely missing being impaled or sliced in two. Soon enough her breathing became uneven. He could see her eyes shift from intense focus to mildly dazed at his speed.
She suddenly stopped to catch her breath, increasing the space between them. Jerome saw this and halted in his path. He rushed back towards her but didn’t have the same momentum as her, since he had to stop and run the other way..
She had to back away from him this time around, her face expressing her surprise. Jerome wondered if she was expecting him to be tired after just a few dozen breaths of sparring with her.
The jokes on you, he thought with a chuckle.
She spun her sword again in that mesmerizing pattern, like a shield of sorts. And a distraction — one that was getting really annoying. But he wasn’t going to let it stop him. He took a bet and risked getting his hand cut off, aiming to snatch the sword by the blade.
She redirected her blade toward that hand with more force than he expected, leaning into the strike. Jerome quickly withdrew his hand as he moved aside, dodging the blade entirely. He extended the index and middle finger of his other hand as if to poke at her eyes. She took the bait and closed her eyes for a split second.
That was enough time to disarm her and pin her to the floor.
Jerome won. Naturally. In a way, this was easier than fighting Hedon. That fight had cost him his sanity and he had been fighting to stay sane ever since. This was his punishment. Maybe. His curse to bear.
The mind-calming stone, as he had taken to calling the stone he found, could not be depended on. He had to find his own strength to control his own emotions.
He got up in silence and walked away. The young lady he just defeated sat up in the sand breathing heavily.
“He didn’t even draw his weapon,” she muttered to herself, feeling truly defeated.
~~~
Jerome didn’t feel like a victor. He felt like he had aged centuries. The burden of keeping his emotions at bay was draining him mentally and he didn’t want to depend too much on the stone. What mattered most was his will, he thought. As long as his will was strong enough, he’d overcome his situation. But it seemed his will was not always enough to hold his emotions at bay forever. He needed somewhere to rest and meditate, somewhere he wouldn’t be disturbed.
He quickly took out his map to search. It was a good thing Rihal included the map among the things he was given. He would have been walking around blind and would have been eaten by some powerful beast by now. The only suitable place near him though was a cave inhabited by a creature more powerful than himself. One he wasn’t ready to fight yet, a Sunfire Wolf.
Jerome steeled himself in determination. If this was maybe a season ago he’d never have thought of going near such a place, but now he knew he was a lot stronger than the average Blank. Fighting and defeating the Ice-Saber had also helped see magical beasts for what they were. Although they were intelligent, it didn’t mean they were as smart as humans. Human beings could come up with many tools and strategies but the magical beast only had their strength and abilities.
The Sunfire Wolf was a magical beast that had already tapped into its bloodline powers and could use a small fraction of them. With a breath, it could roast a Blank like him into barbecue. Jerome started planning. It was faster and stronger than all the magical beasts he’d killed so far. And on top of that, it could breathe fire. It should take the coordinated attack of at least four Blanks to kill the creature, but there was only him.
He took out a bow and a quiver filled with arrows that he took off the archer who attacked him a while back. A while back? How long have I been here? Jerome thought to himself. Should be eight — maybe nine months now…two and a half seasons. He sighed. It couldn’t be helped. Vorthe was still advancing. Whoever came up with this archaic way of telling time did a really swell job. All they needed was more time — maybe a few decades.
Jerome had been practicing ever since then, whenever he had the chance and had improved a great deal. A sacred artist’s body was quite capable of so many things a normal human wasn’t. It had been less than a year since he picked up the bow, but he was sure he could thread the needle as he was. That was something only achievable by a sacred artist in such a short time, he was sure.
With practiced ease, he strung the bow and nocked an arrow. Too thin, he thought.
The arrow would snap before it could penetrate the Sunfire Wolf’s hide. And that would be a bad way to start because the Sunfire Wolf would go into survival mode. It would be able to track him…and hunt him down. Jerome shivered. The Sunfire Wolf would sense him if he got too close, so he found a tree about a thousand paces away from the mouth of its cave. The tree was tall enough that he could see almost everything around him but also close enough to other trees that he could run away if things got out of hand.
He got down from the tree to begin his search for wood strong enough to carve out good, strong arrows. After filling his storage bag, he went back to the tree and started carving arrows with a small knife he brought with him. He worked throughout the evening into the night carving arrows as big as spears out of the wood in his storage bag. When he was done, he had over two hundred arrows. He let the night lull him to sleep high up in the tree.