There was something Leo had no control over. The power of nature was out of his grasp and right after gaining a ray of hope he was hit with a horrifying revelation – the ocean stream was carrying his boats past the island and if by paddling he could effortlessly get to it, then by doing nothing he had no chance of ever getting close.
There was a moment when Leo courageously clenched the branch intending to try and break through the encirclement, but right then one of the beasts rose above the water so high Leo could directly look in its glassy watermelon sized eye.
Needless to say he remained squatted and only kept stealthily scooping water from both boats with a large leaf. Of course, Leo felt his soul dying a little bit every time he glanced at the island he was passing by, but there was nothing he could really do and it was especially painful because he drifted by for almost half a day.
Fortunately the beasts weren’t too persistent and when the island with the teleport was long out of sight, right before the night fell they suddenly vanished. It could’ve had something to do with the small island Leo was washed ashore to, but he didn’t care. He sat in the rain on the beach and only his father’s rule ‘the Renaud family men never cry’ prevented him from hysterically weeping.
Indeed, Leo was a man from the Renaud family and his depression didn’t last for too long. After spending half of the night complaining to the heavens about his terrible fate, he realized that the solution to his situation was laughably simple and the only problem was – he’ll have to eat raw oysters for a few days.
While the island he was currently on was small without any greenery and the most interesting things around it were few reefs, there was an abundance of mollusks as well as endless supply of freshwater coming from the above.
When the rain stopped and the sun finally battled its way through the thick clouds, Leo got back in the boats and with a wide grin across his face rowed back into the ocean. At this point he couldn’t understand why it took him so long to remember that the ocean stream changed directions according to the season and all he had to do now was to ride the waves back until he hit the sand on the island with the tall mountains.
He also made a small improvement in his tactics. Since the weather was clear he could see his goal in the distance already the moment he departed, therefore he did his best to guide the two boats in a way he couldn’t miss the island even if he stopped paddling.
While this strategy was kind of a plan ‘b’, the return of the huge beasts made it the only viable plan. Either it was another coincidence or they were waiting for him intending to scare the poor boy to death, they appeared not long after Leo had set the boats on the right course.
Now when the rain stopped, Leo could clearly observe the dark over thirty feet long beasts lazily moving around in the blue ocean water, but it only increased his stress. The fact that these turned out to be enormous lizards made the things even worse and he began to think it was some kind of a karmic payback or the two small ones who got away back then complained to their elderly about the merciless human who performed genocide on their kin. They seemed to be of a similar color after all.
There was no other way, but for Leo to return to the previous tactics. He squatted down pretending to be invisible and prayed none of the lizards would bump into the boats on accident or on purpose. The large island was coming closer and closer, and if the stream would continue to carry Leo in the current direction he would definitely not pass it this time.
When the distance to the coast was less than hundred yards, the lizards stopped playing around or rather – they changed their game. All three slowly positioned themselves between Leo and the coast and one that seemed to be the biggest of the three slowly opened its floodgate sized mouth, full of fancy foot long teeth.
In horror Leo watched how waves rather swiftly kept bringing him closer and closer to the inevitable death, but then had to face the fact that the three reptiles were playing with him all this time.
“F*ck you, bitches!” He loudly cursed when there were only few yards left between them and began to energetically paddle to a side.
He was a man from the Renaud family and he didn’t intend to go down without a fight or in this case – without an attempt to flee.
Lizards acted as well, but very differently from what Leo expected. All three of them suddenly began to chaotically splash around while loudly hissing and trashing the water surface with their tails. They twisted and turned showing agility that didn’t fit their size, but at the same time for some reason never moved from the spots they were at.
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This ‘attack’ was not only strange, but also seemed to be overly exaggerated since a single tail smack could throw Leo in the water and even if one of them swallowed him together with the boats, Leo doubted it would notice the splinters between its huge teeth. Sadly he was too busy trying to stay afloat in the chaotic waves the three lizards created to notice what exactly was wrong with them. Obviously such behavior was abnormal, but Leo had more important things to worry about.
Only after madly escaping for three or four breaths of time Leo noticed that the splashes behind him had died down and when he glanced over the shoulder the branch he was paddling with almost fell from his hands seeing the unbelievable sight.
The spot where just few moments ago floated three proud members of the reptile family had now become something similar to a kettle of hot oil after chef threw in some dumplings. The blue ocean water had turned salad green from the lizard blood and was seemingly boiling, forming large amounts of green foam.
Although curious, Leo wasn’t bothered with the fate of the lizards and used this opportunity to get to the shore as fast as possible. Only after stepping on a solid ground he turned back to take a look, but apart from the huge green stain on the water surface there was nothing that remained from the three monsters.
While the small human was slightly perplexed, the three rank six blackfin gila matriarchs died in regret. By playing around too much they forgot about the most hated inhabitants of these waters. Razortooth piranhas were the menace that practically had no natural enemies and despite them being a regular palm sized fishes and not ranked beasts, they were at the very top of the food chain around here.
Their only weakness was the hate for the pitter-patter of the rain that made them migrate to the depths of the ocean for whole ten days. But during the sunny season they surfaced and feasted on every living thing that dared to swim in the proximity of the large island. Fortunately this was the only place they hung around and their habitat never expanded beyond a mile from here. This also was the reason why Leo ‘met’ the large beasts for the first time only during the night when the ocean stream had already carried him far away.
Even though the large lizards were gone, Leo didn’t feel much safer. By now he guessed that the deep ocean hid monsters that were not only dangerous in the water. Of course, if he could get to the teleportation platform he would almost feel like home, but the problem he currently had was the inability to scale the vertical cliff wall right in front of him. In addition, he clearly knew he was on the wrong side of the island as well.
Without any wish to step in the water or in any kind of boat, Leo began to hike along the shore. The yard and a half wide beach was wide enough for a person to walk but the waves washing over his feet kept reminding he still had a long way to go.
It was much slower to walk comparing to paddling along the ocean stream, but at least he got to have breakfast along the way in form of raw oysters. The bottle in the backpack was practically full and Leo knew he had to rely on the small brook by the teleportation platform for the future water supply. That also meant he had to get there as soon as possible.
He had no clue how the place looked like after the disaster struck it and whether the brook was actually still there, but the logic dictated that the freshwater coming from the mountain had to go somewhere and in the worst case scenario he would have to find where that ‘somewhere’ was.
The sun was already setting when Leo finally got to the place where the landslide hit the ocean all those months ago. At least it looked like it by the piles of rocks forming a natural jetty or breakwater.
He didn’t rush right up though. The long walk provided Leo with enough time to think things over and make plans. Climbing the steep and slippery cliff wall to only fall on the rocks below and break the spine was not one of them.
Leo had spent many months in this mortal world and to die because of being impatient right when he was about to leave was a stupid thing to do. He picked a large, flat rock further away from the water and sat down to spend the night. After taking a small sip from the bottle he began to cultivate and opened eyes only when the sun came up.
Once again, Leo didn’t rush. He walked along the shore and had breakfast while inwardly cursing all the raw food in the world. Somehow he managed to find one reason after another to postpone climbing the mountain. If he was honest with himself, he had to admit he was kind of afraid to get up there and find that the teleportation platform had been thoroughly destroyed without any chance of him getting back.
In the end he gathered all the willpower he had and began to inspect the steep slope, trying to pick the best route for the climb. But then something white between some rocks at the very bottom drew his attention.
Leo took few steps closer and stared in disbelief for a moment, but then began to loudly cheer, “Hahaha! Yes! Finally!”
While the white thing he noticed from the distance were finger bones, those were not the cause for the celebration. The object they were wrapped around though, was. Leo clearly remembered seeing this particular sword handle those months ago and at the time it was Brandon’s property. Fortunately now it finally had a new and better owner.
Getting the sword from under the rock pile turned out to be much harder than expected. In addition, the hand holding the handle for some reason refused to let it go even though the owner had long passed away. In the end Leo somehow managed to pull the sword out although he got a bone hand as an extra gift. The last part, of course, he didn’t need and with a bit of struggle tore off one finger after another and freed the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life. He finally had his own sword!
After throwing the hand in the ocean, Leo began to inspect his new possession lovingly caressing the dirty scabbard. It wasn’t anything fancy and the scaled black leather was probably not too expensive, but in Leo’s eyes it was perfect. He didn’t like all those incrustations and gemstones the other people used to decorate their swords with and this simple but beautiful craftsmanship was spot on for his taste.
“Don’t worry! Even if you are rusty, I’ll get you all cl…” Leo whispered while pulling the sword out of the scabbard, but to his shock it didn’t even have a speck of dust on it, to not speak about rust.
“Hahaha!” Leo wildly laughed and jumped to his feet. He pointed the sword to the sky with both his hands and shouted, “Thank you, Brandon! I’ll take good care of it! Hahaha!”