Chapter 49: Balon
On the upper level of an enormous cave, sat a brawny, burly man. Well he was no man for he was only fifteen, but with the height and weight the youth commanded, he would have been frequently mistaken for an adult. And he should have been, if not for the veil hiding his true appearance.
The veil hid the true appearances of all the royal descendants. It was a means for them to not be killed off too quickly by rival kingdoms and empires. Assassins murdering birds who had just left the nest was a common occasion for the lineage that shared the tradition of “the strong rule” and “take what is truly yours.”
Yet while the draconic lineage wanted bloody, brutal and unrestrained ambition from their heirs, they did not want them dying as soon as they left. A lion had to grow…yet the kingdom would not feed them. It was up to them to feed themselves. It was paradoxical in a sense.
The royal draconic descendants were educated and trained all their lives before being pushed out into the world at fourteen. Yet even when they were pushed out to find opportunity and strength for themselves, many boons were given to them. Some official and some in secret. The three protection magics given to each descendant were one such blessing.
It was a great blessing to keep them alive…except they did not activate unless in the presence of a power that matched a flame sage or a true dragon. If anyone below that power attacked them, even if the descendant was on the verge of death the spell would not activate.
Luckily though…many of them were given gifts in secret. Balon thought of his sister Kaerys, who’s bloodline was so pure that she was born an adept. Diamond scales and glowing golden eyes from when she was just a babe. The girl had to push down her blood so her eyes would not start to glow through the veil.
Balon knew that the golden girl must have been given a ton of blessings in secret. Renna and Aela, his two other sisters were probably also given quite a sum. Renna for sure, while Aela…her own family should have given her quite the amount of accessories so that she would perform well. The way they viewed her was…somewhat the same as his family viewed him.
The four siblings had the same father but different mothers, having different families and lineages that each treated them differently. Their father had sired so many children that he only knew his sisters because of his uncle. Whether their father loved any of them though, none of the children knew for sure. Well, except Kaerys. That one probably knew she was loved by…most.
Twiddling with a red ruby ring, he thought of himself in the grand scheme of it all. The sisters were given secret assets but here he was, fiddling with a ring that didn’t shoot laser beams out of its red jewel or manifested magical powers that healed him when he was dying. You know…he swore he even saw Renna with a magical mirror that previewed the appearance of her hair if she dyed it…
The only valuable thing he had was this ring. While it did nothing for him he remembered it as his first real gift. Unfortunately the boy was too young to think too much about the kindness. Instead he just really liked how shiny it was. Ever since that day, Balon was introduced to the world of material possessions.
A new found determination welled up inside him. Even if he had nothing he was going to have everything. If strength was the currency for possession then he would become the strongest. All that he did, it was all for himself. If no one was going to give him anything then he would give to himself, the world.
As of currently, he was enjoying himself on a natural ledge in an enormous open cavern. The same cavern where the makeshift colosseum and gladiator fights took place. While he could have sat upon the tallest peaks of Redrock Canyon, he chose to be here because of the resemblance to a place he was quite fond of.
Kaerys, Aela and Renna were given the choice to pick servants and warriors to add to their fighting force. Granted none of them could be elite warriors. They all had to be at Novice rank and Enhanced rank in terms of strength. Balon also had servants but he did not start out with any of them. He was simply kicked out of the house alone, to claw for any opportunity that he could grasp.
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In the beginning, Balon went out into the world with high hopes. No servants? No warriors? No problem, he had himself. Only a few days later however, he found himself in an enormous dark cavern such as this. Through a series of unfortunate events he looked through bars of steel to find himself in a cage suspended in the air. A chain was attached to the ceiling of the cavern, and everytime he moved his hefty body the cage would swing left and right. It made him a little nauseous but this should be fine…if only he wasn't three hundred feet in the air.
This was back then, when Balon was simply a Novice. Being three hundred feet up above the ground could still kill him if he fell. The worst part was not his living conditions however. Awoken to his new life, he waited in the air until someone would tell him what they wanted from him and quickly, he got his answers.
A buzzing sound filled Balon’s ears as he tried desperately to sit still and not swing the cage. What met him when he peered down towards the ground however, almost gave him a heart attack. The buzzing sound was a gigantic flying insect that was currently heading towards him. It had five eyes, cockroach-like wings, a set of three maws that held razor sharp teeth and drooled acidic spit, and the most prominent feature, the insect’s scythe-like claws.
Balon's heart dropped.
‘Ah. I am going to be eaten.’
But in the next moment the creature deftly unlocked the cage and held him in its arms like a princess. The large insect man— or woman— he was not quite sure, put him gently on the ground facing another regular human. The fellow prisoner madly lunged at him with his fists and Balon put to use his knowledge of martial arts to the test.
Unforeseen to the insect crowd, the large adult man was beaten black and blue by the obviously smaller youth. Balon too however was riddled with bruises, but in the end it was he who remained standing while his opponent was face down on the ground unconscious.
The same large insect creature came back to pick Balon up. More gentle than ever, it caressed Balon in its arms and jumped into the air once more to put him back in the sky cage. As Balon was lifted off the ground, a different insect creature came towards his beaten opponent, obviously furious at his pathetic performance. In the next moment, the insect creature brandished its scythe-like claws into the air, and performed a skilful series of slashes.
SLICE! SLICE! SLICE! SLICE?
The creature questioned its actions for a moment.
SLICE!
Balon saw as the defeated man quickly became a corpse. Each slash separated an arm, a leg and finally the man’s head. The creature then held the head of the man through the deft precision of its claws, and carved out a perfect presentation of his pink brain. It was like a master chef cutting the skin of a watermelon so skillfully that only red remained and green was nowhere to be seen.
The creature bit into the defeated man’s brain and stared at Balon dead in the eye as he/she continued to eat it.
From that moment on, Balon madly drove himself to become stronger so that he would never lose. Fight after fight he struggled with humans that became stronger and stronger. Balon wondered to himself where the fuck these insects got all these strong fighters, and why each and everyone of them including himself only knew how to use their fists.
There was not one human, mutated or pure, who knew how to use precise energy techniques that resulted in outward manifestation. Things like fireballs, lightning strikes, or water manipulation were never seen. Day in, day out it was fist fight after fist fight.
Frequently, that same goddamned insect who's fighter he defeated would come to challenge him over and over with physically stronger and stronger humans. Luckily Balon was Balon and never lost once, also only getting stronger and stronger as time went.
The youth did the only thing he knew how to, and tapped into his bloodline. The thing he needed most was to endure the blows of his foes, so he grew a natural endowment to the ridiculous defense of his body. Once he reached the body cultivation level of Strengthened, he burst out of his cage in the dead of night and landed like a falling anvil on the ground.
The first thing he did however was not escape, but head towards his nemesis, that goddamned rival insect that frequently tried to defeat him with fighters. Balon fought a horde that quickly became a swarm of nightmarish scythe-claw insects. The creatures slashed at him but they did little to hinder him. Some cut him but most could only scratch him.
Finally when he found his archnemesis, he found that his caretaker was protecting him. It seemed the two were brothers…or sisters. Seeing Balon’s strength the creature performed a weird set of movements, pleading for Balon to forgive his brother/sister in hopes that his/her care for him would make him sentimental.
Balon took a moment, before smashing both of their heads into meat juice. Just thinking of how many eyeballs he ate and the gallons of pink goo that he had to drink to sustain himself was disgusting. Unfortunately he had to eat a few more when he was navigating the underground maze to reach the surface. Once he got to the surface, an ever present fog kept him lost, until he forced a stray griffith to fly him out of the area.
It was only a month later that Balon learned of the region he was kept a fighting beast in.
Sev The Phantom, a famous explorer, detailed that this part of the foglands held an indigenous race with scythe-like claws. Amused by the human race that did not have such sharp limbs, they grew a fascination with the race that hit each other with blunt appendages in an effort to kill one another. Hence, keeping human pets to fist fight each other.
Reflecting on his experiences, Balon quickly came to the conclusion that strength was indeed everything.