A black haired young boy sits on top of a pile of bodies made from silver haired wolf like beasts, with a slightly drawn sword lying between his chest and shoulder. He breaths in the mountain’s air. By just entering the [Five Finger Mountain], he can already taste the danger and the menace in the foul air he breaths in. The air is filled with the souls of tens of thousands who died here, souls of the good as well as the bad, souls of the men and women, and sometime he can even feel the souls of children slaughtered here. His black hair dances with the wind and his face is covered in the dust of the mountain and his cloak is stained with the blood of the beasts. He is deciding, deciding whether that he should give these paralysed beasts the final blow that will ends their life.
‘I am already dead, I do not have right to take away life from something or someone unjustly, even to those who tries to harm and kill me. they still deserve a fair [Judgement]. But if they were to try and harm my loved ones, that would be another story.”
‘Kill or be killed, this is the [Law] of this mountain. [Not Guilty]’
Pushing his sword back into its scabbard. Erhart jumps down of the from the pile of body, unintentionally in corner of his eye he sees a white object falls out of his bag. Erhart does not remember that he brought such thing with him. So, instinctively he ducks down and opens it. He read:
“
Dear Erhart!
When you open this letter, you most likely have already left the village. I am sorry that I cannot bare myself to say a proper farewell to you, as I know that once I do so, I will never be able let you go away again.
Erhart, from yours eyes I can see that you are different, you have secrets that you are not willing to talk to us about, I do not blame you. When I saw your power, the power you used to hurt the rider captain. I am glad and I am also worried at the same time. Glad for, that you have the possession over such power and knowledge, maybe can even rival a true [Hero], but also worried about the dangerous path in which you will be forced into walking down with this power.
You may not know this, but to most of the villagers you are seen as the new [Hero] that we [Human] have been waiting for, for hundreds of years, and is destined to bring us back to our former glory. I don’t know what is it to you, but to me you are just a part of my family, you are my brother. I do not want to see you go down a road of so called “epic adventure”, I do not want to see you become a [Hero], as I know greater your power is, the greater the danger you will be exposed to, and I don’t want see you doing that. I don’t want see my family get hurt. I know it is selfish and Jorah and many others will be angry, if I am to ask you this. But please don’t be a [Hero].
Also, is something that others may have not told you is that none of the [Heroes] in the [Human] history lived a satisfying life, unlike what they are in the stories. Most of them are pushed not by their love, but by their hate, greed, lust and vengeance. And I do not wish you to live such life. I wish you to live a life that you would enjoy, a life that you will be happy with, a life that like what you told me long ago you would to die, but in a way, you would not regret.
Good bye, little Erhart
My little brother
Your Sister
Amelia
“
“How can one enjoy life, if one is already dead? But Sis I can promise you I will not be a [Hero]. But I do not promise you, that I will not expose myself to danger and challenges.” Erhart speaks to himself after reading the letter. He carefully folds the paper and put the letter into the pocket under his cloak.
Then he turns back and stares deep into the paralysed beasts’ eye. As he is doing so, countless thin strings made out of silver luminous light escapes from the beasts’ body flying towards Erhart and melds back into the centre of his forehead. Those are the “Blades’ Mind “, a technique, that uses both ‘Yi’, a warrior’s will and ‘Qi’ a warrior’s energy. This technique use ‘Qi’ as the base and ‘Yi’ as the modification, once hit a living creature, ‘Blades’ Mind’ will trap the creature’s conscious in an illusion constructed purely out of the user’s ‘Yi’.
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As soon as the “Blades’ Mind” are taken out of the beasts’ body. In an instant, all the beast jumps away from Erhart, leaving a gap of ten metres or so between them. in their huge yellow eyes, Erhart can see fear, a lot of fear and some confusion. Confused not only at that how can a [Human] be this powerful, but more so on why did he spare their life
“You can go now, please if you can tell your kinds to not attack me, I will greatly appreciate that. I do not mean any harm.” Erhart speaks to the beasts, despite knowing that it may not work, he did it anyway. After those words, Erhart yawns and stretches his arms and shoulders a bit. Then he turns around and keeps on walking, as if those beasts are not even there.
…….
Soon after Erhart and the beasts leaves the area, a small part of the ground begins to shake, and out of now where a child’s head worms out of the ground, spitting out some dirt and sand. The head has short flame red hair with a pair of ruby like eyes, a high cheekbone, a delicate chin combines with a slim cheek. Soon following the head, the whole person is out of the dirt. The child wears a grey cloak with woollen clothing under it. Across his body it is covered in dust. The child is about the same age as Erhart, maybe a bit young.
“That was close! If that [Human] had not been here, I would have become those things dinner.” The child speaks the thoughts out loud. “Who is he anyway, he is a very interesting [Human].”
“WAIT!” the child shouts, “COULD HE BE THE NEXT [He…” before the child can finish the sentence, the child feels a sudden sting coming from the neck. The child move the hands towards the area of the sting. Finding that he is being pricked with a needle. Suddenly, the child’s world turns black and the child faints.
“That took longer than expected.” Erhart says walking towards the child. Surprised by the fact that the child actually lasted for that long to take the needle out. As Erhart presumes the child is not one of the monsters he just fought, therefore he believes there will not be any need for him to use “Blade’s Mind” on the child. During the fight, he had with those beast, he sensed a living thing was watching him from underneath. He first thought it may be just some creatures of the mountain he is yet to encounter. But to his surprise, after his attempt to lead the creature out of its hiding by pretend to be leaving. Instead of a monster, he sees a child coming out of the ground like a worm. In which made him question his sanity more than if he was to see a giant dragon or something.
“Hope nothing more wired would ha…” Suddenly, he senses a powerful killing intention coming towards him from his back. Without further thinking Erhart begins to sprint away from the aura. He did not have time to care about the child. As soon as he feels that he is in the safe zone, Erhart turns, throwing his bag onto the ground, unleashing his sword in an instant and moves into a strong defensive stance. ‘What the killing intention is coming from that child? What happened to him?’ Erhart thinks. The child does not look a single bit like before. The child’s red hair turns into glowing white and the child’s skin is replaced with metal like green scales, two black horns grows out of the child’s head, soon rainbow coloured [Ewa] also begins to formulate around the child’s two new grown claws.
“WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS THAT?!”
Erhart have learned how most of the [Blood Transformations] looks like from the books in his old village’s library. But he had never seen something like this.
“DIE!” The child say, its voice is so loud, Erhart feels as if his eardrum is going to be ripped apart by simply listening to it. The child charge in, in just seconds, the child covers half of the ways between itself and Erhart.
“Cut.” Erhart whispers, he is not surprised by the child’s attack, as he had seen the similar trick being used by the gold helmet man once. With a slight movement of his sword, two brand new wounds appear on both of the child’s legs. The child’s movement towards Erhart did not seem to be effected greatly by such attack, with slight decrease in velocity, the child is still able charge towards Erhart. But unlike before, the rainbow coloured [Ewa] around the child’s hands begins to manoeuvre, wrapping around the child like a protective shield, yet it is still ineffective against Erhart’s sword aura. With Erhart’s second slash, the shield shatters as if it is a bubble.
With the shattering of the shield, the child finally understands that Erhart is a troublesome opponent, the child changes its pattern of attack from charging directly into an advance that involves hopping left and right. The child uses the nearby huge rocks as the platforms for launching. Each hop seems to Erhart as if the child is defying the gravity itself, but as he sees the cracks the child made on the rock each time with the jump. Erhart cannot help but to be amazed at the unimaginable physical strength the child must possesses.
‘To think, that I will be fighting Mario so early on.’ Erhart begins to focus, manipulates huge proportion of his ‘Qi’ from his dantian (elixir field, the place where Qi is theorised to be stored in) into all parts of his body. All of a sudden, in Erhart’s point of view everything seems to have become slower and all of his senses have becomes sharper and faster, he can see the dust flying in the air, the shards of rock blasting outwards each time the child’s hops, he can hear his heartbeats, he can even hear the child’s too. ‘Such hacks.’
Erhart faintly smiles, starts to move towards the child, swinging his blade as if he is doing so, cuts soon begin to appear across the child’s body one after another. Erhart’s movements become blurry, before the child even knows it, Erhart is already in front of it, making seemingly endless attacks at just a blink of an eye.
Each of Erhart’s swings that lands on child is seemingly light and powerless. Yet it is extremely fast and smooth like the water droplets. With each of slashes, cleaves and stab, it deals as much damage as possible and the energy used on one slash is also recycled and stacks onto the next. As the time goes on the child feels more and more pain, and its body begins to sustain more and more damage.
‘First sword form, with millions of hits and strikes, even droplets can crush stone. ‘
With the last attack, Erhart dashes across the child, reversing his sword and slams the wooden hilt of the sword into the child’s stomach, it may seem like a simple hilt smash, but in truth the force that is in this smash is greater than all the previous strikes combine. As the hilt makes its contact, the air around it seems to be compressed and the shock wave is emitted across the [Seven Finger Mountain]. The child is knocked back into its previous form.
…….
A huge green eye opens
…….
Trees begins to move with a huge body rises from beneath
…….
“Interesting…” the white image says, while watching Erhart fight with the child through a crystal ball.
……..
“Emmmm, so you decided to take an apprentice old friend. “a black haired young man says, his face is pale and mostly covered by his long jet black hair, slow he rises from a chair made from green bricks.
“AHHH, MY BACK!”