The walls of the cave had been painted crimson red and the ground was all but a red river. The giant pile of corpses functioned like an island that carried only me on top of it. My hair was now red unlike it had been before, I couldn't bother cleaning it. As for my clothes, they were almost nonexistent, being ripped apart by so many beasts that I could only use some of the cloth left from them to cover my private parts. My shoes had long since become so worn out that I had to throw them away, not that they could do much to protect my feet anymore.
"These damned hordes have started to increase in number again... I barely even have time to train anymore." I muttered and ripped off a leg from one of the beasts under me making blood splatter everywhere. Then I took a big bite and ripped off a piece of the flesh, it was bloody, but my whole face was already stained it, not exactly the tastiest thing to eat either. But it was either that or starve in such times, there was just not enough time if you were a rouge, and if I had taken the time to cook I would have lost way to much precious time. Besides, the mutated beasts were the most nutritious while eaten raw.
Since the strange energy had come to be I had undergone many changes, and the first was my strength, it had started shooting through the roof, no longer bound by human limits. This made me forced to change my martial arts as well, the power of my body had grown so much that most of the normal martial arts didn't work very well for me anymore. My techniques weren't that suited towards beast either, the beasts that roamed the continent were extremely large, some even reaching the height of ten meters, those were quite sparse though.
The techniques I created afterward were a lot more suitable for beasts and after many fights, I managed to tune and even improve them in many ways. Real combat was definitely the best way to hone your skills.
The martial arts I made was mostly weapon oriented, I mostly used a rather light, medium-sized sword, it focused mostly on agility and getting in uncomfortable spots for the opponent and slashing or stabbing them in their blind spots. The reason I started using swords was since fists are usually unable to penetrate the hide of beasts and give them fatal wounds.
I then proceeded to draw out the sword from one of the big corpses and slashing it in the air to remove some of the blood. Then I jumped down from the pile of bloody corpses landing inside of the rivers of blood, that reached all the way up to my ankles, walking slowly towards the depths of the cave.
When I reached the end of the cave I sat down on a big stone protruding from the ground, making the blood unable to burry it. Then I put down my sword beside me and started to absorb the energy in my surroundings, by then I was used to the pain my absorption technique caused me. I had gone for the most effective kind of technique when I was creating it as I wanted to raise my status in the world of martial ars and become one of the strongest entities among them. Even though it wasn't harmful unless you overdid it, it was incredibly painful, and that made most people decide to not use similar techniques. My determination to become strong was the only reason I could endure it at first.
When my training session was done, I was sweating profusely and breathing heavily, releasing cloudy vapor around me due to the cold environment of the cave. I laid down for a while letting my thoughts run free for a while, thinking about my past, present, and future. I tended to do this after I was worn out, just lying down, thinking about my life.
Then, while roaming around through my mind, I came across a memory, a memory I would have rather forgotten... The great disaster... A beast, the biggest of them ever seen, an ear-piercing roar that could make every other beast bow down to it and obey its orders, death, destruction, and fear.
It then went to Dan and Alvin, their bright smiles and caring personalities... I didn't want to think of what could have happened to them. We were separated at the time of the great disaster, and I had no way to know what happened to them. They were the only things that could disturb the calmness in my mind.
I was forced to stop the thoughts and quickly shot up from my rest, I didn't want to remember more of that, you had to stay calm if you wanted to survive in the anarchy of wilderness.
Leaving the cave, only stopping momentarily to rip off another piece of meat from one of the beasts, I quickly ran away from that position. If you wanted to survive, moving to different positions was crucial, and if you didn't... Well... You could only blame yourself for getting overwhelmed by hordes of beasts that would rip your body to pieces, one limb at a time.
When I had been running for a few minutes, I felt like someone or rather something was watching me. Swallowing the bloody piece of meat in my mouth I muttered, "Pray...". As you absorbed energy, all of your senses would improve, but you would also gain a sort of sixth sense that would inform you about the environment.
After another few minutes, I abruptly turned around and shot towards one of the trees and using my sword to slash right through it causing splinters to fly everywhere. Then a loud groan could be heard from behind the tree and when the tree fell a small panther-like beast with a big cut that spewed blood right next to the neck of the creature. "A weak one," I said walking toward it holding my sword in line with my leg, "But the weak, don't have the right to live in this world."
*Slash*
Blood flew everywhere and tainted the forest-scenery with the color of death as the head of the panther rolled on the ground. My sword had severed the head with almost no resistance whatsoever.
Just as I was about to leave, I felt a group of people nearing me, and this time I was sure that it was of the human kind. I had learned long ago to differentiate humans and beasts in this aspect, this, however, was only the case when talking about beings that didn't have strong stealth capabilities.
"Now this is rare..." I whispered to myself, talking to myself had become a bit of a habit. Quickly I shot from the ground landing the branch of a tall tree where I crouched down staring in the direction I felt the human group.
Finally, the group was revealed when they walked up toward the corpse and the slashed-off tree. "Told you I heard something." one of the three men in their group said, he was a burly man with a large broadsword which he carried on his back. "Oh shut it, Arnold. It's not the time for bickering right now." one of the two females in the group said. It was obvious she was the leader of the group. She had long black hair and at her waist hung a long-sword which she constantly held, always ready for any ambush that could come her way. He looked a bit dissatisfied but refrained from speaking up.
Everyone in the group wore quite fine clothes, at least in their times standard, with beasts hunting them all the time which made it hard to produce and procure clothes. Only groups that had some strength and were big could get their hands on fine clothing, so I had to be a bit cautious around them.
"It doesn't seem like it was a beast, I don't think they would just leave a corpse li-" The other girl in the group was interrupted, "It was most likely done by a rogue." A long well-built man with a spear in his hand intervened. He could be considered rather handsome, a nice face, short blonde hair with matching blue eyes, and a chiseled body. His stern expression, however, would probably chase away many interested girls.
"Do you think we should try to invite it to the group?" The girl previously interrupted asked, looking at their leader nervously.
The leader went into deep thought, and after a while, she answered, "We do need more manpower, but you have to remember that not all rogues are friendly, some will even outright kill you. We'll cast a vote, who's for it?"
Everyone in the group except the tall blond man raised their hands, "Guess we'll have to go find this person then." the leader responded. "We'll split into two groups, Alisha, Arnold, and Clive will form one group and I'll go with Lee, let's go." Then they started running around the area looking for me.
My first thought was 'Should I just kill them', but then I remembered something, "Or should I just pretend to join them and get some free clothes..." I started mumbling to myself, then, an evil-looking grin formed on my face. 'Guess I'll just go test them out first, haven't sparred against a human in over a month anyways.'
I quickly ran past the group of two without them noticing and placed myself on a big boulder in a clearing that was in their path while searching for me.
They soon came to the clearing and saw me sitting there. The boy, who's name was Lee, was stunned seeing me and then started blushing like crazy, I was after all almost half-naked.
"Never seen a woman before kid?" I chuckled a bit, there weren't a lot of guys that were so pure in such times. The woman then walked forward and looked at me seriously, "We would like for you to-" She was cut off mid-sentence as I rushed toward her with the sword in my hand slashing at her, she managed to pull out her sword just in time to block the blow coming for her neck. Of course, I held back, otherwise, her head would have been on the ground before she could even think.
By the time I had finished my slash Lee came back from his daze realizing the seriousness of the situation. He seemed to be, like me, focused on speed. He tried to rush behind as fast as he could so that I would be surrounded, I just let him past me and slashed another time towards the leader. She managed to block it again but was thrown back a bit due to the force of the impact, she then made a pained grimace and dropped her sword.
I then raised my sword toward the sky, pretending to prepare my final blow to her. That immediately got the attention of the boy and he wielded his crescent moon-like knuckle-blades to make two outward-going slashes directed at my spine, but just as he was about to hit me I dodged at such a high speed that he was unable to keep up with me and appeared behind him with a kick going for the back of his head.
After I hit him, he flew and landed at the leader making the leader forced to push him to the side. But just as she had gotten him off her she had a blade directed toward her face. "I'll join." I said calmly.
"Uhm... What...?"