Days passed like this,
Keith and Nessa made progress on their journey during the day and rested at night.
Currently, they were facing off against a wild boar, while covered in blood. This boar was twice the size of a normal human, it had fur that almost looked metallic and could hardly be penetrated. It didn't make much difference even when they used their vital force to increase the power of their attacks.
This was the first time they had encountered such a monsterous beast over the course of four days of their travel.
"Ouhh!" The boar with brown metallic fur roared as it charged towards Nessa.
Nessa utilized the vital force in her body and quickly retreated.
"Haaa!" Keith let out a roar as he thrust his axe onto the wild boar. But in return, the boar only got more furoius.
Yanked its head at Keith, causing him to spurt blood.
'Didn't even scratch it.'
Nessa looked at Keith and understood what his next idea.
They both charged together at the boar as fast as they could by utilizing their vital force.
Keith swung his axe, the muscles of both of his arms buldging.
Judging by insticnt, the boar concluded that the boy's strike had more strength put into it, so naturally it chose to defend against the boy first.
"Ha!" Nessa gripped her dagger and let her vital force flow through her arm, soon dagger and pierced the eye of the boar.
"Gaah!" The boar roared in pain for the first time in this fight and started to move its body frantically to get the duo away from him.
But it wasn't so easy.
Keith took the chance and pierced the boar's other eye with his steel like finger.
*Bam*
The boar's frantic strike struck Keith and sent him flying away, only stopping by crashing onto a tree a few meters away.
'Argh!'
The boar hadn't died yet and continued to charge in random directions.
It completely destroyed a tree with just one hit.
Seeing this, Nessa and Keith didn't dare to make a sound while walking to a safe spot and looked at the boar in a daze.
They both looked at each other, Keith let out a ery smile while Nessa maintained a grim expression.
'If we hadn't cultivated till the second layer and were rank 2 warriors, we would definitly have died.'
They made an agreement to not pick fights recklessly from now on.
"Now, take this."
Nessa took out a pouch with a strange liquid inside it, it purple in colour, however, gave off a scent similar to blood. This was a low grade vitality potion, or so was it called by their father.
"No, no, no, sister, I don't need them." Although this potion could help him in his recovery, he didn't feel the need to take this, he smiled and said, "Remember, we are at the second layer of the 'Crystal Bones' warrior tactic, we don't need to use potions to heal such superficial injuries."
"Superficial? Superficia! You call broken bones 'superficial'?" Nessa felt her head ache a little, "I don't care whether your body can heal on its own or not, we have to know that this is a jungle. We both need to be at our top conditions to survive and reach our destination."
"No, we have a limited supply of them. Trust me, I will be healed by the next morning...and didn't father say that getting your bones broken is a good thing if you cultivate this tactic, think, my bones can become tougher if I only let them recover naturally." He said with an adamant expression.
They were given the potion by their father a day before he died. They had only three of these with them right now.
...
A month passed like this,
After the battle with the boar, they understood how dangerous real fights could be, and so, they actively avoided getting near the animals they thought were dangerous.
However, for some unknown reason, the beasts didn't think this way and took an aggressive stance as soon as they even felt the presence of the duo.
This left Keith and Nessa perplexed. According to what Gerrad had said, leaving a few dangerous zones, this area should have been relatively safe. The duo even thought that they had lost their way. They wanted to go back but it was now too late.
Since they tarvelled during the day and slept during the night, they didn't get much time to cultivate, however, they could still feel their foundation getting
sturdier and fighting technqiues more refined due to the constant battles and breaking so many bones.
Currently, Nessa was sitting with Keith lying next to her inside a cave filled with corpses of wild bears.
"Don't move, you're injured, again. Why don't you let me fight first?" Nessa was scolding her little brother in a hushed voice.
To this, Keith replied only with his silence. After a while, he said, "I'm sorry, sister, but you use a dagger as a main weapon, how can you fight those beasts head on? Even if you did, you'd be at a disadvantage."
Nessa didn't say anything but only showed a pained expression.
"...No, it's my fault for choosing a wrong weapon." Nessa mumbled.
"No, that's not it!" he paused a little, took a deep breath and said, "You chose a dagger because it suited you the most, if you chose some other weapon, then you may not have made this much progress in your fighting techniques."
"But-"
"I will not hear it."
Nessa was cut-of mid-sentence by Keith, and then, they both fell silent.
...
A few hours later,
Keith was lying on the rocks, but had his head on his sister's lap. He slowly opened his eyes from his sleep and looked at his older sister who had fallen asleep while sitting next to the wall of the cave.
"I just want to protect you." He murmured.
In a few breaths of time, he closed his eyes and once again fell asleep.
Inside his dream.
He was walking together with his father and older sister inside a tunnel.
He could feel the tender warmth of his caring sister as she held his hand, as if not wanted to let him go.
"Where...are we?"
No one gave an answer and they all simply continued walking.
Soon, the tunnel ended and they reached the exit.
Now, infront of them was an wasteland and nothing aside from it.
He didn't notice when his father stopped, and soon, only him and his sister were left in the vast wasteland.
Keith felt a sense of loss but couldn't say anything and kept walking.
Little by little, his pace decreased and his sister no longer held his hand.
'No, Don't leave me!' He wanted to scream, but no sound was made. He wanted to run, but felt his steps becoming heavier snd heavier with each passing breath.
'No...please, don't leave.' It felt hard to breathe. It felt almost impossible to walk any further. Soon, he fell on his knees, feeling helpless for the first time in his life.
'Do you want power?' It felt as if someone whispered in his ear.
He didn't know what to say.
'Do you want to stay close to the one's whom you love?'
He didn't understand what was going on.
His sight was filled with complete darkness...no, it felt as if this darkness had a shape, and a soul.
'Become my servant, and whatever you want, you will get.'
He didn't know whether it was the right choice or not, but he knew what he wanted.