A terrifying roar resounded through the Southern Rainforest. Three teenagers seemed to be coordinating to suppress a vicious beast. Their blurring forms were dashing around the enormous boar and while the three of them were among the best of their peers, they were clearly struggling against the animal.
While it was a vicious beast, the animals of the rainforest were known for their keen intellect, even at the lower stages of evolution. It was hard to discern the figures of the teens as they moved explosively in this rare opening of the forest, every time their feet landed on the floor, they would be forced to pause for a moment.
They were using a commonly taught application of spiritual energy taught to any martial artist raised by the Factions of Langerhans city. Two of the figures were young men clothed in red body suits, due to this, it was clear that they were from the Fire Faction. The third figure belonged to a young man wearing a green t-shirt and brown shorts.
While the two in red were clearly struggling to avoid the charges of the wild boar, if they had the time to focus on their begrudging teammate, they would be terrified to find that his face only flashed with difficulty when he felt that one of the others may be looking at him. At other times he would relax and watch the pitiful scene in front of him.
The two disciples from the Fire Faction had been exploring the wilderness, trying to kill vicious beasts. There were also spiritual roots and herbs in the rainforest, however they grew much deeper in the wilderness and could only be found by Dispersion level masters. They had felt unbelievably lucky to find a Wood Faction disciple whose spiritual energy seemed to be on par with their own. While the Fire Faction was renowned for it's combat prowess, they couldn't compare to the Wood or Water Faction when it came to the spiritual art of restoration.
On the assumption that this Wood Faction disciple would serve as a portable medicine kit, they'd moved to restrain him and make him follow their demands. Who would've thought that the person they ran into was the man 'revered' as the Forever Flowering King.
They instantly realised that not only would they not be receiving any type of auxiliary healing, it would also be nigh on impossible to kill him in order to quickly resolve the potential disputes brought about by their domineering approach.
Before they could come to an agreement between themselves a boar from within the rainforest charged out and began to attack them.
After attempting to attack the Forever Flowering King and use him as bait, they begrudgingly agreed that even if he was broken in terms of the Wood Faction's speciality, an elite O.D still had capabilities. Dashing for a while towards the city, they reached the clearing that would seemingly become their graves if they lost focus for a moment.
They had hoped to co-ordinate with the Flowering King but his cold face showed them that he wouldn't be forgiving their transgression, regardless of what they believed to be mutually shared mortal danger.
At this point, an almost imperceptible flash of ridicule crossed the King's face. He chuckled as he suddenly raised his speed, no longer pausing to propel himself forward nearly as frequently as the other two. He dashed to the boar's blind spot imperceptibly. Once martial artists began using low restriction body techniques it would already become impossible for the human eye to see them, let alone these young experts that trained daily.
However, the young man had moved without using any spiritual energy, if any of the older City members had seen this, they would be sure the young man had eaten a rare herb. This is to say, his speed when using just his physical body was much faster than the other two youths.
After taking a moment to survey the plain, the young man in green dashed at the youth the boar wasn't currently chasing, he appeared in front of him like a ghost and lashed out at the left side of the youth's stomach. The young man from the Fire Clan instantly flushed white, he'd been absolutely focused on avoiding the vicious beast, he never imagined that the broken O.D of the Wood Faction would have time to attack him so viciously.
He tried to force the spiritual energy in his reservoirs to rotate and disperse into his body faster. However, he'd already been in a desperate situation and the sneak attack had been launched perfectly and decisively.
He expected to be sent flying, at worst he could use the force to propel himself, he'd never to expect the blow to come to a screeching halt. Before he could even feel relieved, the slow moving fist made contact, he saw the Wood Faction's characteristic green coloured spiritual energy form around the fist and enter his body instantaneously.
Before he could even contemplate what had happened, the youth who'd appeared like an angel of death disappeared as quickly as he'd appeared, not even sparing the young man another glance. By this time the boar had turned around and dashed towards him again.
Before it'd reached halfway through the clearing a green flash passed it making the vicious beast stop in it's tracks. Vicious beasts had fierce instincts which were heightened by their spiritual energy. Something moving so quickly that it couldn't sense caused even this low level beast to pause.
The green flash landed behind the other Fire Faction youth and repeated the same confusing action before disappearing into the rainforest. The two youth's were dumbstruck, The Forever Flowering King was seen as a wasted talent that ranked in the lower half of the Wood Faction's O.Ds based on his cultivation, he was reputed for his inability to heal and a restrictive abnormality in his recent cultivation speed. They'd never imagined he'd move in a way that could only be compared to their Faction's elders, but had seemingly done nothing.
They didn't have much time to ponder on this as the vicious beast had also seen the green light disappear. It immediately dashed towards the closest red clothed youth. The youth began to rotate his spiritual energy through his body but found that the energy in his innate core was erratic and beyond his control. Before he could even question why such a thing happened, the boar was upon him and collided with him without mercy. This time the youth did go flying and he left a string of red blood snaking through the air to prove it.
The other youth saw this and attempted to use this time to turn and flee. However, the boar was just so much faster than him on the flat plains and he'd been standing in the middle. Usually through application of his spiritual force he should still have been able to just about reach the dense foliage before the beast reached him. However, like the disciple before him he found that his spiritual energy was erratic and moving outside of his control. Due to this, he'd only traveled a few meters before the wild boar unmercifully collided with his back. A grim crunching sound resounded before he was propelled into a tree at the edge of the opening, twitching while bubbles of blood flowed out of his mouth.
The beast slowly walked towards its newest prize, knowing the other prize was definitely dead; and was about to play with the dying young man. However, as it leisurely trotted over, a green flash crossed the plains from behind the boar, the Flowering King had returned and lashed out once again. This time however, his fist didn't slow down and collided with a bang against the bony area on top of the boar's tail. The animal shrieked as it was propelled in the same direction it had previously sent the second Fire Faction disciple, however it was propelled directly through 3 small trees before it landed with a crunch.
The green flash came to a halt in front of the fleshy mass that had been the vicious beast. The young man frowned to himself, while he'd toyed with the two other young men they were still Fire Faction disciples. The Fire Faction specialized in combat and produced the most vicious martial artists. As such, they'd be hunting often, usually close to the city. The sounds of the trees crashing especially would have the potential to attract other wilderness explorers.
He plunged his arm into the fleshy mass in front of him and pulled out a small dark red sack. He grimaced as he did the action, while it was easy, he'd always hated rooting through things like this. Then he flashed over to the other two bodies and retrieved a few sacks which were slightly smaller than the one he'd retrieved from the boar.
While they wouldn't be useful for the next few days, as long as everything went to plan he'd soon rid himself of that god-awful nickname and return to schedule. While he allowed himself to bask in self glory, he soon sensed spiritual fluctuations a few hundred meters away. Grinning to himself while suppressing the playful voices in his head, he flashed into the foliage in the opposite direction of the energy fluctuations.
A group a young men that looked to be around 20 years old arrived moments later. They looked around the plain and their faces turned white.
The youth that had arrived first began to shake with rage.
'F*ck!' His shout resounded through the rainforest. A short distance away, the young man in green suppressed the urge to laugh before disappearing off silently towards the city.
....