Chapter 11: Habits
Alabaster spun on the spot, pivoting, he scoured every inch of his surroundings, searching, praying for a glimpse of sunny gold hair.
The defensive paling must have prevented the boy from going over the edge. He couldn't have gone further into the mountains.
The man cursed himself. He should have known better than to look away even for a second!
He had forgotten the kid's tendency to disappear.
Frantically searching Alabaster panicked, There were no monsters, but if he somehow made it past the defences, there was no telling where he could be,
"Where was he? there are no tracks in the snow!
...
NO TRACKS IN THE SNOW THAT'S IT!!"
The man looked to the sky to see the sunny boy cheerfully levitating over the edge of the 5-kilometer cliff!
He was upside down, spinning turning twisting, giggling as he hovered further from the ledge.
He was 500 meters in the air at this point. No wonder he could hear the boy he was long gone!!!!!
The man had to grab him before the boy's mana ran out. The boy began to bobble. The sunny mana was already fading.
"Damn it!" yelled the man, his mind went stale his thoughts incoherent. He wasn't the type to panic,
no, he wasn't the type to care.
Yet.
The man desperately sprinted to the edge of the cliff leaping he suspended himself far into the air as if consequences didn't exist.
Fearlessly grabbing the boy and pulling him to his chest, he fell.
This height was no child's play, it was very literally bone-shattering. A height like this could puree even the most formidable man.
He was practically free-falling Mount Everest!
He flailed, trying his best to control his fall, he spun uncontrollably. He was too far from the ledge he couldn't grab it.
He had no control over the situation he tried his best to slow his descent, spreading out, trying to increase his surface area.
To no avail. Even worse, his constant flailing led to them diving blistering, plummeting to the compact ice.
They began to accelerate. The air ruthlessly slapped them on their rapid descent. The ground underneath them was turgid ice.
He fell towards the fiord.
"Why the fiord! it just had to be the fiord!" complained the man in a voice washed out by the rapid winds.
The man grasped the sunny boy tightly, trying his best to move his back toward the ground.
The boy's, sunny mana ran out, dissipating.
If the man had been any slower, the boy would have learned the concept of gravity the hard way.
The man's back began to burn as it heated his sweat flew from his face. His hair scarcely fluttered, covering his furrowed brows.
The constant fluttering snow blinded his vision, the solid ice inched closer and closer.
"Think of something damn it!" shouted the man.
He could try landing on his feet, but he would break the ice of the fiord, submerging them in freezing waters.
The man was seconds from the ground.
Sure, it was no issue for him, but he didn't wish for a sunny popsicle float.
Indeed, Alabaster can fend for himself and can kill and destroy any beast or man.
But protect? he wasn't all too experienced.
"Don't think just do!" exclaimed the man.
His mana began to cluster swirling fiercely and had started to viscously vibrate, illuminating the surroundings crimson.
The man flashed red, and a substantial blast sent him flying, blurring him out in a white flash, flying kilometers crashing into a nearby mountain shattering its base, and caving into its rigid body.
Sending shards of bolder-sized sediment soaring, striking the surroundings with an onslaught of projectiles.
Alabaster's armoured body burrowed through the jagged stone of the mountain.
The sedimented rock dusted the surroundings in a veil of dust as the man freed himself from his burrowed case of stone.
After freeing himself from the stone, he revealed his armour to be yet again heavily damaged. The explosion burned away at the thick leather of his wolf hide armour was now charred.
Its back wore thin from the impact, caused by the new cave that was dug through the base of the mountain.
The man could feel the brisk chills of the northern breeze run through his spine.
Other than his armour, he was left remarkably untouched. At least outwardly.
The man made his way to the exit of the cave grunting ever so slightly a cracking sound came from his joints as they snapped into place, regenerating his fractured skeletal structure.
His bones shattered on impact despite the barrier he placed last second.
He purposefully exploded his mana just as he did when learning magic.
In a last-second attempt to avoid swimming in the glaciated river.
Though it was a last-ditch effort, it came in clutch. It turns out knowing how to explode mana was more useful than he originally thought.
He thoroughly checked the boy in his arms, who was laughing as though he had just experienced the ride of his life.
"Who enjoys that kind of ride? It was as though he found amusement in simulated danger.
If all people were like this kid, I'd consider opening a park that simulates danger and call it amusement," joked the man.
The man made a slight smirk at the absurdity of his preposterous idea. The boy began to gasp after laughing too hard.
"I suppose it wasn't boring. We had our fun for today. Let us go home," insisted the man as he slowly regained his pace, exiting the cave.
Suddenly, the man quickly stood to attention a distant rumble came from above them.
On top of the mountain peaks, loose snow started to shift.
The impact was too great!
The initial shift of snow started a domino effect as it displaced the white sheets that covered the mountain. An avalanche started!
The tsunami of snow bolted accelerating on its descent, steaming as though it was enraged.
RUN!
The man hadn't brought his weapon, and he was enclosed by the surrounding mountains.
Attacking it would just cause more avalanches and his barriers were not at all too reliable, just yet, made apparent by his numerous shattered bones.
The man ran from the stampede of snow that chased his tail hungry to swallow him.
The sunny boy laughed at the rumbling roaring rampaging army of snow that chased them.
Alabaster had gotten ahead of the snow, accelerating at a pace that exceeded military aircraft.
Alabaster immediately stopped, turning 90 degrees and running in the other direction. As another booming avalanche raged in front of him.
But others were rushing at either side of him.
They surrounded him!
He didn't crash into a mountain. He borrowed into the raised interior edge of a massive crater.
The sunny boy was in hysterics as the 30-meter wall of snow enclosed them into an icy prison.
"This boy had a death wish!
But, I don't want to meet my ancestors just yet!" said the man with a contradicting grin.
The man loaded mass amounts of mana beneath him before launching himself in an explosion of crimson.
He skyrocketed ricocheting from the ground.
The avalanches collided, shooting a stream of high-pressure snow into the air. It was a powerful geyser of flesh-ripping flakes.
The man soared to the barren edge of the crater, clasping, clinging to the razor edge of the piercing stone.
His gloves tattered as the rock seeped into his flesh, drawing his red blood from his calloused fingertips.
The displaced snow revealed pitch-black sediment that resembled the 1000 km plains before the monster lands.
Before this crater formed, it was once a monster-infested plain.
The crater itself was humongous it could easily be mistaken for a large mountain range that ranged millions of acres in its radius.
If that wasn't enough, the irony of the matter is the man was the one who had made this colossal crater early on in his exiled life of subjugating monsters.
In a sense, he was suffering from his past success.
The man tightened his grip, leaning on the balls of his feet before leaping into the air.
Scaling the rest of the crater's enormous edge.
The man then shifted his weight on his left leg as he slid down the outer edge of the huge hole.
Like a slide, except it wore down your armour and tore the skin from your finders.
Alabaster exhaled a deep sigh of relief, reaching the base of the slope.
Before tripping on a small piece of debris from his first collision with the mammoth crater, having him tumble on his back.
The sunny boy landed abruptly on his abdomen, causing the man to let out a raspy cough.
Laying flat on the ground with the baby seated on top of his abdomen, the man of Alabaster said calmly,
"I need to teach this kid some common sense and consider investing in a leash."
The boy laughed, unaware of the threat to his free-roam capabilities.
The man stood up, trailing his journey home, dragging himself through the white plains.
His wounds bubbled, regenerating as he trudged the snowy landscape.
He hadn't been to this part of the plains in a while. No, rather, he never intended to return here.
The area was vast, riddled with similar-sized craters, all spanning a size comparable to entire cities. These craters were remnants of a cosmic battle.
As the man walked further, he crossed another colossal remnant, a skeletal structure that spanned the size of a small country.
Its enormous skull was engraved with multiple deep wounds, holes, cracks, and gashes.
Its horns were shattered, and the thing had been brutally butchered to the point its defining features were irrecognisable, but one fact remained it was humanoid and...
It WAS powerful.
The air was eerie, and the wind howled.
Alabaster didn't spare a glance walking straight past the monstrous remains unfazed and unbothered.
The sunny boy, on the other hand, couldn't be more bothered. He was infatuated by the shattered beast's overbearing aura.
"Alabaste! Alabaste! ook! ook!" The boy desperately shouted for Alabaster's attention.
Alabaster brought the sunny boy to his face and smiled softly.
"Boy, that beast was foolish and weak, not worth any of your precious attention or time."
The boy looked confused. "Eak?"
"Yes, my dear sunny boy, it was remarkably weak." The man laughed his serious expression wiped off his face by a humorous memory.
The man rested the boy on his shoulder and began to sprint as his bones fixated, making a satisfying click, finishing their regeneration.
The boy looked back to the haunting scenery, and his face widened his large sapphire eyes peeled open.
"So maney eak," exclaimed the boy.
As the man went further from the haunting hollows of craters. Countless other goliath-sized skeletons emerged from the misted vast foreground.
What had happened here?
Did the man do all of this?
What were those skeletons?
Just who was the alabaster man?
Chapter 11 fin.