In the Mountain of Magical Monsters and beside a spring, Renji dressed his wounds as he started to absorb earth elemental essence to heal. The ever-so-benevolent Mother Earth is always so kind and selfless. Standing on the earth, Renji felt his wounds heal bit by bit, and his heart slowly be filled with peace. By now, Renji had already exchanged backpacks. His own backpack was far inferior to the assassin's in both quality of leather and workmanship. Furthermore, the inside of the assassin's backpack was highly methodically arranged. After the lock was tightened, all the things in the backpack were securely fixed, and this backpack would by no means hinder the movements at all. The black dagger of the assassin was equally sharp, and Renji felt that it was not very tiring to use.
"Whoosh! " With a flicker, Renji's body moved, and suddenly he vanished into the mountain forests. Renji didn't even bother to pay any attention to magical beasts of the first or second ranks. The most commonly seen beasts were of the third and fourth ranks. But should he run into a Magical Beast of the fifth rank, well, Renji was confident in at least giving them a good tussle. Drawing deeper and deeper into the mountain ranges, Renji met with one bloody, cruel battle after another; he experienced many ambushes and assassination attempts. Until now, all these battles had left Renji's body with more and more wounds and scars, while his spirit became tougher and tougher.
These life-and-death battles made Renji's mind tougher and his actions merciless.
In the blink of an eye, a month had passed since Renji had entered the Mountain of Magical Monsters.
A month later, at the top of a big tree next to a mountain spring. There was an obvious, long scar on the left side of his face. Renji's back was arched, and he lay in ambush like a panther at the top. Right now, Renji was hidden in the middle of many leaves, staring at the ground dead ahead. Only about a dozen feet away from the tree that Renji was hiding behind was a small creek, and drinking water from the creek was a strongly-built Bloodthirsty Battleswine.
A single blood-colored horn protruded outwards from above the Battleswine's nose, and muscles bulged all along its body, like the gnarled roots of a tree.
Bloodthirsty Battleswine, magical beast fifth rank, fire-element! "This Bloodthirsty Battleswine has tough thick skin. Its defenses are extremely powerful. The earth spear techniques probably won't be able to pierce its skin." Renji suddenly grasped something, and a plan began to take shape in his mind. Suddenly, his lips moved silently as he whispered the incantation of the spell wordlessly. Slowly, wind elementals around Renji swirled about him, consolidating into a bluish, translucency javelin before him.
The point of the see-through javelin had whirlwinds of wind dancing around it.
Wind-style spell of the fifth rank–Galecry! "Whoosh!" A whistling sound could be heard as the Galecry javelin streaked downwards with incredible speed. In the same moment, Renji jumped down from the crown of the tree, vaulting downwards with as much speed as the javelin. At the sound of this, the Bloodthirsty Battleswine stopped drinking water and stared up, but the Galecry javelin was too fast.
In the blink of an eye, it had covered the distance between them and was now only a few meters away from the Battleswine.
Its speed was really frighteningly fast, its tip covered with gusts of wind.
Grrrr!" The Battleswine of Bloodlust howled in anger; it used its horn above its snout to strike with all its might at the Galecry javelin.
"Crash!" The javelin formed from the Galecry spell crashed directly onto the horn of the Bloodthirsty Battleswine. The Galecry javelin immediately dissipated, but at the same time, after taking a hit from a spell of the fifth rank, the Battleswine couldn't help but half-kneel from the force of the blow, with a bloody scar appearing on its forehead as well.
"Woosh!" Before the Battleswine could even react, right behind the Galecry javelin was Renji, who with all his might, struck down at the center of the head of the Battleswine with his newly acquired black dagger. The dagger went right through the skull of the Battleswine and as if it did, Renji immediately dodged. "Roar!" The most critical point of the Bloodthirsty Battleswine was stabbed, and it roared furiously. Flames began to arise on its body as well, and it also began charging forward without regard for anything. However, it collapsed after rushing a few dozen meters. Its four legs quivered a few times before coming to a stop, and all of the fire on its body began to die as well. "Among all the magical beasts of the fifth rank, not much different from the Vampiric Iron Bull, the Bloodthirsty Battleswine is considered to be a rather unintelligent beast." Renji walked to the body of the Battleswine, pulled out his dagger, and pulled out the magicite core from inside the Battleswine's body.
Thinking of what had happened in the Mountain of Magical Monsters recently, Renji was unable to deny that his real fighting strength had grown by leaps and bounds even though he was still a fifth-rank magus and a fourth-rank fighter.
After several life-and-death struggles, scars were all over his body, which symbolized the painful lessons learned during this month.
Especially… A very terrifying wound had cut through his chest. That time he really faced death's door. In the end, it was the small Umbramouse again that saved the day. This wound was not given to him by a magical beast. This is given by an extremely adorable girl. "Earlier, I really trusted her.". I had really thought that all her friends were killed, and she was the only one remaining, injured and alone." Renji recalled a memory from two weeks ago and again shivered with fear. That girl seemed so kind, so innocent. When Renji found that girl, three other men and another girl had died. Only she was there, full of fear. Renji couldn't help but go comfort her, help her, take care of her. That girl seemingly suffered a huge mental blow.
Every night, she insisted that Renji held her in his arms, as only in Renji's arms did she feel safe enough to fall asleep.
Every night, upon seeing the peaceful look on her face when going to sleep, Renji felt joy in his heart. Thus, three days came to pass. On the fourth night, she once again slept quietly in Renji's bosom. But suddenly this cute girl pulled out a dagger and stabbed directly into Renji's chest, with Renji caught totally off guard. Then the enraged Echo had suddenly, bizarrely, doubled in size. His huge jaws bit off her head with one single bite, instantly killing her. And then Echo shrank back to normal.
However, Renji couldn't stop the bleeding of the deep wound on his chest. At last, little Umbramouse Echo had to use some special darkness-type magic techniques to seal up the wound. "I should have listened to advice from Grandpa Kaiya back then. I didn't have enough experience." Renji reflected and sighed. Originally, Kaiya Tanaka had warned him several times about the girl. In the end, seeing that Renji was stubbornly set on assisting the 'helpless' little girl, there was nothing that Kaiya Tanaka could do. But he still tried to insist that even if Renji was going to help her, that he absolutely must not allow her to get near him.
But at that time, the girl was 'afraid' out of the ordinary and could not sleep without holding Renji. At the end, in order to comfort her, Renji held her in his arms, and they went to sleep. "Really didn't expect her acting abilities to be so good. I treated her so well, but she could be so merciless to me." Renji sighed again in his heart. When that girl had stabbed him in the chest, he had seen the vicious look in her eyes, and his heart had grown cold.
What happened to make this girl so heartless and merciless?
Could it be that despite having taken care of her for three whole days, she hadn't budged an inch? "Fortunately, thanks to Grandpa Kaiya warning me time and time again, I didn't expose Echo's true capabilities to her." Renji couldn't help but acknowledge that his life had been saved all thanks to Kaiya Tanaka and Echo. "Renji, what are you thinking about? Are you thinking about that girl again? Kaiya Tanaka appeared beside him. Renji looked at him as if catching the look on his face, Kaiya Tanaka was able to guess what he had been thinking about. That stab from the girl had injured Renji deep within not only in the flesh but also his heart. Since that time, Renji did not so easily trust people anymore.
Since the beginning, Kaiya Tanaka had sensed that something was off about the girl.
How could a person who had the courage to enter the Mountain of Magical Monsters be discombobulated so utterly at the sight of death?
Unfortunately, Renji was still utterly convinced by the girl's performance and truly felt that she was very 'pitiable'.
Renji, the acting skills of that girl were nothing. In my time, in the Plutia Empire, I saw so many plots from enemy countries- plots involving decades of subterfuge and lies, which were totally undetectable." Kaiya Tanaka smiled faintly as he spoke. "Remember, don't easily lower your guard when dealing with a stranger."
Renji nodded slightly.
"Squeak, squeak!" The little Umbramouse, Echo, started calling out from beside Renji. Renji lifted his head. The small Umbramouse was now jumping up and down on top of the Battleswine's carcass.
"Boss, when are we going to go into the Mountain of Magical Monsters' central regions?" Echo spoke to Renji in his mind, sounding a little discontented. "On this whole mountain, the highest order creatures we can encounter are magical beasts of the sixth rank. It's really no fun! I wanna try magical beasts of the seventh rank, boss! Boss, I wanna challenge some rank-seven magical beasts! Renji turned a look at the little Umbramouse. "That's enough. Don't get too cocky. Bragging that magical beasts of the sixth rank are too easy? You remember that Bluewind Hawk from the other day, right? Was there anything you could do to him? "Is not my fault!" Echo rubbed his head with small paws, unhappily. "Boss, you saw for yourself. That Bluewind Hawk stayed in the skies and refused to come down. He just kept on throwing magical wind knives at us, as though they didn't cost him any Magic force at all. I couldn't just let him go on attacking me without an end, could I?" Renji laughed.
The small Umbramouse's abilities had grown quite well known to Renji over the last month.
Speaking of speed, Echo had reached a really terrifying level.
But because he was small and had only his claws and teeth as offensive weapons, although Echo was capable of dealing with magical beasts of the sixth rank, he most likely would find it quite hard to deal with a magical beast of the seventh rank. Just at this moment, Renji suddenly furrowed his brows. He turned his head cautiously and saw that in the wild, a blurred human outline appeared. With a keen eye, Renji studied the silhouette for signs of the possible threat. Whatever it was, it moved with a purpose, and he could tell an energy emanated from it-one that was a little different. He reached out and gestured for Echo to be quiet, then eased out the new black dagger at his hip, ready for whatever might happen. As it drew near, Renji saw that it was a tall man with an imposing presence, clad in dark robes; an aura of command and strength was about him, and Renji instinctively knew that he was not a man to cross. The man stopped and looked keenly around him.