It was getting dark. The setting sun could hardly be seen through the thick coverage of trees. Voldar was still in the deeper part of the first section. It would take him another day to get out of the forest. Voldar didn’t know that the first section was this big. How big was the entire forest? Voldar thought to himself while he set up camp. He had gathered some wood beforehand. It helped him to start a fire. Rozaf’s herbs had some kind of magic in them. He didn’t feel hungry or thirsty after consuming them.

  Voldar climbed up a nearby tree and decided to spend the night there. It was probably after an hour or so, that Voldar woke up. He thought he had heard a scream. Voldar carefully hopped on one of the branches of the tree and tried to get a better look.

  “AAAARGHHH....” The whole forest was awakened by the blood-curdling scream.

  Voldar used his spiritiz eyes and looked towards the direction of the shriek. For a moment, he thought he was hallucinating but after getting a clear view, he knew that what he saw, was real. It was an asura, but not a normal one. It looked as if a number of asuras merged into one huge giant of bloody, fleshy, mess. It had numerous heads sticking out of its body, six big arms, and four legs. This kind of monster was not supposed to exist in the first or the second section of the forest.

  He also saw, someone crawling away from that asura. It looked like a woman. She was in a pretty bad condition. Her legs were bleeding, most probably crushed. She was losing strength in her arms. But her determination to live, carried her this far. Two years ago, Voldar wouldn’t have been able to deal with this thing but now, even if he couldn’t kill it, he could injure it beyond recovery.

  Voldar got off the tree, and using his extraordinary speed, he ran towards the woman, picked her up in a swift motion, and returned back to the fire, which he had started. He laid the woman beside the fire and turned towards the asura. It looked furious.

  “AAARGHHHH!!...” It gave out another, bone-chilling, scream.

  Voldar channeled his spiritiz energy to his palms, and without a moment of hesitation, he directed a massive barrage of raw spiritiz bullets, towards the monster. Given the surface area of the asura, every single bullet penetrated its skin. It fell down with a loud thud, on the ground. Voldar went a bit closer. He saw that the asura still had an ounce of life left in it. With a final beam of spiritiz, Voldar cut off its head. Judging by the asura’s skills, Voldar classed it under grade three.

  He went back towards the the fire, to check on the woman. Her legs were seriously injured. She had lost too much blood. Voldar quickly unpacked the leftover herbs and grinded them into a liquid. He then fed it to the woman, hoping that she would recover from her injuries. Voldar treated her wounds and covered them with bandages. The fire had extinguished. It was almost dawn. Voldar had unconsciously fallen asleep. He was tired.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The sun could be seen rising in the horizon. Chirping of birds filled the forest as they left their nests to gather food and materials. The woman who laid unconscious till now, slowly opened her eyes. The bright light penetrated her eyes, which made her squint. She looked beside her. A boy, with long black hair, and a handsome face, was resting beside her. She tried to get up. Surprisingly, her wounds had stopped hurting. She got up easily and scrutinized the boy carefully. She noticed the bandages on her wounds and guessed that it must have been the boy.

  Meanwhile, Voldar woke up, due to the sunlight hitting his eyes. The first thing he saw was a beautiful lady, standing in front of him. The gentle breeze played with her brown hair, making it flow everywhere. Voldar got up from the ground at looked at her. He hadn’t got a good look yesterday since it was dark. The woman was really pretty.

  “You know, it’s rude to stare.” She spoke up, breaking the silence between them.

  “I’m sorry.... It has been a while since I met someone, except my teacher, in the forest.” Voldar replied with a soft smile.

  “Thank you for saving my life.” The lady blushed and looked away from him.

  “You’re welcome...... I’m Voldar... And you are...?” Voldar put his hand forward.

  “Nice to meet you Voldar. I’m Rose.” She shook Voldar’s hand enthusiastically.

  Rose seemed to be a older than Voldar but he didn’t ask her about it. He was taught by Miranda that it was rude to ask a woman, her age. Both of them became acquainted with each other. Voldar told her, how he defeated the asura, and about his training with Rozaf. Rose happily listened to his adventures. After a while, Voldar asked Rose, a few questions.

  “How did you get into that situation?”

  Rose looked at Voldar, and answered with a sad look on her face. “I belong to a group of explorers, Virsaw. We generally explore the second section of the forest but don’t go much deep. Our leader decided that it was time to proceed further into the second section. I knew that we shouldn’t have agreed to his decision but the majority did. Everything was going well until that ugly bastard showed up. It killed all of my team members. I saw it eating their flesh. When it spotted me, I tried to run but tripped on some vines and fell down. It caught up to me and injured my legs. But I still didn’t give up and crawled away from it. This went on for more than an hour, until I didn’t have any strength left in me, and collapsed. After that, I woke up beside you.” Rose looked at Voldar.

  Voldar felt a bit sad for the woman. She had lost her teammates to the asura. What would’ve he done if it was him? These thoughts surrounded Voldar. They were on their way to exit the forest. Voldar looked at Rose and asked her, “Is the Soren region still flourishing like before?”

  Rose looked at Voldar, she was a bit surprised. She took a while to answer. “The Soren region was destroyed, two years ago. It has been rebuilt and renamed. We call it Belaven now. The people named it after Lady Belzi, due to her contribution in rebuilding the metropolis.”

  Voldar was taken aback by this. He didn’t know anything about the destruction of Soren. He wondered, what had happened to the people living there. How many perished and how many survived. He suddenly thought about Azoth and Gordon. Were they alright.... He was bothered by these thoughts. A while later, they found the exit of the forest. Voldar was entering Hosontropia after two years. He was a bit nervous. He didn’t know what awaited him. Both of them exited the forest, and entered the city of Belaven.