Arc 7. Death to what came before

  Road to a Hero:

  Three Chances in Another World

  Chapter 14. Tussle with the Bog

  All of the Ever-Biomes, to put it simply, are large pools of spirits in an area, causing it to become a grand version of what it once was. These large pools of spirits within the area caused vast amounts of mana to pool into the area, causing the spirit beasts already in the area to flock to the Biomes, living there for years. After years and years of living there, their spawn had grown and shaped to become much stronger, fiercer, and smarter beings. But the monsters in the areas do differ, as they had to evolve to fit the domain, either getting used to the heat and lack of water the Ever-desert holds, or the thick and deep water of the Ever-lagoon. So while Gray walks through the transformed biome of the Ever-Bog, the deeper he moves the stronger and more evolved the monsters will be, making them unpredictable. The large trees use their roots to stand above the ground, slowly getting bigger, towering more and more over Gray, or atleast they would be. Gray is currency blasting through the bog atop Dema, high up in the air, looking down at the spongey wet pools of mud and water below him, being glad he’s not down there. However, the bog attacked; a volly of vines jolt out from within the trees and grab hold of Dema.

  Gray: “What’s happening!?”

  He tries to cut away at them with his wrist talons while Dema pushes herself as hard as possible to fly away. But the web of vines is ever turning and twisting around. Gray tries to hold on, but he’s taking off of her, trusted by the vines into through another wave of sticks, leaves, and branches. After wave of that awful pain he continued to fall down to the somewhat deep water below. Dema is nowhere to be seen, taken by the bog.

  Gray {No! If they do something to her, dammit!}

  The closer he got to the center of the Bog, the closer it came to a swamp, having deep murky water. He’s quick to act, and flows the cloak of darkness around his body, letting his armor sink into place, but he’s stopped before he can begin to track Dema. Tendrils flow from the water, wrapping themselves around Gray's leg, using teeth on the end to pierce and drink his blood. Surprised, he reacts like any person would, and tries flailing his leg until it lets go. But with mana brought into the mix, he ends up lifting up the monster in the disgusting and smelly swamp. The squashing spongey water below him causes his balance to fall off right as a large alligator, to which the tendrils were attached, is flung out of the water.

  Gray {These are the worst fantasy monsters.}

  While looking similar to an alligator, its scales are sharper, ridged, and faded, while its snout is wider, longer, and holds even more sharp teeth.

  He wraps his cloak around the beast, pulling it in so he can swiftly kick it in the face with a leg flaming with his dark mana. His leg crushes the scales on the gator's face, sending it barreling through the water. While he could sit there and fight it, instead he goes straight to searching for Dema. While the thick water holds his speed back, he forms four tendrils from the cloak, using them to move through the water. As his cloak does the moving, his mind thinks, trying to use the spirits around him to find Dema. While he could pulse mana for her to find him, she could still be held down, and it would also summon all of the spirit beasts in the area. But his enormous amount of mana in his body is also making him a homing device for the hungry beasts anyway, so when he flowed it out to kick the gator, everything strong enough to face Gray in the area begins to bolt toward him. More gators begin to swim through the muggy water, surrounding him. The fumes in the area are also beging to dull his senses, making their way to his brain, so he uses the spirit sense to keep himself in check, igniting the white pupil in his normally black eyes.

  Gray { HOW DID IT ALL GO WRONG SO QUICKLY!?}

  The gators launch into the air, while a few stay below, bitting onto the cloak to keep him still. This teamwork holds true to their heightened intelligence, but they don’t hold a candle to the cleverness of a human, especially the one they’re trying to feast on. Gray forces the pure spirit around him, which is so potent that they all shiver from the pain. The sudden weight on their starving bodies gives him the opening to push forward, snagging onto one of the trees with his cloak. As he begins swinging through such trees, this small victory quickly ends as the smog flowing through the air is also coating the trees, making it difficult for the cloak to get hold without slipping off. He’s forced to glide through the air, focusing on the warm and loving feeling that is Dema’s presence, he’s grabbed by a large moth. Its small feet grab onto him, while the large wings flap large gusts of wind onto the ground. Using the cloak, he creates tendrils once more, pulls them down, and shoves them into the beast's chest, causing the monstrous moth to let go of Gray, using the momentum to flip him over right after.

  Now on top of the beast, he grabs its hairy back, coats its drooling beak in the cloak, and bashes its head in with a fist coated in mana. While it does some damage, it’s strong, so he ends up having to hit it with a barrage of fast, serious blows. His control over his mana has only gotten better than it was in Constal, but only by five percent. So with only sixty-five percent of his mana being at his disposal, and keeping in mind it’s both less powerful as well as less potent because he hasn’t fully mastered it yet. On top of that, these higher-level spirit beasts are a tough fight all on their own. After the repeated punches to the head, its small but thick skull is broken open, so it begins nose-diving into the ground.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  He stays on the monster, using his cloak to angle it in a way that he’s able to ride it like a skateboard once they hit the marsh. It works as expected, and he finds himself speeding through the mud. Now, in a small patch of grass, giving him a moment to breathe. But with only one breath, the grass begins to warp and stretch out, wrapping itself around Gray. As it begins to bind his entire body in the dense vegetation, he uses his growing strength with the flames to save himself. While the grass begins to absorb his mana, taking it out of the cloak, causing it to shrivel away, he focuses on the spirits in the air while the grass fully covers his body, igniting the spirit mana around his body, burning through the grass. But before he can do any more, he’s suddenly attacked once again. He’s only able to brace for a strong force he senses coming toward him, the opponent punches him in the gut, sending him flying through the Bog. He slams into one of the large tree roots after bouncing and splashing through the murky green water, knocking the wind out of him.

  Gray {That was a fist! An aimed fist! This isn’t a monster, it’s somebody with supreme strength, but I didn’t feel any mana…hmm.}

  The cloak's crescent moon-shaped charm pulses purple, allowing the cloak to flow out once more. While still using the spiritual senses, he’s able to better detect his assailant, feeling their emotions. The will to protect, treating Gray like a trespasser, one he must kill. Grays eyes flame out with a white glow. At the same time he coats his body in his unmastered mana, so it’s a bit uneven, which the attacker can feel. With a slight disturbance in the air, Gray leaps to the side, dodging a slash from behind, turning around to see a large Demi-human man. He had a faded scar going across his forehead and wore a torn cloak over his legs, made of leaves, a red sash from leaves, and nothing more, showing off his large muscular body. He also had long mutton chops that flowed into his extremely long bright golden hair with bits of red in the ends, sticking and growing out out like a lion's mane. It was so long that it was draped over the entirety of his back, spiking out. This lion-like appearance is furthered by the strange humanoid lion-shaped face he possesses. He only speaks in grunts and growls, moving toward Gray with excellent speed, trying to bash Gray’s head off with a single punch.

  Gray barely dodges, bending backward to save himself, and then he sends out the cloak to attack the Lion-man. While he dodges, cutting the tendrils to bits with his sharp nails, Gray jumps forward with a flying roundhouse kick. The Lion-man ducks, pouncing at Gray right after. His large body was drenched in shadows after leaping into the air, imposing his massive form over Gray as his roar shook the Bog. With an attempt at a tackle, Gray swiftly blasts forward to dodge.

  The moment he lands he waves his hand, screaming out.

  Gray: “EL-CENIC!”

  A massive wave of black smoke emerges around them, circling violently. It should nullify the senses of the affected almost entirely, spinning around them like a tornado to keep them trapped. So Gray moves in for the kill, using the spiritual sense to find him within the darkness, but he’s promptly hit in the face with a haymaker. As his silver mask protects him from getting his face smashed in, it still hurts like hell, while also sending him tumbling back. Gray could think of a million strategies, but the man was too far in front of him was far above him in both skill and strength for anything to ever work. The fact that he was able to move through the dark cloud of El-Cenic without issue submitted this fact, as nobody has ever done this to Gray before; he’s never fought somebody of this power head on before. While he tumbles back, he stretches the cloak out into thin fragments, grabbing onto the trees. It stops his momentum and also sends him flying toward the ravager.

  With the Wrist Talons now unsheathed, he uses the cloak covering his body like a skin suit to push the Wrist Talons off of his forearms, creating two extra arms to use for him. He then begins focusing the flames on his feet, trying to keep a simple ball of fire, going into the spiritual state to do so. Then lastly, he creates two swirling balls of dark mana in his palms, using the Titans Impact. Doing all of this in just a few seconds impresses the Lion-man, so he waits to see what Gray will do. Gray uses this, flipping forward mid-air just before he reaches him, kicking the flames toward him. It lands, due to the Lion-man standing still, so he keeps going. He then continues flipping, slamming the Titans Impacts onto the Lion-mans shoulders.

  It pushes him into the ground and causes his shoulders to ache, while the flames scold his chest, but he remains still. So the last phase of Gray’s combo attack comes in, as the long tendrils holding the Wrist Talons curve around the man. As Gray wanted to stab him with them, his lack of skill with this move is shown, as they slice his shoulders instead. The Beastly man is impressed, but he stands unphased, though he takes note of something on Gray's body. On his right ring finger is a silver ring, one made by the people in the village right outside of the Ever-Bog, which the Lion-man seems to recognize. Before he can do anything more, Gray’s hit by a rushing Bull with a Rhino horn, which seems to be made of purple glowing mana.

  Gray {A SUMMON!?}

  Gray lands in a small clearing, standing in the bogs ankle-deep water. Large thorned green vines emerge from the ground, binding Gray's arms. It begins to take his mana once more, forcing him out of the spiritual state. He struggles to call upon the black flames as he stares at the strange Bull-Rhino creature as it stares back at him. It lowers its large square head, about to charge Gray and pierce him through the heart. The beast gives off a strange feeling because nothing is going on inside of its head, which leads Gray to assume it’s a puppet, but he doesn’t do any more thinking, as he still cannot create the flames to free himself.

  “STOP!”

  The Lion-man screams from behind the monster, in a loud, deep, and imposing manner, and the beast does stop. The vines also lessen in tension, but Gray’s still stuck, staring into the man's bright red eyes, in a trance-like state. The Demi-Human suddenly widens his eyes, creating so much tension, that it causes Gray to feel that his life is about to flash before his eyes. It’s not murderous intent, but something more to a towering force, like staring down an angry Lincoln Valentine. With the immense feeling of fear as well as the death of hope in his mind, he almost submits, but the Gray Kyojin that’s within Gray Kyojin prevails, igniting his will to win. But in a blink of his eye, he sees a still image of the Lion-man with his right fist stretched back, his left foot forward, his right foot back, his left hand holding Gray’s silver mask. The man's keen red eyes shine as he’s swiftly knocked unconscious, now at the mercy of the man.

  End of Chapter Fourteen