Adventuring on the streets, and hiding on the alleyways, Erdan and Jinn progressed firmly into the dojo’s direction.

On the way they passed through a lot of things. It was evident that the chaos was spreading more and more.

One time earlier, they even saw a giant bird, it’s wingspan was about 14 meters, and its body was 7-8 meters long, it had black colored feathers, red beak, and two red eyes that were looking with attention at the people bellow it, as if it was a sovereign looking at its vassals.

Erdan froze instantly looking at the huge bird. It was almost as if it was trying to suck his soul out of his body. But he quickly snapped out of it and entered a house while dragging Jinn.

It was truly a close call, and he thought that even if the roots of some tree’s appeared from the ground again, it would be futile against this kind of creature.

Luckily, the bird ignored them and kept going to wherever it was going.

Arriving near the Dojo’s gate. They saw that it was semi opened.

The dojo was composed of an extensive area on the outskirts of the city. It was surrounded by a orange colored brick wall that was three and a half meters tall, and it had an wooden archway at it’s entrance with a wooden gate.

In the archway one could read ‘Blazing heart martial dojo’

“We finally arrived” Erdan said. It was not a long journey, it was pretty close actually, only about one and a half kilometers from school and 900 meters from Jinn house. But acting with caution as they did, trying to hide as much as possible, the journey became an exhaustive one.

“The Gate is semi opened like always, let’s see what’s inside. I truly doubt that the teacher succumbed to this ‘change’. If my reasoning is right, it’s not all about the strength of the body. The most important thing is to have a strong will to not be turned” Said Jinn while pointing his finger at his own head.

“I hope you’re right. We don’t know if the monster strength is related to the strength it had before it transformed, but, if it has, we are totally screwed.” Erdan said hoping in his heart that this conjecture was not true.

“Well, the stronger in front” Jinn said grinning.

“HAHA, okay” Agreed Erdan and they slowly entered the dojo.

Cautiously poking his head from behind the gate, Erdan looked at the path that lead to the dojo building. It was a 3 minutes walk between some tree’s.

Their master loved gardens and plants. Apparently, it is related to his ex-wife in some ways, for the little he knew. It was a stone path surrounded by tree’s of all types, some willow’s, sakura’s annd ribite’s trees. The Ribite’s were the most special one’s. it was a tree that had yellow stems, and blue leaves that were poisoning in some ways, and could let someone that ate it in the bed for some weeks.

There was a lot of strange flowers of all forms and colors. It ranged from a simple red flower to a bright violet, and a much more variety of colors.

Passing through the garden, Erdan felt his body easing, and felt the connection that he had with those plants. He extended his hands and a willow twig came to his hand while he felt it. It was a truly magical sensation, it was almost as if the life was flowing between them, and it made him comfortable in a lot of ways..

Seeing his Friend extending his hand and a willow twig coming in his hands direction, Jinn was shocked at first but quickly snapped out of it and pushed the friend away while saying “Watch out bro!”

Erdan felt the connection vanishing when his friend pushed him away from the twig, and it returned to it’s original place.

“Don’t worry Jinn, it’s not the tree, it was me that moved it.” Erdan said while still looking at the willow twig returning to it’s original place.

“What do you mean? You can control willow’s twigs now?” asked Jinn scoffing at his friend.

Erdan told him what happened at the school and the mysterious changes that happened to him during the fight with the bear-man.

“hmm, interesting….” Pondering about what his friend said, Jinn said “ I think that, whatever changed these people to monster’s, changed the one’s that survived in some ways as well. While I don’t know if everyone is going to develop some powers or something like that. I’m sure some after-effects are going to be happening. Because something so powerful that could change an entire city, or maybe an entire world if I’m not wrong, is gonna affect us in some ways as well”

Making a shocked face after hearing what his friend said, Erdan asked “What do you mean entire world?! Are you insane?!” Erdan truly didn’t believe that what Jinn said could be true.

“Well, it’s just an assumption, but think with me. It’s been almost 3 hours since the ‘change’ as you said happened, the chaos is just spreading, in this kind of situation there should have been at least some helicopters that would be flying above the city, dropping soldiers to help stop the chaos. The borders is at most two hours from here flying on a helicopter. Even if they delayed notifying the army, at least some help should have arrived by now. And while I don’t want to believe it myself, an event on that magnitude as you described, was not going to be affecting the ambient just locally.”

Flabbergasted with what the friend said, Erdan looked at the skies, and while the giant rupture that he saw before fainting had disappeared, if he looked closely, there were signs of some lines above the clouds, something that if he truly didn’t pay attention to, wouldn’t be noticed, and looking around he saw not just one. But some random lines across the skies.

Erdan turned to Jinn and Said “I don’t know if what you said is true or not, but look at the skies, there are still some residual lines left.”

Looking at then, Jinn’s pupil dilated in surprise and his complexion became aghast. Breathing deeply he told Erdan “unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do for now, let’s ignore them and continue to move.”

Erdan nodded his head in agreement and they continued to walk on the path.

Just before they arrived in the dojo’s quarter’s Erdan began to smell a heavy smell of blood, as if they were approaching a butchering…

“Do you smell the same as me?”Erdan asked a bit nervous.

“Unfortunately, yes… But let’s keep going, at least we need to know what happened.” Said Jinn with a dark expression.

Walking a bit further and getting out of the three line, Erdan and Jinn Saw the old building. It was made of grey stone, with 12 huge pillars, that even two adult man couldn’t embrace together, with 6 at each side. Its roof was brown and a bit weathered at the sides due to the passing of time. The pillars were sculpted with some monsters of mythology, some wingless dragons that looked more as if snakes embraced the pillars, other with tigers, turtles and birds.

The building was truly majestic. it has two floors, is 9 meters tall, with the first floor taking most of the space, being 6 meters tall, that was perfect for trainings due to the high height and having a great open space without walls and only the huge pillars at the side supporting the second floor.

Erdan looked at the middle of the training hall, and was horrified with what he saw.

Flowing in the ground were blood as if it were forming little streams, body pieces of humans and monsters were littered on the ground. It was almost as if that scene were hell on earth itself, there were no word’s that could come out of Erdan’s mouth in this moment. He recognized all the faces that were dead. They were not their best friends, but they were his juniors, he was the first to enter the dojo when it opened, and he saw with his eyes the progress of all the other kids, and progressed with them.

Amidst all of this was a man standing, bathed in blood from head to toe, with a spear on his right hand and with a blank look on his eyes, as if he was lifeless…

Seeing this scene, Erdan couldn’t hold-on anymore, he felt to the ground on his knees and began to cry, only to fell his mind blurring with all the darkness and pain surrounding his world.